Hugh Walpole

“ Then she saw the great bedroom upstairs, the high white bed, the little shrivelled figure.
Had Rachel pointed this contrast? Had Breton? Was it something that Roddy had discovered already, something that had made his courage so easy for him? What, what was going to be done with her if she were no longer afraid? Why, on that terror, on that trembling service, were built the foundations of all her life. How could she face that picture that the world had of a splendid, historic, dominating figure if she herself saw only a sick, miserable old woman tumbling to pieces, passing to decay? ”

“ What, after all, was she, Rachel? Had they no conception of the sawdust that they all were beside this real, swiftly moving, death-dealing War that was suddenly amongst them?
"What is it?" said Roddy.
"Grandmother—grandmother—my dear, delightful, wonderful grandmother. To think of her sitting all alone up there in her bedroom and all those people moving about downstairs—all so conscious of her. And yet she does nothing—nothing." Rachel, in her excitement, struck her knee with her hand. "She isn't even clever, really—She's never in all her life been known to say a witty thing—never. ”

“ It was such a night of stars as Rachel had never seen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky was sheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairy points drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with lines of fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory of them—God walked in all gardens that night.
At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together, then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above the garden, Rachel and Roddy were alone. ”

“ His mind passed from Brun's generalizations to the little bundle of people whom he knew—Rachel, Francis, Roddy, Lizzie Rand. To all of them the Tiger's moment had come; and out of it all, out of the stress and suffering and struggle, Rachel's child was to be born—instead of the Duchess the new generation. Instead of this old house, the hooded furniture, the anger at all freedom of thought, the jealousy of all enterprise, the slander and the malice, an age of a universal Brotherhood, of unselfishness, restraint, charity, tolerance ... ”

“ She, Lizzie Rand, always so fond of her self-discipline and restraint, found control now slipping from her. Before she had met Breton her duties, the skilful manipulation and arrangement of detail, her work and her place as a worker, these had supplied her needs. Now all those things were dust and ashes; high and lofty above them shone that bright fire whose warmth and colour she had, for an instant, felt and seen. What was life going to be, through all the years to come, if she were never to recapture her tranquillity? ”

“ Lizzie, meanwhile, knew that he was waiting for an opportunity of speech. She had read an appeal in his eyes when he had first entered the room, and now she sat there, curiously, ironically amused at her own agitation. "Lizzie Rand," she said to herself, "you're only, after all, the kind of fool that you despise other people for being. What are you after in this galère?"
Nevertheless even now, in retrospect, how arid and sterile seemed all those other active useful days. One moment's little grain of sentiment and a life's hard work goes for nothing in comparison. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For an instant the restless movement seemed to be crystallized—the hansoms, the bicycles, the omnibuses, the carts were all held, then at a sign the flow and interflow had begun once more; life was hurled in and hurled out again, stirred and tossed and turned, as though some giant cook were up in the heavens busy over a giant pudding.
And the light faded and the lamps came out, and Miss Rand, walking through two streets that were as dark and secret as though they were spying on the Circus and were going to give all its secrets away very shortly, passed into Saxton Square. ”

“ The fact that Breton was, in the eyes of the Beaminster family, a ne'er-do-well who had brought disgrace upon the family name had, for a time, distressed her, but the romantic hope of being herself the agent of his restoration to his grandmother, and the delightful manners of the scoundrel when he appeared, killed her alarm. Mrs. Rand's mind was a dark misty place except when the candles of romance were lit; when they flamed, blown by the wind though they might be, there was, around the candlesticks at any rate, a real and even splendid blaze. ”

“ Rachel said; "it won't, I think, be like that. There's so much more between us than you can understand. There's all our early life—not that we were together, but we seem to have it all in common, to have known it all together. We're unlike our family—all the Beaminsters—we're together in that—we are together in everything."
But Lizzie's voice went on, so coldly, with such assurance that, with every word, the flame of Rachel's anger climbed a little higher, grew stronger and steadier. ”

“ Jacob was nearer to a human being than any animal that she had ever known. He had attached himself to Miss Rand and she had decided, after watching him, that he knew more about the situation in the house than anyone else. To catch him, as he watched, with his grave brown eyes, Roddy or Rachel as they spoke or moved was to have no kind of doubt as to his wisdom, his deep philosophy, his penetration into motives.
He liked Miss Rand, but she knew well that his feeling for her had nothing of the passionate urgency with which he regarded Roddy or Rachel. ”

“ You're wrong, Christopher, badly wrong. I shall prove it before you will."
"Well," he said, smiling back at her, "we'll see."
"Oh, yes, you're a sentimentalist of the very worst—I don't know that I like you the less for it. I'm an old pagan and it's served me all my life. Ah! there's the thunder!"
She sat up in bed, her cap pushed back, her skinny arms stretched out in a kind of ecstasy. "There! That's it! That's the kind of thing I like! There's your God for you, Christopher."
A flash of lightning flung the room into unreality. ”

“ And then, beyond it all, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel! He had her now—she should be under his hand, she should be his as she had never been since the first week of their marriage.
"No more nonsense, by God!" he said triumphantly to himself—"no more nonsense."
He leaned on the stone gate and looked out over the fields—The gryphons regarded him benevolently.
He was conscious, as he stood there, of the Duchess—what was the old lady doing? He'd like to see her. He felt more in sympathy with her than he had been for a long time past. "She's right after all. You've got to stand up and run people. ”

“ On the few occasions that he had seen Rachel he had seen her grave, shy, a little awkward, most reserved. Now she met him as though she had known him for years, glowing, almost pretty, so burning were her eyes. At supper she laughed, called across the room to May, agreed with everything that everybody said, and with it all was younger than any girl that he had ever known. The girls who were Roddy's friends talked about life at times more boldly than he would have talked with his men friends, and were, at all events, for ever hinting at the things that they knew. ”

“ Rand resigned herself to an evening made hideous by a vision of a world crowded with theatres through whose portals gay audiences were pouring—
"Of course it's selfish of her," she said again and again to Daisy—"Selfish is the only word."
Meanwhile the cab was, for Lizzie, a chariot of happiness. He looked splendid to-night, more romantic than he had ever been, with his pointed beard, his armless sleeve buttoned across on to his coat, his top-hat shining, his clothes fitting so perfectly. Poor though he was, he always stood up as smart as anyone, the Duke or Lord John were no smarter. ”

“ Francis Breton, standing at his window high up in the Saxton Square house, watched the first flakes, as they came, lingering, from the heavy brooding sky; as he watched a great tide of unhappiness and restlessness and discontent swept over him. His was a temperament that could be raised to heaven and dashed to hell in a second of time; life never showed him its true colours and his sensitive suspicion to the signs and omens of the gods gave him radiant confidence and utter despair when only a patient quiescence had been intended. ”

“ I'm not the kind of woman, am I, ever to care for a man, or to have a man care for me?—To have any feeling or desire or affection. But it is not so strange as it may seem—I love him every bit as well as you do—I've cared more patiently perhaps, more unselfishly even. But there it is ... it gives me the right."
Nothing more surprising than that on this special circumstance Rachel had never reckoned. Feeling it now, blazing there before her, the way that she was to deal with it was beyond her experience. In an instant Lizzie Rand was, to her, a new creature. ”

“ It filled the cage and the air beyond the cage, it was of earth and of heaven, and of all things good and beautiful in this world and the next.
For the second time to-day her early years came back to her; the voice had in it all those hours when someone's tenderness had made Life worth living. "Life is immortal," it cried. "And I am immortal, for I am Love and 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 no alarm, only utter reassurance. ”

“ But there was greater pain at Breton's heart than thought of Rachel brought him. To every man comes in due time the instant of revelation; it had flashed before Breton now.
He saw that his relationship with Rachel was at an end, utterly—However he might delude himself that, in his soul, he knew. There had been a moment when they had met and the moment had passed. But he saw more than this. He saw that he was a man to whom life had always been a succession of moments—moments flashing, stinging, flying, gone—he, always, helpless to grasp and hold. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The ugly man-servant brought in tea and then disappeared. Breton moved about, waited upon her, then sat down closer to her, leaning forward and looking into her eyes.
It was part of his temperament that he should take her coming to him as an instant acknowledgment of the complete fulfilment of his wishes. He always saw life as the very rosiest of his dreams until it woke him to reality. He was ruled completely by the mood of the moment, and his one emotion now was that Rachel was divinely intended for him alone of all human beings—
But he could not wait.... ”

“ She could see nothing but Roddy, and no service, no sacrifice, was too stern or too difficult. Meanwhile subtly, almost unconsciously, she was influenced by Lizzie Rand. It was not strange to her that Lizzie should have changed so swiftly from hatred to friendship and affection. Rachel was passionate enough herself to understand that a woman will go, instantly, to the person who needs her most, even though she has hated that same person five minutes before. No, the thing that was wonderful to her was that Lizzie Rand should combine such feeling with such discipline. ”

“ Christopher's life had not been useless and he knew it. The reality of it had never been in doubt and death—the haphazard surprise of it and the pathos and melodrama and sometimes drab monotony of it—had been his companion for many years.
Christopher, although he had been a hard worker from his childhood, had always taken life lightly. He loved the gifts of this world—food and amusement and exercise and pleasant company. He loved, also, certain people whose lives were of immense concern to him. ”

“ These gryphons had been there since long ago and he liked the friendliness of their faces, the strength of their crouching bodies and the way that they would look out so patiently, over a great expanse of fields and hedges, until their gaze rested on the white chalk hollows in the rising hills away behind Lewes.
Roddy, standing with the Downs so immediately behind him and this green spread of land in front of him, was always conscious of happiness. Here he was at home. He knew those fields, the streams that ran through them, the farmers, the labourers, the horses and dogs that lived upon them. ”

“ He saw those hard lines that he knew of old strike into Rachel's face. He shrank back himself, afraid that he had, by one ruthless sentence, lost all the happy intimacy that had returned to them.
She had risen and walked to the window. "Dear Uncle John," she said, "I know you'd like us to be friends, bless you. But you may as well give that idea up, once and for ever. Grandmother and I—the old and the new generation, you know. There's never been anything but war and never will be. Besides, she's never forgiven me for marrying Roddy, although she arranged it all." ”

“ You say that your friend is in danger—what of mine? You have dared to attack someone who is more to me than you and all the rest of the world put together. Someone whom I care for as I have never cared for my own sons. It was bold of you, Dr. Christopher, and I shall not forget it."
He took it without flinching. "Very well," he said. "But my word to the end is the same. If you marry Seddon to your granddaughter you do your own sense of justice wrong."
At that the last vestige of restraint left her. Leaning forward in her chair she poured her words upon him in a torrent of anger. ”

“ Christopher and Breton did not speak until they reached Oxford Circus. Here everything, flower-women, omnibuses, grey buildings, grimy men and women—was drowned in purple shadow. It might be only a moment's beauty, but now beneath the evening star, frosted silver and alone in a blue heaven, sound advanced and receded with the quiet rhythm of water over sand. For an instant a black figure of an omnibus stood against the blue and held all the swell, the glow, the stir at a fixed point—then life was once more distributed. ”

“ Then he moved up into the hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side.
"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm and damp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that she doesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only you didn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his if there had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are—lying here all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good to yourself or anyone else." ”

“ She knew that the pursuit of Truth was to her, and to every rebel against the Beaminsters, the restive Tiger. In marrying Roddy she had been untrue to herself. In writing to Breton she would be true to herself but untrue to Roddy. She was fond of Roddy although she did not love him, nor did he, really, love her. The anxiety on both their parts to avoid hurting one another was proof enough of that, she thought.
There then was the whole situation. As she felt Jacob's warm head against her foot a great agitation of loneliness and dismay and helplessness swept over her. ”

“ Rachel sat down and, for a little while, Mrs. Rand held the field. She told them all that this visit of Miss Beaminster was the most wonderful and unexpected thing, that it was like a novel, and that she would never forget it. "But I always do say, Miss Beaminster, that it's the unexpected that happens. Life's stranger than fiction is my opinion, and I don't care who contradicts me I shall still hold it." ”

“ Rachel had only seen her in the Portland Place rooms, with the china dragons, the gold ornaments, the red lacquer bed, the blazing wall-paper. It had seemed then that she must have those things around her, that she needed the colour and extravagance to support her flaming passion for life, so curbed and shackled by disease.
Their absence made her older, feebler, more human, but also grander and more impressive. Rachel had always feared her, but despised herself for her fear ”