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

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  CHAPTER II

  A LITTLE HOUSE

  "Each in the crypt would cry, 'But one freezes here! and why? 'When a heart, as chill, 'At my own would thrill Back to life, and its fires out-fly? 'Heart, shall we live or die? The rest ... settle by-and-by!'"

  ROBERT BROWNING.

  I

  Rachel at Seddon Court watched, from her window, that first fallen snow.

  Seddon Court is about three miles from the town of Lewes and lies,tucked and cornered, under the very brow of the Downs. It is a greylittle house, old and stalwart, with a courtyard and two towers. Thetowers are Norman; the rest of the house is Tudor.

  Beyond the actual building there are gardens that run to the very footof the Downs, with only a patch and an old stone wall intervening. Abovethe house, day and night, year after year, the Downs are bending;everything, beneath their steady solemn gaze, is small and restless; asthe colours are flung by the sun across their green sprawling limbs thehouse, at their feet, catches their reflected smile and, when the sun isgone and the winds blow, cowers beneath their frown; everything in thathouse is conscious of their presence.

  Rachel had been at Seddon Court for a month and now, at the window ofher writing-room, looking across the garden, up into their dark shadows,she wondered at their indifference and monotony. Anyone who had knownher before her marriage would be struck instantly, on seeing her now, bya change in her.

  Her whole attitude to the world, during her first season in London, hadbeen an attitude of wonder, of expectation, of the uncertainty thatcomes from expectation.

  With that expectation were also alarm, distrust, and it was only whensome sudden incident or person called happiness into her face that thatdistrust vanished.

  Now she was older, that hesitation and awkwardness were gone, but withtheir departure had vanished, too, much of her honesty. Her dark eyeswere as sincere as they had ever been, but to anyone who had known herbefore her attitude now was assumed. Nothing might catch her unprepared,but what experiences were they that had taught her the need for armour?

  Sitting in her room looking on to a lawn that would soon be white and toDowns obscured already by the thick tumbling snow, she knew that she wasunhappy, disappointed, even alarmed. Suddenly to-day the uneasiness thathad been gathering before her throughout the last weeks assumed, on thisafternoon, the definite tangibility of a challenge.

  "What's the matter--with me, with everything?... What's happened?"

  Her room, dark green and white, had no pictures, but a long lowbook-case with grave handsome books, an edition of someone in red withwhite paper labels and another edition of someone else in dark blue andanother in gold and brown, an old French gilt mirror, square, with areflection of the garden and the foot of the Downs in it, an old QueenAnne rosewood writing-table, some Queen Anne chairs, a gate-leggedtable--a very cool, quiet room.

  At her feet with his head resting on her shoe there lay a dog. This dogabout a fortnight ago she had found in a field near the house with akettle tied on to his tail, and his body a confused catastrophe of mudand blood.

  She had carried him home; it had needed some courage to introduce himinto the household, for Roddy possessed many dogs all of the finestbreeds, and this was a mongrel who defied description. He was veryshort and shaggy and stumpy. He was much too large for a Yorkshireterrier and yet that was undoubtedly his derivation. There was somethingof a sheep-dog in him and something of a Skye; his hair fell all overhis face and, when you could see them, his eyes were brown. His nose waslike a wet blackberry and his ears were long and full of emotion; whenhe ran his short tail, on which the hairs were arranged like branches ona Christmas tree, stuck up into the air and he resembled a rabbit.

  In the confusion of the moment Rachel had called him Jacob, because shethought that Jacob was, in the Bible, the "hairy one".... After all, you_could_ not call a dog Esau.

  Yes, to retain him had needed courage. Thinking of Roddy's attitude tothe dog brought so many other attendant thoughts in its train. Roddy inhis devotion to animals (and oh! he _was_ devoted), had no room forthose that were not of the aristocracy.

  Concerning dogs who were mongrels he was kind but thought them muchbetter dead. Unkind he would never be, but the way in which he ignoredJacob was worse than any unkindness.

  Jacob, sensitive perhaps from early suffering, knew this and avoidedRoddy, ran out of the room when he came into it, showed in every waythat he must not expect to rank with the other dogs.

  Very characteristic this attitude of Roddy, but very characteristic,too, the affection that Jacob was now receiving from his mistress. Therewas something that Jacob drew from Rachel that none of the fine, nobledogs of the house was able to secure.... Why?... What, again, was thematter? Why was Rachel unhappy?

  Rachel was unhappy, and the answer came quite clearly to her as the roomwas darkened by the great storm of snow now falling over the Downs andthe garden, because marriage with Roddy had not lessened in any way thatuneasy disquiet that had stirred, without pause, beneath her lifebefore her marriage; that uneasiness had, indeed, during the last threemonths, increased....

  Was this her fault or Roddy's?

  Attacked now by a scrutiny that refused dismissal she delivered herselfup to the investigation of these months of her married life.

  She knew that she had only once been happy since her marriage--that wason the first evening, when, the noise and clamour of the London weddinghaving died away, she had walked with Roddy in the peace of the Massitergarden (Lady Massiter had lent her house for the first weeks of thehoneymoon), had felt his arm about her, had believed that there hadreally come to her that comfort and safety for which she longed.

  After that there had followed a fortnight of great unreality--thestrangest excitement, the most adventurous wonders, but a wonder andexcitement that were from herself, the real Rachel Beaminster, mostabsolutely removed. It was as though she had watched closely butdetached the experiences of some other girl. Roddy had, during thosetimes, been a most ardent and passionate lover; she had tried to respondand had hidden, as best she could, her failure.

  Then, suddenly, with the time of their going abroad, passion had lefthim; it had left him as swiftly as the passing of wind over a hill. Itwas there--it was gone.

  But he remained the perfect husband. His kindness, his charm, hissimplicity, his affection for her--an affection that could never for aninstant be doubted--these things had delighted her. He was now thefriend, the strong reliant companion that she had wanted him to be.During those first weeks in Italy and Greece happiness might have cometo her had she not been stirred by her remembrance of the earlier weeks.The passion that had been in him, although it had not touched her, nowin retrospect lit fires for her imagination. Instantly back to her hadcome the whole disquiet and unrest. The things that Roddy called fromher now, she suddenly discovered with a great shrinking alarm, were allthe Beaminster things. All the true emotions, qualities, traditions thatmade up her secret life were roused in her by their own inherentvitality, never by his evocation of them. _He_ was Beaminster--Roddy wasBeaminster. With his kindness and courtesy his eyes saw the world withthe eyes of his ancestors, his tongue spoke the language that had in itno sincerity, his heart wished for all the ceremonies and lies that theBeaminster had believed in since the beginning of time.

  But her discovery did not lead her much further. She had, in her heartof hearts, always known that Roddy was a Beaminster. Why then had shemarried him? She had married him because she had been untrue to herself,because she had herself encouraged the Beaminster blood in her to blindher eyes, because she had desired deceit rather than truth, because shehad wanted the comfort that the man could give her rather than the manhimself, because she had muffled and stifled and silenced that Power inher--the Power that made her restless and unquiet; the Power that was ashostile to the Beaminster faith as heaven is to hell--

  And yet this vehemence of explanation did not altogether explain Roddy.Roddy was not _sim
ply_ a Beaminster like Uncle John or Uncle Richard orAunt Adela. There was an elemental direct emotion in Roddy that wasexactly opposed to Beaminster conventionality.

  These two elements in him puzzled and even frightened her. His attitudeduring that first fortnight of their marriage she saw, again and again,in lesser degrees during their time abroad. She had seen him soprimitive in his joy and excitement over places and people andmoments--colour, food, storms, towns, passers-by, anything--that she hadbeen astounded by the force of it. Emotions swept over him and weregone, but, whilst they were there, she knew that she counted to him fornothing. Strangest of ironies that when he was least a Beaminster, thenwas she farthest from him--strangest of ironies that her link with himshould be the Beaminster in him.

  She was frightened of his primitive passions. She had in her theinstinct that one day they would touch his relationship to her and thatthat contact would rouse in her the full tide of the unhappiness ofwhich she was now so conscious, and that then ... what might nothappen?...

  And yet behind it all she felt a strange, almost pathetic satisfactionbecause he, after all, had in him, just as she had, his two natures atwar. There at least they found some common link; her eagerness to findsome link was evidence enough of the affection she had for him.

  After their return to England the wilder nature in him had extended andbroadened. Everything to do with Seddon Court drew it out of him; hispassion for the place was wonderful to witness. Every stone of thelittle grey building was a jewel in his eyes; the servants, the cattle,the horses, the dogs, the flowers, the villagers, even the townspeopleof Lewes drew sentiment from him.

  "My old place," he would say, cuddling it to himself; he was never"sloppy" about it, but direct and simple and straightforward. It wasobviously _the_ great emotion above all other emotions.

  He was most anxious that Rachel should share this with him, and duringher first weeks there she thought that she would do so. Then thedisquiet in her spread to the place. The house spread itself out beforeher now as the lure that had from the beginning tempted her.

  "It was for this place and quiet that you were false to yourself----"

  Roddy felt that she did not share his enthusiasm, and their difficultyover this was exactly their difficulty over everything else; simply thatRoddy was the least eloquent person in the world. He could explainnothing whatever of the vague unhappiness or dissatisfaction at hisheart. Rachel _could_ have explained a great many things, but Roddy, shefelt, would only look at her in his kind puzzled way and wonder why shecouldn't take things as they were.

  Perhaps during these last weeks he had himself felt that all was notwell. Rachel thought that sometimes now through, all his kindness shedetected a floating, wistful speculation on his part as to whether shewere happy.

  He _wanted_ her to be happy--most tremendously he wanted it--and did sheexplain to him that she was not happy because she was, now, for everattended by a sense of her own disloyalty to all that was best in her,he would have suggested a doctor or have made her a present.

  Had she been some stranger and had the case been presented to him hewould have probably dismissed it by saying that "having made her bed shemust lie on it." "After all, she married the feller--Well then, that's_her_ look-out."

  So, perhaps, if this had been simply her trouble she would have done herbravest best to endeavour.

  But there was more behind it all--far, far more.

  She saw her marriage to Roddy, her struggling for self-respect, herpresent morbid introspection as a stage in what was now developing intoa duel between herself and her grandmother.

  Her grandmother had planned this marriage. Her grandmother wasdetermined to destroy the honesty and truth in her and had chosen aBeaminster for her agent and now waited happy for the death of Rachel'ssoul.

  But Rachel's soul should not so readily die! During all these weeks thethought of her grandmother had been continually with her. How she hatedher, and with what fervour did Rachel return that hatred!

  There was no melodrama in this hatred. When she had been a very littlegirl Rachel had somehow believed that her grandmother had been verycruel to her mother and father--She had hated her for that. Then she hadseen that her grandmother disliked her and wished to tease her--so shehad hated her for that also.

  Her older amplification of this into principles and instincts had notaltered the original vehemence of the passion, it had only given itgrown-up reasons for its existence.

  And so, thinking of her grandmother, she thought also of Francis Breton.

  Some weeks ago she had received a letter from him and that letter wasnow lying in the desk of her writing-table.

  She had thought that her marriage would have snapped her interest in hercousin because it would have broken that hostility with her grandmotherupon which her relationship with her cousin so largely depended. But nowwhen she saw that marriage had only intensified her hostility to theDuchess, so therefore it had intensified her perception of Breton. Hisletter had aroused in her, just as contact with him aroused in her,everything in her that now, for her own peace of mind, she should keepat bay. His letter had amounted to this:

  "You are a rebel as I am a rebel. We have said very little, but you haverecognized in me the things that I have recognized in you. You haveescaped through marriage, but for me there is no escape, and if youwould, for the sake of those things that we have in common, keep me fromgoing utterly under, then you must help me--as only you can."

  He did not say this nor anything at all like this. He only, veryquietly, congratulated her on her marriage, hoped that she would be veryhappy, said that London was a little desolate and difficult, hoped thatshe would not think more harshly of him than she could help, and, at thevery end, told her that meeting her made him feel that he was notentirely abandoned by everybody.

  It was the letter of a weak man and she knew it, but it was the letterof a man who was weak exactly in the places where she also failed. Andthis, more than anything else, moved her.

  They two alone, it seemed, were struggling to keep their feet in a worldthat did not need them. It had been, through these months, Rachel'ssharpest unhappiness, the consciousness that Roddy and indeed everythingat Seddon Court could get on so very well without her.

  Nobody in London needed her--nobody here needed her. If you accepted theBeaminster doctrine, then no wife would demand more from a husband thanRoddy gave Rachel--but was this not simply another proof that Rachel hadmade a Beaminster marriage?

  Rachel had been flung straight from the schoolroom into marriage and thesensitive agonizing cry of a child to be loved by somebody--the cry thathad always been so urgent in her--was urgent still.

  It was exactly this comfortable sense of being a help that Roddy had notgiven her. Now this letter gave it to her.

  But if this letter was an appeal, just as the mongrel Jacob, now at herfeet, was an appeal, on the part of someone wounded and outcast, to herpity, so also was it an invitation to rebellion.

  It was also a temptation to deceit and, did she answer the letter, sheencouraged Breton to write again; she opened up not only a newrelationship to him, but also a new relationship to all the forces thatwere most hostile to Roddy and her married happiness. May Eversley hadonce said to her: "Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or falsecolouring, what you've got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that youimagine that you've got but haven't. Take away ruthlessly everythingthat you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident ofsecuring--See what's happened to you in the past--Take away ruthlesslyany sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quiteresolutely from your ugly mistakes."

  Long ago she had written this down--now was the first necessity forapplying it.

  The doctrine of Truth--Truth to Oneself, the one thing that mattered.She knew that the pursuit of Truth was to her, and to every rebelagainst the Beaminsters, the restive Tiger. In marrying Roddy she hadbeen untrue to herself. In writing to Breton she would be true toherself but untrue to Roddy. She was f
ond of Roddy although she did notlove him, nor did he, really, love her. The anxiety on both their partsto avoid hurting one another was proof enough of that, she thought.

  There then was the whole situation. As she felt Jacob's warm headagainst her foot a great agitation of loneliness and dismay andhelplessness swept over her.

  Tears were in her throat and eyes--Then with a strong disdain she pushedit all from her. She was growing morbid, losing her sense of humour andproportion. Here in the house there was Nita Raseley staying; in thecountry there were people to be called upon, to be invited, to beinterested in, there was Roddy, a perfect husband.

  She strangled that other Rachel, there in her room. "Now you're dead,"she felt, and seemed to fling a lifeless, crumpled figure out into thesnow--

  She looked at herself in the glass.

  "You're not Rachel Beaminster now--you're Rachel Seddon. Act accordinglyand don't whine--" She washed her face and brushed her hair, and combedJacob's hair out of his eyes, and then, determined to be sensible andcheerful and civilized, went down to tea.

  II

  The room called the Library was the pleasantest room in the house; anold, long, low-ceilinged room with windows that stretched from floor toceiling, with a large stone open fireplace and book-cases running fromend to end and old sporting prints above them.

  Before the great fireplace the tea was waiting and there also was NitaRaseley, very charming and fresh and pink in the face and golden in thehair. It was strange that Nita Raseley should have been their firstguest since their marriage, because Rachel, most certainly, did not likeher; but, after that meeting at the Massiters' the girl had flung apassionate and incoherent correspondence upon Rachel and had ended bypractically inviting herself.

  Roddy liked her; Rachel knew that--so perhaps after all it had been agood thing to have her there. Rachel's dislike of her was founded on acomplete distrust. "She's all wrong and insincere and beastly. I'llnever have her here again...." And yet, really, Miss Raseley had behavedherself, had been most quiet and decorous and _most_ affectionate.

  The electric light was delicately shaded, the curtains were drawn,outside was the storm, here cosiness and shining comfort.

  "Oh! _darling_ Rachel--I _am_ so glad you've come--I do so wanttea----"

  "Where's Roddy?"

  "Just come in--He'll be here in a minute----"

  Rachel came over to the fire and was busy over the tea-table.

  "Well, Nita, what have you been at all the afternoon?"

  "Oh! that silly old book. Rachel, how _could_ you tell me----"

  "What book?"

  "Oh! _you_ know--you lent it me. Something like drinking--_you_ know. Bythat man Westcott--_such_ a silly name."

  "_The Vines!_--Didn't you like it?"

  "Like it! My dear Rachel, why, they go on for pages about each other'sfeelings and nothing happens and I'm sure it's most unwholesome. They'reall so unhappy and always hating one another. I like books to becheerful and about people one knows--don't you?"

  "Well, Nita dear, it's a good thing we don't all like the same things,isn't it? Sugar?"

  "Yes, dear, you know--lots--Darling, have you got a headache? You _do_look rotten--you _do_ really."

  Rachel knew that she must keep an especial guard to-day: she wasirritable, out of sorts. She would have liked immensely to send Nita tohave her tea in the nursery, were there one.

  "No, I'm all right. But I wanted to get out and this storm stopped me."

  "You do look dicky! Oh! what do you think! Roddy's taking us over toHawes to-morrow to lunch if the weather's anything like decent. He'sjust fixed it up--sent a wire----"

  "To-morrow? But _I_ can't.... He knows. I've got Miss Crale cominghere----"

  "Only old Miss Crale? Put her off----"

  "I can't possibly--I've put her off once before. She wants to talk abouther Soldiers' Institute place--" Then Rachel added more slowly, "ButRoddy knew----"

  "Oh! he said you'd got some silly old engagement, but he _knew_ you'dput it off!"

  "He knows I can't. He was talking about it this morning. He knewhow----" Then she stopped. She was not going to show Nita Raseley thatshe minded anything.

  But Roddy had always said that they would go over together to Hawes--oneof the loveliest old places in the world--He had always promised....

  She knew perfectly well what had occurred. Nita had caught Roddy andclung on to him and persuaded him--Roddy was such a boy--But she washurt and she despised herself for it.

  "Oh," she said, laughing. "That's all right. You two must just go overtogether--that's all! I'll go another time----"

  "Well, you see, Roddy _did_ send a wire and the Rockingtons would _hate_being put off at the last moment.... Oh! You beastly dog! He's beenlicking my shoe, Rachel. Really he oughtn't to, ought he? So funny ofyou, Rachel, when he's _such_ a mongrel and Roddy's got such lovelydarlings--Of course Jacob's a dear, but he _is_ rather absurd to lookat----"

  Jacob glanced at her, shook his ears and then, hearing a step that heknew, retired, instantly, under a sofa in a far corner of the room.

  Roddy came in and stood for a moment laughing across at them. He was inan old tweed suit with a soft collar and his face was brick-red; lookingat him as he stood there, the absolute type of health and strength andcleanly vigour, Rachel wondered why she felt irritable. She certainlywas out of sorts.

  "Hullo, you two," Roddy said, "you do look cosy! Talkin' secrets, orwill you put up with a man?"

  "Oh! _Roddy_," said Nita Raseley, "why, of _course_. Rachel's only justcome down, hasn't been any time for secrets. Come and get warm."

  Room was made for him. Rachel smiled at him as she gave him his tea."Well, Roddy, what have _you_ been doing? I've been trying to writeletters and Nita's been abusing a novel I lent her. I hope you've beenbetter employed----"

  "I've been botherin' around with Nugent over those two horses he boughtlast week. And--oh! I say, Rachel, you'll come over to Hawes to-morrow,won't you?"

  "You know I can't. I've got Miss Crale coming to luncheon----"

  "Oh, I say! Put her off----"

  "Can't--I've put her off before and she doesn't deserve to be badlytreated----"

  "Oh! dash it! But I've gone and wired. The Rockingtons won't like mychangin'----"

  "Well, don't change--you and Nita go over----"

  "No, but you know we'd always arranged to go over together. You see, Ifelt sure you'd put old Miss Crale on to another day. _She_ won'tmind----"

  "No, Roddy, thank you. That's not fair on her. It can't be helped. Yougo over with Nita."

  Then there occurred between them one of those little situations thatwere now so frequent. Rachel was hurt, but was determined to shownothing; Roddy knew that she was hurt, but was quite unable to improverelations, partly because he had no words, partly because "a fellerlooks such a fool tryin' to explain," partly because there was in him aquality of sullen obstinacy that was mingled, most strangely, with hiskindness and sentiment.

  He was absolutely ready to fling Nita and the Rockingtons into limbo,but he was quite unable to set about such a business.

  Moreover now there was Nita Raseley--It was at this moment that Jacob,having fought in the dark recesses of the sofa between his dislike ofRoddy and his love of tea, declared for his stomach and walked slowly,and with the dignity required by the presence of an enemy, across theroom.

  "Hullo! there's the mongrel--" Roddy endeavoured to cover earlierawkwardness by easy laughter, but the laughter was not easy and hisattempt to pat Jacob was frustrated by a sidling movement on the dog'spart.

  Then Nita Raseley laughed.

  Roddy now thought that women were damnable, that his wife had no rightto drag a mongrel like that about with her, that he'd show them if theylaughed at him, and that if Rachel couldn't come to-morrow, why then,she must just lump it--The last thought of all was that Rachel wasalways finding a grievance in something.

  He waited a little while, talked in a stiff and unnatural fashion andthen went.

/>   "This weather _is_ very trying, dear, isn't it?" said Nita. "If I wereyou I really would go and lie down. You do look _so_ seedy!"

  "I think I will," said Rachel.

  As she went slowly upstairs to her room she knew that she would answerFrancis Breton's letter.