The Arbiter: A Novel

by Lady Florence Eveleen Eleanore Olliffe Bell

Rachel had of course devoted herself to him. It was she who went up with his breakfast, who read to him during the morning, who tried to remember everything that happened out of doors to tell him on her return; it was she who had done many hundreds of patiences in the days when he was not well enough to play at chess. He was hardly well enough now, but he had set his heart upon the first day when he should come down and play chess with Rendel as a sort of pivot in his miserable existence. And now the moment had come. How should he know that for all practical purposes his son-in-law was a different being from the young man who had come upstairs to see him the day before? For yesterday Rendel had come up and talked to him about indifferent things, not telling him, lest he should be excited, of the evil rumours that were filling the air, and had gone downstairs again himself with a miserably unoccupied day in front of him—a day in which to remember and overcome the fact that, instead of being in the arena of which the echoes reached him, he was doomed to be a spectator from afar, who could take no part in the fray. But so much Sir William had not known. How should we any of us know what the inward counterpart is to the outward manifestation? know that the person who comes into the room may be, although appearing the same, different from the one who went out? He knew only that the Rendel of this morning had said with a smile, "I am looking forward to the moment when you will checkmate me again." And Sir William had a right to expect that, that moment having come, Rendel should feel the importance and pleasure of it as much as he did himself. But it was not the same Rendel who sat there, it was not the unoccupied spectator ready to join his leisure to that of another; it was a resolute combatant who had been suddenly called into a front post, and for whom the whole aspect of the world had changed. It was an absolute physical effort to Rendel, as the door opened and he saw Sir William, to bring his mind back to the conditions of a few hours before. The fact of any one coming in at that moment called him back to earth again, turned him violently about to face the commonplace importunities of existence. Sir William had probably not formulated to himself what he had vaguely expected, but it certainly was not the puzzled, half-questioning look, the indescribable air of being taken aback, altered at once by a quick impulse into something that tried not to look forbidding, and more strange and tell-tale than all the quick movement by which Rendel drew a large sheet of blotting-paper over what he was writing. Sir William's whole being was jarred, his rejoicing in the small occasion of being on another stage towards recovery was gone; nobody cared, not one. Rachel was not in the house, and who else was there to care? Nobody: there never would be again. Could it be possible that for the rest of his life he was doomed to be in a world so arranged that his comings and goings were not the most important of all? He stood still a moment, then tried to speak in his usual voice.

"I am not in your way, am I, Rendel?"

Rendel also made a conscious effort as he replied, rising from his chair as he spoke—

"Oh no, Sir William, please come in. I have some writing to finish, if you don't mind."

"Pray go on," said Sir William; "I won't disturb you. I'll sit down here and read the paper till you are ready"; and he sat down with his back to the writing-table and the window, in the big chair which Rendel drew forward.

"Thank you," Sir William said. "I took the liberty of bringing in your afternoon paper which was outside."

"Certainly," Rendel replied, too absorbed for the moment in the thing his own attention was concentrated upon to realise the bearing of what Gore was saying. "Of course," and went back to his writing.

Gore leant back, idly turning over the pages of the Mayfair Gazette; then he started as his eye fell on the alarmist announcements. What was this? What incredible things were these that he saw? The letters were swimming before him; he could only vaguely distinguish the black capitals and the headlines; the rest was a blur. All that stood out clearly was: "Cape to Cairo Railway in Danger," and then beneath it: "Sinister Rumours about the 'Equator, Ltd.'"

"Rendel!" he said, half starting up. Rendel turned round with a start, dragging his mind from the thing it was bent upon. "How awful this is!" said Sir William, holding up the paper with a shaking hand. Rendel began to understand. But, that he should have to look up for one moment, for the fraction of a second, from those words that he was transcribing!

"Yes, yes, it is terrible," he said, and bent over his writing again. Sir William tried to go on reading. What was this about Germany? War would mean the collapse of everything—private schemes as well as all others.