CHAPTER X
LIZZIE AND BRETON
"What of Adam cast out of Eden? (And O the Bower and the hour!) Lo! with care like a shadow shaken He kills the hard earth whence he was taken."
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
I
To the ordinary observer Lizzie Rand was, during that hot July, as shehad ever been.
The servants in 104 Portland Place could detect no change, but then theydid not search for one, having long regarded Miss Rand as a piece ofmachinery, symbolized by that broad shining belt of hers, happilycalculated to fit, precisely, the duties for which it was required.
But Miss Rand herself knew that there was a sharp, accurate, shrewdpiece of machinery named Miss Rand, and a breathing, emotional,uncertain human being called Lizzie. There had always been those two,but since the inadequacy of her mother and sister had been confrontedwith the stern necessity of making two ends meet, Miss Rand had been inconstant demand and Lizzie had only, by her occasional obtrusion, madelife complicated and disturbing.
Miss Rand had told herself that Lizzie was now almost an anachronism,that the emotions in life that aroused her were bad cheap emotions, andthat this was an age that demanded increasingly of women a hardpractical efficiency without sentiments or enthusiasms.
These forcible arguments had for a time kept Lizzie in a darkenedbackground; it was some years since Miss Rand had been disturbed. Butnow in the warm weather of 1898 Lizzie had not only reappeared, but hadleapt, an insistent, shining presence, into urgent life. Miss Randfaced her--what had created her? A little, the weather, the beauty ofthose brazen days--A little, Rachel's coming out into the world, anadventure that had stirred the whole house into a new and sympatheticexcitement--a little, these things. But chiefly, and no pretence norshame could conceal the fact, did this new Lizzie owe her creation tothe appearance of Francis Breton.
Lizzie Rand had had, from her birth, a romantic heart; she had had alsoa prosaic practical exterior, and a mind as hard and clear, ifnecessary, as her own most lucent typewriter.
The romantic heart had, throughout these years, been there, and now thisromantic, scandalous, youthful, engaging unfortunate had called it out.
She was never so warmly attracted as by someone lacking, most obviously,in those qualities with which she herself abounded. That people shouldbe foolish, impetuous, careless, haphazard commended them straight toher keeping. "Poor dears" had their instant claim upon her. Her motherand sister were "poor dears" and she had suffered from them now duringmany years. Francis Breton was most assuredly a "poor dear!"
Here the Duchess a little flung her shadow and confused the mind.Although Lizzie had never seen that splendid figure she was,nevertheless, acutely conscious of her. She was conscious of her throughher own imagination, through her mother, finally through Lady Adela.
Her imagination painted the old lady, the room, the furniture fantastic,strangely coloured, always with dramatic effect. Her picture was neverprecisely defined, but in its very vagueness lay its terrors and itsomens.
Miss Rand, the most practical and collected of young women, could neverpass the Duchess's door without a "creep."
Through her mother the Duchess came to her as the head of society.Society had never troubled Lizzie's visions of Life. She had, in heryears with the Beaminsters, seen it pass before her with all its comedyand pathos, and the figures that had been concerned in that processionhad seemed to her exactly like the figures in any other processionexcept that they were dressed for their especial "subject." But oddlyenough when, through her own observation, this life, seen accurately atfirst hand, amounted only to any other life, seen through the eyes ofher mother, it achieved another size.
She knew that her mother was a foolish woman, that her mother's opinionson life were absurd and untrue, and yet that dim, great figure that theDuchess assumed in her mother's eyes, in some odd way impressed her.
Lastly, and most strikingly of all, came Lady Adela's conception to her.Lady Adela was in terror of her mother; everyone knew it, friends,relations, servants. Lizzie herself saw it in a thousand differentways--saw it when Lady Adela spoke of her, saw it in the way that LadyAdela addressed Dorchester when that grim woman was interviewed by her,saw it when Lady Adela was suddenly summoned to that room upstairs.
Lizzie, during the hours when she was writing from Lady Adela'sdictation or working with her, found her dry, stupid, sometimes kind,never emotional. It was to her, therefore, the most convincing proof ofthe Duchess's power, this emotion, this alarm drawn from so dry a heart.
Now the influence that the Duchess had upon Lizzie was always a confusedone. Persuasion from this source followed lines of reasoning that werefalse and led to some conclusions that were muddled and untrue.
Through such minds as her mother's and Lady Adela's no clear truth couldcome, and yet it was through such minds as these that the Duchess'sinfluence descended upon Lizzie.
It descended now with regard to Francis Breton. It told Lizzie thatBreton had been proved by society to be a scoundrel, that he should beno worthy man's friend, that he belonged to that world, the world ofshadows and past misadventures, that no proper soul might, with honesty,investigate.
This was what the Duchess told to Lizzie and perhaps by so doingincreased her sympathy with the sinner.
II
It must not be supposed that Mrs. Rand had not, at first, been unsettledby scruples.
The fact that Breton was, in the eyes of the Beaminster family, ane'er-do-well who had brought disgrace upon the family name had, for atime, distressed her, but the romantic hope of being herself the agentof his restoration to his grandmother, and the delightful manners of thescoundrel when he appeared, killed her alarm. Mrs. Rand's mind was adark misty place except when the candles of romance were lit; when_they_ flamed, blown by the wind though they might be, there was, aroundthe candlesticks at any rate, a real and even splendid blaze.
One afternoon, towards the end of July, Mrs. Rand meeting Breton ontheir doorstep was moved to ask him whether he would come in and spendthe evening with them, if he had nothing better to do. They had only asimple little meal, and would he please not bother to dress? Breton saidthat he would be delighted.
Mrs. Rand had been, that afternoon, to a romantic comedy in which ladiesand gentlemen with French accents had made love and escaped together andbeen caught together and been married together. Mrs. Rand had gone quitealone into the pit and had returned with tears in her eyes and affectionfor all the world.
So she had asked Mr. Breton to dinner.
After a while, however, she was a little uncertain. Daisy was away inthe country with friends. How would Lizzie then like this unexpectedvisitor? Mrs. Rand was, quite frankly, frightened of Lizzie andcomplained of her a good many times a week to Daisy. Lizzie was forever interfering with innocent pleasures; Lizzie was mean and unromanticand unimaginative; Lizzie was thoroughly tiresome.
The fact that Lizzie worked incessantly for her mother and her sisternever occurred to Mrs. Rand at all.
Lizzie objected to all innocent amusement and she would, in alllikelihood, object now.
However, when Mrs. Rand with a fearful mind said, "Oh, Lizzie dear, I'vehad such a delightful afternoon. I went to _Love and the King_ andit was too charming--you ought to go, really--and Mr. Breton's coming todinner to-night," Lizzie only smiled a little and asked whether therewas food enough. Lizzie was _so_ strange....
Alone in her bedroom Lizzie wondered at her excitement. She looked ather trim, neat figure in the glass, with the hair so gravely brushed,with her collar and her cuffs, with her compact businesslike air: whathad she to do with excitement because a young man was coming to dinner?"It must be because I'm tired--this heat," she said to the mirror. Andthe mirror replied, "You know that you are glad because your sisterDaisy is away."
And to that she had no answer.
When he arrived he was grave and seemed sad and tired, she thought.Dinner was a serious affair and Mrs. Rand, who disliked
people when theyrefused to respond to her moods, wished, at first, that she had notasked him, and felt sure that there was much truth in what people saidabout his wickedness.
Then, when dinner was nearly over, he brightened up and told stories andwas entertaining. Mrs. Rand noticed that he drank much claret, but thiswas, after all, a compliment to her housekeeping. By the end of dinnerMrs. Rand almost loved him and wished that Daisy had been here toentertain him.
Of course it must be dull for a man with only a plain cut-and-dried girllike Lizzie for company.
Lizzie, meanwhile, knew that he was waiting for an opportunity ofspeech. She had read an appeal in his eyes when he had first entered theroom, and now she sat there, curiously, ironically amused at her ownagitation. "Lizzie Rand," she said to herself, "you're only, after all,the kind of fool that you despise other people for being. What are youafter in this _galere_?"
Nevertheless even now, in retrospect, how arid and sterile seemed allthose other active useful days. One moment's little grain of sentimentand a life's hard work goes for nothing in comparison.
After dinner, when the lamp burnt brightly and the furniture seemed tobe less anxious to fill every possible space and the windows were openedinto the square with its stars and grey shadows, the room seemed, of asudden, comfortable, and Mrs. Rand, sitting in an arm-chair, with anovel on her lap and spectacles on her nose, was almost cosy. She hadleft, before going to her matinee, _Just a Heroine_ at one of its mostthrilling crises, and Lizzie knew that the talk with Breton depended forits very existence on the relative strength of the play and the novel.If _Love and the King_ were the more powerful, then would Mrs. Rand makea discursive third. But no, for a moment there was a pause, then,indecisively, Mrs. Rand took up her book. For a while she talked toBreton over its pages, then the light of excitement stole into her eyes,her soul was netted by the snarer, Breton was forgotten as though he hadnever been.
Their chairs were by the open window and a very little breeze came andplayed around them. In the square there was that sense of some imminentoccurrence, a breathless suggestion of suspense, that a hot eveningsometimes carries with it. The stars blazed in a purple sky and a moonwas full rounded, a plate of gold; beneath such splendour the square wascool and dim.
"You mustn't think mother rude," Lizzie said with a little smile. "Ifshe once gets deep into a book nothing can tear her from it."
He said something, but she could see that he was not thinking of Mrs.Rand. It was always in the evening, she thought, when uncertain coloursand shadows filled the air, that he looked his best. He touched, now, ashe had touched on that day of their first meeting, a note of somethingfine and strange--someone, very young and perhaps very foolish andimpetuous, but someone armoured in courage and set apart for some greatpurpose.
He sat back in his chair, flinging, every now and again, little restlessglances beyond the window, pulling sometimes at his beard, answering herabsent-mindedly. Then suddenly he began, fiercely, looking away fromher--
"Miss Rand, I've got an apology to make to you----"
His voice was so low that she could only catch the words by leaningforward--"To me?"
"Yes--I've been wanting to speak all these weeks. It seemed right enoughbefore, but since I've known you I've felt ashamed of it--as though I'ddone something wrong."
"What is it, Mr. Breton?" Her clear grave eyes encouraged him.
"Why--I came to this house, took my rooms, simply because I knew thatyou were here----"
"That I was here?"
"Yes. I was looking about in this part of the world for rooms. I wantedto be--near Portland Place, you know. I came here and old Mrs. Tweedtalked a lot and then, after a time, I said something--about mygrandmother. And then she told me that someone who lived here didsecretarial work for my aunt----"
He stopped abruptly.
"Well?" said Lizzie, laughing. "All this is not very terrible."
"Then, you see, I determined to stay. I was full of absurd ideas justat the time, thought that I was going to take some great revenge--I wasquite melodramatic. And so I thought that I'd use you, get to know youand then, through you--do something or another."
Lizzie eyed him with merriment. "Upon my word, what were you going tomake me do? Carry bombs into your aunt's bedroom or set fire to thePortland Place house? Tell me, I should like to know----"
"Ah," he said, "it's all very well for you to laugh. It's very kind ofyou to take it that way, but lots of women wouldn't have liked it.They'd have thought it another of the things I'm always accused ofdoing, I suppose."
"_No_," said Lizzie gravely, "it was all perfectly natural. Iunderstand. I should have done just the same kind of thing, I expect, ifI'd been in your place."
The fierceness of his voice showed her that he had been brooding forweeks, and that life was, just now, harder than he could endure.
"You can trust me a great deal farther than that, Mr. Breton," she said.
"The other night," he began, "you said that I might talk to you. I'vebeen pretty lonely lately--and it would help me if----"
"Anything you like," she assured him.
"Besides, there's more than that," he went on. "You've heard--of courseyou must have heard all kinds of things against me. You're in theenemy's camp and I don't suppose they measure their words. I don't knowwhy you've been so decent to me as you have after what you must haveheard----"
"Don't worry your head about that," she said. "We all have our enemies."
"No, but now that we're friends I'd like you to know my side of it all.I don't want to make myself out a hero or blacken all the other people,but there _is_ something to be said for me--there _is_--there _is_----"
He muttered these last words with the deepest intensity. He seemed tofling them through the window into the square, as though he werestanding out there, on his defence, before all those listening lightedwindows.
"I've been a fool--a thousand times. I've done silly things often andonce or twice bad, rotten things, but all these others--these virtuouspeople who are so ready to judge me, have they been any better?"
"My father was a scoundrel, although I loved him and would love him nowif he came back--but he was just as bad as they make 'em and there's nouse in denying it. He'd tell you so himself if he were here. He broke mypoor mother's heart and killed her. I don't remember her--I was no ageat all when she died--but I've got an old picture of her, kept it alwayswith me; she must have been rather like my cousin Rachel, who was herethe other day----"
_Lizzie_ watched his face. There had left him now all that hint ofinsincerity, of exaggeration that she had noticed when he had talkedbefore. She knew that he was telling her now absolutely the truth as hesaw it.
"She died and after that I was taken about Europe with my father. Welived in almost every capital in Europe--Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna,everywhere. Sometimes we were rich, sometimes poor. Sometimes we knewthe very best people, sometimes the very worst. Sometimes I'd go toschool for a little, then I'd suddenly be taken away. My father wassplendid to me then; the best-looking man you ever saw, tall, broad,carried himself magnificently--the finest man in Europe. I only knew,bit by bit, the things that he used to do. It was cards most of thetime, and he taught me to play, of course, as he taught me to doeverything else.
"When I was eighteen my eyes were opened--I tried to leave him--But Iloved him and I verily believe that I was the only human being in theworld that he cared for. Anyway, he died of fever and generaldissipation when I had just come of age, and I came home to Englandwith a little money and great hopes of putting myself right with theworld."
As he had talked to her he had gathered confidence; her silence was, insome way to him, reassuring and comforting. Some people have the gift oflistening without words so warmly, with such eloquence that theyreassure and console as no speech could ever do. This was Lizzie's gift,and Breton, depending, more than most human beings, upon the protectionof his fellows, gathered courage.
"My father had always taught me to hate my gran
dmother. He painted herto me as I have since found her--remorseless, eaten up with pride,cruel. I came home to England, meaning to lead a new life, to bedecent--as I'd always wanted to be.
"Well, they wouldn't have me, not one of them. They pretended to atfirst; and my Uncle John at least was sincere, I think, and was kind fora time, but was afraid of my grandmother as they all were.Christopher--you know him of course--was a real friend to me. He'd stoodup for my father before and he stood up for me now. But what was theuse? I was wild when I saw that my grandmother was against me and wasgoing to do her best to ruin me. I just didn't care then--what was thegood of it all? Other people encouraged me. The set in London that hatedmy people would have done something with me, but I wouldn't be held byanyone.
"I'm not excusing myself," he said quietly, looking away from the windowand suddenly taking his judgment from her eyes.
"I know you're not," she said, smiling back to him.
"Cards finished me. I'd always loved gambling--I love it still--myfather had given me a good education in it. There were plenty of fellowsin town to take one on and--Oh! it's all such an old story now, notworth digging up. But there was a house and a table and a young fool wholost all he possessed and--well, did for himself. It had all beensquare as far as I was concerned, but somebody had to be a scapegoat andtwo or three of us were named. It was hushed up for the sake of theyoung fellow's people, but everyone knew. Of course they all said, asfar as I was concerned, 'Like father like son,' and I think I mindedthat more than anything----"
"Oh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Lizzie said.
"I give you my word of honour that it had all been straight as far as Iwas concerned--gambling just as anyone might. That's what made me somad, to think of the rest of them--all so virtuous and good--and thengoing off to Monte Carlo and losing or winning their little bit--just asI'd done.
"I tried to brazen it out for a bit, but it was no good. Christopherstill stuck by me--otherwise it was--well, the Under Ten, youknow----"
"The Under Ten?"
"Yes--all the men and women who've done something--once--done one of thethings that you mustn't do. It mayn't have been very bad, not half sobad as the things--the cruel, mean things--that most people do every dayof their lives, but, once it's there, you're down, you're under. There'sa regular colony of them here in London; their life's amusing. Therethey are, hanging on here, keeping up some pretence of gaiety, some kindof decency, waiting, hoping that the day will come when they'll be takenback again, when everything will be forgotten. They pretend, bravelyenough, not to mind their snubs, not to notice the kind people, oncetheir friends, who cut them now. Every now and again they make a springlike fish to the top of the water, see the sun, hope that the light andair are to be theirs again, after all--and then back they are pushed,down into the dark, their element now, they are told. Oh! there's comedythere, Miss Rand, if you care to look for it."
She said nothing; the fierce bitterness in his voice had made him seemolder suddenly, as though, in this portion of his journey, be had spentmany, many years.
"I must cut it short--you'll have had enough of this. I couldn't standit. I left London and went abroad. After that, what didn't I do? I waseverywhere, I did everything. Sometimes I was straight, sometimes Iwasn't. I was always bitter, wild with fury when I thought of that oldwoman--of her complacency, sitting there and striking down all the poordevils that had been less fortunate than she. All those years abroad Inourished that anger and, at last, when I thought that I'd been abroadlong enough, that people would have forgotten, perhaps, and forgiven, Icame back. I came back to be revenged on my grandmother and tore-establish myself. I'd got some money, enough for a little annuity, andI was careful now--I wasn't going to make any mistakes this time." Helaughed bitterly. "One doesn't learn much with age. What a fool I was!I've got the reputation I had before, whether I'm good or bad. It wouldall be hopeless--utterly hopeless--if it weren't for one thing----"
She looked up, and as she glanced at him, could feel the furious beatingof her heart.
"I'd go back at once--I've almost gone back already--not abroad, thatnever again for long--but back to my friends, the unfortunates--" Helaughed. "They're anxious to have me. They'll welcome me. I can have mycards and the rest then, with no one to object or to lecture--and I'llbe done for quite nicely, completely done for."
Then he pulled himself together, squared his shoulders. "But one thingkeeps me," he said. "Something's happened in the last few weeks--I'vemet somebody----"
"Yes," she said almost in a whisper.
"Somebody who's made it worth while for me to fight on a bit." She couldfeel his agitation: his voice, although he tried very hard to controlit, was shaking. Then he laughed, raised his voice and caught and heldher eyes with his.
"But there, Miss Rand. I've talked a fearful lot, only I wanted to tellyou--I had to tell you. And now--if you feel--that you'd rather notknow me, you've only got to say so."
She laughed a little unsteadily.
"Thank you for taking me into your confidence. You shall never regretit. I'm glad you're going to hold on, and, after all, we're all doingthat more or less."
"It's done me a world of good talking like this. It's what I've beenwanting for months."
She quieted her emotion. Looking out into the stars she knew that shebelieved every word that he had said. She thought that she valued Truthabove every other quality; the directness that there was in Truth; itshonesty and clarity. He might not always be honest with her, but shewould never forget that he had, on this night, at least, spoken nofalsehood.
Life--her work, her surroundings, Portland Place, her home--this wasfull of falsehood and deceit and muddle.
Here, this evening, at last, was honesty.
They said no more, but sat there silently and listened to the echo ofdance music from some house.
Mrs. Rand, whom their conversation had lured into oblivion of them, wasroused now by their silence.
She looked up. "It's quite splendid," she said, "you must read it,Lizzie. The part about the Riviera is lovely." Then, slowly remembering,"Really, Mr. Breton, I'm afraid you must consider me very rude."
He came towards her, assuring her that his evening had been delightful.
Lizzie was happy, happier than she could ever remember to have beenbefore. She felt her cheeks burn. She leant out of the window to coolthem. She flung back, over her shoulder:
"By the way, Mr. Breton--a piece of gossip. Your cousin is to marry SirRoderick Seddon!"
She could not see him. He said nothing. Mrs. Rand said:
"Really, Lizzie! How interesting! How long's that been announced?"
"Oh! it isn't announced. I don't believe that he's even asked her, butall the house knows it. It's settled. I believe she likes him immenselyand, of course, the Duchess is devoted to him."
Anything would do to talk about. What did it matter? Only that sheshould keep on talking so that they should not see how happy shewas--how happy!
He said good night, rather sharply; his voice was constrained as thoughhe too were keeping in his emotion.
After he had gone Mrs. Rand said, "I don't like him, my dear. I can'thelp it--you may laugh at me--but my impressions are always right. Hehardly spoke to me all the evening."
"Why, mother, you were reading. How could he?"
"That's all very well, but I don't like him. And I believe he's in lovewith his cousin. He went quite white when you spoke about theengagement."
"Mother--how absurd you are. He's only seen her once----"
"Well, my dear, that's a book you ought to read; really, I haven'tenjoyed anything so much for weeks. I simply----"
Up in her bedroom Lizzie flung wide her window and laughed at the goldenmoon. Then she lay, for hours, staring at the pale light that it flungupon her ceiling.
Oh! what a fool she was! But she was happy, happy, happy. And he neededsomeone to look after him--he did, indeed!