Chapter VI: All the Beaminsters

"We must expect change," returned Mrs. Chick.

"Of weather?" asked Miss Tox in her simplicity.

"Of everything," returned Mrs. Chick. "Of course we must. It's
a world of change. Anyone would surprise me very much,
Lucretia, and would greatly alter my opinion of their
understanding, if they attempted to contradict or evade what is
so perfectly evident. Change!" exclaimed Mrs. Chick, with
severe philosophy--"Why, my gracious me, what is there that
does _not_ change! Even the silkworm, who I am sure might be
supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes
into all sorts of unexpected things continually."

_Dombey and Son._

I

At four o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11th, in this year 1899 war between England and South Africa was declared.

At that same hour on that same afternoon an afternoon party was given by Lady Adela Beaminster at 104 Portland Place, and all the more important believers in the Beaminster religion were present.

The Long Drawing-room had the happy property of extending to accommodate its company and now, shadowy as its corners always were, it yielded the impression still of size and space, its mirrors reflecting its dark green walls that receded from the figures that thronged it.

The Duchess (now Ross's portrait of her) hung above the Adams fireplace and a little globe of light shone, on this dark October day, up into that sharp and wizened face and lit those bending fingers and flung forward the dull green jade and the dark black dress.

Many people were present. The Duke, Lord John, Lord Richard of course--also, of course, Lady Carloes, the Massiters, Lord Crewner, Monty Carfax, Brun, Maurice Garden the novelist, and his wife--also a fine collection of ladies and gentlemen, important in politics, in the graver camps of society--also a certain number who belonged by party to those whom Brun had once called the Aristocrats, the Chichesters, the Medleys, the Darrants. Old Lady Darrant was there looking like a cook, and Fred Chichester and his kind and freckled features, and Mrs. Medley who had married Judge Medley's only son.

Of the Democrats--of the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks, not one to be seen.

The men and women who stood about in the room seemed strangely, oddly, of one family. No human being present was without his or her self-consciousness, but it was a self-consciousness that had about it nothing vulgar or strident. No voice in that room was raised, the very laughter implied, "Here we are, in the very Court of our Temple; we may then relax a little. For a time, at any rate, we know who we all are."

This security was implied on every hand. It was: "Young Rorke's going out--he's the son of Alice Branches--he married old Truddits' daughter," or--

"No, I don't know him personally, but Dick Barnett has seen him once or twice and says he's a very decent feller," or--

"Well, I should go carefully, if I were you. Neither the Massiters nor the Crawfords know her and, in fact, I can't find anyone who does."

Had a stranger penetrated into the fastnesses of the Chichesters or the Medleys he would have been overwhelmed with courtesy and politeness and, unless he had full credentials, would have been utterly excluded at the end of it. Had he boldly invaded the Denisons he would, unless he could prove his contribution to the entertainment of the day, have been told frankly that he was not wanted.

Had he passed the doors of No. 104 and had no proof of his Beaminster faith upon him, Norris would have exchanged with him a quiet word or two and he would have found himself in the bright spaces of Portland Place.

Rachel and Roddy had come to the party. Rachel sat on a high chair and looked stiff and pale; Lady Darrant, bunched up in an arm-chair, was beside her. Lady Darrant's emotions were divided between the welfare of the church in her parish in Wiltshire and the welfare of her only son, a boy aged twenty who, supposed to be studying for the Diplomatic Service, was really interested in race meetings and polo. Lady Darrant had, like most of the Aristocrats, a tranquil mind. Sorrow, tragedies, perplexities might come and go, the plain surface stability was in no way disturbed. She would have liked to possess more money that she might bestow it upon the church, and she would have preferred that her son should place foreign languages above horses, but, since these things were not so, God knew best and the world might have been much worse: none of her friends were ever agitated, outwardly at any rate. Life was calm, sure, proceeding from a definite commencement to a definite conclusion and--God knew best. Rumours came to her of atheists and chorus girls and American millionaires, but she was neither alarmed nor dismayed.

At a Beaminster entertainment she felt that she was among strangers. Her account of such an affair given afterwards to friends implied that this world into which she had glanced was not her world. Lady Adela frightened her and the mere suggestion of the Duchess, whom she had never seen, threatened more fiercely her tranquillity than any other event or person.

Now, every minute or so, she flung little agitated glances at the portrait. At the back of her mind, this afternoon, was the reflection that there was going to be a war and that quite certainly her boy, Tony, would insist on helping his country.

She was proud that he should insist, but, had she not been quite so confident of God's care for her, would have been very near to most real agitation.

She looked at Rachel timidly and wondered whether that strange, fierce, pale girl would be sympathetic. She had heard of Rachel and her marriage, and she knew that that rather stout healthy-looking young man standing and talking to Lord John Beaminster was the husband.

He looked kinder than she did, Lady Darrant thought.

"It's terrible about this horrid war, isn't it?" she said at last.

Rachel, watching the room, was absorbed by her own thoughts; she scarcely noticed the little woman beside her.

She saw Uncle John, his white hair and happy smile and large rather shapeless body, his way of laughing with his head flung back, the look of him when he was thinking, his face precisely that of a puzzled pig--simply to see him there across the room brought back to her a flood of memories.

She knew that she had avoided him lately and she knew, too, that he was unhappy about her. He was unhappy, poor Uncle John, about a number of things--always behind his laughter and cheerful greetings there was the little restless distress as though Life were offering him, just now, more than he could control.

Rachel looked and then turned her eyes away.

"Yes," she said to Lady Darrant, "I hope it won't be very much. They say that a week or two will see the end of it."

Truly, for herself, this afternoon was almost too difficult for her. She had received, that morning, a letter from Francis Breton asking her to go to tea with him in his rooms, one day within the following week.

She had never been to his room; she had not met him once during the whole year.

She had known, during all these last twelve months, that meeting him had nothing at all to do with the especial claim that they had upon one another. That claim had existed since that day of their first coming face to face and nothing now could ever alter it.

But the next time that they met must be, for both of them, a definite landmark. She might either decide, now, once and for all, never to see him again, or grasp, quite definitely, the possible result of her going to him.

The writing of this letter brought, at last, upon her the climax that she had been avoiding during the last year.

Sitting there in the Beaminster camp it was difficult to act without prejudice. With the exception of Uncle John and Roddy she hated them all.

After all if she were to refuse to see Francis Breton did it solve the question? Did it help her--and that was the great need of her present life--to love Roddy any better?

And if she went to his rooms and saw him, would not the truth emerge from that meeting and the miserable doubts and temptations that had shadowed her since her marriage be cleared away for ever?

She liked Roddy and did not love him--nothing could alter that.

Breton and she belonged to a world that was hostile to this world that she was now in--nothing could alter that.

Yes, she would go and see Breton. She got up, smiled at Lady Darrant and went across the room to talk to Uncle John.

On this afternoon she had a great overpowering longing for someone to love her, to care for her, to pity her, to take her into their arms and whisper comfort to her. It was so long--oh! so long, since Dr. Chris and Uncle John had done that.

And yet--the irony of it--there was Roddy eager to do it all: and from him, the fates had decreed that it should mean nothing to her.

"Why can't he touch me? Why can't he give me what I want? Is it my fault? Whose fault is it?"

And when she came to Uncle John she was almost afraid to look at him lest he should see the unhappiness in her eyes.

But, in spite of her unhappiness, she could be satirically observant. Her grandmother, up there on the wall, controlled, like the moon, this tide of human beings. They flowed forward, they retreated. About them, around them, behind and in front of them hovered this War....

Rachel knew that it was the Beaminster doctrine that anything that occurred to the nation was to be attributed, in the main, to Beaminster principles. She could tell at once that they had seized upon this war as an example of Beaminster government. Had diplomacy prevented it, behold the triumph of Beaminster diplomacy; now, as it had not been prevented, a swift and total triumph would assert the genius of Beaminster militancy.

"A week out there ought to be enough.... It's tiresome, of course, but they'll soon have had enough of it...."

Even Rachel, looking up at the portrait, might, not too fantastically, imagine that this war presented the last great manifestation of power on the part of that old woman.

Everyone in the room, perhaps, felt the same.

II

Many eyes were upon her as she moved across to Lord John. This girl, with the foreign colour and bearing, having, apparently, so little of the Beaminster about her and making so quickly so conventional a marriage ("One hadn't expected her to care about a man like Seddon"), stirred their curiosity.

Monty Carfax, licensed transmitter of public opinion, reported her unpopular. "Met her one week-end at the Massiters'--that very time when Seddon proposed. Didn't like her and, really, can't find anyone who does. Conceited, farouche. It's my opinion Roddy Seddon finds her difficult." "Yes, but she's interesting," someone would reply, "unusual. Dissatisfied-looking--not at all happy, I should say."

Lady Adela, stiff, awkward but important, in an ugly grey dress found Lord Crewner the only helpful person in the room. He seemed to understand the way that worries accumulated about one and yet refused to be defined.... He stayed near her throughout the afternoon. She saw Rachel moving across to her brother and the sight of her stirred all her discomfort.

"Why need she look as though she hated everyone?" she thought.

Rachel came at length to Uncle John and found him talking to Maurice Garden. That large and prosperous gentleman hastily proclaimed his delight in meeting Rachel again, but she had very little to say to him.

He left them, secretly determined that he would never speak to the girl again if he could help it.

Uncle John regarded her with an air of supplicating nervousness.

"Come along, my dear," he said. "We haven't had a talk for weeks. Let's find a corner somewhere----"

They found a corner and then were both of them uncomfortable. The girl whom Uncle John had known and loved had had her tempers and intolerances, but she had also had her wonderful spontaneous affections and tendernesses.

Now she sat there looking straight before her and replying only in monosyllables to his questions.

She was saying to herself: "Shall I go? Shall I go?"

At last he said timidly:

"You'll see mother before you leave?"

"Yes," Rachel said.

"I'm afraid she's not very well."

"Not very well?" Rachel looked up at him sharply, Lord John stared away from her. No one had ever said that publicly before, Lord John himself wondered at his words when he had spoken them.

"Of course she doesn't admit it," he said hurriedly. "No one _says_ anything about it--even Christopher. I oughtn't perhaps to have said anything myself--but I thought----" He broke off. Rachel knew that he meant that she should be kind and considerate on this visit.

Before she could say anything the Duke came up and joined them.

It always amused Rachel to see her two uncles together. The Duke was a little dried-up wasp of a man, absolutely selfish, with a satirical tongue and a self-conceit that nothing could pierce. He wore high white collars, over which his brown sharp face searched for compliments. He walked on his toes, his hands were most wonderfully manicured and his trousers were so stiff and rigid over his thin little legs that they looked like iron. The one soft spot in him was a strangely tender affection for his sister Adela which was in no way returned; for her, and for her alone, he would forget his selfishness. Richard and John he despised.

"Well, John," he said. "Well, Rachel?"

"Well, Uncle Vincent," she said. The Duke was afraid of Rachel because her tongue was as sharp as his, but he respected her for that.

"Going up to see mother?"

"Yes," said Rachel. Should she go? Should she go?

Suddenly, arising, as it seemed, out of that crowd of moving figures and coming and standing there in front of her, was her answer.

Yes, she would go. All these months of indetermination should be ended. She should know, once and for all, what this Francis Breton meant to her, what that other life of hers meant to her, and so, in opposition, what Roddy meant to her. She would, as Christopher would have put it, grapple with her Tiger....

Instantly, the relief, the glad, happy relief showed her how wretched life had been.

"What about this war, Uncle Vincent?" she said.

"Well--hem--well--no need to worry--_I_ assure you--no need to worry!"

"It seems a pity," said Lord John, still looking furtively at Rachel and wishing that he could carry her off into some other corner and just ask her whether she were really happy or no.

"Why, John," said the Duke, cackling. "You'll have to go out, 'pon my word, you will--fight 'em, by Jove--Ha! ha! You'd make a fine soldier, old boy."

Rachel got up, hating Uncle Vincent very much. She put her hand on Uncle John's fat arm.

"You may go, Uncle Vincent," she said. "We all give you leave--Uncle John we love too much: if it's a question of bravery he'd be quite certainly the first of this family." She gave his arm a squeeze.

Uncle Vincent looked at her, smiling--

"Well," he said. "None of us would dream of going ... we're all much too comfortable."

"I'll see you before I go, uncle dear," she whispered to Lord John. Then she moved away.

Slowly making her path through the room she left it and climbed the great stone staircase.

III

Outside her grandmother's door she paused; so she had always paused, and now, as she waited there, all the procession of other days when she had stood there came before her. Conditions might be changed, but her agitation was the same. Never until she died would she open that door without wondering, in spite of common sense, whether she might not be caught by some disaster before she closed it again.

She went in and found her grandmother sitting back in her stiff chair and looking at some patterns of bright silks that lay on a little table beside her.

A great fire was burning and the room seemed to Rachel intolerably hot; she noticed at once that what Uncle John had said was true. Before she had heard Rachel's entrance the Duchess looked an old, tired woman. Her head was drooping a little over the blue and purple silks; she seemed half asleep.

But at the sound of the door she was alert; when she saw that it was her granddaughter who stood there, tall and stately, her large black hat shadowing her face, she seemed in a moment to be transformed with energy and life--her head went up, her eyes flashed, her hands stiffened on her lap.

"May I come in for a moment, grandmother?" Rachel said.

By the door she had wondered--how could she be afraid of this old sick woman? Now as she crossed over to the fire her sternest self-command was summoned to control her alarm. She was frightened by nothing but this--here it was indeed as though there were some spell that seized her.

"Certainly, my dear--come in." The Duchess gave a last look at the silks and then turned to her granddaughter. "I'm afraid you'll find it very hot--I must have a fire, you know."

She had a trick of drawing in her lower lip as she spoke, so that her words hissed a little over her teeth. She did not do this with everybody and Rachel believed that it was only because she had noticed that Rachel as a little girl had been frightened of it that she did it now.

Rachel sat down opposite her and the heat of the fire and a scent of something that had violets and mignonette in it--a scent that was always in the room--stifled her so that her head began to swim and the rings on the Duchess's hand to hypnotize her.

"There's a great party going on downstairs," she said.

"Yes. I know. John came up for a moment and told me about it--and how are you?"

"Very well, thank you, grandmamma. Roddy and I have been ever so sociable lately, given several dinner-parties and one musical thing."

"You're not looking very well. Roddy here?"

"Yes."

"Hope he'll come and see me before he goes. Hasn't been to see me much lately."

Their eyes met. Rachel held her ground and then, beaten as though by a physical blow, lowered her gaze.

"Oh! hasn't he? He's been here a lot, I thought. He's been very busy over some horses that he's had to go up and down to Seddon about."

"H'm. Well--I dare say he'll remember me again one day--so we're in for a war?"

"Yes. They don't seem to think it very serious though--Uncle Richard says----"

"Your Uncle Richard knows nothing about it--nothing. However, I don't think anyone need be alarmed."

There was in this last sentence a ring in the Duchess's voice that flung her words out for the nation to grasp at. "No need, my good people, for you to worry--_I_ have this in hand."

"Well, I'm very glad," said Rachel. "It's such a long while since anything has happened that it seems quite odd for everyone to have something to talk about except dinner-parties and scandal----"

The old woman looked across at her and then very slowly a smile rose, stiffened between her old dried lips and stayed there--

"What would you say, my dear, if Roddy thought it his duty to go and defend his country?"

There was, suddenly, the sharp ring in her voice that Rachel knew so well.

"I know," Rachel said quietly, "that Roddy would do his duty, and of course I would want him to do that."

The Duchess, with her eyes still upon her granddaughter's face, said--"I've heard a good deal about a young friend of yours lately."

"Who is that, grandmamma?" Rachel said, and, in spite of herself her hand trembled a little against her dress.

"Nita Raseley."

Rachel caught her breath.

"I gather that you and she haven't seen so much of one another lately."

"Oh! I think we have. We never were great friends, you know."

"Did she enjoy her time at Seddon? A clever little thing. I shouldn't drop her, Rachel, if I were you."

"She seemed to enjoy Seddon, grandmamma. I must be going, I'm afraid, with the patient Roddy waiting for me. Shall I tell him to come up?"

The old hand struck the arm of the chair and the rings flashed.

"No, thank you, my dear. If he can't come of his own accord, I'd prefer that he had no prompting. There was a time when it was otherwise."

Rachel got up. Their eyes met again, and their hatred for one another was so settled, so historic, so traditional an affair, that their glance now was almost friendly.

Then Rachel bent down very slowly and kissed her grandmother's cheek. How much, she wondered, did she know of the Nita affair? Nita's spite would, assuredly, have found a happy ground in which to plant its seed. Oh! how she loathed this thick clouded atmosphere, this deceit, this deceit! It seemed that, at every turn since her marriage, she had been dragged into an atmosphere of disguise and subterfuge and double-dealing.

Well, she was soon to be done with it. At the thought of what her grandmother would say did she know of her friendship with Breton her heart beat triumphantly. There at any rate was a weapon!

"Well, good-bye, my dear. Come and see me again soon."

"Yes, grandmamma--good-bye."

IV

In the carriage with Roddy she suddenly laughed.

All those people, moving so solemnly with such self-importance about that room. The Duke, Lord Richard, Aunt Adela ... Norris, the footman....

Over them all that fierce commanding portrait. And upstairs that old, sick woman....

And beyond, away from that house, a war that that old woman and those self-important people saw only as a means of increasing their own self-importance.

It was all as a box of tin soldiers and a parcel of stiff china-faced dolls--

What were they all about? What did they think they were all doing? 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. She doesn't really know much about politics.... She just sits there and acts--That's what it's always been, acting the whole time. If it's effective to be old and feeble she _is_ old and feeble--if it's effective to be fantastic she _is_ fantastic--She just sits still and takes people in. Why, if she'd wanted she could have been going out all these thirty years, I believe!"

"You're always unfair to her, Rachel," said Roddy. "You know she has ghastly pain often and often."

"Yes. I'll give her that," said Rachel. "She's brave--brave as anything. And after all," she added, "she couldn't affect me more if she were the wittiest woman in the world----"

Roddy yawned--"Dam dull party," he said.