I
Meanwhile Rachel had not spoken to Roddy. Bad though the months had been since that terrible afternoon at Seddon these days that followed the Duchess's visit were the worst that she had ever known.
During the weeks that immediately followed Roddy's accident she was allowed no line for thought. She discovered—and she never forgot the sharpness of the discovery—that she was the poorest of nurses. Everything that she did was clumsily and slowly done; she watched Lizzie Rand with admiration and wonder. Dimly through the absorption that held her, thoughts of Francis Breton pierced, but always to be instantly dismissed.
Before her was simply the amazing, incredible fact that Roddy, the most active, the most vigorous of human beings, would never stand upon his feet again. She could see nothing but Roddy, and no service, no sacrifice, was too stern or too difficult. Meanwhile subtly, almost unconsciously, she was influenced by Lizzie Rand. It was not strange to her that Lizzie should have changed so swiftly from hatred to friendship and affection. Rachel was passionate enough herself to understand that a woman will go, instantly, to the person who needs her most, even though she has hated that same person five minutes before. No, the thing that was wonderful to her was that Lizzie Rand should combine such feeling with such discipline.
To watch her as she moved about Roddy's rooms was to deny to her the possibility of emotion, of anything that could disturb that efficiency. And yet Rachel knew ... she had seen depths of feeling in Lizzie that made her own desires and regrets small and puny things.
But it did not need Lizzie's power to abase Rachel before Roddy. It would have been enough for her to have remembered what her thoughts and intentions had been on that day to have brought her on her knees to beg his pardon, but when she saw the fashion in which he bore his sentence, his endurance, his stubborn will beating down any temptation to despair, she recognized that it was very little of Roddy that she had known before this crisis.
Then as the weeks passed and the world settled into this new shape and form, thoughts of Francis Breton returned to her. She had written to him soon after the accident, but that was for herself, that she might clear her mind of anything except her husband, rather than for Breton. She had considered him whilst she wrote that letter, had seen him as someone in her old, old life, someone who had stirred her then but possessed now no power to move her. She wanted him to be happy, but wished never to see him again; once, long ago, there had been a scene in a room and she had been carried up to strange and dangerous heights and the world had tossed and stormed about her—but oh! how long ago that was! How younger she had been then!
But, as the weeks passed, that scene drew closer to her and life crept back into its heart. Sometimes, when Roddy was sleeping and she was sitting there beside him, and, about her, the house slumbered and the very birds were still, her heart would beat, beat thickly, her cheeks would flush, and she would remember that, had it not been for a horse that stumbled, she might be now far away, leading a life that might be tragedy, but that was, at any rate, Life!
She would beat the thought down—she would tell herself what, now, from this distance, she knew to be true, that she would not have been happy had she gone with Breton. She remembered that even at that supreme moment in Breton's rooms when he had kissed her for the first time her swift thought had been "Poor Roddy!" She knew, with an older wisdom than she had possessed two months ago, that Breton on his side would not have held her any more than Roddy, in his so different fashion, could hold her now. Was she to be always thus, wanting something that was not hers?
During the weeks that had immediately followed the accident she had thought that, at last, love for Roddy had really come to her. Then, as the days threaded their way, she knew that it was not so. He was more to her, much more to her, helpless and courageous, than he could ever have been under the old conditions.