The Arbiter: A Novel Read online

  CHAPTER II

  To be a popular invalid is in itself a career: it blesses those thatcall and those that receive. The visitors who used day by day to go andsee Lady Gore used to congratulate themselves as they stood on herdoorstep on the knowledge that they would find her within, and glad--orso each one individually thought--to see them. She was an attractiveperson, certainly, as she lay on her sofa. Her hair had turned whiteprematurely early, it enhanced the effect of the delicate fadedcolouring and the soft brown eyes. The sweet brightness of her mannerwas mingled with dignity, with the comprehensive sympathy and pliabilityof a woman of the world; an innate distinction of mind and personradiated from her looks. Those who watched the general grace and reposeof her demeanour and surroundings involuntarily felt that there might beadvantages in a condition of life which prevented the mere thought ofbeing hot, untidy, hurried, like some of the ardent ladies who used torush into her room between a committee meeting and a tea-party and tellher breathlessly of their flustered doings. Rachel had inheritedsomething of her mother's dainty charm. She had the same brown eyes anddelicate features, framed by bright brown hair. It was certainlyencouraging to those who looked upon the daughter to see in the motherwhat effect the course of the years was likely to have on such apersonality. There was not much dread in the future when confronted withsuch a picture. But in truth, as far as most of the spectators whofrequented the house were concerned, Rachel's personality had beenmerged in her mother's, and any comparison between the two was perhapsmore likely to be in the direction of wondering whether Rachel in thecourse of years would, as time went on, become so absolutely delightfula human product as Lady Gore. Rachel's own attitude on this score wasentirely consonant with that of others. Her mother was the centre of herlife, the object of her passionate devotion, her guide, her ideal. Itwas when Rachel was seventeen that Lady Gore became helpless anddependent, and the girl suddenly found that their positions were in someways reversed; it was she who had to take care of her mother, toinculcate prudence upon her, to minister incessantly to her daily wants;there was added to the daughter's love the yearning care that a lovingwoman feels for a helpless charge, and there was hardly room foranything else in her life. Rachel, fortunately for herself and forothers, had no startling originality; no burning desire, arrived atwomanhood, to strike out a path for herself. She was unmoved by theconviction which possesses most of her young contemporaries that theobvious road cannot be the one to follow. Lady Gore's perceptions, farmore acute as regarded her daughter than her husband, and rendered morevivid still by the whole concentration of her maternal being in Rachel,had entirely realised, while she wondered at it, the complete lack inher child of the modern ferment that seethes in the female mind of ourdays. But she had finally come to see that if Rachel was entirely happyand contented with her life it was a result to rejoice over rather thanbe discontented with, even though her horizon did not extend much beyondher own home. Besides, it is always well to rejoice over a result wecannot modify. Needless to say that the girl, who blindly accepted hermother's opinion even on indifferent subjects, was, biassed by her ownaffection, more than ready to endow her father with all the qualitiesLady Gore believed him to possess. She had arrived at the age oftwenty-two without realising that there could be for her any claims inthe world that would be paramount to these, anything that could possiblycome before her allegiance to her parents.

  One of the bitterest pangs of Lady Gore's bitter renunciation was themoment when she realised that she could not be the one to guide Rachel'sfirst steps in a wider world than that of her home, that all her plansand theories about the moment when the girl should grow up, when hermother would accompany her, steer her, help her at every step, mustnecessarily be brought to nought. And this mother, alas! had been sofull of plans; she had so anxiously watched other people and theirdaughters, so carefully accumulated from her observation the manywarnings and the few examples which constitute what is called theteaching of experience. But when the time came the lesson had beenlearnt in vain. Rachel's eighteenth and nineteenth years were spent inanxious preoccupations about her mother's health, in solicitous care ofher father and the household, and the girl had glided gently fromchildhood into womanhood with nothing but increased responsibility,instead of more numerous pleasures, to mark the passage. But the resultwas something very attractively unlike the ordinary product of the age.She had had, from the conditions of her life, no very intimate andconfidential girl friends by whose point of view to readjust andpossibly lower her own, and with whom to compare every fleetingmanifestation of thought and feeling. She remained unconsciouslysurrounded by an atmosphere of reticence and reserve, a certain shyaloofness, mingled with a direct simple dignity, that gave to herbearing an ineffable grace and charm. The mothers of more dashingdamsels were wont to say that she was not "effective" in a ballroom. Itwas true that she had nothing particularly accentuated in demeanour orappearance which would at once arrest attention, an inadequateequipment, perhaps, in the opinion of those who hold that it is betterto produce a bad effect than none at all.

  Mrs. Feversham, of Bruton Street, was an old friend of Lady Gore's,whose junior she was by a few years. She had no daughters of her own,and had in consequence an immense amount of undisciplined energy at theservice of those of other people. She was not a lady whose views wereapt to be matured in silence; she was ardently concerned about Rachel'sfuture, and she was constantly imparting new projects to Lady Gore, whoreceived them with smiling equanimity.

  It was at an "At Home" given by Mrs. Feversham one evening early in theseason, when the rooms were full of hot people talking at the top oftheir voices, that the hostess, looking round her with a comprehensiveglance, saw Rachel standing alone. There was, however, in the girl'sdemeanour none of that air of aggressive solitude sometimes assumed bythe neglected. The eye fell upon Rachel with a sense of rest, looking onone who did not wish to go anywhere or to do anything, who was standingwith unconscious grace an entirely contented spectator of what waspassing before her. Mrs. Feversham's one idea, however, as she perceivedher was instantly to suggest that she should do something else, that atany price some one should take her to have some tea, or make her eat orwalk, or do anything, in fact, but stand still. Rachel, however, at themoment she was swooped down upon, was well amused; a smile wasunconsciously playing on her lips as she listened to an absurdconversation going on between a young man and a girl just in front ofher.

  "By George!" said the boy, "it is hot. Let's go and have ices."

  "Ices? Right you are," the girl replied, and attempted to follow hergallant cavalier, who had started off, trying to make for himself a paththrough the serried hot crowd, leaving the lady he was supposed to beconvoying to follow him as near as she might.

  "Hallo!" he said suddenly. "There's Billy Crowther. Do you mind if I goand slap him on the back?"

  "All right, buck up, then, and slap him on the back," replied the fairone. "I'll go on." Thus gracefully encouraged, the youth flung himselfin another direction, and almost overturned his hostess, who was comingtowards Rachel.

  "Sorry," he said, apparently not at all discomposed, and continued hiswild career.

  "Well! the young men of the present day!..." said Mrs. Feversham, as shejoined Rachel; then suddenly remembering that a wholesale condemnationwas not the attitude she wished to inculcate in her present hearer, shewent on: "Not that they are all alike, of course; some of them are--aredifferent," she supplemented luminously. "Now, my child, have you hadanything to eat?"

  "I don't think I want anything, thank you," said Rachel.

  "Oh, nonsense!" said Mrs. Feversham. "You must." And, looking round forthe necessary escort, she saw a new arrival coming up the stairs. "Thevery man!" she said to herself, but fortunately not aloud, as "Mr.Rendel!" was announced. A young man of apparently a little over thirty,with deep-set, far-apart eyes and clear-cut features, came up and tookher outstretched hand with a little air of formal politeness refreshingafter the manifestations she had been deploring.
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br />   "I am so glad to see you," she said cordially. Rendel greeted her with asmile. "Do you know Miss Gore?" Rendel and Rachel bowed.

  "I have met Sir William Gore more than once," he said.

  "She is dying for something to eat," said Mrs. Feversham, to Rachel'sgreat astonishment. "Do take her downstairs, Mr. Rendel." The youngpeople obediently went down together.

  "I am not really dying for something to eat," Rachel said, as soon asthey were out of hearing of their hostess. "In fact, I am not sure thatI want anything."

  "Oh, don't you?" said Rendel.

  "Two hours ago I was still dining, you see."

  "Of course," said Rendel, "so was I." They both laughed. They went onnevertheless to the door of the room from whence the clatter of glassand china was heard.

  "Now, are you sure you won't be 'tempted,' according to the receivedexpression?" said Rendel, as a hot waiter hurried past them with somedirty plates and glasses on a tray.

  "No, I am afraid I am not at all tempted," said Rachel.

  "Well, let us look for a cooler place," said Rendel. What a soothingcompanion this was he had found, who did not want him to fight for anice or a sandwich! They went up again to a little recess on the landingby an open window. The roar of tongues came down to them from thedrawing-room.

  "Just listen to those people," said Rendel. A sort of wild, continuoushowl filled the air, as though bursting from a company of the condemnedimmured in an eternal prison, instead of from a gathering of peaceablecitizens met together for their diversion. "Isn't it dreadful to realisewhat our natural note is like?" he added. "It is hideous."

  "It isn't pretty, certainly," said Rachel, unable to help smiling at hisface of disgust. The roar seemed to grow louder as it went on.

  "It is a pity we can't chirp and twitter like birds," said Rendel.

  "I don't know that that would be very much better," said Rachel. "Haveyou ever been in a room with a canary singing? Think of a room with asmany canaries in it as this."

  "Yes, I daresay--it might have been nearly as bad," Rendel said; "thoughif we were canaries we should be nicer to look at perhaps," and his eyefell on an unprepossessing elderly couple who were descending the stairswith none of the winsomeness of singing birds. "Have you readMaeterlinck's 'Life of the Bees'?"

  "No," Rachel answered simply.

  "I agree with him," Rendel said, "that it would be just as difficult toget any idea of what human beings are about by looking down on them froma height, as it is for us to discover what insects are doing when welook down on them."

  "Yes, imagine looking at that," said Rachel, pointing towards thedrawing-room. "You would see people walking up and down and in and outfor no reason, and jostling each other round and round."

  "Yes," said Rendel. "How aimless it would look! Not more aimless than itis, after all," he added.

  "It amuses me, all the same," said Rachel, rather deprecatingly. "Imean, to come to a party of this kind every now and then; perhapsbecause I don't do it very often."

  "Why, don't you go out every night of your life in the season?" saidRendel; "I thought all young ladies did."

  "I don't," she said. "It isn't quite the same for me as it is for otherpeople--at least, I mean that I have only my father to go out with;" andthen, seeing in his face the interpretation he put on her words, sheadded, "my mother is an invalid, and we do not like to leave her toooften."

  "Ah! but she is alive still," said Rendel, with a tone that sounded asif he understood what the contrary might have meant.

  "Oh yes," said Rachel quickly. "Yes, yes, indeed she is alive," in avoice that told the proportion that fact assumed in existence.

  "My mother died long years ago," said Rendel, in a lower voice. "Not solong, though, that I did not understand." Rachel looked at him with asoft light of pity flooding her face, and drawing the words out of him,he knew not how. "My father married again," he said, "while I was stilla child--while I needed looking after, at least."

  "Oh," said Rachel, "you had a stepmother?"

  "Yes," he said, "I had a stepmother," and his face involuntarily becameharder as he recalled that long stretch of loveless years--the fatherhad never quite understood the shy and sensitive child--during which hehad been neglected, suppressed, lonely, with no one to care that he didwell at school and college, and that later he was getting on in theworld, with no place in the world that was really his home. Then he wenton after a moment: "And now my father is dead, too, so I am pretty muchalone, you see."

  "How terrible it must be!" said Rachel softly. "How extraordinary! Ican't quite imagine what it is like."

  "Well, it is not very pleasant," said Rendel looking up, and againpenetrated by the sweet compassion in Rachel's face. "You can't thinkhow strange it is----" He broke off and got up as Sir William Gore camedownstairs towards them. Sir William, with the true instinct of afather, had chosen this moment to wonder whether Rachel was beingsufficiently amused, and was bearing down upon her and her companionwith an air of cheerful virtue which proclaimed that her conversationwith Rendel was at an end. Sir William's political principles did notpermit him to think very much of Rendel, since he was private secretaryto a man whose policy Sir William cordially detested, Lord Stamfordham,the Foreign Minister, whose acute and wide-reaching sagacity inspiredhis followers with a blind confidence to himself and his methods. LordStamfordham had soon discovered the practical aptitude, the politicalcapacity, the determined, honourable ambition that lay behind FrancisRendel's grave exterior, and had made up his mind, as indeed had others,that the young man had a distinguished future before him.

  "Ah, Rendel, how are you?" said Gore. "What is your Chief going to donext, eh?"

  "I am afraid I can't tell you, Sir William," said Rendel with a halfsmile.

  "Well, the people round him ought to put the brake on," said Gore, "or Idon't know where the country will be."

  "I am afraid it is a brake I am not strong enough to work," said Rendel;"like Archimedes, I have not a lever powerful enough to move theuniverse."

  "H'm!" said Sir William, with a sort of snort. There are fortunatelystill some sounds left in our vocabulary which convey primeval emotionswithout the limitations of words. "Come, Rachel, it is time for us to begoing."

  * * * * *

  Mrs. Feversham's watchful eye had managed to observe what appeared tobe the sufficiently satisfactory sequel to the introduction she hadmade. She was not a woman to let such a seed die for want of plantingand watering. She asked Rendel to dinner to meet the Gores, she talkedto Lady Gore about him, she it was who somehow arranged that he shouldgo to call at Prince's Gate, and he finally grew into a habit of findinghis way there with a frequency that surprised himself. Lady Goresubjugated him entirely by her sweet kindly welcome, and the interestwith which she listened to him, until he found himself to his ownastonishment telling her, as he sat by her sofa, of his hopes and fearsand plans for the future.

  Gradually new possibilities seemed to come into his life, or rather theold possibilities were seen in a new light shed by the womanly sympathywhich up to now he had never known. He came away from each visit withsome fresh spurt of purpose, some new impulse to achievement. Lady Gore,on her side, had been more favourably impressed by Rendel than by any ofthe young men she had seen, until she realised that here at last was apossible husband who might be worthy of Rachel. But with her customarywisdom she tried not to formulate it even to herself: she did notbelieve in these things being helped on otherwise than by opportunityfor intercourse being given. But where Mrs. Feversham was, opportunitywas sure to follow. Lady Gore one morning had an eager letter from herfriend saying, "I know that you and Rachel make it a rule of life thatshe can never go away from home. But you must let her come to me nextThursday for the night. I shall have"--and she underlined thissignificantly without going into more details--"_just the right peopleto meet her_." And for once, as Lady Gore folded up the letter, she toowas seized with an ardour of matchmaking. She had a real affection
forRendel, and the devotion of the young man to herself touched and pleasedher. His probably brilliant future and comfortable means were not theprincipal factors in the situation, but there was no doubt that theyhelped to make everything else easy. So it was that, to Rachel's greatsurprise, the day after the party at Bruton Street, her mother havingtold her without showing her the letter of Mrs. Feversham's invitation,advised her to accept it, and, to the mother's still greater surprise,the daughter, in her turn, after a slight protest, agreed to do so,stipulating, however, that she should not be away more than twenty-fourhours. The accusation that Rachel "gadded" as much as other girls of herage was obviously an unmerited one.