The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death
Hugh Walpole
Hugh Walpole
The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary
"And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood."
В В В В Letter to Maria Gisborne
BOOK I
THE DUCHESS
CHAPTER I
FELIX BRUN, DR. CHRISTOPHER, RACHEL BEAMINSTER—THEY ARE SURVEYED BY THE PORTRAIT
I
Felix Brun, perched like a little bird, on the steps of the Rede Art Gallery, gazed up and down Bond Street, with his sharp eyes for someone to whom he might show Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess of Wrexe. The afternoon was warm, the date May of the year 1898, and the occasion was the Young Portrait Painters' first show with Ross's "Duchess" as its principal attraction.
Brun was thrilled with excitement, with emotion, and he must have his audience. There must be somebody to whom he might talk, to whom he might explain exactly why this occasion was of so stirring an importance.
His eyes lighted with satisfaction. Coming towards him was a tall, gaunt man with a bronzed face, loose ill-fitting clothes, a stride that had little of the town about it. This was Arkwright, the explorer, a man who had been lost in African jungles during the last five years, the very creature for Brun's purposes.
Here was someone who, knowing nothing about Art, would listen all the more readily to Brun's pronouncement upon it, a homely simple soul, fitted for the killing of lions and tigers, but pliable as wax in the hands of a master of civilization like Brun. At the same time Arkwright was no fool; a psychologist in his way, he had written two books about the East that had aroused considerable interest.
No fool, Arkwright.... He would be able to appreciate Brun's subtleties and perhaps add some of his own.
He had, however, been away from England for so long a time that anything that Brun had to tell him about the London world would be pleasantly fresh and stimulating.
Brun, round and neat, and a citizen of the world from the crown of his head to the top of his shining toes, tapped Arkwright on his shoulder:
"Hallo! Brun. How are you? It is good to see you! Haven't seen a soul I know for the last ever so long."
"Good—good. Excellent. Come along in here."
"In there? Pictures? What's the use of me looking at pictures?"
"We can talk in here. I'll tell you all the news. Besides, there's something that even you will appreciate."
"Well?" Arkwright laughed good-humouredly and moved towards the door. "What is it?"
"The Duchess," Brun answered him. "Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess of Wrexe. At last," he triumphantly cried, "at last we've got her!"
II
The Duchess had a small corner wall for her own individual possession. The thin glowing May sunlight fell about her and the dull gold of her frame received it and gave it back with a rich solemnity as though it had said, "You have been gay and unrestrained enough with all those crowds, but here, let me tell you, is something that requires a very different attitude."
The Duchess received the colour and the sunlight, but made no response. She sat, leaning forward a little, bending with one of her dry wrinkled hands over a black ebony cane, a high carved chair supporting and surrounding her. She seemed, herself, to be carved there, stone, marble, anything lifeless save for her eyes, the tense clutch of her fingers about the cane, and the dull but brooding gleam that a large jade pendant, the only colour against the black of her dress, flung at the observer. Her mouth was a thin hard line, her nose small but sharp, her colour so white that it seemed to cut into the paper, and the skin drawn so tightly over her bones that a breath, a sigh, might snap it.
Her little body was, one might suppose, shrivelled with age, with the business and pleasure of the world, with the pursuit of some great ambition or prize, with the battle, unceasing and unyielding, over some weakness or softness.
Indomitable, remorseless, unhumorous, proud, the pose of the body was absolutely, one felt, the justest possible.
On either side of the chair were two white and green C