CHAPTER XII
LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--III
"Exile of immortality, strongly wise, Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes, To what may be beyond it. Sets your star, O heart, for ever? Yet behind the night, Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, Some white tremendous daybreak."
RUPERT BROOKE.
I
That night Lizzie had a dream and, waking in the early hours of the greydim morning, saw before her every detail of it. She had dreamt that shewas lost in the house. No human being was there. Every room was closedand she knew that every room was empty.
It was full day, but only a dull yellow light lit the passages.--Shecould not find her way to the central staircase. A passage would befamiliar to her and then suddenly would be dark and vague and menacing.She opened doors and found wide dusty empty rooms with windows thick incobwebs and beyond them a garden green, tangled, deserted.
She knew that if she did not escape soon some disaster would overtakeher, some disaster in which both Roddy and Rachel would be involved. Sheknew also that, in some way, Rachel's safety absolutely depended uponher--She felt, within herself, a struggle as to whether she should saveRachel. She did not wish to save Rachel.... But some impulse droveher....
She ran down the passage, stumbling in the strange indistinct yellowlight--She knew that, could she only reach the garden, Rachel would besaved.
She reached a window, looked down, and saw below her, like a green pond,the lawn overgrown now with weeds and bristling with strange twistedplants.
She flung open the window and tried to jump, but a cold blast of somestorm met her and drove her back. The storm screamed about her, the dustrose in the room, the plants in the garden waved their heads ... thewind rushed through the house and she heard doors banging and windowscreaking.
She knew suddenly that she was too late--Rachel was dead.
She stood there thinking, "I thought that I hated her--I know now that Iloved her all the time."
The storm died down--died away. A voice quite close to her said, "Youmade a mistake, Miss Rand. People have souls, you know--having a soul ofyour own is more important than criticizing other people's.... Peoplehave souls, you know."
She woke and heard a clock strike seven. As she lay there a sense ofuneasiness was with her so strongly that she repeated to herself, halfsleeping, half waking, "I wish to-day were over, quite over, quite over.I want to-day to be over."
She was completely wakened by a sound. She lay there for a little timewondering what it was. Then she realized that something was scratchingon the door.
She got out of bed, opened the door and found the dog, Jacob, sitting inthe long dark passage, looking through his tangled hair into space asthough the very last thing that he had been doing had been trying toattract her attention. Jacob was nearer to a human being than any animalthat she had ever known. He had attached himself to Miss Rand and shehad decided, after watching him, that he knew more about the situationin the house than anyone else. To catch him, as he watched, with hisgrave brown eyes, Roddy or Rachel as they spoke or moved was to have nokind of doubt as to his wisdom, his deep philosophy, his penetrationinto motives.
He liked Miss Rand, but she knew well that his feeling for her hadnothing of the passionate urgency with which he regarded Roddy orRachel. All tragedy--the depths and the heights of it--she had seen inthat dog's eyes, fixed with the deepest devotion upon Roddy.--"Heknows," she had often thought during the last week, "exactly what's thematter with all of us."
He always slept, she knew, in a basket in Rachel's room, and shewondered why he had been ejected. He sat now in the middle of the floorand seemed deeply unhappy. He sat square with his legs spread out, hishair hanging in melancholy locks over his eyes, his small beard giving alast wistful touch to his expression. He did not look at Lizzie or showany interest in her, he only stared before him at the pattern on thewall.
Lizzie did not attempt to pat him--she went back to bed, and, lyingthere, saw the light gather about the room.
Once Jacob sighed. Otherwise he made no movement until the maid came inwith Lizzie's tea--Then he crawled under the bed.
II
When she came down to breakfast she felt that she could not endureanother day of this place. She wished now for no revenge upon Rachel,she had no longer any curiosity as to the particular feelings of any oneof these people for any other ... she felt detached from them all, andutterly, absolutely weary.
She was weighed down with a sense of disaster and she felt that shemust, instantly, escape from it all, fling herself again into her Londonwork, deal with the tiresome commonplaces of her mother and sister--shemust escape.
Roddy was sitting alone at breakfast and she saw at once that he wasuneasy. He seemed to avoid her eyes and he coloured as she came towardshim.
"Mornin', Miss Rand," he said, "Rachel's not comin' down. Bit ofheadache--rotten night."
"I didn't have a very good night either. That storm made me sleepbadly."
"Yes, wasn't it a corker? It's all right to-day though."
She looked through the wide high windows and saw out over a countrypainted as in a delicate water-colour--The softest green and dark brownlay beneath a pale blue sky, very still, very gentle. Tiny white puffsof cloud were blown, like soap bubbles across the sun, so that brightgleams floated and passed and flashed again.
She drew a deep breath--"Nothing terrifying in such a day as this."
"Yes, it's beautiful--beautiful! I'm off for the day," Roddy said,"ridin'----"
She helped herself to some breakfast and sat down.
Roddy said, "Well, no one would ever believe _you'd_ had a bad night,Miss Rand."--"You're fresh as a pin."
"Thank you," she said, laughing. "But, all the same, I _did_ sleepbadly."
"I'm not feeling princely myself," he confessed, "that's why I'm goin'off for a ride, nothin' like a ride to take you out of yourself. Don'tyou ever feel, Miss Rand, that you want to get right away from yourselfand be someone else?"
She looked at him. Roddy was in real trouble. His very physical strengthshowed the more clearly that he was unhappy. His fingers movedrestlessly, his eyes were never still. She looked at her letters. Therewas one from Lady Adela.
"Oh! I'm sorry--I'm afraid I shall have to go back almostimmediately--The Duchess is much less well--They're worried about her."
"The Duchess!" Roddy started up and then sat down again. "I'm sorry--Iwas thinking about her only yesterday. What's the matter?"
"Lady Adela doesn't say, but she asks about you--the Duchess, I mean.Got it into her head, Lady Adela says, that you're not well orsomething."
"I'll write to her." Roddy spoke slowly as though to himself--"I've nottreated her very well lately and she's always been such a brick to me."He left his breakfast, walked backwards and forwards once ortwice--"Always been such a brick to me, the old lady has," he repeated.
Lady Adela really did want Lizzie to return. This horrid war was gettingon her nerves, the house was all in disorder and nobody seemed eitherwell or happy.
"Somebody really does want me," thought Lizzie with a certain grimsatisfaction.
But she was terribly restless that morning. She could settle down tonothing and ended by walking up and down the garden paths, watching thepale winter light cross the Downs in sweeping shadow, seeing the barebranches, all black and sharp against the blue distance.
How she loved life and how, at every turn, life was thrust from her! Forthat other woman, there inside the house, two men were ready, eager todie--for herself, in all the world, no one cared.
There came up to her again, borne as it were on the sharp winter air, adetermination to drive down Rachel's defences. The very sense that now,after Lady Adela's letter, she must shortly return to London, hardenedher resolution.
Before breakfast she had felt that she did not care, now, quite suddenlyshe was determined that she would confront Rachel and drag the truthfrom her. How much did Rachel care? Was Rachel already
involved in aliaison with Breton?
And, at that thought, a pain so fierce clutched her heart that for amoment she could not see and the garden and the sky mingled likecoloured smoke before her eyes.
Suddenly, coming to the end of the garden by the stone gate she saw thata strange thing had happened--one of the gryphons, perched there formany centuries, had tumbled to the ground and lay in the path, beyondthe garden, broken into two pieces.
The storm of last night must have driven it down. But what had brokenit?
She was sorry. She knew how deeply attached Roddy was to those gryphons;she remembered his pride when he had pointed them out to her.
The other gryphon looked very lonely.
"He _will_ be distressed." The dead leaves on the path were tremblingover the broken pieces of stone and whistling, in little excited groups,above it--"Just as though they are glad," she thought.
She and Rachel had a very amiable conversation at luncheon. Rachelconfessed to a bad night.
Lizzie told her about Jacob.
"How tiresome of him to come and bother you--yes, I couldn't sleep andhe was very restless too, so I put him into the passage. It was aftersix--I meant him to go down to the servants' hall. I'm so sorry, MissRand."
"Oh, he didn't worry me at all. I _was_ awake." That appeal was inRachel's eyes to-day more than ever. Lizzie saw it and steeled herheart. "I must know," she thought. "I _must_ know."
"I'm afraid," she said, "that I'll have to go back to London to-morrow.I heard from Lady Adela this morning--The Duchess is not so well."
"Oh!" Rachel caught her breath--"oh, Miss Rand, no, no, oh! I hope not!You _must_ stay! I----!" her colour came and went. "There's the dance. Idon't know what I shall do without you." And she went on moredesperately, catching Lizzie's eyes and evading them. "We are justbeginning to be so happy here. My husband likes you so much. I dohope----"
She stopped and the colour left her again; her hands were trembling onthe white tablecloth.
The strangest impulse flooded Lizzie's breast, an impulse to go to herand put her arms about her and kiss her and let her, there and then,unburden her heart--
Lizzie drove the impulse down, buried it. Her eyes were cold and hervoice hard as she answered--
"I'm so sorry, but I think I _must_ go. I can't leave Lady Adela ifthings are really difficult. I'll come this afternoon, shall I? and wemight go over the dance----"
Rachel had been thinking; she looked up sharply and stared at Lizzie,staring as though she had been some stranger whom she saw for the firsttime.
"Yes--Come to the Chinese room at four, will you? We'll have tea upthere."
"Yes," said Lizzie, "at four."
They were both of them aware that something, now quite irrevocable, hadbeen settled by these words.
There was a little old library up in one of the towers, and there Lizziewent. She had a desperate need of some place where, during the nexthour, she might think and decide upon some plan. The room had littlediamond-paned windows that looked down, on one side, over the courtyard,and on the other over the garden and the Downs. The shelves went fromceiling to floor and were filled with books that dimly shone with theirold gold and were dusky in their rich, faded bindings.
It was very seldom that anyone came here; Lizzie was quite alone as,perched up in one of the deep-seated windows, she looked down at thegarden, saw the stone gate with the solitary gryphon, watched theswiftly fading afternoon light fill the green lawn as a pot is filledwith water.
Even now, early though it was, the little room was growing dark.
She strove now, resolutely, to discipline her mind. Although the verythought of Francis Breton now shamed her, it was for him that she mustcare. "Poor dear," he was even now, in her heart. "Foolish,indiscreet--must plunge from one mess into another, needs someone--Oh,so dreadfully--to help him out."
Her hostility to Rachel did not prevent her from feeling that here wassomeone very young, terribly inexperienced, most unhappilyimpulsive--the very last in the world to prevent Breton from havinganother catastrophe as bad as the early ones.
She must know absolutely what it was that he and Rachel were doing, andonly Rachel could tell her that--And here her feeling about Rachel wascompounded of the strangest mixture of anger and suspicion, oftenderness and compassion, of sympathy and hard callous indifference.
"Oh!" Lizzie thought, "why has all this come to me? Why wasn't I allowedjust to go on with my life as it was--My life that was so safe and sureand dull?"--
She was conscious, as she sat there, that she was listening forsomething. She felt, in an odd way, that the day had been a directcontinuance of the dream that she had had in the night; all the morningshe had been aware that her ears, in spite of herself, had been waitingfor some sound, a message, or an arrival.
She sat now in the swiftly darkening room, as though she had been toldthat someone was coming at such and such an hour and she had heard theclock strike and was listening for the grating of the wheels on thecobbles of the courtyard.
The calm winter's day passed now into a purple twilight--lights werecoming in the windows--
She thought she heard a step in the passage and was startled as thoughsomeone had been suddenly, unexpectedly within the room.
She opened the window and listened--"Someone--several people--will comedown that garden path in a minute--I know they will."
But the air was very cold and she closed the window; even as she did soa clock struck four.
She got up and went to Rachel.
III
The Chinese room was so called because its walls were covered with astiff golden Chinese paper. It had wide windows looking on to thegarden; Rachel used it a great deal.
Lizzie fixed upon her mind, very deliberately, all the details of hersurroundings. Rachel was dressed in black with red round her throat andher waist, and this brilliant colour made her face seem white and therewere deep, heavy black marks under her eyes.
She looked up when Lizzie came in, seemed, with a violent effort, tocompel control.
They sat there for some time and discussed the dance; the dusk filledthe room, then tea was brought. There was a light in their corner;slowly the rest of the room grew dark.
They finished tea, it was taken away, and Lizzie, sitting quite close toRachel, on a little sofa that had a window just behind it, was awarethat again, in spite of herself, her ears were straining for some sound.The house and all the world were profoundly still.
When the servant had at last left them alone, Rachel said--"Miss Rand,you mustn't go away to-morrow--Aunt Adela can manage for another week.After all, she did promise that you should stay for me over the ball."
"Why did you ask me here, Lady Rachel?" Lizzie said. Her speech was adirect challenge and, instantly, when she had spoken she knew that theyhad entered upon those personal relations that they had, during allthese weeks, feared.
"I asked you because I wanted you for a friend--I've no friend--no womanfriend--whom I can trust. I knew that I could trust you--I hoped thatyou could help me----"
"I've been here for some time now and you have told me nothing."
"No--because you have held me off, have shown me so plainly that youdisliked and distrusted me. You didn't always dislike me--what have Idone?"
"That's only my way. As I told you this morning, Lady Seddon, I'm not anemotional person. But I feel more than I show. I would like to help you,if you will let me."
Rachel leaned forward and caught first Lizzie's arm, then her hand. Thenshe spoke, her voice quivering as though she were forcing upon herselfthe most intense control.
"Oh! you're so strange, so odd I don't know what you feel, whether youcare, but these last months have been so hard for me that even thoughyou hate me, despise me, it doesn't matter--nothing matters if only Ican get away from myself, you're so different--so dry, so hard, but youare, you are!--just as hard----" she stopped--Lizzie drew her hand away.
"Please--don't tell me things if you feel about me like that. I
t hasn'tbeen my fault, has it, that we don't get on? _I_ didn't ask to comehere, to know you--let me go--let me go back. Don't bother aboutme--leave me alone," she at last brought out.
But Rachel said more urgently--"No, don't go now. Even though you don'tcare, even though you hate me, help me. I've no one else. If only youknew the things I've suffered these past weeks, how I've hated myselffor my indecision, for my weakness and shame. I don't know why I feel asthough you were the only person to whom I could talk. I'm being driven,I suppose, by this long silence--and then you're so absolutely to betrusted--even though you dislike me--you're straight all through--I'vealways known that."
At Lizzie's heart again now that strange confusion of sensation, andwith it a sure conviction that fate had this scene between them in hand,and that events now, whatever the hours might bring forth, were beyondher control.
"Yes, you may trust me," she said drily--"I'm useful, at any rate forthat."
Lizzie watched her as, in the little pause that followed, Rachelstruggled for concentration and for the point of view that would makethe strongest appeal. _That_, Lizzie grimly knew, was the thing forwhich the girl was struggling and it yielded her the pleasanter ironybecause she was, herself, so surely aware of that one fact that allRachel's confessions contained--
For herself she had only confidently to sit and wait.... Then Rachelplunged--
"I'm unhappy," she said, "in my married life, miserably unhappy, andentirely, utterly by my own fault. I've tried, or fancied that I'vetried. I've done what I've thought was my best--Things have happenednow, at last, that have made it impossible--I can't go on any longer."
She spoke as though she were, very urgently, endeavouring to deliver afair honest statement. There was in her voice a note that showed thatlife had truly, of late, been very hard for her--
"I married, in the beginning, for a wrong reason. I knew then that Ididn't love my husband. I married because I wanted to escape. I hadalways hated my grandmother and she had always hated me--you knew that,Miss Rand; everyone who had anything to do with us knew it. She had donemore than hate me, she had made me frightened--frightened of life andpeople. Someone came along who was kind and easy and comfortable, andeveryone said it would be a good thing, and so I, not because I lovedhim, but because I wanted to escape from my grandmother, married him.Because I had to silence everything that was honest in me I'm payingnow."
"It was all quite natural," Lizzie said. "Most women would have done thesame."
"It was horrible from the beginning; I found that I had not escaped frommy grandmother at all. She had arranged the marriage and now wasalways, and in some curious way, influencing it.
"I soon saw what I had done--that I had been false to myself andtherefore false to everything else. My husband was in love with me--Hewas very patient and good to me, but I found that everything that I didor thought or said in connection with my husband was false. What made itso hard was that I was, and I am, very fond of him. My training--thetraining of all our family had always been--to learn how to be sham, sothat one's real self never appeared all one's life. It ought to havebeen easy enough--but I've never been like one of my family--I'd alwaysbeen different.
"I had determined that this year I would do my duty to Roddy--But it'sharder than any determination can govern. It's bad for Roddy, it'sdeadly for me ... at last things have happened that have made itimpossible for me--I've made up my mind this morning. I must leaveRoddy, let him divorce me, give him a better chance with someone else."
She spoke with the desperate immediate determination of youth, staringin front of her, her hands clenched. Like flame at Lizzie's heart leaptthis knowledge.
"She and Breton are going--only you can stop them--she and Breton."
"Don't you think," said Lizzie, "a little of your husband?"
"I'm thinking of him all the time--It's for his sake--that he shouldhave a better chance with someone who cared----"
"No, that isn't true," said Lizzie--"It's because you love someoneelse----"
Rachel, with her head down, whispered, "Yes--it's because ... someoneelse."
"Francis Breton."
"Yes, Francis Breton."
That whisper of his name had in it confidence, worship, defiance ... allthese things were torture to Lizzie sitting there, very composed, verystern, very quiet. _She_ should have been able to say that name withjust that precious intimacy, and she saw, in Rachel's eyes, beyond hertrouble the glad pride that the pronouncing of the name had given her.
"You know?" Rachel asked at length.
"Yes----"
"You've known a long time."
"Yes--a long time."
"Oh! If you'd only spoken to me!--All this time I've been wanting youto--You _must_ have known."
"Yes--I knew." Then Lizzie brought out slowly, letting her grave eyeswander over Rachel's face--
"You yourself insisted on telling me. You have brought it upon yourselfif I say what I must...."
Rachel caught the hostility.
"Yes?" she said sharply.
"I'm older than you--older in every way. You know so little yet, theharm that you can do.... You must leave Francis Breton alone, LadySeddon."
Rachel laughed--"Of course I knew that you--that it was the kind of waythat you must look at it. But don't you see, we've got past all thatfirst stage--It isn't, in the very least, any good looking at it fromany general point of view. It's simply the individual happiness of thethree of us, my husband, Francis Breton, myself--It's better for all ofus that I should go."
"No ... not better for Francis Breton."
Rachel moved impatiently--"He--he and I--can judge that, Miss Rand----"
"No--You can't--you're too young. You don't know--I have a right tospeak here, I know him--I have known him all this time----"
Lizzie broke off. Rachel, suddenly looking up, gazed at her--Lizzie,fiercely, also proudly as though she were guarding something veryprecious that they were trying to take from her, returned her gaze.
"All this time," Rachel said slowly. "You've known him--of course ... atSaxton Square...."
Then, as though the revelation had suddenly broken upon her, "Whyyou--you----!"
"Yes," said Lizzie, now fiercely indeed, hurling back at the girl the_naivete_ of her surprise. "Yes--it's odd, isn't it? I'm not the kind ofwoman, am I, ever to care for a man, or to have a man care for me?--Tohave any feeling or desire or affection. But it is not so strange as itmay seem--I love him every bit as well as you do--I've cared morepatiently perhaps, more unselfishly even. But there it is ... it givesme the right."
Nothing more surprising than that on this special circumstance Rachelhad never reckoned. Feeling it now, blazing there before her, the waythat she was to deal with it was beyond her experience. In an instantLizzie Rand was, to her, a new creature. Always she had seen Lizziepatiently, with method, with discipline, putting things in order--thatwas her world and dominion. Lizzie had appeared, to Rachel, to stand forall the things that she herself was not. Rachel had often envied thatabsence of emotion, that security from impulse and passion, and it wasupon that very security that Rachel had wished to depend. It was thatthat had driven her to seek Lizzie's friendship. She herself so unsure,so caught and destroyed by powers too potent for her resistance, hadlooked with wonder and desire upon Lizzie's safety--
Now Lizzie Rand was no longer Lizzie Rand. She was of Rachel's number,she might, as easily as Rachel, be swept, whirled away,--after death anddestruction.
But there was more than that. There was the realization that Lizzie musthate her, that Lizzie was the last person in the world to whom sheshould have given her confidence, that Lizzie would fight now to thelast breath in her body to keep Francis Breton from her.
During a long silence they sat facing one another--the little room wasnow nearly dark and it was only by the faint pale shadow from the skybeyond the window that they could catch, each from each, theirconsciousness of their new relationship.
It was during that silence that Lizzie wa
s again aware that her earswere straining to catch some sound....
"I didn't know," Rachel said at last very softly; "it must seem brutalto you now that I should have told you all this. I wouldn't of coursehave spoken."
"Ah! you needn't mind," Lizzie said grimly. "He's never seen anything ofit. You must never give him any reason to suspect--I trust you for that.No one in this world knows but you, and you should never have known ifit had not been that I _had_ to prove my right to interfere. Perhapseven now, you don't see that I _have_ a right, but whether I have one orno, you've got to reckon with me now----"
"And _you've_ got to reckon," Rachel answered, with some of Lizzie's ownfierceness, "with a power that's beyond your power or mine or anyone's.Don't you imagine that we, all of us, haven't tried hard enough. Why!all these last two years we've done nothing but try. Now it's simplystronger than we are. If Roddy," she went on, speaking now more slowly,"hadn't forced it.... If he'd not been impatient--but now--after what'sjust happened, it's right--it isn't fair to him, to myself, to any ofus, that things should go on as they are----"
"I'm thinking," Lizzie answered quietly, "simply of Francis Breton."
"Well! isn't it fairer too for him? He's been living, as we have, allthis time, a life that's denying all his own _real_ self. Anything'sbetter than being false to that--life may be hard for us if we go awaytogether, but at any rate it will be honest----"
"Ah! that just shows how young you are! Don't I know that pursuit oftruth and honesty as well as you? Don't I know that when life'sbeginning for us, the one thing that seems to matter is exposingourselves, showing ourselves to the world just as we are! At first itseems such an easy thing--Just round that corner the moment's comingwhen the real person in us is going to stand up and proclaim itself justas it is, fine and splendid? but always something just comes in the wayand stops it--the years go on and we're further off from truth thanever.
"You think that if you go off with Francis Breton now, you'll, bothof you, be leading, suddenly, honest brave lives before the world.I tell you it isn't so. Things will be just as crooked, just asshadowed--issues just as confused--it will be worse than it was."
"But you don't know----"
"I know Francis Breton. Don't you know too the kind of man that he is?Don't you know that he's as weak as a man can be, weaker than any womanever _could_ be? He's the kind of man who must have society to bolsterhim up. If the men of his world are supporting him then he's as good asgold, as fine as you like. Let them leave him and down he goes. All hislife the world's been down on him and that's why he's been down. Latelyhe's been quiet--he's been winning his place back. Soon, if he'spatient, they'll all come round him again. But let him go off with youand he's done, finished--absolutely, utterly. 'Ah!' everyone will say,'that's what we expected. That's what we always knew would happen.'Don't you know what kind of effect _that_ will have upon him? Don't youknow?... Of course you do. It will break him up. His old life abroad,creeping from place to place, will begin again, only now he'll have theadditional knowledge that he's done for you as well as for himself. Itwill be the end, utterly the end of him. And I, who love him, will notlet it be."
Lizzie's speech had roused in Rachel one of those old storms of anger.She was exerting now her utmost self-control, but her heart seemed boundtight with some cord so slender that one movement, one impulse, wouldsnap it--Then.... She saw in Lizzie now, only moved by a sense ofjealous injury--"She sits there, knowing that I've taken him from her.That's it.... That's what she's feeling--she's lost him. She can'tforgive me for that."
But when she spoke her voice was quiet and controlled.
"That isn't so," Rachel said; "it won't, I think, be like that. There'sso much more between us than you can understand. There's all our earlylife--not that we were together, but we seem to have it all in common,to have known it all together. We're unlike our family--all theBeaminsters--we're together in that--we are together in everything."
But Lizzie's voice went on, so coldly, with such assurance that, withevery word, the flame of Rachel's anger climbed a little higher, grewstronger and steadier.
"There's another thing too. I watched you, more than you know. No, noman--no man in the world--will ever keep you altogether--there'ssomething--I can't tell you what it is--there's something in you thatdemands more than just a personal relationship like that--Perhaps it'smaternity--it is, with many women,--perhaps it's a great cause, amovement of a country--
"But I know, with certainty, that you will never love Breton as youshould love a man. Realization will never be the thing to you thatanticipation and retrospection are. I believe if you were to lose yourhusband now, you'd find that you loved him--All thoughts of FrancisBreton, would go----"
At that, because at the very heart of her determination burntthe knowledge that Lizzie's words were true, Rachel's controlwas abandoned, her anger leapt: "You think you know--youthink ... why ... why ... you don't know me at all!--you can't knowme--we're strangers, Miss Rand--now--always....
"Nothing, _nothing_ can ever make us friends again--I'll never forgiveyou for what you've said--the poor creature that you take me for--nodoubt you'd have done better had the chance been yours, but you go toofar----"
"That was unfair of you," Lizzie said very low--"You may say to me whatyou please--That's of no importance to anybody. But Francis Breton'shappiness, his success, that is more to me than anything or anyone.--You_shall_ not break his life into pieces for your own pleasure. There aremore important things than your personal happiness, Lady Seddon----"
They were both standing, but they could not see one another, save, veryfaintly, their hands and faces--
"It's too late, Miss Rand," Rachel laughed. "I shall write to himto-morrow. I myself shall tell my husband--there is nothing that you cando----"
They stood there, conscious that a word, a movement on either side mightproduce an absurd, a tragic scene. Lizzie had never known such anger asthe passion that now held her. Rachel was taunting her with the thingthat she had missed; she stood there, before the world, as the woman forwhom no man cared--she stood there with the one human being who matteredto her on the edge of complete disaster--nothing that she could do couldprevent it--and the woman at her side was the cause.
A sudden sweeping consciousness of the things that it would mean ifRachel were dead flowed over her. Her heart stopped--that way--atleast--Francis Breton might be saved....
The room, dark as pitch before her, was filled now with a red glow--Herhands, clenched, were ice in a world that was all of an overpoweringheat.
Lizzie never afterwards could remember what then exactly happened.
She was worked to a pitch of anger, she was thinking to herself, "Whatwould be a way? ... anything to save him...."
"She shouldn't have taunted me with that"--when, suddenly, exactly asthough someone had taken her brain and emptied it, she had forgottenRachel, had forgotten her own personal injury, forgotten her anger, wasonly aware that, with every nerve in her body on edge, she was waitingfor some sound--
Like an answer to an invocation, the sound, through the closed window,came--
IV
She must have made some startled noise, because she heard Rachel say,"What is it?"
She fled to the window and opened it. She could see nothing, but shecould hear, as she had known all day that she would hear, steps,stumbling, falling heavily, upon the heavy gravel path.
She felt Rachel's hand upon her sleeve: "What is it?" Rachel saidagain--"Lizzie, what is it?"
Both women were seized and held by fear. Their feelings for one anotherwere lost, sunk in the cold, shattering sense of disaster that had come,through the open window, into the room.
They could see lights now and figures--There were murmuring voices--
"Oh, Lizzie, what is it?" Rachel said for the third time, and then aftera moment--"Roddy!"
Lizzie said--"Wait there. It may be nothing. I'll see--Don't you comefor a moment."
She crossed the dark room, and opening th
e door saw Peters hurrying downthe passage towards her. His face was in complete disorder--the face ofsomeone who, throughout his life, has had only one kind of face thathas served most admirably for every kind of occasion--suddenly asituation has arisen for which that face will _not_ serve--
His body was shaking--
"Oh! Miss Rand, the master!"
Lizzie felt Rachel follow her, brush past both of them, down the passageand out of sight--
"An accident--flung from his horse and dragged along--been hours on thehill--a shepherd found him."
"Is he dead?"
"No, miss, not dead--not yet, thank God!"
"The doctor?"
"Dr. Crane from Lewes--we caught him, miss, most fortunately, on the wayfrom another patient--he's downstairs now."
"Quick, Peters, things will be wanted."
Lizzie passed to the head of the stairs, Peters behind her said,"They've taken Sir Roderick into the green drawing-room, miss, so as notto have to go upstairs."
She came down the stairs and then stood, waiting in the hall. That was,for the moment, deserted, but the house wore an air of dismay, surprisedalarm, so that every sound was of momentous import. Somewhere, a longway away, someone--perhaps a frightened kitchen-maid--was sobbing--thehall door was still open and little gusts of cold wind came in andstirred and rustled the pages of some illustrated papers on one of thetables.
Lizzie went to the door and closed it--what should she do? To go intothe room and ask whether she could be of use? Her quarrel with Rachelhad made any movement now on her part difficult--Rachel might resent herpresence--
Someone came into the hall: she saw that it was the doctor. He stood,looking about him, as though he were searching for someone, and Lizziewent up to him--
"Doctor, please tell me--I'm staying in the house--is thereanything--anything at all--that I can do?"
The doctor was tall, thin, black, like an elongated crow.
"Ah yes--no, I think there is nothing for the moment--there are two ofus here--we instantly wired to London and the London men should be hereif they catch the seven o'clock in an hour and a half. Lady Seddon iswith her husband."
"There's hope?"
"Oh yes--I think Sir Roderick will live--It's the spine that's damaged."
He seemed to realize Miss Rand's efficiency. This was no ordinarycountry-house visitor. He went to the hall door and opened it. "I'mwaiting for the things from Lewes. I just came on with what I'd got.Yes, the spine ... afraid will never be able to get about again--such astrong fellow too."
"There's nothing I can do?"
"Nothing anyone can do for the moment. Lady Seddon's taking itwonderfully, but she'll want you later. I advise you to get some quietin the next hour--it's afterwards that they'll need your help----"
Lizzie went up to her room and lay down on her bed. She did not lightthe candles, but lay there in the darkness striving to compel some orderout of the turmoil that rioted in her brain--her first thought was ofRoddy. Roddy had always been to her the supreme type of animal spiritsand vigour--_that_ had been, above everything else, what he stood for.That _he_ should have been struck down like this!
The cruelty, the irony of it! Much better that he should die than becompelled to lie on his back for the rest of his life--anything betterfor him than that--
If he died Rachel would be free. Lizzie faced that thought quite calmly!her quarrel with Rachel seemed to be now very, very long ago, somethingdistant and remote, something whose very conditions had been tornasunder and flung aside--
As she lay there tenderness for Rachel came sweeping about her--"Shemust want someone now--she's so young and so ignorant--never had anycrisis like this to deal with--hard for this to happen to him just aftershe'd thought those things ... that must be terrible for her.... Oh!she'll need someone now."
Something reminded Lizzie of other things, of Francis Breton, ofRachel's words, of Lizzie's anger, then--
"Ah, but that's all so long ago. It doesn't seem to count. There arethings more important than all of that. What will she do now? Perhapsshe still hates me--won't let me come near her--it's my own fault afterall; I kept away for so long, wouldn't let _her_ come near _me_. Oh! butshe must have someone to help her!"
After a while Lizzie thought--"She won't be practical--she won't knowthe things that ought to be done--I'll wait a little and then I'll go."
Then she slept. She awoke with a clear active brain; she felt as thoughshe could be awake now for weeks--a tremendous energy filled her....
She left her room and at the turn of the passage met a thick-setclean-shaven man whom she knew for Cramp--one of the most famous of theLondon doctors, a man whom she had sometimes seen with Christopher atthe Portland Place house.
She stopped him--"I'm Miss Rand, Doctor--Lady Adela's secretary--we'vemet in London--I want you to tell me how I can help."
He shook hands with her, eyeing her with approval--
"Why, yes, of course--How do you do, Miss Rand? Yes, you're just thesort we want. For the moment Lady Seddon's my chief anxiety--she's borneup splendidly so far, but now I am a little afraid. I've got her to goand lie down--would you go to her, Miss Rand? Just be with her a littleand let me know if anything happens----"
"Sir Roderick?"
"Pretty bad, I'm afraid--He'll live, I think--afraid will never runabout, though, again."
Lizzie made her way to Rachel's bedroom. She paused outside the door.This was the very hardest thing that she had ever, in all her life, hadto do. If Rachel were to repulse her now it would surely be the finalabsolute proof that she was of no use, no use to anyone in this wholewide world.
She knocked on the door and went in. "Who's that?"
"It's I--Lizzie."
The room was dark, but she saw that Rachel was lying on the bed--shewent up to her--Rachel did not move.
"I came," Lizzie said, "to see whether I could help--if I could doanything----"
Rachel said nothing--
"If you'd rather--if you don't want to see me, of course just say...."
Rachel turned over and Lizzie heard her say--"I did it--I wanted him--itwas my fault--it was my fault."
Lizzie knelt down beside the bed. "Rachel dear, you mustn't think that.It was nothing to do with anyone. But you can help him now,Rachel--He'll want you, he'll need you now as he's never wanted anyone."
Rachel gave a bitter cry--Her hand touched Lizzie's, then she flung upher arm, caught Lizzie's neck, drew her towards her, put both her armsaround her and held her, held her as though she would never let her go.
BOOK III
RODDY