CHAPTER X
LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--II
I
The world, during all these months, had seemed to Lizzie Rand a verysilent place. Before that July night it had been loud with incident,coloured with possibilities, strange and varied and thrilling. Now shewas only conscious of the duties that must be fulfilled between daybreakand darkness; she was unconscious of all life and movement, only she wasaware of the demands on her deliberate activity--these demands sheobeyed.
Slowly, as the dreary autumn dragged its days past her, she accustomedherself to forestall the horrid moments that would leap from some hiddendarkness upon her. There was the moment when a something said: "Fancycaring for someone who had never asked nor shown any sign...." Anothermoment when something said: "Remember how here you stood, with yourheart beating, waiting for him to come--There you caught some light inhis eyes and fancied it a sign...."
Burning shame was in those moments did she indulge them--a realization,too, of the bare grey desolation of a world without movement or vision.She could not see the people about her, her mother, her sister, LadyAdela, Dr. Christopher (always kind to her), other friends--they werenot there for her at all.
Only two things were there--that she must cling, at all possible costs,to her pride and that she hated Rachel. Her pride had been called to herdefence before, but to hate anyone was new to her. She had never hatedany human being and now the restlessness that this new emotion broughtconfused her.
Night after night stretched ironically before her, banishing sleep. Allher life she had slept from the moment that her head was upon thepillow; now, at that instant, her brain sprang to fire, thought afterthought, memory after memory, passed in dancing procession before her.
She saw him as little as possible, she supposed that in time she wouldnot care, would be indifferent to him; she hoped so.
Meanwhile she went out when he came in; saw his kind distress becausehe thought that she was not well, and shuddered at it.
Then Lady Adela told her that Rachel had asked whether she were free forChristmas.
She received a letter:
"DEAR MISS RAND,
I wonder whether by any chance you would care to come to us here for three weeks at Christmas time? I should be so grateful if you would come and help me a little with some tiresome social things here. May I add that I have for a long time wanted to know you better than the London rush ever gives time for? My aunt says that you have been overworking lately, she thinks. If you come here you shall have all the rest and quiet possible.
Yours sincerely,
RACHEL SEDDON."
A funny little letter--stiff and then suddenly impulsive and friendly.
Of course she would go--she had never doubted that. Here at last wassome food for the burning restlessness that was always at herbreast--Through these months she had longed for some step that wouldhelp to kill the pain.
Now she would watch Rachel and discover her heart and perhaps find fromthat discovery some way for her own release. For her shame, night andday, was that she still cared, cared, yes, as deeply as she had everdone--that caring must die.
Perhaps the sight and knowledge of this other woman would kill it.
At least here at last was action after the terrible silence andremoteness of those many months.
She would go to Seddon and she would not leave it without finding someway by which she might still make some use of life.
II
She had really stayed at very few houses before. The anticipation at anyother time would have excited her, now nothing mattered except that shewould meet Rachel.
Her mother and sister had watched her during these past months with adismay stirred by the sudden absence of her genial friendliness.
They had taken so much of her kindliness for granted and now when sherefused them the sympathy that they had always demanded for a thousandunimportant incidents they, clamorously, missed it.
At first it was easy to say that Lizzie was callous and selfish,afterwards that she was ill and overworked, finally they hailed withrelief the promise of a three-weeks' holiday. "She'll come back," saidMrs. Rand, "as fresh as paint, and taken out of herself."
Meanwhile no solution of Lizzie's trouble occurred to them; that sheshould ever feel the tyranny of love, like more sentimental mortals,was, at this time of day, impossible. "We know Lizzie, thank you," saidMrs. Rand.
They watched her, on the afternoon of the 23rd of December, depart in acab for Seddon Court. She was grave and pale and beautifully neat. "I doadmire Lizzie, you know," said Daisy, returning with her mother into thehouse. "I can't get that kind of tidiness. Her things go on for years,looking as good as new."
"Men like a bit of disorder," said Mrs. Rand. "It seems more agitated.All the same I'd like to know what is worrying Lizzie."
It was a wet and gusty day and the wind blew the rain with hardimpatient spurts against the windows of the cab. Few people were about:Hyde Park Corner was grey and deserted, umbrellas like black mushroomsstarted here and there from the shining ground.
Victoria Station also had, on this afternoon, nothing beautiful tooffer. She found her way to her train, chose an empty carriage, sat inher corner with her hands upon her lap, waited for the train to move.
People, grey people with white faces, hurried past her carriage. Shewondered whether they too had something in their hearts that made everythought, every movement a danger.
Because the train would not move and because for the first time in allthese months she found herself without any occupation, she could nothold thought at bay. She resisted, she tried to sweep her brain empty,she surrendered. She, Lizzie Rand, always so fond of her self-disciplineand restraint, found control now slipping from her. Before she had metBreton her duties, the skilful manipulation and arrangement of detail,her work and her place as a worker, these had supplied her needs. Nowall those things were dust and ashes; high and lofty above them shonethat bright fire whose warmth and colour she had, for an instant, feltand seen. What was life going to be, through all the years to come, ifshe were never to recapture her tranquillity?
The train moved off and she sat there, her eyes bright and shining, herlittle body stiff and resolute. Somewhere, a long way away, like arounded coloured cloud, hovered emotion--emotion that would break herheart, would tear her to pieces and then perhaps build up for her a newlife. But her eyes now were dry and her heart was cold.
The train went whir-whack--whack-whir and the telegraph wires flew up,hung, hesitated, were coming down, flew higher, then with a rush wereburied below the window, and with the noise and movement there dancedbefore her eyes the questions, "Does she love him?" "Does she love him?Has she told him that she loves him? What will her husband do? Does shelove her husband?" And then, beyond that, "Why did she come and takefrom me all that I had, she who had already so much?"
And then, most bitter of all, "Ah, but you never had him. She tooknothing from you. He never thought of you except as someone to whom hecould talk----"
She had no doubt that these weeks were intended for a crisis. Somethingwas going to happen at Seddon.... Something in which she was to have hershare. She felt as though she had known that she would be sent to meetRachel--It had to be....
Then her thoughts left, for a time, her own miserable little history.She wondered how Lady Adela would manage without her. Lady Adela hadnever been alone before and now that the Duchess had had, a fortnightago, that fainting fit, they were all unsettled and alarmed. What wouldhappen if the Duchess died? Then all the dignity and splendour of 104Portland Place would pass away! other people might inhabit it, but thesoul of that house would be dead.
Everything on every side of her seemed to be hastening to a climax andLizzie could see that old woman fighting, behind her closed doors, forLife, beaten at last, dead, swept away, others laughing in her place--anew world to whom she was only a portrait cleverly painted by some youngartist.
Yes, there were
other histories developing now besides Lizzie's and shefelt as though she had been whirled, during the last months, into awild, tossing medley of contacts and revelations--all this after a lifeso grey and quiet and steadily busy.
As the train plunged into Sussex the rain stayed for a little and theshining earth steamed upwards to a grey sky broken here and there tosaffron. Little towns quietly rested under the hills and many streamsran through the woods and the roads drove white like steel through thecrust of the soil. White lights spread in the upper air and the heavinggrey was pushed, as though by some hand, back into the distant horizon.For a moment it seemed that the sun was bursting through; trees weresuddenly green where they had been black and fields red where they hadbeen sombre dark--Light was on all the hills.
But the hand was stayed. Back the grey rolled again, heavily likechariots the clouds wheeled round and drove down upon the earth--Therain fell.
The carriage was very cold. Lizzie's hand and feet were so chill thatthey seemed not to belong to her at all. Pictures of houses at Brightonand the dining-car of some train and two public-houses at the bottom ofa hill stared at her.
The sense of some coming disaster grew with her. It was as thoughsomeone were telling her that she must prepare to be very brave andcontrolled and wise because, very soon, all her restraint and wisdomwould be needed. She summoned now, as she had learnt to do, a sternarmoured resolution that sat always a little oddly upon her. Anyobserver who had seen her sitting there would have noticed the mildsoftness of her eyes, the tenderness of some curve at the corners of hermouth, and would have smiled at the lines of resolution as though he hadknown that the sternness was all assumed.
But she was saying that nothing should touch or move her down here atSeddon; her heart should be closed. She must grow into a woman who hadno need of emotion--and even as she determined that some vision swepther by, revealing to her the happy dear uses that she could have made oflove and sympathy had life been set that way for her. How she could havecared!... A dry little sob was at her throat and burning pain behind hertearless eyes. God, the things that other people had and did not value!
The train stopped at a wind-swept deserted station and a man and womanwith a little child, the three of them tired, wet, bedraggled, enteredthe carriage.
The man was gaunt with a beard and large helpless eyes, the womanshapeless, loose-breasted, little eyes sunk in her cheeks, an old blackstraw hat tilted back on her head. These two did not glance at Lizzie,nor was there any curiosity of interest in their eyes, but the smallchild, yellow wisps of hair falling about her dirty face, detachedherself from them, crept into the furthest corner of the carriage andfrom there stared at Lizzie.
The train droned on through a country now shrinking beneath a deluge ofrain. The child moved a little, looked at the woman, looked again atLizzie, crept to Lizzie's side of the carriage, at last, still without aword, came close and, finally, stole fingers towards Lizzie's dress.
Lizzie turned and smiled at the child, who stared back at her, now withwide terrified eyes. Lizzie looked away, out of the window, and after along time, felt the grimy hand upon her knee.
Once the woman said, "Come away, Cissie. You're worrying the lady."
"No. Please," said Lizzie. She took the hand in her own and smiled againat the wide baby face. The child was very, very young and very, verydirty--
No child had ever come near her before. She wondered why it had comenow.
III
At Lewes a carriage was waiting for her and, in a moment, it seemed thatshe was driving through a dark village street and in front of her, likea great wall topping the skies, the Downs rose.
When the carriage entered the courtyard and stopped before the broadstone door Lizzie was seized with terror. She wished, oh! she wishedthat she had not come. The sense of descending trouble was so strongwith her that she felt for the first time in her life that she was goingto prove unequal to her task.
Her life was over and done with! Why had she allowed herself to bepushed back again into all these affairs of other people?
She was ushered into a square lighted hall where they were all havingtea round a wide open fireplace. She was conscious of Rachel rising,slim and tall, to greet her, of the square ruddy-faced country-lookingman who gripped her hand, jolly hard, and was, of course, Sir Roderick;of a handsome, athletic-looking girl in a riding-habit, of a man or twoand an elderly smartly dressed woman.
They were all immensely cheerful and friendly and to Lizzie, white andtired, noisy and horribly robust. She would have liked to have slippedup to her room and stayed there alone until dinner, but Rachel said:
"Oh! you must be perished after that wet journey. Tea's just at itshottest and its freshest. Quick, Roddy--the toast--Never mind the restof us, Miss Rand--just drink that tea and get warm."
They allowed her to sink back into an easy chair somewhere in the shadowand the tea was very comforting and the stern hall with its cracklingfire and its cosy solid shape most friendly. She listened to them allnoisily discussing people and dances and horses and dinners. She watchedRachel Seddon, sitting a little gravely, straight in her chair, throwingin a word now and again.
This was the woman.... This was the woman....
She felt a warm tongue that licked her hand. She looked down and saw ather side the oddest dog, a dog like a mat, shapeless with two brown eyesbehind its hair and a black wet nose.
There was something about the eyes and the way that the warm body waspressed against her dress that won her instant affection.
"What an adorable animal!" she said to Roddy, who was sitting next toher.
"Oh! Jacob!" he said, laughing. "He really oughtn't to be in here atall--servants' hall's his proper place--If you care for dogs, Miss Rand,I'll show you some----"
As he spoke she caught the dog's eyes and saw in the depths of themshame. He had been sitting, very square and upright, with his eyesgravely fixed, with great interest, upon the company. Then, at the soundof Roddy's voice his head had dropped, instantly he became furtive, hiseyes searching for some place of escape.
Her hand caught his rough coat and she drew him to her side and strokedhis ears.
"I think he's perfectly delightful," she said. "I'm afraid I prefermongrels to better dogs."
"Do you really?" said Roddy, looking kindly at her. "'Pon my word, MissRand, I must show you my little lot. I don't think you'll have much usefor that animal there afterwards."
At last the girl in the riding-habit and the other woman and the youngman noisily departed.
Rachel took Lizzie upstairs. "Are you sure," she said, "you'd like tocome down to dinner? Wouldn't you rather, to-night, go early to bed andhave it there?"
"No, thank you, Lady Seddon." Lizzie looked about the room. "This is allsplendid, thank you. I'm not a bit tired."
"I'm so glad you've come," said Rachel, searching for Lizzie's eyes. ButLizzie had turned away.
At last she was alone.
Her room was splendid--so wide, and high, and such a fire!
She flung up her window. There the Downs were, black, huge before her;the rain came down hissing from the sky and a smell of wet earth andgrass stole up to her.
"That's the woman ..." she said again to herself--"What shall we say toone another?"
Then as she stared into the fire she thought, "She wants me to helpher."
Afterwards she heard a scratching at the door. A maid had been sent toher, but she had dismissed her, saying that she would manage forherself.
She went to the door and found outside it the shaggy, square dog.
He walked into her room, sniffed for a time at the bed, pricked up hisears at the noise that the fire made, listened to the sound of the rain,at last sat down in a distant corner with one leg stretched at rightangles to his body and watched her.
She was indignant with herself for the softness in her heart that hiscompany brought to her.