CHAPTER V
LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--I
"So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making; Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter In sleep a king; but waking no such matter."
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
I
During this year Lizzie Rand was glad that she had so much to do. As shehad never until now given the romance in her an opportunity for freedom,so had she never before realized the amazing invasion upon life thatthat same romance might threaten.
Indeed by the early summer months of 1899 "threaten" was no longer anhonest definition, for, now this same Romance had invaded, hadconquered, had confronted the very citadels of Lizzie's heart, citadelsnever surveyed nor challenged at any time before.
Nevertheless, even now, Portland Place noticed no change in Miss Rand.Norris, Mrs. Newton, Dorchester would still, had they been challenged,have protested that Miss Rand had no conception of the softer, moresentimental side of life; she was there for discipline and order--Norrishad been known to be led a fearful dance by young women "time andagain"--Mrs. Newton had passionately adored the late Mr. Newton until asudden chill had carried him to St. Agnes, Bare Street Cemetery, whitherMrs. Newton, every Sunday, did still make her stately pilgrimage--evenDorchester had once, it was said, paid grim attentions to a soldier whohad, unhappily, found in some fluffy young woman a more hopeful comfort.
Here, above and below stairs, passion had marked its victims ... MissRand only could have felt no touch of it.
She sometimes wondered at herself that she could so calmly anddispassionately separate the one life from the other. Never, within thatneat stern room at Portland Place, was there a shudder or suddeninvading thrill at some flashing recollection or imagination. To herwork every nerve, every energy was given. Now, indeed, more than everbefore in her experience of it did 104 Portland Place demand herpresence. Increasingly throughout these months of 1899 was the solemnheavy air unsettled.
Lizzie, to whom all impression came with sharpening acuteness, had seenin the appearance, success and marriage of Rachel Beaminster thedisturbing elements at work--"Things will never be the same hereagain"--she had said to herself.
It was, of course, through Lady Adela that Lizzie studied the house. TheDuchess she never saw, but it was Lady Adela's attitude, before andafter those interviews with her mother, that told their story. LadyAdela had never until now appeared an interesting figure to Lizzie, butnow forth, from the dry sterile husk of her, a life, pathetic,struggling against heritages of dumb years, tried to come.
Lady Adela was unhappy; the very foundations of her existence threatenedto dismay her, at any moment, by their insecurity. Within her theBeaminster tradition urged, before Lizzie Rand at any rate, themaintenance of dignity and indifference, but the novelty to her of allthis disturbance brought with it a hapless inability to deal with it,and again and again little exclamations, little surprised wonders atwhat the world could be coming to, little confused clutchings atanything that offered stability, showed Lizzie that trouble was on everyside of her. Then through the house rumour began to twist its way--HerGrace was not so well--"The Old Lady was breaking up" (this, in theclose security of shuttered rooms below stairs).
No one could say whence these whispers gathered. Dorchester would admitnothing. Her own position in the servants' hall was that of a loftyuncompromising female Jove, and she knew well enough that her supremacyover Norris and Mrs. Newton depended on her mistress's supremacy overthe world in general. Not for her then to admit ill health.
"Indeed no--Her Grace has been better of late than for years past."
But Norris and Mrs. Newton were not to be taken in. They were trulyproud now of their alliance with the Beaminster family royal, but,supposing Her Grace were to leave this world to rule in a better one("Here to-day, gone to-morrow 'igh or low," as Norris remarked), why,then "Le Roi est mort--Vive le Roi," and the Crown might, in themeanwhile, have passed elsewhere.
"You mark my words," Mrs. Newton said to Norris, "'er Grace will go, oldVictorier will go, and where'll the Beaminster crowd be then, I ask you?Times are movin' too quick. I wouldn't give a toss for your Birth andDebrett and all in another twenty years."
To Lizzie also there came other signs of the times. She noticed that nowthe relations and friends of the family gathered more frequentlytogether than ever before within her memory. The Duke, Lord Richard werecontinually in the house, and the adherents, Lady Carloes, Lord Crewner,the Massiters and all the others, called, dined, came to tea.
Throughout it all there was no expression of any change in the familypolicy. To Lizzie Lady Adela admitted nothing, only there were occasionswhen, almost against her will, she asked for advice, was uncertain alittle, vague a little, even appealing a little.
Here Lizzie was exactly right, assisted and yet admitted no need forassistance. Her tact was perfect.
Lizzie had also Lady Seddon to besiege her attention.
To her considerable surprise Rachel had written to her three timesduring this year. On each occasion there had been some definite reasonfor writing, but behind the reason there had been some impliedfriendliness and Lizzie had, in her turn, sent answers that were morethan businesslike replies.
Lizzie had seen Rachel several times in January and at each meeting herimpression of Rachel's unhappiness had grown.
"There've been three of you," Lizzie said to herself. "There was thegirl in the schoolroom, and a fierce awkward difficult creature she was.There was the girl in her first season, and a delightful, joyful,radiant creature she was. And now--well, there's a girl married, fierceagain, suffering again--above all, afraid of herself."
In May Rachel asked Lizzie to go and see her, and Lizzie went. Thatmeeting was in no way personal: Rachel seemed less friendly than she hadbeen on that day, a year ago, when she had been to Lizzie's, but behindall that outward stiffness the appeal was there.
"She wants me to help her," thought Lizzie. "She's too proud now to askme: the time will come though."
All this was connected, she knew, with the fortunes of the house.Through Lord John, Lord Richard, the Duke, Lady Adela, Dorchester,Norris, Mrs. Newton the spirit of uneasiness was abroad.
The Duchess, during these months, more than ever before, was present inevery room and passage of the house--
The shadow of some coming event hovered.
II
Over Lizzie's other life, also, the Duchess hovered. Were any disasterto snatch Her Grace from the domination of this world into acomparatively humble position in the next, Lizzie did not doubt that theBeaminsters would once more take Francis Breton into their ranks. It wasthe Duchess who held the gate against him.
The romantic side of her did not hold complete dominion. She knew thatwere Francis Breton once more accepted by the family, his distance fromher would be greatly increased. Were he, on the other hand, to marryher whilst he was yet an exile, then had she no fear of afterconsequences. She could hold her own with anyone.
She had now very little doubt that he loved her. She had seen, duringthe last year, the flame of some passion burning in his eyes,increasingly he depended upon her and found opportunities for being withher. There was no other woman whom he saw, of that she was convinced.
Often he had been about to tell her some secret and then had refrained;she thought that he was waiting until he could be quite assured that sheloved him, and she had fancied that since that day in last December whenthe first snow had fallen and they had had that little talk together hehad been much happier, as though he were now convinced of her love forhim.
The spring passed and still his confession did not come. With the earlysummer he seemed to be once more unhappy and unsettled, and throughoutMay she scarcely saw him.
Then in July he asked her whether she would dine with him and go to thetheatre. He had two dress circle tickets for _Mrs. Lemiter's Decision_.
Something told her that on this evening he would speak to her.
&n
bsp; As she dressed her fingers trembled so that buttons and hooks and laceswere of terrible difficulty. In the glass she saw her cheeks flaming;she wished she were taller, not so sturdy. The lines of her face, shethought, were all so set as though they knew well for what purpose theywere there. "Business _we're_ here for ..." they seemed to say.
For once she envied her sister's fair rounded fluffiness. Her blackevening dress was fashionable, almost smart, but just a little stern:she fastened some dark red carnations into her waist and hung around herthroat a chain of tiny pearls, her only piece of jewellery. Her hair wasrestrained and disciplined--she could not extract from it any waves orsoft indulgencies.
At the end, staring at her reflection, she let herself go.
"He's seen me all this time as I am. How silly to try to alter things!"Her face glowed, the pearls and carnations seemed to smile encouragementto her.
What possibilities had this new, this wonderful Lizzie Rand! What a lifemight be hers! What a happy, fortunate woman she was!
God, how grateful she was!
Mrs. Rand saw them off in a four-wheeler with an air of reluctance. Italways hurt her that anyone should go to the theatre without her.
Of course Lizzie was old enough by now to look after herself, but at thesame time this Mr. Breton was no safe character and it would have beenaltogether "nicer" if Lizzie had suggested her company--
Lizzie had not suggested it; with a shiver Mrs. Rand resigned herself toan evening made hideous by a vision of a world crowded with theatresthrough whose portals gay audiences were pouring--
"Of course it's selfish of her," she said again and again toDaisy--"Selfish is the only word."
Meanwhile the cab was, for Lizzie, a chariot of happiness. He lookedsplendid to-night, more romantic than he had ever been, with his pointedbeard, his armless sleeve buttoned across on to his coat, his top-hatshining, his clothes fitting so perfectly. Poor though he was, he alwaysstood up as smart as anyone, the Duke or Lord John were no smarter.
Did he realize, she wondered, that the edge of his hand touched the silkof her dress? Did he notice the absurd way that the pearls jumped up anddown on her throat? Did he feel the little shiver of happiness that ranthrough her body and out at her toes and fingers?
The chariot was dark, but beyond it there were piled lighted buildings;before these ran streets that flung dark figures, here one by one, nowin throngs, against the glittering colour.
She could not believe that anyone there by the lumbering cab could showhappiness that could equal hers.
Had she been coldly surveying, from the careful distance of an outsideobserver, these emotions in some other woman she would have demanded herreasons for such expectation of happiness, but it was her veryinexperience of any other such affair in her life that allowed her nowto rest assured. As he touched her hand to help her into the restaurantshe was sure, by the beating of her heart, that she could not bedeceived.
The restaurant was in Pall Mall, and as she went in she noticed thestring of faithful people waiting round the corner of Her Majesty'sTheatre; she was glad that there were so many others enjoying themselvesto-night.
They sat at a little round table on a balcony and below them other happypeople were laughing and talking--Flowers, lights, women not sobeautiful that they disheartened one, and, from the open windows, awhir, a rattle, a shout, a cry, a bell, a hurdy-gurdy, a laugh--Oh! theworld was turning to-night!
There was a beautiful dinner, but she was far too happy to eat much. Heseemed to understand. They both talked a little, but it was, itappeared, implied between them that their real conversation should bepostponed.
She was, to herself, an utterly new Lizzie Rand to-night, inarticulate,uncertain, confused.
"What's this the papers say about South Africa?"
"Yes, it looks as though there were going to be trouble there. But youcan trust Milner--a strong man----"
"Yes, I suppose so--but it seems a pity that this Conference that theyhoped so much from has all fallen through, doesn't it? They do seemobstinate people."
"Well, they are. I was out in Pretoria in '95--obstinate as mules. Butthere won't be much trouble--a troop or two of our fellows have only gotto show their faces----"
"Yes, of course. Isn't that a pretty woman down there? There to theright--with the black hair and the diamonds--tall--"
But tall women with black hair and Boers in South Africa were merelypoints to catch hold, and, for an instant, the thrill of the contact andthe anticipation and the glorious vision of the wonderful future.
Him all this time she closely observed. He was not entirely at his ease,when she had been in public with him before she had noticed it, hisglance at every new-comer, his conscious summoning of control lest itshould be someone whom he had once known, someone who might now,perhaps, not know him.
It made him in her eyes all the younger, all the more happily demandingher protection; how terribly she loved him she had never, she thought,realized until this moment.
The Haymarket Theatre, where _Mrs. Lemiter's Decision_ had been given toa grateful world for nearly two hundred nights, was next door.
In a moment they were there and the band was playing and the lights wereup, and then the band was not playing and the lights were down, and shewas instantly conscious of the places where his body touched hers and ofhis hand lying white upon his knee.
She, Lizzie Rand, most perfect of private secretaries, most sedate andcomposed of women, found it all that her self-control could secure thatshe should not then and there have touched that hand with her own.
It was not really a good play. There was a lady, Mrs. Lemiter, who hadonce done what she should not have done. There were a number of ladiesand gentlemen, placed round her by the author, in order that she should,for the benefit of as many audiences as possible, confess what she _had_done.
During the first and second acts Mrs. Lemiter made little dashes towardsescape and the author (naturally omniscient) always placed someone infront of her just in time and there were cries of "Not this way, my goodwoman." At the end of the third act, Mrs. Lemiter, thoroughly bored andexasperated, turned on them all and, for a good twenty minutes, toldthem what she thought of them.
During the fourth act they all assured her that they liked her very muchand that, as it was now eleven o'clock and she'd lost her temper sosuccessfully that the house would certainly be filled for many months tocome, they'd all better have tea or dinner, whilst a young couple, whohad throughout the play loved one another and quarrelled, made it upagain.
When the play was at an end Lizzie did not know what it had been about.She took his hand and when he was about to hail a cab stopped him.
"Let's walk," she said, "it's such a lovely night."
He eagerly agreed and they started.
III
She knew that her moment had come; he knew too--she could tell thatbecause all the way up the Haymarket he said nothing.
Piccadilly Circus was a screaming confusion. A music-hall invited you tocome and hear "Harry and Clare, drawing-room entertainers." Lights--redand green and gold--flashed and advised drinks and hair-oil and tobacco.Ladies, highly coloured and a little dishevelled; stared haughtily butinquisitively about them, boys shouted newspapers and dived under horsesand appeared, miraculously delivered from the wheels of omnibuses.
It was a rushing, whirling confusion and through it his arm led her,happier in his secure guard than in anything else under heaven.
Regent Street was quiet and softly coloured above the maelstrom intowhich it flowed. He suddenly began:
"I've got something I want to tell you--something I've wanted to tellyou for a long time. You must have seen----"
Her voice coming to her as though it were a stranger's, said, "Yes." Atthe same time, looking about her, almost unconsciously, she registeredher memory of the place and the hour--the shelving street, rising withits lamps reflected, before them, a bank of dark cloud that had suddenlyappeared and hung, sinister against the night sky, behind
the whitehouses, a slip of a silver moon surveying this same cloud with anxietybecause it knew that soon its darkness would engulf it.
"I've wanted to tell you," he began again, "this long time. It's neededcourage, and things during this last year have rather taken my courageaway from me."
"You needn't be afraid," she said with a little laugh. "You ought toknow by this time that you can tell me anything, Mr. Breton."
"Yes, I do know," he said earnestly. "Of course I know. What you've beento me all this last year--I simply can't think how I'd have kept up ifit hadn't been for you."
"Oh, please," she said.
"No, but it's true. Even with you it's been a bit of a fight."
He paused. She saw that the black cloud had already swallowed up themoon and that a few raindrops were beginning to fall.
He went on: "You must have seen that all this time something's beenhelping me. I've never spoken to you, but you've known----"
The moment had come. Her heart had surely stopped its beat and she wasglad, in her happiness, of the rain that was now falling more swiftly.
"I don't know--" he stammered a little. "It's so difficult. It's come tothis, that I must speak to somebody and you're the only person, the onlyperson. But even with one's best friends--one knows them soslightly--after all, perhaps, you'll think it very wrong----"
At that word it was as though a great hammer had, of a sudden, hit herheart and slain it. The street, shining with the rain, rose ever solittle and bent towards her.
"Wrong?" she said, looking up at him.
"Yes. I don't know about your standards--you've been always so kind tome and put up with my faults and so I've been encouraged----"
Her relief should have awaked the gods of Olympus with its triumph.
"I've meant everything I've ever said----"
"Yes, I'm sure you have and that's why I think you'll understand. As Isay, I've got to tell someone or I'll burst. It's just this--it's mycousin Rachel--Lady Seddon. Ever since we first met in your room she'sbeen my whole world. Nothing else has mattered. It's she that's kept meall these months from going under. She's my life, my whole existence nowand in the world to come, if there is one. Oh! Thank God!" he cried."I've told someone at last. If you don't approve I can't help it. I knowyou'll keep my secret and, after all, it's nothing very terrible. I'mcontent to go on like this, just seeing her sometimes, writing to hersometimes. Now you know, Miss Rand, what's been my secret all this time.I've felt it's been between us and that's why I had to tell you. We'llbe twice the friends that we were now that I've told you. And I must, I_must_ have someone to talk to about her sometimes. It's been killingme, getting along without it."
Now that he had begun words poured from him. He did not know that it wasraining; he saw only Rachel with her white face and dark hair.
Lizzie pulled her wrap about her; she was very cold and the rain wascoming fast.
He was suddenly conscious of this.
"I say, what a brute I am! It's pouring!" He called a passing hansom andthey climbed into it.
He was aware that she had said nothing.
"There!" he said, "you wish I hadn't told you. I know you do. You'reshocked."
"No," she said, struggling to prevent her teeth from chattering.
He felt her shiver. "Why! you're shaking with cold! We oughtn't to havewalked, but I did so want to speak to you about this. We must talk aboutit another time. But, I say, you aren't really horrified about it, areyou?"
"No," she said again. "Another time though--There must be thunder. Thisstorm makes my head ache."
She could say no more. The rest of the drive was in silence. In the hallshe thanked him for her delightful evening.
She looked through the drawing-room door and wished her mother andsister good night, but did not stay to discuss incidents.
"Well," said Mrs. Rand, who had a fine list of questions ready about theplay--"There's selfishness!"
Lizzie locked her door, undressed and lay down.
Like a sword jagging through and through her brain and piercing fromthere down to her heart stabbed the refrain:
"Oh! I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!"
So, wide-eyed, she lay throughout the night.