As the days passed and Rachel grew older it was around this half-hour that the house ranged itself. The things in it—the rooms, the passages, the stairs, the high, cold schoolroom with its shining maps and large frigid table, the tapestry room, long and dark and mysterious with strange beasts and horsemen waving in the dusk, the white drawing-room so delicate and fragile that the furniture seemed to be all holding its breath as though a little motion in the air would dissipate it, the vast dining-room with the great hanging candelabra, and the family portraits and the stone fireplace—all these things existed only that that terrible half-hour might fling its shadow about the day.
The child was much alone; she had governesses, a music master, a drawing master, but from these persons, however friendly they might be, she held aloof. She told them nothing of her thoughts. She had behind her her very early years that were now to her like a dream; she did not know that it had ever really existed, that picture of snow and some dark kind figure that was always beside her protecting her, and in the air always a noise of bells. As she grew older that picture was not dimmed in the vision of it, but only she doubted its authenticity. Nevertheless, the memory provided a standard and before that standard these governesses were compelled to yield.
There were, of course, her uncles and her aunt. Aunt Adela was more immediately concerned in the duty of her niece's progress than any other, but as a duty she always, from the first, represented it. From that first morning, when she had given her cold dry cheek to the little girl to kiss until now, three days before Rachel's freedom, she had made no suggestion nor provocation of affection. "It is a business, my dear niece," she seemed to say, "that, for the sake of our family, we must go through. Let us be honest and deny all foolish sentiment."
To this Rachel was only too ready to agree. She did not like her Aunt Adela. Aunt Adela resembled a dry, wintry tree, a tree whose branches cracked and snapped, a tree that gave no hope of any spring. Rachel always saw Aunt Adela as an ugly necessity; she was not a thing of terror, but merely something unpleasant, something frigid and of a lukewarm hostility.
Then there were the uncles—Uncle Vincent, Uncle John, and Uncle Richard.
Uncle Vincent, the Duke, was over sixty now and very like his mother, withered and sharp and shrivelled, but he was without her terror, being merely dapper and insignificant, and his sleek hair (there was only a little of it very carefully spread out) and his white spats were the most prominent things about him. He was fond, Rachel gathered, of his racing and his club and his meals, and he was unmarried.
Uncle Richard had been twice Prime Minister and was a widower. He lived in a beautiful house in Grosvenor Street, and collected wine and fans and first editions. He was always very kind to Rachel, and she liked his tall thin figure, bent a little, with his high white forehead, gold-rimmed pince-nez on the Beaminster nose, and beautiful long white hands. She went to have tea with him sometimes, and this was an hour of freedom and delight, because he talked to her about the Elizabethans and Homer, and, when she was older, Nietzsche and Kant. She liked the warm rooms, with their thick curtains and soft carpets and rows and rows of gleaming glittering books, and he always had tea in such beautiful china and the silver teapot shone like a mirror. But she never felt that she was of the same value to him as a first edition would be, and he talked to her of the Elizabethans for their sake, and not for hers.
Lastly, there was Uncle John, and her heart was divided between Uncle John and Dr. Christopher. Uncle John was a dear. He was round and fat, with snow-white hair that had waves in it, and his face resembled that of a very, very good-natured pig. His nose was not in the least a Beaminster nose, being round and snub and his eyes beamed kindliness. Rachel, although she had always loved him, had long learnt to place no reliance upon him. His aim in life was to make it as comfortable, as free from all vulgar squabble and dispute, as pleasant for everyone everywhere as it could possibly be. He was a Beaminster in so far as he thought the Beaminsters were a splendid and ancient family, and that there was no other family to which a man might count himself so fortunate to belong. But he was kind and pleasant about the rest of the world. He would like everyone to have a good time, and it was vaguely a puzzle to him that it should be so arranged that life should have any difficulties—it would be so much easier if everything were pleasant. When, however, difficulties did arise they must at all costs be dismissed. There had been no time in his life when he had not been in love with some woman or other, but the hazards and difficulties of marriage had always frightened him too much.
He was not entirely selfish, for he thought a great deal about the wishes and comforts of other people, but unpleasantness frightened him, like a rabbit, into his hole. He lived the life of the "Compleat Bachelor" at 93 Portland Place, having a multitude of friends of both sexes, spending hours in his clubs with some of them, week-ends in country houses with others of them, and months in delightful places abroad with one or two of them.
He was very popular, always smiling and good-natured, and cared more for Rachel than for anyone else in the world ... but even for Rachel he would not risk discomfort.