The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  CHAPTER III

  LADY ADELA

  "At first it seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist; It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist."

  _The Ancient Mariner._

  I

  Lady Adela had returned from that visit to her mother's portrait with aconfused mind. She was not used to confused minds and resented them;whenever so great an infliction came upon her she solved the confusionby dismissing it, by leaving her mind a blank until it should take uponitself to be clear again. To obtain that blank an interval of reflectionwas necessary, and now, to-day, that had been impossible. On returning,she had been instantly confronted by a number of people who required tobe given tea and conversation, and no time had been allowed her in whichshe might resolve that her mind should be cleared.

  Her confusion was that the portrait of her mother was precisely like, amost brilliant affair, and yet wasn't like in the least. Further thanthat, in some completely muddled way, it was in the back of her mindthat her mother, suddenly, this afternoon, presented herself to her asnot entirely living up to the portrait, as being less sharp, lessterrible, less magnificent. Horror lest she should in any way bedoubting her mother's terror and magnificence--both proved every day ofthe week--lay, like a dark cloud, at the back of her confusion.

  She could not, however, extract anything definite from the littlecluster of discomforts; old Lady Carloes and Lord Crewner, a young thingthat Lord Crewner had brought with him, and her brother Richard wereall waiting for tea, and floods of conversation instantly covered LadyAdela's poor mind and drowned it.

  The Long Drawing-room, where they now were, was long and narrow, withtwo large open fireplaces, a great deal of old furniture rather fadedand very handsome, silver that gleamed against the dark wall-paper, onebig portrait of the Duchess, painted by Sargent twenty years ago, andhigh windows shut off now by heavy dark green curtains.

  The Duchess, it was understood, did not approve of electric light andthe house therefore disdained it. Parts of the room were lighted bycandles placed in heavy old silver candlesticks. Round the fireplace atthe farther end of the light shone and glittered; there the tea-tablesstood, and round about them the company was gathered.

  The rest of the room, hung in dark shadow, stretched into black depths,lit only now and again by the gleam of silver or glass as the light ofthe more distant fire flashed and fell.

  The voices, the clatter of the tea-things, these sounds seemed to beechoed by the darker depths of the farther stretches of the room.

  Lady Carlos was eighty, extremely vigorous, and believed in brightcolours. She was dressed now in purple, and wore a hat with a largewhite feather. Her figure was bunched into a kind of bundle, so that herwaist was too near her bosom and her bosom too near her chin and herchin too near her forehead.

  It was as though some spiteful person had pressed all of her too closelytogether. But this very shapelessness added to her undoubted amiability;her face was fat and smiling, her hair white and untidy, and shemaintained her dignity in spite of her figure. Nobody knew anything withcertainty as to her income, but she was charitable, and ran a littlehouse in Charles Street with a great deal of ceremony and hospitality.Her husband had long been dead and her two daughters had long beenmarried, so that she was happy and independent. Many people consideredher tiresome because her curiosity was insatiable and her discretionopen to question, yet she was a staunch Beaminster adherent, an oldfriend of the Duchess, and saw both this world and the next in theproper Beaminster light.

  Lady Adela depended on her a good deal, at certain times: she hadforseen that the old lady would come to-day; she had heard of course ofFrank Breton's arrival in town, she would demand every detail; LadyAdela knew that the account that she gave to Lady Carloes would be theaccount that the town would receive.

  By the fire Lord Richard, Lord Crewner and the nondescript young manwere talking together. Lady Adela caught fragments. "But of courseDilchester is incautious--when was he anything else? What these fellowsneed----"

  That was her brother.

  And then Lord Crewner, who believed that the windows of White's andBrook's were the only courts of Ultimate Judgment. "That's all verywell, Beaminster, but I assure you, they were saying last night at theclub----"

  As far as all that was concerned Lady Adela flung it aside. She mustattend to Lady Carloes, she must give to her the version of FrankBreton's arrival that her mother would wish her to give. But what _was_that version? And _was_ her mother really to be depended upon?

  At so terrible a flash of disloyalty Lady Adela coloured.--Why werethings so difficult this afternoon? And why had she ever gone to thatpicture-gallery?

  Lady Carloes had, however, not yet arrived at Frank Breton. She neverpaid a visit anywhere without tabulating carefully in her mind thethings that she must know before leaving the house. Her theory was thatshe was really very old indeed, and couldn't possibly live much longer,and that no moment therefore must be wasted. The more news that shecould give and receive before her ultimate departure, the more valuewould her life have in retrospect.

  She never went definitely into the exact worth that all the gossip thatshe collected might have for anybody or anything; as with any othercollection it was pursuit rather than acquisition that fired the blood.At the back of her old mind was a perfect lumber-room of muddle andconfusion--dusty gossip, cobwebs of scandal, windows thick with grimeand tightly closed. There was no time left now to do anything to that.Meanwhile every day something was purchased or exchanged; muddle theremight be, but, thank God, nobody knew it.

  "You must be very busy about the ball, my dear."

  "Yes--it means a great deal of work. It's so long since we've hadanything here, but Norris is invaluable. You don't find servants likethat nowadays."

  "No, my dear, you don't. But, of course, it will go off splendidly.We're all so anxious that Rachel shall have a good time. It's the leastwe can do for your mother."

  At the mention of Rachel Lady Adela's thoughts straightened for asecond; _that_ was where the confusion lay. It had been Rachel'sattitude to the portrait that had caused Lady Adela's own momentarydisloyalty. Of course Rachel hated her grandmother. Lady Adela made alittle sound with her fingers, a sound like the clicking of needles.

  "As far as Rachel is concerned nobody can tell possibly how she's goingto take it all. I don't pretend to understand her."

  Lady Carloes found this interesting--she bent forward a little. "We'reall greatly excited about her. You've kept her away from all of us andone hears such different accounts of her. And of course her success ismost important--as things are just now."

  Lady Adela answered, "I can tell you nothing. She isn't in the leastlike any of us, and I don't suppose for a moment that she'll listen toanybody. She made a friend of May Eversley in Munich, and I don't thinkthat was the best thing for her. But you know--I've talked about this toyou before."

  Not only had Lady Adela talked; all of them had done so. In theBeaminster camp this appearance that Rachel was about to make was of thelast importance. There were enemies, redoubtable enemies, in the field.Rachel Beaminster's bow to the world was for the very reason that allthe world was watching, a responsibility for them all.

  But there were many rumours. Rachel was not to be relied upon--she hatedher grandmother, she was strange and foreign and morose. Lady Carloeswas not happy about it, and Lady Adela's attitude now was anything butreassuring.

  John Beaminster came in. Lady Carloes liked him because he wasgood-tempered and injudicious. He told her a number of things thatnobody else ever told her, and he had so simple a mind that extractingnews from it was as easy as taking plums from a pudding. He did not comeover to them at once, but stood laughing with Lord Crewner and hisbrother. He would come, however, in a moment, so Lady Carloes made alast hurried plunge at her friend.

  "What's this I hear, my dear, about Frank Breton?"

  "Yes, it's perfectly true. He's come back, and has taken rooms q
uitenear here. He wrote to mother----"

  Lady Carloes took this in with a gulp of delight. "My dear Adela! Whatdid he say?"

  "Oh! a very rude letter. He told mother that he knew that she would likehim to be near at hand and that they ought to let bygones be bygones,and that he was sure that she would be glad to hear that he was areformed character. Of course he hates all of us."

  "What will you all do?"

  "Oh! Nothing, of course. We gave him up long ago. By a tiresomecoincidence he's taken rooms in the same house as my secretary, MissRand. I would send her away if she weren't simply invaluable. But itgives him a kind of a link with us."

  "Monty Carfax saw him yesterday. He's lost his left arm, Monty says, andlooks more of an adventurer than ever. So tiresome for your mother, mydear."

  Then, as Lord John began to break away from the group at the fireplaceand move towards them----

  "Roddy Seddon told me he might look in this afternoon.... Your mother'sso devoted to him. He seems to understand her so well."

  The two ladies faced one another. Their eyes crossed. Lady Carloesmurmured, "Such a splendid fellow!" then, as Lord John's cheerful laughbroke upon them----

  "Isn't Rachel coming down?" she asked.

  II

  Lady Adela left her brother and Lady Carloes together and crossed overto the group at the fireplace. Of all her brothers, she liked Richardbest. He seemed to her to be precisely all that a Beaminster should be:she liked his appearance--his fine domed forehead, his grey hair, hislong rather melancholy face, his austere and orderly figure.

  He had to perfection that reserve, that kind benignancy that aBeaminster ought to have; whenever Lady Adela questioned the foundationsupon which the stability of her life depended he reassured her. Withoutsaying anything at all, he gravely comforted her. That is what aBeaminster ought to do.

  She knew, as she saw him standing there by the fire, that _he_ wouldnever doubt his mother. To him she would always be splendid andmagnificent, and with what determination would he expel from him anybase attacks on that loyalty! Lady Adela thought that power to expelresolutely and firmly everything that attacked the settled assurance ofone's mind the finest thing in the world.

  Lord Crewner was a thin, handsome man of any age at all over forty andunder sixty. He was polished and brushed and scrubbed to such an extentthat he looked like an advertisement of some fine old English firm thatproduced, at great cost and with wonderful completeness, Fine oldEnglish gentlemen. He believed in not thinking about things very much,because thinking let in Radicals and diseases and the poor, and made oneuncomfortable. He loved the London that he knew, a London bounded bySloane Square, the Marble Arch, Trafalgar Square and Westminster.

  He was a bachelor, but might have married Lady Adela had the Duchess notrefused to hear of Lady Adela leaving her; he adored the Duchess,although he was scarcely ever allowed to see her because he bored her.He always lowered his voice a little when talking to women, andheightened it a little when talking to men; to his valet he spoke in thevoice that Nature had given him.

  Lady Adela was reassured as she came towards them. Although she did notespecially desire to marry Lord Crewner, the thought that he might, hadaffairs been differently arranged, have asked her, placed him, in hereyes, apart from other men. At any rate these two were comfortable toher, and, for a moment, she was able to dismiss Rachel and Frank Bretonfrom her mind.

  They talked easily beside the fireplace. The voices of Lady Carloes andLord John, the pleasant murmur of the fire, the ticking clocks, allhelped that lazy swaying of time and space about one, that happyreassurance that as the world had been so would it continue ever to be,and that the old emotions and the old experiences and the old opinionswould always hold their own against all invasion and decay.

  Lord Richard talked of Chippendale and some wonderful Lowestoft, LordCrewner talked of Madeira and Lady Masters' new house; Lady Adelalistened and was soothed.

  Upon them all broke a voice:

  "Sir Roderick Seddon, my lady."

  There stood in the doorway the freshest, the most beaming of young men.He was tall and broad; his face was of a red-brick colour, and his darkLondon clothes, although they were well cut and handsome enough, wereobviously only worn to please a necessary convention. His hair was lightbrown and cut close to his head, and his body had the healthy sturdinessof someone whose every muscle was in proper training.

  He came forward to the group at the fireplace with the walk of a manaccustomed to space and air and freedom; his smiling face was so genialand good-humoured that the whole room seemed to break away a little fromits decorous and shining propriety. They were all pleased to see him.Lady Carloes and Lord John came over and joined the group, and theystood all about him talking and laughing.

  Roddy Seddon was the only young man whom the Duchess permitted, andpeople said that that was because he was the only young man who hadnever shown any fear of her. The knowledge of this fact gave him in LadyAdela's eyes a curious interest. She beheld him always rather as shewould have beheld anyone who had learnt an abstruse language that no oneelse had ever mastered or some traveller who was reputed to have said ordone the most extraordinary things in some savage country. How _could_he? What talisman had he discovered that protected him? And then,swiftly on that, came the curious thought that she herself was glad thatshe had her terror, that she was proud, in some strange, inverted way,that any Beaminster could have the effect upon anyone that her motherhad upon her.

  But Roddy Seddon had another especial interest for her, for it wasRoddy, all the Beaminsters had decided, who was to marry Rachel. Roddywas, in every way, the right person; not very wealthy, perhaps, but hehad one nice place in Sussex, and Rachel would not, herself, be apauper.

  Roddy would never let the Beaminsters down; he hated all these newinvaders as strongly as any Beaminster could. He hated this mixing ofthe classes, this perpetual urging of the working man to think.

  "Lots of our fellows," Lady Adela had heard him say, "get along withoutthinkin'--why not the other fellers?"

  She felt now that a conversation with Roddy would complete the soothingprocess that Lord Crewner and her brother had begun. He would finallyreassure her.

  She had no difficulty in securing him. Lady Carloes sat by the fire andtalked to Lord Crewner, and the nondescript, and the two brothersdeparted.

  When Roddy had drunk his tea, she led him away to the farther part ofthe long dim room, and there by that more distant fireplace the two ofthem sat, shadowy against the leaping light, their faces and their handswhite and sharp and definite.

  "Who else is dinin' on Thursday?"

  She gave him names. "The Prince and Princess are coming, you know, butthey aren't alarming. They've been often to see mother when they've beenover here before. They're getting old enough now to be comfortable. Hedances like anything still."

  "I always like dinin' in the place you're dancin' at. You don't get thatshivery feeling comin' up the stairs and puttin' your gloves on. You'reone up on the others if you've been dinin'."

  Lady Adela looked at him, and sighed a little impatiently. He wasincredibly young and might, after all, let them down.

  He was thirty now, but he looked not a day more than nineteen, and healways talked and behaved as though he were still in his last year atEton. She opposed him, in her mind's eye, to that figure of Frank Bretonthat had been before her all day. How could a mere boy stand up againsta scoundrel like that?

  Moreover, she had heard stories about Roddy. Women had terrible powerover him, she had been told, and then, with a glance at him, sighedagain at the thought that her own time had gone by for having powerover anybody, even Lord Crewner.

  Well, after all, her mother knew the boy better than anyone did and hermother loved him--better than everyone else put together her motherloved him.

  "How's Rachel takin' it?"

  "How does Rachel take anything? She never says anything, and one neverknows. She seems to have no curiosity, or eagerness."


  "I was talkin' to May Eversley about her the other night. May saysshe'll be splendid."

  "I don't like May Eversley"--Lady Adela nervously moved her hands on herlap. "I wish Rachel hadn't made such friends with her in Munich."

  "Oh, May's all right." Roddy's blue eyes were smiling. "Took her down toHurlingham yesterday and we had no end of a time."

  It was a pity, Lady Adela reflected, that Roddy was so absolutely on hisown.

  His mother had died at his birth, and his father had been dead for fiveyears now, and here it seemed to Lady Adela a curious coincidence thatboth Rachel and Roddy were orphans--and both so young.

  She leant forward towards him--

  "You can do a lot for Rachel, Roddy. You can help her to understand hergrandmother, you can reconcile her to all of us."

  "Oh! I say," Roddy laughed. "Perhaps she won't have anythin' to say tome, you know. My seein' your mother so often is quite enough----"

  "No. She likes cheerful people--Dr. Christopher and John. You're in thesame line of country, Roddy. She doesn't like me, and I haven't got thethings in me to draw affection out of her. I'm not that kind of woman."

  As a rule Lady Adela betrayed no emotion of any kind, but now, thisafternoon, both to Lady Carloes and Roddy she had made some vague,indefinite appeal. Perhaps the news of Breton's arrival had alarmed her,perhaps her visit to the gallery with Rachel had really disturbed her.She seemed to beg for assistance.

  Roddy analysed neither his own emotions nor those of his friends, but,this afternoon, Lady Adela did appear to him a little more human thanbefore. He was suddenly sorry for her.

  "Rachel'll be all right," he assured her. "Wait a bit. By the way, I metthat little feller Brun yesterday--said he was comin' on Thursday. He'swild about your mother's picture----"

  "Yes--we saw him at the gallery this afternoon. Rachel and I werethere."

  "Rachel! What did she think of it?"

  "Seemed to take no interest in it at all. We were there only a fewminutes----"

  Silence fell between them, a silence filled with meaning. Lady Adela hadintended to speak about Breton--now, suddenly, she could say nothing.The mention of the picture-gallery had brought back all her earlierdiscomfort--she saw the picture, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, thewhite pinched cheeks. Then she saw the great bedroom upstairs, the highwhite bed, the little shrivelled figure.

  Had Rachel pointed this contrast? Had Breton? Was it something thatRoddy had discovered already, something that had made his courage soeasy for him? What, what was going to be done with her if she were nolonger afraid? Why, on that terror, on that trembling service, werebuilt the foundations of all her life. How could she face that picturethat the world had of a splendid, historic, dominating figure if sheherself saw only a sick, miserable old woman tumbling to pieces, passingto decay?

  The minutes had passed, and she had said nothing. Roddy must bewondering at her silence. To her relief Lady Carloes came towards her tosay good-bye.

  Roddy's eyes were puzzled. For what had she carried him off if she hadnothing to say to him?

  III

  When they were all gone she went up to her mother. Before the door shepaused. The house was very still, and her heart was furiously beating.

  She opened the door, and at the sight of the room was instantlyreassured.

  Dorchester met her. "Her Grace went to bed early to-night. But she willsee you, my lady."

  Lady Adela stepped softly to the farther door. All was well. About her,around her, within her, was that same splendid terror, that sameknowledge that she was approaching some great presence that had beenwith her all her life----

  As she opened the bedroom door and saw the high white bed she knew thather mother was more magnificent, more wonderful than any painted picturecould possibly make her.