A QUARTETTE
“Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition, always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment.” — Henry Galleon.
I
Rachel came forward: Roddy from his sofa said something.
She was, it seemed, unconscious of them all, fixing her eyes upon a large black-leather arm-chair, settling slowly down into it, dismissing Peters and the footman with “Thank you — That is very kind”: then, at last leaning her hands upon her ebony cane, raised her eyes and smiled grimly, almost triumphantly, at Roddy.
He had been aware, at that first glimpse of her in the doorway, that he was ashamed of himself. He should not have done it.
She was older, feebler, more of a victim than he had ever conceived her possibly to be, and in some way the situation that awaited her changed her entirely from the old tyrant who had sat there talking to him only a week ago into someone who demanded of one’s chivalry, of one’s courtesy, protection.
Roddy had also caught the light of fierce recognition that had leapt up into Breton’s face as he had realized who it was that stood before him. Breton must have many old scores to pay.... Roddy was suddenly frightened of the emotions, the fierce resentments, the angry rebellions that he had brought so lightly into collision.
But the smile that the Duchess flung to him had in it no fear. It said to him: “Oh, young man, this is your little plot, is it? Oh, Roddy, my friend, how young you are and how little you know me if you think that I am in the least embarrassed by this little gathering. I’m glad that you’ve given me a chance of showing what I can do.”
She dominated the room; she was, from the minute of her appearance, mistress of the situation. They realized her power as they had never realized it before.
Sitting there, leaning forward upon her cane, she remarkably resembled Yale Ross’s portrait. She was even wearing the green jade pendant, and her black dress, her bonnet, her fine white wrists, a gold chain with its jangling cluster of things — a gold pencil, a card case, a netted purse — these flung into fine relief the sharp white face lit now with an amused, an ironic vitality.
She was old, she was ill, she was being trodden down by generations hungrier than any that she had ever known, but she was as indomitable as she had ever been.
She looked about the room; her glance passed, without any flash of recognition, without sign or signal that she had realized his presence, over the fierce figure of her grandson.
“Well, my dear,” she said to Rachel, “I’m sure this is all very pleasant and most unexpected. Let’s have some tea.”
“I’m afraid,” said Rachel, “that it’s been standing some time. Let me ring for some fresh.”
“No — I like it strong. It used always to be strong when I was younger. This new generation likes things weak, I believe.”
Rachel, looking at her grandmother, felt nothing of Roddy’s compunction. She did not, even now, grasp entirely Roddy’s intention; she had no sure conviction of the climax that he intended; but she did know that here, at last, was her chance; she should lift, once and for all, out from all the lies and confusion that had shrouded them, her attempts at courage and honesty, attempts that had wretchedly, most forlornly failed.
Breton should know, Roddy should know, the Duchess should know, and she herself should never again go back.
Breton did not move from the corner where he was sitting; he waited there, his hand pressing hard upon his knee.
Roddy said, “Most awfully good of you, Duchess, to come out again. I wouldn’t have dared to ask you to come if Christopher hadn’t said that last time did you no harm.”
“Only for you, Roddy,” she answered him almost gaily, “and Rachel of course. To-day’s a nice day. All that thunder has cleared the air.”
What her voice must have seemed to Francis Breton, coming back to him again after so vast a distance, bringing to him a thousand memories, scenes and faces that had been buried, a whole world of regrets, and disappointments.
Rachel gave her her tea; brought a little table to her side.
“Thank you, my dear. How are you, Rachel? You’re not looking very well. Richard, who came in to see me this morning, told me that you were ill at dinner last night. He seemed quite anxious.”
“It was nothing, thank you, grandmamma. That thunder always upsets me. I was sorry to interfere with Lady Carloes’ dinner-party.”
“Not much of a party from what Richard told me. And she had in a harpist afterwards. Why a harpist? Poor Aggie Carloes! Always done the wrong thing ever since she was a child. Yes, her little drawing-room’s so stuffy, they tell me — must have been intolerable last night.”
It was for all three of them a quite unbearable situation. Roddy had never, even when he was a boy of sixteen, been afraid of her; now at last he understood what the power was that had kept her family at her feet for so many years, indeed, he seemed now to perceive in all of them — in Breton, in Rachel, as well as in the Duchess — a strain of some almost hysterical passion, that, held in check though it was, for the moment, promised to flare into the frankest melodrama at the slightest pretext.
Anything better than this pause; he plunged.
“You won’t forgive me, Duchess,” he said abruptly. “I believe I’ve done a pretty rotten thing. I didn’t intend it that way. I only meant just to clear everything up and make it all straight for everybody, but if I’ve been unpardonable just say so and give it me hot.”
He paused and cleared his throat. “I wonder if you’d mind, Rachel,” said the Duchess, “passing me that little stool that I see over there — that little brown stool. Just put it under my feet, will you? Thank you.”
Roddy desperately proceeded.
“It’s only this. You said the last time you came that you had heard — that you knew — that you were afraid that Rachel and your grandson, Mr. Breton, were — had been — seein’ too much of one another. You just put it to me, you know — Well,” he went on, trying to make his voice cheerful and ordinary and failing completely, “lyin’ on one’s back one gets thinkin’ and broodin’, specially a feller who hasn’t been used to it, like me. I got worried — not because I didn’t trust Rachel — and Mr. Breton, of course, all the way, because I do; but simply that, you know, it’s rotten for a feller to be lyin’ helpless on his back, thinkin’ that people are talkin’ about his wife — you know how malicious people are, Duchess — and I thought it jolly well must be stopped, don’t you know, and I wanted it stopped quick and straight and clean, and I didn’t see how it was goin’ to be stopped unless I’d got us all friendly together here and just squashed it, all of us. And so — well, to speak — well, here we are.... And,” he concluded, trying to smile upon everyone present, “I do hope it’s all right. It didn’t seem then a poor sort of thing to do, but somehow gettin’ you all here as a surprise....” He broke off, made noises in his throat, and felt that the room was of a burning heat.
He remembered, vaguely, that he had designed this meeting as a punishment to the old lady; he had only succeeded, however, in revealing his own cowardice; the first glimpse of her had made a poor creature of him. Oh! how he wished himself now well out of it! And yet, behind that thought was the knowledge of the little speech that he was soon to make and the way that, with it, he would win Rachel and hold her for ever! After all, it came to that, absolutely: Rachel was the only thing in all the world that mattered.
The Duchess flung upon him a kindly satiric glance, then, turning from him, bent her sharp little eyes upon Rachel, leaning forward upon her cane so that it appeared that it was now only with Rachel that she had any concern.
“Had I known that my few careless words!” — She broke off with a little impatient gesture.
“Ah! Rachel, my dear, I’m truly sorry. My stupidity....”
But Rachel, her eyes upon Roddy, had got up, had moved across to Roddy’s sofa, and stood there, above him. Her eyes moved, then, slowly to her grandmother.
“There was no need,” she said, her voice low and trembling, “for this. If I’d done, as I should, it couldn’t have happened. I’m responsible for all of it and only I. Roddy has got you here on false pretences, grandmamma. If you’d rather go now....”
“Thank you,” the Duchess said, “I’d much rather stay. It amuses me to see you all together here.”
“Then,” said Rachel, “I’ll say what I ought to have said before. Roddy,” turning passionately round to him, “you shall have everything — everything — from the very beginning. Mr. Breton — Francis — will agree that that’s what we should have done — long ago.”
Breton made a movement as though he would rise, then stayed.
“Aren’t we, my dear Rachel,” said the Duchess, “making a great deal of a very small affair?”
But Rachel, speaking only to Roddy, sinking her voice and bending a little down to him, began, “Roddy, one thing you’ve got to know — it’s been from the beginning only myself that was to blame. Francis” — she paused, for an instant, over the name— “Francis, please,” as he moved again from his corner, “let me tell Roddy....”
She went on then more firmly, turning a little round to her grandmother again: “Roddy, I don’t want to defend myself — it’s the very last thing I can try to do — I only want to tell you — all three of you — exactly the truth. You know, Roddy, that when I said I’d marry you it wasn’t a question of love between us at all. We had that out quite straight from the beginning. I was awfully young: I wanted safety and protection and so I took you. You rather wanted me, and grandmother wanted you to marry me, and so there you were too. Then I met my cousin — I’d heard about him since I’d been a baby and he’d heard about me. We had a lot in common, tastes and dislikes — all kinds of things. We met and he stirred in me all those things that you, Roddy, had never touched. I had found marriage wasn’t the freedom I had thought that it would be. I was fond of you, you were fond of me, but there was something always there jogging both of us — just putting us out of patience with one another. Things got worse. You never could explain what you felt. I tried, but the whole trouble wouldn’t go into words somehow.
“Francis and I wrote to one another a little and then one day — as grandmamma has so kindly told you — (here her voice was sharp for a moment) — I went to his rooms.” Rachel stopped. She was looking straight in front of her, her hands clenched. She seemed to dive deep for courage, to remain for an instant struggling, then to rise with it in her hands. Her voice was strong and unfaltering. “We found that we loved one another. We told each other ... it seemed to Francis then that the only thing was for us to go away together. But I refused. Odd though it may seem, Roddy, I cared for you then more than I’d ever cared for you before, and I think it’s gone on since then, getting stronger always. I wouldn’t go and I wouldn’t see Francis again and we weren’t to write again — unless I found that our living together, Roddy — you and I — was hopeless. Then I said I’d go to him.”
Her voice sank and faltered— “There did come a day when I thought that — we couldn’t get on any longer. You know what finally ... Lizzie Rand found out. She knew that I intended to go away with Francis. She fought to prevent it — she was splendid about it, splendid! We quarrelled, and in the middle of it, came your accident.... I wrote afterwards to Francis and told him that it was all over — absolutely — for ever. Since then — only once....” She broke off, recovered: “Since then there’s been nothing — no letter, no meeting — nothing. My whole life now is wrapped up in you, Roddy, and Francis knows that. I’ve told you the whole truth!” She turned from him, fiercely, round to her grandmother. “I don’t know what you told Roddy, what you made him believe — you’ve wanted, always, to harm me with Roddy if you could. At least, now, you can’t tell him more than I’ve done.”
The Duchess stared first at Rachel, then at Roddy. She had behaved from the beginning as though Breton did not exist.
Some of her amiability had left her. Her lips were tightly drawn together as she listened and her rings tapped one against the other.
“This is all rather tiresome,” she said sharply. “Very like you, Rachel, to do these things in public. You get that from your mother. But you’re strangely lacking in humour. It all comes from my own very unfortunate remark the other day. Not like you, Roddy dear, to arrange this kind of thing. Stupid ... distinctly — I’m sure now, however, that you’re satisfied. Rachel’s certainly been very frank — and now perhaps we might leave it.”
It was then that Francis Breton came forward into the middle of the room, his face grey with anger, something suddenly unrestrained and savage in his eyes so that the room was filled with a wind of angry agitation.
He stood in front of his grandmother, but turned his head, sharply, now and again, round to Roddy. So agitated was he that his words came in little gasps, flung out, in little bundles together, and strangely accented as though he were speaking in a language that was strange to him.
The sarcastic smile came back into the old lady’s eyes and she leaned forward on her stick again, looking up into his eyes.
“I didn’t know — I didn’t know — that we were going to meet like this. You didn’t know either or you wouldn’t have come, but I’ve been waiting for years for this. It’s been nice for me, hasn’t it, to sit by whilst you’ve done everything to make things wretched for me, to ruin me, to push me back to where....”
Roddy’s voice interrupted.
“Mr. Breton, I think you forget — —”
Instantly Breton stopped. He forced control upon his voice, he stammered, “I’m ashamed — I oughtn’t to have — But sitting there — not being allowed to speak — you must excuse me — —”
He turned round to Roddy. “You must think me the most complete blackguard. It’s only a climax to everything that’s happened since I came back. I don’t want to defend myself, but it isn’t — it isn’t all so simple as just talking about it makes it look. You’re the kind of man to whom everything’s just black or white — you do it or you don’t — but I — I’ve never found that. I’ve been in things without knowing I’ve been in them. I’ve done things that would have turned out straight for any other fellow, but they’ve always been crooked for me. Something always blinds me just when I need to see straightest. That’s no excuse, but it’s an awful handicap.
“I won’t hide or pretend about it. Why should I? I loved Rachel. We’ve only met so little — really only that once in my rooms — that you can’t grudge us that. We had things — heaps of things — in common long before we knew one another. It wasn’t like any ordinary two people meeting, and I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn’t ever going to belong to me. I don’t think I ever really believed that I’d be the man. I know now that she’s yours altogether and you ought to have her — now that I’ve seen you I know that. And last night when I faced the fact that I’d have to go all my life without her I realized what she told me long ago, that it was much better just to have my idea of her and not to have had my regret about having spoiled anything for her. I’ve no confidence in myself, you see. If I thought I were the kind of man just to carry her off and make her happy for ever and ever, then I suppose I’d have been bolder about her long ago, but I know, even if she didn’t belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I’d spoil her life just as I’ve always spoiled my own.
“I expect this is all very confused. It’s all so difficult and you don’t want long explanations, but I’m only trying to say that you needn’t ever have any fear again that I’m going to step in or try to have any part in her. We’ve got our things together that nobody can take from us. We’ve seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn’t much to give up. But things don’t happen only when you’re together....” He stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a fierce, defiant look at his grandmother — exactly the glance that an angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to punish him — then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow, watching them all.
Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on that afternoon in the park — He had realized it perhaps again in the heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul pierce, through Rachel’s eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one way or another, had at last won her.
Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy’s helplessness, his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his noble resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no mean spirit.
Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see things, what would anger him or surprise him.
But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly, beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her she would leave him for ever.
A flush meanwhile was rising over Roddy’s neck, up into his face, to the very roots of his hair.
“It’s rather beastly,” he said, speaking very slowly and trying to choose his words, “all this talkin’. I might have known, if I’d been able to think about it, what it would be like, but there, I never did. I had a kind of idea that we’d all get it over sort of in five minutes and then have tea, don’t you know, and all go away comfortably. I don’t feel now that you’ve rightly got all that everybody thinks about it. It was very decent of you, Mr. Breton, to say exactly — so plainly, you know — how you felt. But I don’t want to talk a lot — I can’t you know, anyhow.
“It’s only this. I wanted the Duchess to hear me say, amongst ourselves, that I know all about it, that we all know all about it and that there isn’t anything for anyone to talk about because there isn’t anything in it, and if I hear of anyone sayin’ a word they’ve just got to reckon with me. Rachel and I know one another and, Mr. Breton, I hope you’ll go on bein’ a friend of ours and come and see us often. Of course you and Rachel have a lot in common and it’s only natural you should have.
“Now Duchess, you can just tell anyone who’s talkin’ that Mr. Breton is welcome here just as often as he pleases and he’s a friend of mine and my wife’s — and they can jolly well shut their mouths. Thank God, all that’s over.”
II
But he was very swiftly to realize that it was not all over. Sharply, quivering through the air like an arrow from a bow, came the Duchess’s words.
“Good God, Roddy, are you completely insane?”
She was twisted, distorted with anger, she seemed to take her rage and fling it about her so that the chairs, the tables, Roddy’s innocent little sporting sketches and even the case of birds’ eggs were saturated with it.
The gleaming park, the peaceful evening sky, the sharp curve of an apricot-tinted moon, these things were blotted out and the noises of the town deadened by this indignant fury. Rachel had known it in other days, to Breton it evoked long-distant nursery hours, to Roddy it was something utterly new and unsuspected. For the first time in his life he caught a shadow of the terror that had darkened Rachel’s young days.
To the Duchess it was simply that she now clearly discovered that she was the victim of an elaborate plot. The three of them! Oh! she saw it all! and Roddy, Roddy — who had been the one living soul to whom her hard independence had made concession! This came, the definite climax to the year’s accumulations, the final decision flung at her, before she died, by those two — Rachel and Breton — from whom, of all living souls, she could endure it least.
With her rage rose her fighting spirit. She would show them, these young fools, the kind of woman that an earlier and a finer generation than theirs could produce!
They had more there before them than one old woman, sick and ailing, and they should see it.
Her voice shook a little, but she gave no other sign, after that first challenge: her little eyes flamed from the mask of her face like candles behind holes in a screen.
“This is your sense of fun, Roddy, I suppose,” she said. “You always were lacking in that. I’ve told you so before. As you asked me here I suppose you’re ready for my opinion. You shall have it. I’ll only ask you to cast your eye over any friend of ours: see what you would say if this — this idiotic folly committed by someone else had come to your ears. I suppose you’d arranged this, the three of you. Well, you shall know what I think. Your tenderness to Rachel is magnificent — she has obviously reckoned on it, knew that her frankness would serve her well enough. You’ve already been more patient with her than men would have been in my day. I only hope that your patience may not be too severely tried....
“As for my grandson, to whom you have so tenderly entrusted Rachel, your acquaintance with him is quite recent, is it not? I am sure that if you were to enquire of any man at one of your clubs he would give you quite excellent reasons for my grandson’s long unhappy absence from his relations and his country. At any rate you don’t know him as well as I do. I could tell you, if you asked me, that it is a long time now since any decent man or woman has sought his society. Do you suppose that his family have not the best of reasons for trying to forget his existence — an attempt that he makes unpleasantly difficult?
“Have you heard nothing, Roddy? Do you really want a man who has been kicked out of society for the most excellent reasons, who has disgraced his name as no member of his family has ever disgraced it before him, for your wife’s lover? If she must have one....”
Rachel, trembling, had come forward, Roddy had cried out, but quietly, stronger than either of them, Breton had faced her. She had not, throughout the afternoon, looked at him nor spoken one word to him. Now, her anger carrying her beyond all physical control, she was compelled to meet his gaze.
He stood very quietly beside her chair, looking at the three of them. “My grandmother is wrong,” he said, “I am not quite as deserted as she thinks. Just before I came here this afternoon Uncle John called upon me. I had half an hour’s very pleasant talk with him: he told me that, although his mother had not altered her opinion of me, Uncle Vincent and Aunt Adela and himself considered that I had earned” — he smiled a little— “forgiveness. He hoped that I would understand that — while my grandmother was alive — I could not be invited to 104 Portland Place, but that he thought that I would like to know that they had realized my — well, improvement, and that he hoped that we would be friends. I said that I should be delighted.”
The Duchess spoke to him then, her voice shaking so that it was difficult to catch her words.
“John — came — said that — to you?”
“Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day — —”
Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself:
“John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent — —”
They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury had fled: she was a very old woman — and the room was suddenly chilly. Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger.... Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of them — Roddy, Francis and herself — were young and immensely vigorous, with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone’s need of them.
“Oh! I wish we hadn’t! I wish we hadn’t!” she thought.
In that moment’s silence they all might have heard the sound of the soft, sharp click — the click that marked the supreme moment of their relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long developing —
Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the Duchess definitely abandoned her world.
For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their relations the one to the other had been revealed to them.
Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies — This had claimed its moment and had passed....
After the silence the Duchess said, “My family — I no longer....” She stopped, collected, with all her will, her words, then in a low voice said, looking at Breton, “I owe you, I suppose — an apology. I owe that perhaps to you all. My children are wiser in their own generation. I no longer understand — the way things go — all too confused for my poor intelligence.” She pulled herself together as an old ship rights itself after a roller’s stinging blow. “This has lasted long enough.... We’ve all talked — My family are — wiser — it seems.”
But she could not go on. “Please, Roddy,” she said at length, “I think it’s time — if you’d ring.”
“I’m sorry — —” he said and then stopped.
Soon Peters and a footman appeared. She leaned heavily upon them and, staring before her at the door, slowly went out.