Читать книгу The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death - Hugh Walpole - Страница 18

On the afternoon that followed the ball Lady Adela took Rachel to tea with Lord Richard.

It was a superb May afternoon; white clouds, bolster-shaped, were piled in the heavens and made, so rounded were they, the blue sky seem an infinite distance away. It was a day of sparkling dazzling gaiety—the air seemed electric with the happiness of the world, and, as they drove down to Grosvenor Street, Rachel felt that the little breeze that just touched the hats and coats of the people on the omnibuses was created simply by the joy of the beautiful weather.

As they moved slowly down Bond Street Rachel looked at the world and thought of last night. She looked at the men with their shining hats and shining boots; at the messenger boys and the young women with parcels and the young women without; at the old men who thought themselves young and the young men who thought themselves old; at the fish shops and the picture galleries, at the jewellers' and the book shops, at the place where they taught you Swedish exercises and the place where there was a palmist with a Japanese name, and it was all splendid and magnificent and simply carried on the glories of the night before. Before the turning into Grosvenor Street there was a great crush of carriages and a long pause. In the carriage next to Rachel there was a very stout, very richly coloured lady with a strong scent and a pug dog. A little farther away there were two young gentlemen in a smart little carriage, and their hats were so large and their expression so haughty and the top of their canes so golden that it seemed absurd that they should have to wait for anybody, and near them was a small boy on a little butcher's cart and near him an omnibus with a red-faced driver and any number of interested ladies, and all these incongruities seemed only to add to the haphazard happiness of this shining afternoon.

Rachel had many things to consider as she sat there. Aunt Adela did not interfere with her thoughts, because she never talked when she was in a carriage, but always sat up and looked wearily at the people about her. She had never very much to say, but the open air made her feel stupid.

Rachel was aware that last night had altered her point of view for all time. She was aware, as she sat there in sunshine, of a new world. By one glance at Aunt Adela was this new world made apparent. Aunt Adela had hitherto been important—Aunt Adela was now unimportant.

Had this afternoon been wet and gloomy, then Rachel might have doubted that passionate discovery of the world that she now felt was hers, but here with this blazing sun and sky the note was sustained. Surely never again would Rachel be afraid of her grandmother, surely never again would she be afraid of anyone. Holding herself very proudly in a dress that was a soft primrose colour and in a hat that was dark and shady, Rachel looked round about her on the world.

"There's Lady Massiter!" Lady Adela smiled lightly and bowed a very little—"Monty Carfax is with her."

Rachel thought of Lord Massiter, and wondered again at last night's dinner—"How could I have been like that? How could I?"

There passed them a very handsome carriage with a little dark handsome lady who looked happily round about her, all alone in her magnificence. Rachel did not know whether her aunt had seen or no: here was the Beaminster arch-enemy, Mrs. Bronson, a young American widow, incredibly rich, incredibly fascinating, incredibly bold. Mrs. Bronson had been in London only a year, had snapped her jewelled fingers at the Beaminsters and everything that they stood for, had laughed at snubs and threats, was intending, so it was said, to have London at her feet in a season or two.

Rachel considered her. She was like some jewelled bird of paradise. She was—one must admit it—better suited to this glorious day than was Aunt Adela.

Why need Aunt Adela refuse to be glad because the sun was shining? Why could not Aunt Adela have said something pleasant about last night's dance? Why must this absurd outward dignity be so carefully maintained? Why when one was looking attractive in a primrose dress could one's aunt not say so?

That reminded her of Roddy Seddon.

She liked him. He might be a real friend like Dr. Christopher. The thought of him made her, as she sat there in the sun, feel doubly certain that the world was a comfortable, reassuring place and that that vision of cold spaces and dark forests that had been so often with her was now to be banished like an evil dream never to return.

At the end of Grosvenor Street the trees were so green that they might have been painted, and here they were at Uncle Richard's house.