Uncle Richard had been twice Prime Minister and was a widower. He lived in a beautiful house in Grosvenor Street, and collected wine and fans and first editions. He was always very kind to Rachel, and she liked his tall thin figure, bent a little, with his high white forehead, gold-rimmed pince-nez on the Beaminster nose, and beautiful long white hands. She went to have tea with him sometimes, and this was an hour of freedom and delight, because he talked to her about the Elizabethans and Homer, and, when she was older, Nietzsche and Kant. She liked the warm rooms, with their thick curtains and soft carpets and rows and rows of gleaming glittering books, and he always had tea in such beautiful china and the silver teapot shone like a mirror. But she never felt that she was of the same value to him as a first edition would be, and he talked to her of the Elizabethans for their sake, and not for hers.
Lastly, there was Uncle John, and her heart was divided between Uncle John and Dr. Christopher. Uncle John was a dear. He was round and fat, with snow-white hair that had waves in it, and his face resembled that of a very, very good-natured pig. His nose was not in the least a Beaminster nose, being round and snub and his eyes beamed kindliness.
Rachel, although she had always loved him, had long learnt to place no reliance upon him. His aim in life was to make it as comfortable, as free from all vulgar squabble and dispute, as pleasant for everyone everywhere as it could possibly be. He was a Beaminster in so far as he thought the Beaminsters were a splendid and ancient family, and that there was no other family to which a man might count himself so fortunate to belong. But he was kind and pleasant about the rest of the world. He would like everyone to have a good time, and it was vaguely a puzzle to him that it should be so arranged that life should have any difficulties--it would be so much easier if everything were pleasant.
When, however, difficulties did arise they must at all costs be dismissed. There had been no time in his life when he had not been in love with some woman or other, but the hazards and difficulties of marriage had always frightened him too much.
He was not entirely selfish, for he thought a great deal about the wishes and comforts of other people, but unpleasantness frightened him, like a rabbit, into his hole. He lived the life of the "Compleat Bachelor" at 93 Portland Place, having a mult.i.tude of friends of both s.e.xes, spending hours in his clubs with some of them, week-ends in country houses with others of them, and months in delightful places abroad with one or two of them.
He was very popular, always smiling and good-natured, and cared more for Rachel than for anyone else in the world ... but even for Rachel he would not risk discomfort.
There they all were, then.
Gradually they had emerged, for her, out of the mists and shadows, arranging themselves about her as possible protections against that horrible half-hour of hers. She soon found that, in that, at any rate, they would, none of them, be of use to her except Uncle John. Uncle Vincent did not count at all. Uncle Richard only counted as china or pictures counted.
Uncle John could not count as a very strong defence, it was true, but he was fond of her; he showed it in a thousand ways, and although he might never actually stand up for her, yet he would always be there to comfort her.
Not that she wanted comfort. From a very early age indeed she resolutely flung from her all props and sympathies and sentiments. She hated the house, she hated the loneliness, most of all she hated grandmother ... but she would go through with it, and no one should know that she suffered.
II
Then, when she was seventeen, came Munich.
On the day that she first heard that she was to go to Germany to be "finished" the flashing thought that came to her was that, for a time at any rate, the "half-hour" would be suspended. Standing there thinking of the days pa.s.sing without the shadow of that interview about them was like emerging from some black and screaming, banging, shouting tunnel into the clear serenity of a shining landscape. Two years might count for her escape, and perhaps, on her return, she would be old enough for her grandmother to have lost her terrors--perhaps....
Meanwhile, that Germany, with its music and forests and toys and fairies, danced before her. Her two years in it gave her all that she had expected; it gave her Wagner and Mozart and Beethoven, it gave her Goethe and Heine, Jean Paul and Heyse, Hauptmann and Morike, it gave her a perception of life that admitted physical and spiritual emotions on precisely the same level, so that a sausage and the _Unfinished Symphony_ gave you the same ecstatic crawl down your spine and did not, for an instant, object to sharing that honour.
Munich also gave her the experience and revelations of May Eversley.
There were some twenty or thirty girls who were, with Rachel, under the finishing care of Frau Bebel, but Rachel held herself apart from them all. She could not herself have explained why she did so. It was partly because she felt that she had nothing, whether experience or discovery, to give to them, partly because they seemed already so happy and comfortable amongst themselves that they had surely no need of her, and partly because she feared that from some person or some place, suddenly round the corner there would spring the terror again. She could even fancy that her grandmother, watching her, had placed horrors behind curtains, closed doors, grimed and shuttered windows.--"If you think, my dear," she might perhaps be saying, "that you"ve escaped by this year or two in Germany, you"re mightily mistaken.--Back to me you"re coming."
But May Eversley was different from the other girls. She was different because she saw things without a muddle, knew what she wanted, knew what she disliked, knew what was delightful, knew what was intolerable.
To Rachel this clear-cut decision was more enviable than any other quality that one could have. At this stage of her experience it was the a.s.sent, so it seemed to her, that could give life its intensest value.
"Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or false colouring, what you"ve got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that you imagine that you"ve got but haven"t. See what you want. Take away ruthlessly everything that you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident of securing. See what"s happened to you in the past. Take away ruthlessly any sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quite resolutely from your ugly mistakes."
Rachel"s world had hitherto been limited very largely to the schoolroom in Portland Place, the park and Beaminster House, the country place-in-chief (three others, one in Leicestershire, one in Northumberland, one in Norfolk), but even within this limited country the terrific importance of those rules was driven in upon her.
She felt that her grandmother was clear-headed, but, no, none of the others--not Aunt Adela, nor the uncles, nor any of the governesses. She was allowed to meet one or two little boys and girls of her own age. She walked with them in the park, played with them at Beaminster House, had tea with them occasionally, but they were, none of them, clear-headed.
She was not priggish about this discovery of hers. She did not despise other people because their definite rules did not seem to them of importance. She did not talk about these things.
To see facts very steadily without blinking was impelled upon her by the necessity for courage. It was the only weapon wherewith to fight her grandmother. "Now," she might say to herself, "this half-hour of yours.
Is it so bad? What definitely do you fear about it? Is it the knock at the door? Is it the crossing the room? Is it answering questions?"
So challenged her terror did fall, a little, away from her, ashamed at its inadequate cause. So she went to face every peril--"Is the danger really so bad? What exactly is it?..."
May Eversley was thin and spare, small with sharp features, pince-nez, hair brushed sternly back, and every inch of her body trained to the purpose that it was meant to fulfil. She rang her sentences on the air like coin on a plate. Meanwhile, as she explained to Rachel, she had been fighting since she was five. Her mother, Lady Eversley, was the widow of Tom Eversley, now happily deceased, once the most dissolute scamp in Europe. He had died leaving nothing but debts behind him. Since then his widow and his daughter had lived in three little rooms above a public house off Shepherd"s Market, and the widow had battled to keep up the gayest of appearances. May had been, at a very early age, introduced to the struggle. "My silver mug and rattle were p.a.w.ned to get a dress for mother to go to a drawing-room in. I shouldn"t be here now if it weren"t for an uncle, and it"s the last thing he"ll do for us. So back I go in two year"s time--to do my d.a.m.nedest."
Of course she was clear-headed--she had to be.
"There are only two sorts of people," she said to Rachel. "Like soup--thick and clear--the Clear ones get on and the Thick don"t."
May obviously liked Rachel, but was amused by her. n.o.body, it seemed to May, showed so nakedly her emotions as Rachel, and yet, also, n.o.body could produce, more suddenly, the closest of reserves. May, to whom the world had been, since she was six, a measured plain of contest, marvelled at the poignancy of Rachel"s contact with it. "If she"s going to be hurt as easily as this by everything, how on earth is she going to get through?"
Then, as the Munich days pa.s.sed, May found, to her own delight, Rachel"s keen sense of humour. Munich afforded enough food for it, and finally one discovered that Rachel smiled more readily than she trembled, but she hid her smile because, as yet, she was not sure of it.
"All she wants," May Eversley concluded, "is to be told things."
n.o.body in the world could be better adapted to give out these revelations. London, to May Eversley, was an open book; moreover, the most stormy of battle-fields on which the combatants fought, were wounded, were slain, were gloriously victorious.
She told Rachel a great deal--a great deal about people, a great deal about sets and parties, a great deal about likes and dislikes. She had on her side one burning curiosity to know about Rachel"s d.u.c.h.ess. "Is she as terrible, so tremendous as people say? Has she such a brain even now? Old Lady Grandon, who was a great friend when they were both girls, says that she wasn"t clever then a bit--rather stupid and shy--but you never know. Jealousy on old Grandon"s part, I expect. They say she"s wonderful still."
Questions of taste never worried May Eversley, and it did not worry her now that Rachel might dislike so penetrating an inquisition. But at least May got nothing for her trouble. Rachel told her nothing.
May"s final word was, "You care too much about it all--care whether it"s going to hurt, whether it"s going to be frightening or not. My advice to you is, just dash in, s.n.a.t.c.h what you can, and dash out again. It doesn"t matter a hair-pin what anyone says. Everyone says everything in London, and n.o.body minds. They"ve all got the shortest memories."
Rachel, sitting now in her little room and thinking of Munich wondered how completely her own discovery of London would coincide with May"s.
May"s idea of it was certainly not Aunt Adela"s. Aunt Adela, Rachel thought, was far too dried and brittle to risk any sharp contact with anything. None of her uncles, she further reflected, liked sharp contacts, and yet, how continually grandmother provided them!
How comfortable all of them--Aunt Adela and the uncles--would be without their mother, and yet how proud they were of having her! For herself, Rachel faced her approaching deliverance with a tightening of all the muscles of her body. "I won"t care. It shall be as May says--and there are sure to be some comfortable people about, some people who want to make it pleasant for one."
Then there was a tap at the door and Uncle John came in. Uncle John often came in about half-past five. It was a convenient time for him to come, but also, perhaps, he recognized that that approaching half-hour that Rachel was to have with his mother demanded, beforehand, some kind of easy, amiable prologue.
To-day, however, there was more in his comfortable smiling countenance than merely paying a visit warranted. He stood for a moment at the door looking over at her, rather fat but not very, his white hair, his pearl pin, his white spats all gleaming, a rosiness and a cleanliness always about him so that he seemed, at any moment of the day, to have come straight from his tub, having jumped, in his eagerness to see you, into his beautiful clothes, and hurried, all in a glow, to get to you.
"They"re all chattering downstairs--chattering like anything. There"s Roddy Seddon, old Lady Carloes and Crewner and some young a.s.s Crewner"s brought with him and your Uncle d.i.c.k looking bored and your Aunt Adela looking nothing at all--and so out of it I came."
He came over and sat on the broad, fat arm of her chair and looked out, in his contented, amiable way, over the light, salmon-coloured and pale, that now had persuaded Portland Place into silence. His eyes seemed to say: "Now this is how I like things--all pink and quiet and comfortable."
Rachel leant a little against his shoulder, and put her hand on his knee--
"You"ve had tea down there?"
"Yes, thank you--all I wanted. What have you been doing all the afternoon?"
He put his own hand down upon hers.
"Oh! Aunt Adela and I went to look at grandmother"s portrait."
"Well?"
"It"s as clever as it can be. To anyone who doesn"t know her, it"s the most wonderful likeness. It"s what grandmother would like herself."
He caught the note in her voice that threatened the pink security of Portland Place. He held her hand a little tighter.
"In what way?"
"Oh, it"s got the dragons and the tapestry and the purple carpet. All the coloured things that grandmother like so much and that help her so.