A L’OUTRANCE.
Lizzie Pezzack had put Joey to bed and was smoothing his coverlet when
she heard someone knocking. She passed out into the front room and
opened to the visitor.
On the doorstep stood a lady in deep black--Honoria. Beyond the garden
wall the lamps of her carriage blazed in the late twilight. The turf
had muffled the sound of wheels, but now the jingle of shaken bits came
loud through the open door.
“Ah!” said Lizzie, drawing her breath back through her teeth.
“I must speak to you, please. May I come in? I have a question...”
Lizzie turned her back, struck a match, and lit a candle. “What
question?” she asked with her back turned, her eyes on the flame as it
sank, warming the tallow, and grew bright again.
“It’s... it’s a question,” Honoria began weakly; then shut the door
behind her and advanced into the room. “Turn round and look at me. Ah,
you hate me, I know!”
“Yes,” Lizzie assented slowly, “I hate you.”
“But you must answer me. You see, it isn’t for me alone ... it’s not a
question of our hating, in a way... it concerns others....”
“Yes?”
“But it’s cowardly of me to put it so, because it concerns me too. You
don’t know--”
“Maybe I do.”
“But if you did--” Honoria broke off and then plunged forward
desperately. “That child of yours--his father--alone here--by
ourselves.... Think before you refuse!”
Lizzie set down the candle and eyed her.
“And _you_,” she answered at length, dragging out each word-- “_you_
can come here and ask me that question?”
For a moment silence fell between them, and each could hear the other’s
breathing. Then Honoria drew herself up and faced her honestly, casting
out both hands.
“Yes; I _had_ to.”
“_You!_ a lady!”
“Ah, but be honest with me! Lady or not, what has that to do with it?
We are two women--that’s where it all started, and we’re kept to that.”
Lizzie bent her brows. “Yes, you are right,” she admitted.
“And,” Honoria pursued eagerly, “if I come here to sue you for the
truth--it is you who force me.”
“I?”
“By what you said that night, when George--when my husband--was
drowned; when you cursed me. ‘A son’s a son,’ you said, ‘though he was
your man.’”
“Did I say that?” Lizzie seemed to muse over the words. “You have
suffered?” she asked.
“Yes, I have suffered.”
“Ah, if I thought so! ... But you have not. You are a hypocrite, Mrs.
Vyell; and you are trying to cheat me now. You come here not to end
_that_ suffering, but to force a word from me that’ll put joy and hope
into you; that you’ll go home hugging to your heart. Oh, I know you!”
“You do not.”
“I do; because I know myself. From a child I’ve been dirt to your
pride, an item to your money. For years I’ve lived a shamed woman. But
one thing I bought with it--one little thing. Think the price high for
it--I dessay it is; but I bought and paid for it--and often when I turn
it over in my mind I don’t count the price too dear.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You may, if you try. What I bought was the power over you, my proud
lady. While I keep tight lips I have you at the end of a chain. You
come here to-night to break it; one little word and you’ll be free and
glad. But no, and no, and no! You may guess till you’re tired--you may
be sure in your heart; but it’s all no good without that little word
you’ll never get from me.”
“You _shall_ speak!”
Lizzie shrugged her shoulders and picked up the candle.
“Simme,” she said, “you’d best go back to your carriage and horses. My
li’l boy’s in the next room, tryin’ to sleep; and ’tisn’ fit he heard
much of this.”
She passed resolutely into the bedroom, leaving her visitor to
darkness. But Honoria, desperate now, pushed after her, scarcely
knowing what she did or meant to do.
“You _shall_ speak!”
The house-door opened and light footsteps came running through the
outer room. It was little George, and he pulled at her skirts.
“Mummy, the horses are taking cold!”
But Honoria still advanced. “You _shall_ speak!”
Joey, catching sight of her from the bed, screamed and hid his face. To
him she was a thing of horror. From the night when, thrust beneath her
eyes, he had cowered by her carriage-step, she had haunted his worst
dreams. And now, black-robed and terrible of face, she had come to lay
hands on him and carry him straight to hell.
“Mother! Take her away! take her away!”
His screams rang through the room. “Hush, dear!” cried Lizzie, running
to him; and laid a hand on his shoulder.
But the child, far too terrified to know whose hand it was, flung
himself from her with a wilder scream than any; flung himself all but
free of the bed-clothes. As Lizzie caught and tried to hold him the
thin night-shirt ripped in her fingers, laying bare the small back from
shoulder to buttock.
They were woman to woman now; cast back into savagery and blindly
groping for its primitive weapons. Honoria crossed the floor not
knowing what she meant to do, or might do. Lizzie sprang to defence
against she knew not what. But when her enemy advanced, towering,
with a healthy boy dragging at her skirts, she did the one thing she
could--turned with a swift cry back upon her own crippled child and
caught at the bed-clothes to cover and hide his naked deformity.
While she crouched and shielded him, silence fell on the room. She had
half expected Honoria to strike her; but no blow came, nor any sound.
By-and-by she looked up. Honoria had come to a standstill, with rigid
eyes. They were fastened on the bed. Then Lizzie understood.
She had covered the child’s legs from sight; but not his back--nor
the brown mole on it--the large brown mole, ringed like Saturn, set
obliquely between the shoulder-blades.
She rose from the bed slowly. Honoria turned on little George with a
gesture as if to fling off his velvet jacket. But Lizzie stamped her
foot.
“No,” she commanded hoarsely; “let be. Mine is a cripple.”
“So it is true....” Honoria desisted; but her eyes were wide and still
fixed on the bed.
“Yes, it is true. You have all the luck. Mine is a cripple.”
Still Honoria stared. Lizzie gulped down something in her throat; but
her voice, when she found it again, was still hoarse and strained.
“And now--go! You have learnt what you came for. You have won, because
you stop at nothing. But go, before I try to kill you for the joy in
your heart!”
“Joy?” Honoria put out a hand toward the bed’s foot, to steady herself.
It was her turn to be weak.
“Yes--joy.” Lizzie stepped between her and the door, pointed a finger
at her, and held it pointing. “In your heart you are glad already.
Wait, and in a moment I shall see it in your eyes--glad, glad! Yes,
your man was worthless, and you are glad. But oh! You bitter fool!”
“Let me go, please.”
“Listen a bit; no hurry now. Plenty of time to be glad ’twas only your
husband, not the man of your heart. Look at me, and answer-- I don’t
count for much now, do I? Not much to hate in me, now you know the name
of my child’s father, and that ’tisn’ Taffy Raymond!”
“Let me go.” But seeing that Lizzie would not, she stopped and kissed
her boy. “Run out to the carriage, dear, and say I’ll be coming in a
minute or two.” Little George clung to her wistfully, but her tone
meant obedience. Lizzie stepped aside to let him pass out.
“Now,” said Honoria, “the next room is best, I think. Lead me there,
and I will listen.”
“You may go if you like.”
“No; I will listen. Between us two there is--there is--”
“_That_.” Lizzie nodded towards the child huddling low in the bed.
“That, and much more. We cannot stop at the point you’ve reached.
Besides, I have a question to ask.”
Lizzie passed before her into the front room, lit two candles and drew
down the blind.
“Ask it,” she said.
“How did you know that I believed the other--Mr. Raymond--to be--” She
came to a halt.
“I guessed.”
“What? From the beginning?”
“No; it was after a long while. And then, all of a sudden, something
seemed to make me clever.”
“Did you know that, believing it, I had done him a great wrong--
injured his life beyond repair?”
“I knew something had happened: that he’d given up being a gentleman
and taken to builder’s work. I thought maybe you were at the bottom of
it. Who was it told you lies about en?”
“Must I answer that?”
“No; no need. George Vyell was a nice fellow; but he was a liar.
Couldn’t help it, I b’lieve. But a dirty trick like that--well, well!”
Honoria stared at her, confounded. “You never loved my husband?”
And Lizzie laughed--actually laughed; she was so weary. “No more than
you did, my dear. Perhaps a little less. Eh, what two fools we are
here, fending off the truth! Fools from the start--and now, simme,
playing foolish to the end; ay, when all’s said and naked atween us.
Lev’ us quit talkin’ of George Vyell. We knawed George Vyell, you and
me too; and here we be, left to rear children by en. But the man we
hated over wasn’ George Vyell.”
“Yet if--as you say--you loved him--the other one--why, when you saw
his life ruined and guessed the lie that ruined it--when a word could
have righted him--if you loved him--”
“Why didn’t I speak? Ladies are most dull, somehow; or else you don’t
try to see. Or else--Wasn’t he near me, passing my door ivery day?
Oh, I’m ignorant and selfish. But hadn’t I got him near? And wouldn’t
that word have lost him, sent him God knows where--to _you_ perhaps?
You--you’d had your chance, and squandered it like a fool. I never had
no chance. I courted en, but he wouldn’ look at me. He’d have come to
your whistle--once. Nothing to hinder but your money. And from what I
can see and guess, you piled up that money in his face like a hedge.
Oh, I could pity you, now!--for now you’ll never have en.”
“God pity us both!” said Honoria, going; but she turned at the door.
“And after our marriage you took no more thought of my--of George?”
The question was an afterthought; she never thought to see it stab as
it did. But Lizzie caught at the table edge, held to it swaying over
a gulf of hysterics, and answered between a sob and a passing bitter
laugh.
“At the last--just to try en. No harm done, as it happened. You needn’
mind. He was worthless anyway.”
Honoria stepped back, took her by the elbow as she swayed, and seated
her in a chair; and so stood regarding her as a doctor might a patient.
After a while she said--
“I think you will do me injustice, but you must believe as you like. I
am not glad. I am very far from glad or happy. I doubt if I shall ever
be happy again. But I do not hate you as I did.”
She went out, closing the door softly.