CHAPTER IX
THE GOLDEN CAGE
"She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings, her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be proud."--_The Lesson of the Master._
I
Those weeks were, to Rachel, a golden time. She did not pretend to denyor examine their golden quality--they were far, far better than she hadimagined anything could ever be, and that was enough. She had never,very definitely, imagined to herself this "coming out," but it had been,at any rate, behind its possible glories, a period of terror. "All thosepeople" was the way that, with frightened eyes, she had contemplated it.
And now the kindness that there had been! All the London world hadsurely nothing to do but to pay her compliments, to surround her withcourtesies, to flatter her every wish. Even Aunt Adela had under thegeneral enthusiasm, blossomed a little into good-will, even UncleRichard had remembered to wish her well, even the Duke had crackedapplause, and as for Uncle John! ... he was like an amiable conjurerwhose best (and also most difficult) trick had achieved an absolutetriumph.
And behind all this there was more. May, June and the early part of Julyshowered such weather upon London as had surely never been showeredbefore, and these brilliant days dressed, for Rachel, her brilliantsuccess in cloth of gold and emblazoned robes. She felt the presence ofLondon for the first time, as the hot weather came beating up thestreets and the brilliant whites and blues and greens and reds flungback to the burning blue their contrast and splendour.
She felt, for the first time, her own especial London, and now the greycool cluster of buildings at one end of blazing Portland Place and thedark green of the hovering park at the other end had a new meaning forher, as though she had only just come to live here and was seeing it allfor the first time. In the streets that hung about Portland Place shenoticed little shops--little bakers and little shoemakers and littletailors and little sweetshops--and they were all furtive and dark andshabby.
And these little shops led to the growth in her mind of an especialpicture of her square of London life, Portland Place white and shiningin the middle, with the Circus like a fair at one end of it, the parklike a mystery at the other end of it, and, on either side, littlesecret shops and little dim squares hanging about it, and Harley Streetsinister and ominous by its side.
Every element of Life and Death was there, the whole History of Man'sJourney Through This World to the Next.
Behind all the joy and overflowing happiness of these weeks this suddensetting of London about her was consciously present.
II
Since that meeting with Miss Rand on the day before the ball Rachel hadoften spoken to her. They met at first by accident and then Rachel hadgone to Lizzie's neat little sitting-room to ask for something and,after that, had looked in for five minutes or so, and they had talkedvery pleasantly about the hot weather and the theatres and the ways ofthe world.
Behind all the splendour there was, for Rachel, the dark shadow ofsuspense. Was it going to last? What was to follow it? When would thoseawkward uncertainties that had once kept her company return to her? Nowwhatever else might be doubtful about Miss Rand, one thing was certain,that she _would_ last, would remain to the end the same clean, reliable,honest person that she was now.
Imagine Lizzie Rand unreliable and she vanishes altogether! Rachelwelcomed this and she also admired the wonderful manner in which MissRand accomplished her gigantic task. To run a house like this one and atthe end of it all to remain as composed and safe as though nothing hadbeen done!
Rachel herself might carry off a difficult situation by ridingdesperately at it, stringing her resources to their highest pitch, butafterwards reaction would claim its penalty.
The penalties were never claimed from Miss Rand.
So, gradually, without any definite words or events, almost withoutactive consciousness, they became friends.
Rachel, suddenly, on one afternoon early in July, determined to go andpay Lizzie Rand a visit in her house.
That house in Saxton Square had acquired a new romantic interest sinceRachel had learnt that the abandoned, abominable cousin, who defiedGrandmamma and whose name one was never to mention, lived there. Rachelhad considered this cousin more than once during these last months. Shehad resented, from the first, the fact that he was to be given, by thefamily, no chance of redemption. However bad he had been (and he hadapparently been very bad indeed) his opportunity should have beenoffered to him. His life, she knew, had been hard, he was, like herself,an orphan, and he hated, as she did, her grandmother. Of course, then,he interested her.
She did not now say to herself that if this romantic cousin had not beenstaying in that house she would not have contemplated a visit to Lizzie.The Beaminster in her had just now the upper hand, and the Beaminstersimply said that Saxton Square would be a nice place in which UncleJohn, who was, this afternoon, taking her out for a drive, might leaveher whilst he went to the club; later he could pick her up and take herhome.
The Beaminster part of her did not acknowledge the cousin.
Quite casually she said to Uncle John, "I want you to leave me at MissRand's for half an hour this afternoon--she is helping me about someclothes."
Now Uncle John had during these last weeks continually congratulatedhimself on the disappearance of Rachel's irritable, unsettled self.Always lately one had been presented with her delightful young eagerself and always she had been anxious to agree with Uncle John'sproposals. The world had been going smoothly for him in other ways oflate, and no one had been disagreeable. How pleasant to keep the worldin this amiable condition and how dangerous to risk anyone'sdispleasure!
He had moreover almost (not quite) forgotten that his rascal of a nephewwas living in the same house as Miss Rand, and, even if he did rememberit, well, it was quite another part of the house, and in all probabilityMiss Rand had never spoken to Frank Breton, nor so much as said good dayto him.
Finally it was so sumptuous a day, and Rachel was clothed in so radianta happiness and so fluttering and billowing and chuckling a dress ofwhite and blue, and he himself was looking so handsome in the mostshining of top-hats, the broadest of black bow ties, the most elegant ofpepper-and-salt trousers and the whitest of white spats, thatcomplaining or arguing or disputing was utterly out of the question.
"Miss Rand's, my dear? What's the address?... Right you are--" so offthey went.
She arrived to find Miss Rand, a round chubby lady in bright pink, and astranger having tea together. The chubby lady was Mrs. Rand and thestranger was Francis Breton. She had not expected that her arrival wouldcause such a disturbance, nor that she herself would discover the rightand easy words so difficult to say. The little room seemed to be crowdedwith furniture and tea-things, and she, quite deliberately, put off anyconsideration of her cousin until the atmosphere had been allowed, alittle, to settle around them.
Miss Rand looked at her almost sternly and was, plainly, at a loss. Mrs.Rand was excited, and so nervous that her tea-cup rattled in her saucerand she stayed for quite a long time with her finger in the tea underthe delusion that she was using a teaspoon.
Mrs. Rand's absence of mind was generally due to the fact that she readone novel a day all the year round and that her thoughts, her hopes, herdespairs were always centred in the book of the day, although whento-morrow came she could not tell you the author nor the title nor anyof the incidents. Had she been to a play, then, for twenty-four hoursfollowing, it was the drama that held the field.
She spent her life in an amiable desire to remember, for the sake of herfriends, the plays and books of the past. But she was never successful.As she said, "The attempt to keep up with the literature and drama ofthe day, although praise-worthy, demands all one's time and energy."
The Beaminster family alone of all other interests in the wide worldmight be calculated to draw her out of the realms of the imagination,and Rachel's entrance scattered all plots to the four winds.
Rachel sat dow
n and, for a little while, Mrs. Rand held the field. Shetold them all that this visit of Miss Beaminster was the most wonderfuland unexpected thing, that it was like a novel, and that she would neverforget it. "But I always do say, Miss Beaminster, that it's theunexpected that happens. Life's stranger than fiction is my opinion, andI don't care who contradicts me I shall still hold it."
At length Rachel had leisure to consider her cousin and then was,instantly, convinced that she had met him before. She also knew that shecould not have met him before.
In the strangest way he was connected with those early dream yearswhich, now, she struggled so sternly to forget. The snow, the bleak sky,the silence, the sleigh-bells, some strange voice speaking high in airas though from a distant summit, and all this coming to her with apoignancy that, even now, brought the tears to her heart and filled itto overflowing.
As she saw his thin body, his eyes, his head and the attitude of the boyin all his movements and gestures she knew that, for her, he belonged tothat earlier world. She knew it so certainly that, although he had notyet spoken, she could be sure of the exact quality that his voice wouldhave.
And confused with this recognition of him was the alarm that she alwaysfelt when her early life returned to her.
Also she was young enough to be pleased at the agitation into which hercoming had thrown him. It meant, plainly, so much to him; although hewas silent he leant forward in his chair, with his eyes fixed upon her,waiting for his opportunity.
Miss Rand, watching him, saw how tremendously this meeting with one ofthe family excited him, and, seeing him, her heart filled with pity."He's so young. It is hard. He does want someone to look after him."
Rachel's happiness had, now, returned to her. She liked them all somuch, it was all so cosy, it was so good of them to wish to see her. Shetalked with Mrs. Rand about the theatre and the opera.
"We're going to the opera to-night--the _Meistersinger_. I've heard itin Munich twice, but never with Van Rooy, who's singing to-night. Ibelieve that's an experience one never forgets----"
Mrs. Rand did not really care about opera; everything in opera happenedso slowly, except in _Carmen_, and even that was better simply as aplay. She liked musical comedy because there you could laugh, or playslike _The Mikado_, for instance.
She was vague as to the _Meistersinger_ and she had never heard of VanRooy, but she said, "I agree with you, Miss Beaminster. There's nobodylike him."
At that Breton struck in with something about music that he had heard instrange places abroad, and then Rachel, looking in his face for thefirst time, asked him about his travels.
As their eyes and voices met she was again overwhelmed with the vividconsciousness of their earlier meeting. She thought, "If I were to askhim whether he remembered that same snow and silence he would say yes--Iknow he would say yes."
Miss Rand, with eyes that were kind but very, very sharp, watched them.She noticed the eagerness of Breton and wished that he did not seemquite so anxious to please. "But that's because he's young," she thoughtagain.
And, now that he had begun, the words poured from him. Withgesticulation that was faintly foreign, ever so little dramatic, heunpacked his adventures. He spoke as though this were, beyond all time,_the_ moment when he must make his effect.
He did it well, a born teller of tales. And yet Miss Rand wished that hehad not had to do it at all, that there had been more reserve, lessdrama, less volubility.
Mrs. Rand, an older Desdemona, listened spellbound. This was as good asgetting a circulating library without paying a subscription. As she saidto her daughter afterwards: "He really was as good as those novels bywhat's his name--you know who I mean--those delightful stories aboutthose foreign places--and the sea."
He spoke of the first time that he had actually been conscious of thejungle. "Of course I'd been into it dozens of times--often and often.But there was a day--I remember as though it were yesterday--when wewent up in a boat--some river or another--That river was the most secretand sleepy green, and the place all closed about it as though we'd goneinto a box, and they'd closed the lid. Nothing but the green river andall the forest getting closer and closer and darker and darker, allblacker than you can imagine, and worse still when it was lighter--akind of twilight--and you could see enough to make you shiver--no soundbut the animals, and the branches and the great plants and brilliantflowers all creeping and crawling--Suddenly--all in a flash--I wanted alamp-post and a public house, a wet night shining on streets, therattle of a hansom--I was suddenly ghastly frightened, and we got deeperand deeper into it, and human beings further and further behind, andonly the beastly monkeys and the alligators and the hideous flowers. Ican feel it still----"
Rachel was enthralled. He called up, on every side about her, that sternlife of hers. He knew and she knew--they alone out of all the world. Allher gaiety, her happiness, her interest of the last weeks went now fornothing beside this experience. He was not now related to theBeaminsters--to Grandmother, to Aunt Adela, to Uncle John--but to _her_and to that part of her that had nothing to do with the Beaminsters atall. The room, the commonplace furniture, the pictures of "Lodore Falls"and "The Fighting Temeraire," the little glimpses of the square beyondthe window, these things shared in the mystery.
Miss Rand had seen her caught and held. "_She's_ very young too," shesaid to herself a little grimly and a little tenderly also--"All toosensational to be true," she thought. "There's a little bit of unrealityin him all the way through."
Mrs. Rand said: "What do you think of alligators, Miss Beaminster? Don'tyou agree with me that they must be most unpleasant to meet? I alwaysdislike their sluggish ways when I see them in the Zoological Gardens."
Then upon them all broke the little maid with a husky "Miss Beaminster'scarriage, please, mem."
Rachel, as she said good-bye, was aware of him again as "her scandalouscousin." He too was now awkward and embarrassed. They said good-byehurriedly and there was between them both a consciousness that no wordof the family or their relationship had been mentioned.
"Well," said Mrs. Rand, when the door was closed, "no one in the worldcould have been pleasanter...."
III
They did not arrive at the opera that night until the beginning of thesecond act. It was Lady Carloes' box and she and Uncle John and RoddySeddon were Rachel's companions.
All the way home in the carriage Rachel had been silent and Lord John,perceiving uneasily that some of the old Rachel was back again, had saidvery little.
Her mind was confused. At one moment she felt that she did not want tosee him again, that he disturbed her peace and worried her with memoriesthat were better forgotten. At another moment she could have returned,then and there, to ask him questions, to know whether he felt this orthat: had he ever pictured such a place? Had he...?
And then sharply she dismissed such thoughts. She would think of him nomore--and yet he did not look a villain. How delightful to persuade thefamily to take him back. Why should she not help towards areconciliation? She was herself so happy now that she could not bearthat anyone should feel outcast or lonely--they were all very hard uponhim.
It was not until she heard the voices of the apprentices that thought ofher cousin left her. As she groped her way in the dark box and heardLady Carloes' stuffy whisper (she had the voice of a cracknel biscuit),"You sit there, my dear--Lord John here. That's right--I knew you'd belate because ..." she was gloriously aware that quite close to her themusic that she loved best in all the world was transforming existence.She touched Roddy's hand and then surrendered herself.
She had been to Covent Garden now on four or five occasions and from thefirst the shabby building with its old red and gold, its air ofbelonging to any period earlier than the one it was just then amusing,its attitude, above all, of indifference to its aspect--all this hadattracted her and won her affection. London, she discovered, was alwaysbest when it was shabbiest and one could not praise it more highly thanby declaring, with perfect truth, that it was the shabb
iest city in theworld. Now, feeling instinctively that English apprentices (she had hadalready some taste of the Covent Garden chorus) would act too much ortoo little, she closed her eyes.
Now, as the music reached her, the old red and gold seemed a cage,swinging, swinging higher and ever higher with old Lady Carloes andRoddy Seddon and all the brilliant people in the stalls, and all theenthusiastic people in the gallery, swinging, swinging inside it. Shecould feel the lift of it, the rise and fall, and almost the clearer airabout her as it rose into the stars.
Then there came to her the voice for which she had surely all her daysbeen waiting. It enwrapped her round and comforted her, consoled her forall her sorrows, reassured her for all her fears. It filled the cage andthe air beyond the cage, it was of earth and of heaven, and of allthings good and beautiful in this world and the next.
For the second time to-day her early years came back to her; the voicehad in it all those hours when someone's tenderness had made Life worthliving. "Life is immortal," it cried. "And I am immortal, for I am Loveand Charity, and, whatever the wise ones may tell you, I cannot die."She felt again the space and the silence and the snow, but now with noalarm, only utter reassurance. And the cage swung up and up and therewere now only the stars and the wind around and about them.
Then, in an instant of time, the cage, with a crash, was upon theground. Across her world had cut Lady Carloes' voice--"Oh yes, andthere's Lord Crewner--no, not in that row--the one behind--next thatwoman with the silver thing in her hair--four from the end----"
And Roddy Seddon's voice--"Yes, I see him. Who's he got with him?"
Lady Carloes again: "I can't quite see--Miss Mendle as likely asnot.... You know, old Aggie Mendle's daughter...."
Rachel felt in that moment that murder was assuredly no crime. Her handsshook on her lap and one of those passions, that she had not known formany months, caught her so that she could have torn Lardy Carloes' hairfrom her head had the chairs been happily arranged.
Fortunately the interruption had been accompanied by Beckmesser'sentrance: that other voice was, for the moment, still. Then, as Sachscaught up Beckmesser's serenade, there came again:
"Well, of course if you can't go that week-end I dare say she'll giveyou another. Only I know she's settling her dates now."
"Yes, but it's a bore havin' to fix up such a long way ahead and youdon't know what old stumers you mayn't be boxed up with----"
Oh! It was abominable! She had been seeing a great deal of Roddy duringthese last weeks, and ever since that visit to Uncle Richard she hadbeen conscious of an intimacy that she had certainly not resented.
But any favour that he may have had with her was certainly nowforfeited. His voice was again superior to Beckmesser:
"And so of course I said that if they _would_ go to such shockin' rot Iwasn't goin' to waste my evenin's----"
She pushed her chair back against his knees: "Beg pardon, MissBeaminster, afraid I jolted you----"
"Oh! Keep quiet! Keep quiet!"
Her whisper was so urgent, so packed with irritation that instantlythere was, in the box, the deepest of silences.
She sat forward again, anger choking her: she could not recover anyillusion. She hated him, _hated_ him! The crowd came on with a whirl.Then there was that last moment when the old watchman cries to thegenial moon and the silvered roofs.
Then the curtain fell.
Without a word, her face white, her hands still trembling, she rose toleave the box. She passed out into the passage and found that Roddy wasby her side.
"I say, Miss Beaminster, I am most awfully sorry, most awfully. I hadn'tany idea, really, that I was kickin' up that row. I could have hitmyself."
She walked down the passage and he followed her. She was superb, she wasindeed, with her head up, that neck, those hands, those flashing eyes.He had never seen anyone so fine. She ought always to be enraged. Thatinstant decided him. She was the woman for a man to have for his own,someone who could look like someone at the head of your table, someonewith the right blood in her veins, someone....
"I could _beat_ myself," he said again.
"How dared you----" she broke out at last. They were, by good luck,alone in the passage. "How could you? What do you come for if you carenothing for music at all? If you can hear a voice like that and thentalk about your own silly little affairs.... And the selfishness of it!Of course you think of nobody but yourself!"
"Upon my word, Miss Beaminster!"
"No, I've no patience with you. Go to your musical comedy if you like,but leave music like this for people who can appreciate it!"
Oh! she was superb! Entirely superb! She ought to be like this every dayof her life! To think that he should have the chance of winning such aprize!
Nevertheless she would not speak to him again and they went back to thebox. She would not speak to Lady Carloes nor to her uncle.
Then as the loveliest music in all opera flooded the building her angerbegan to melt.
He had looked so charmingly repentant and, after all, the_Meistersinger_ was long for anyone who did not really care formusic--and then they all did talk. It was only in the gallery that onefound the proper reverence.
Her anger cooled and then descended upon her the quintet, and she wasonce again swept, in her cage, to the stars.
Now she and all live things seemed to be opening their hearts togetherto God--no shame now to speak of one's deepest and most sacred thoughts.No fear now of God nor the Archangels nor all the long spaces ofImmortality. The cage had ascended to the highest of all the Heavens,and there, for a moment, one might stand, worshipping, with bowed head.
The quintet ceased and Rachel felt that she could never be angry withanyone again. She wished to tell him so.
At last, the revels were over, the "Prieslied" had won its praises,Sachs had been acclaimed by his world, and they were all in the lobby,waiting for carriages, talking, laughing, hurrying to the restaurants.
Her face was lighted now with happiness. She touched his arm.
"I didn't mean to be angry--like that. It was silly and rude of me.Forgive me, please----"
He turned, stuttering. "Forgive you!" He took her hand--"I ought to havebeen shot--Yes, I'll never forgive myself. You--you----" And then hecould say no more, but suddenly, raising his hat, bolted away.
As the door swung behind him Lady Carloes turned a perplexed face--
"Why! he said good night! And now I shall never find----"
But Lord John appeared just then and all was well.
Going back, in the dark brougham, Rachel put her head on her uncle'sshoulder and, exhausted with excitement and happiness and something morethan either of them, cried her eyes away.
The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary Page 9
