LIZZIE BECOMES MISS RAND AGAIN
"So she put the handkerchief, and the pin, and the lock of hair
back into the box, turned the key, and went resolutely about
her everyday duties again."--Mrs. Ewing.
I
Lizzie was waiting for Lady Adela. She had finished her work for the
day, had come from her own room to Lady Adela's and now stood at one of
the high windows looking down upon the April sunshine that coloured the
dignities of Portland Place.
The room was spacious and lofty, but curiously uncomfortable and
lifeless. High book-cases with glass shutters revealed rows of
"Cornhill" and "Blackwood" volumes, a long rather low table covered with
a green cloth held a silver inkstand, a blotting-pad, pens and a
calendar. There were stiff mahogany chairs ranged against the wall and
old prints of Beaminster House (white-pillared, spacious with sloping
lawns) and Eton College chapel faced the windows.
This was where Lady Adela spent several hours of every morning and she
had never attempted to "do" anything with it. A large marble clock on
the mantelpiece ticked out its sublime indifference to time and change.
"We're the same, thank God," it said, "as we've always been."
Lady Adela had told Lizzie that she would come in from a drive at
quarter to four and she would like then to speak to her.
Lizzie's eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment
and catching in its shining surface some hint of the blue sky above it.
There was a great deal just then to occupy her thoughts. Ten days ago,
in the middle of a little dinner-party that Lady Adela was giving,
upstairs the Duchess had had a stroke. Lizzie had, of course, not been
there, but, coming next morning she had been told of it. Her Grace was
soon well again, no unhappy effects could be discovered, she had not,
herself, been apparently disturbed by it, but it had rung, like a
warning bell, through the house. "The beginning of the end.... We've
been watching, we've been waiting--soon these walls will be ours again,"
said the portraits of those stiff and superior Beaminsters.
News ran through the Beaminster camp--"The Duchess has had a stroke....
The Duchess has had a stroke."
But, for many weeks now, Lizzie had been aware that some crisis had
found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even
the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to
ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day's
work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that
house....
Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never
permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie
had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had
asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or
tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been
with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other
hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated
herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her.
She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss
her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came.
She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman
upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was
costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time
and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught
the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round
Church began to ring. "Poor old thing," thought Lizzie; she would not
have considered her thus, a year ago.
Lady Adela came in; she reminded Lizzie of Mrs. Noah in her stiff wooden
hat, her stiff wooden clothes, her anxiety to prevent any mobility that
might give her away. She looked, as she always did, carefully about the
room, at the "Cornhills" and "Blackwoods," at the marble clock, at the
prints of Beaminster House and Eton College Chapel, a little as though
she would ascertain that no enemy, no robber, no brigand, no outlaw, was
concealed about the premises, a little as though she would say--"Well,
these things are all right anyway, nothing wrong here."
"I'm sorry, Miss Rand," she said. "I hope that I haven't kept you."
"No, thank you, Lady Adela, I have only just finished."
Lady Adela sat down; they discussed correspondence, trivial things that
were, Lizzie knew, placed as a barrier against something that frightened
her.
At length it came.
"Miss Rand, I wonder whether--the fact is, my mother has just decided
that she wishes to be moved to Beaminster House. I must of course go
with her. I hope that this will not inconvenience you. You can, if you
prefer not to leave your mother, come down every day by train; it only
takes an hour. Just as you please...."
Lizzie's heart was strangely, poignantly stirred. The moment had come
then; the house was to be deserted. This could only mean the end. She
herself would never return here, her little room, the large solemn
house, that walk from Saxton Square, the Round Church, the Queen's Hall,
Regent's Park....
But she gave no sign.
Gravely she replied: "I think I'd better come down with you, Lady Adela,
if you don't mind. My mother has my sister. Perhaps I might come up for
the week-ends."
"Yes. That would be quite easy. The other places, you know, are let,
but Beaminster has always been kept. The Duke has been there a good
deal. It reminds me ... I was there for some years as a girl."
Lizzie realized that Lady Adela was very near to tears; she had never
before seen her, in any way, moved. She was distressed and
uncomfortable. It was as though Lady Adela were, suddenly, after all
these years, about to be driven from a position that had seemed, in its
day, impregnable.
"Oh! don't, please don't, now!" was Lizzie's silent cry. "It will spoil
it all--all these years."
Lady Adela didn't. Her voice became dry and hard, her eyes without
expression.
"We shall go down, I expect, on Monday if Dr. Christopher thinks that a
good day."
"I hope that the Duchess----"
"My mother's very well to-day--quite her old self. I have just been up
with her. It is odd, but for thirty years she has never expressed any
interest in Beaminster. Now she is impatient to be there."
"One often, I think, has a sudden longing for places."
"Yes. I shall be glad myself to be there again."
"This house?"
"Oh! we shall shut it up--for the time Lord John will come down to
Beaminster with us. I have spoken to Norris, but to-morrow morning, if
you don't mind, we will go through things."
"Certainly."
"The house has not been shut for a great number of years--a very great
number. During the last thirty years through the hottest weather my
mother was here.
"It will seem strange ..." Her voice trembled.
"Is there anything more this afternoon?" Lizzie turned to the door.
"No, I think not. Except--perhaps ..." Lady Adela was in great
agitation. Her eyes sought Lizzie, beseeching her help.
"Miss Rand--I think it only right to say. I'm afraid one cannot--in the
nature of things--it's impossible, I fear, to expect--my mother to live
very much longer." Her voice caught in a dry strangled cough. "Dr.
Christopher has warned us. After my mother's death my life, of course,
will be very different. I shall live very quietly--a good deal in the
country and abroad, I expect.
"I shall not, of course, have a secretary."
"I quite understand," said Lizzie quietly.
"I want you to know, Miss Rand," Lady Adela continued, "that although
during all these years I have seemed very unappreciative.... It is not
my way--I find it difficult to express--But I have, nevertheless, been
very conscious--we have all been--of the things that you have done for
me, indeed for the whole house. You have been admirable; quite
admirable."
"I have been very happy here," said Lizzie.
"I am very glad of that. I must have seemed often very blind to all that
you were doing. But I should like you to know that it is more--it is
more--than simply your duty to the house--it is the many things that you
have done personally for me. You have not yourself been, I dare say,
aware of the effect that your company has had upon me. It has been very
great."
Lizzie smiled. "I've loved the house and the work. It has meant a very
important part of my life. I shall never forget it."
Their embarrassment was terrible. After a moment of struggle Lady
Adela's voice was hard and unconcerned again. "You know, Miss Rand,
that--when the time comes for this change--anything that I, or any of
us, can do ... I do not know what your own plans may be, but you need
have no fear, I think."
"Thank you very much, Lady Adela. That is very kind."
There was a little pause--then they said good night.
As Lizzie went down the great staircase, on every side of her, the
stones of the house were whispering, "You're all going--you're all
going--you're all going."
Her heart was very sad.
II
As she passed the Regent Street Post Office Francis Breton came out of
it. They had not met often lately, but she was conscious that ever since
that interview in Regent's Park, they had been very good friends. Her
absorption with Rachel and affairs in the Portland Place house had
assisted her own resolution and she had thought that she could meet him
now without a tremor. Nevertheless the tremor came as she caught sight
of him there and, for a moment, the traffic and the shouting died away
and there was a great stillness.
He was very glad to see her. He stood on the post office steps looking
richer and smarter than she had ever known him. He wore a dark blue suit
and a black tie and a bowler hat--all ordinary garments enough--but they
surrounded him with an air of prosperity that had not been his before.
He seemed to her to gleam and glitter and shine with confidence and
assurance. One hurried glimpse she had had of him some weeks before,
miserable, unkempt, almost furtive. She was glad for his sake that all
was well with him, but he needed her more when he was unhappy....
But he was delighted. "Miss Rand. That's splendid! Are you going back to
Saxton Square now? The very thing! I've been wanting badly to see you!"
It was always, she thought, in little hurried and occasional walks that
they exchanged their confidences. There was not much to show for all the
elaborate palace that she had once been building--snatches of
conversation, clutches at words and movements, even eloquent
interpretation of silences--well, she was wiser than all that now!
But, when they started off together, she found that she was caught up
instantly into that fine assumption of intimacy that was one of his most
alluring qualities. Radiant though he was he still needed her; he was
more eager to talk to _her_ than to anyone else even though he had
forgotten her very existence until he saw her standing there.
"I am glad to see you. I should have come down and tried to find you,
anyway, in a day or two. I've been through a rotten time--really
rotten--and one doesn't want to see anyone--even one's best friends--in
that sort of condition, does one?"
"That's just the time your _real_ friends--if they're worth
anything--want to see you. If they can be of any use----"
"But you'd been such a tremendous help to me. I was ashamed to come to
you any more. Besides, you'd showed me, in a way, that I ought to get
through on my own without asking help from anyone. You'd taught me that
I did try."
She saw that he was shining with the glory of one who had come,
rather mightily, unaided through times of stress. A pleasant
self-congratulatory pathos stirred behind his words. "It _was_ a bad
time--but it's all right now. And I expect it was good for me," was
really what he said.
"I do want to tell you," he went on eagerly, "about Rachel. It's all
been so strange--wonderful in a way. After that talk I had with you in
the park I was absolutely broken up. Oh! but done for! I simply went
under. I tried to go back to some of that old set I've told you about
before, but the awful thing was that Rachel wouldn't let me. Thinking of
her, wanting her when all those other women were about. It simply wasn't
possible....
"It got worse and worse. I thought I'd go off my head. Then--do you
remember that awful thunderstorm we had?"
"Yes," said Lizzie, "I remember it very well."
"That night was a kind of climax. I'd dined with Christopher, then got
wandering about--it was horribly close and heavy--got into some music
hall. I suppose I'd been drinking--anyway, I had suddenly a kind of
vision, there in the music hall. I thought Rachel was dead, that I'd
lost her altogether. And then--it's all so hard to explain--but when I
came to myself I seemed to understand that the only way I could keep her
was by giving her up.... I've got it all muddled, but that was what it
came to."
"You were quite right," said Lizzie.
"Well, then--what do you think happened? The very next day my uncle,
John Beaminster, came to see me--yes, came himself. Talked and was most
pleasant and wanted to be friends. At the same time--now just listen to
this--came a note from Seddon asking me to go and see him. I went, found
Rachel there. Apparently my delightful grandmother had been telling him
stories about Rachel and me, and he wanted to put things straight. As
though this weren't enough, right upon us, without a word of warning,
dropped my grandmother herself!"
He stopped that he might convey fully to Lizzie the drama of the
occasion.
There was, in his words, just that touch of absurdity and exaggeration
that she had noticed at her very first meeting with him. He was always
too passionately anxious to thrill his audience!
"There _was_ a scene! You can imagine it! We all tried to behave at
first, although of course it was immensely difficult. I don't think
Seddon had in the least realized the kind of thing it would be. Then
she--the old tyrant--could contain herself no longer and burst out
concerning me, the blackguard I was and the rest of it. She was furious,
you see, at Seddon taking my friendship with Rachel so quietly. He was
_splendid_ about it!
"Well, when she burst out about all the family cutting me and everybody
casting me out, the opportunity was too good. I _couldn't_ help it. I
had to tell her that Uncle John had been round that very afternoon to
see me and that the family was holding out its arms."
"What happened?" said Lizzie, as he paused.
"She collapsed--altogether, completely. She never said another word--she
just went."
"You shouldn't have done it!" Lizzie cried, turning almost furiously
upon him. "Oh! it was cruel--she was so old and all of you so young and
strong."
"Yes!" he answered her--"But think of the years that I've waited--the
times she's given me, the suffering----"
"No," interrupted Lizzie, quiet again now. "If you're weak enough to be
pushed down by anybody like that, then you're weak enough to sink by
your own fault, whether there's anyone there or no. She's been hard in
her time, I dare say, but everything's left her now and she's ill and
lonely. It was wrong of all of you. I shouldn't have thought Sir
Roderick----"
"He only wanted things to be straightened out," Breton said eagerly. "He
didn't _intend_ to have a scene. But I expect you're right, Miss Rand,
as you always are. I've been a brute, the most howling cad. But there's
one thing--I don't think it's hurt my grandmother. She likes those
scenes, and she's been none the worse since."
"She's been much worse," said Lizzie gravely. "She's dying--She's going
down to Beaminster on Monday."
He stopped. "Oh! but I'm sorry ... That's dreadful ... I'd no idea. I'm
always responsible----"
He had sunk to such depths that she was compelled to raise him.
"I don't think you need be disturbed, Mr. Breton. Something of the sort
would have been certain to happen very soon. She would have found out in
any case ... and there were other things, I know. Rachel----"
"Ah!" he broke in, eager again and almost cheerful. "That was the
wonderful thing. When I saw her there first with Seddon--I'd never met
him before, you know--I felt angry and impatient. I wanted to carry her
off--away from everybody. And then, when Seddon began to speak I lost
all sense of Rachel's belonging to me. She seemed older, ever so far
away from him, and he was so fine, so splendid about it all that I
felt--I felt--well, that I'd do anything in the world for both of
them--but never anything that could separate them or make him unhappy."
"You can't separate them now," said Lizzie, "nobody can."
"No. It was just finished--our episode together that wasn't really an
episode at all if you consider the little that we saw one another....
Besides, I've never got near Rachel, and I felt in some way that the
nearer I got to her the farther away she was. Why, the only time that I
kissed her she was the farthest away of all!"
They were walking up the grey, peaceful square.
"You don't mind my telling you all this, do you, Miss Rand? You've seen
it all from the beginning. But I'm odd in a way....
"Uncle John coming to me, Seddon being friendly to me, the family taking
me back ... that seems to have made all the difference to me. Although
I'd never confess it, even to myself, I know that if Rachel and I had
gone off together I'd never have been happy. You see, we're both alike
that way. We're restless, one half of us, but oh! we're Beaminster the
other, and even Rachel, who's been fighting the family all her days, has
one part of her that's happy to be married to Seddon and to be quiet and
proper and English. That's why neither I nor Seddon ever could hold
her--because to be with me she'd have had to give up the other. If she
had a child, that might----"
"She's going to have a child!" said Lizzie.
He stopped and stared at her.
"Miss Rand!... Is that certain?"
"Quite."
"Ah, well, Seddon's got her all right. They'll be happy as anything." He
sighed. "You know, Miss Rand, Rachel and I have been fighting the old
lady, and we seem to have won ... but I'm not sure whether, after all,
she hasn't!"
On the step he paused.
"I'm sticking to Candles, I've got work. I'm recognized again. I've got
that little bit of Rachel that she gave me and that nobody else can
have, and--I've got you for a friend--Not so bad after all!"
He laughed, opened the door for her, and then as they stood in the dark
little hall he said:
"All along you've been _such_ a friend for me. I want someone like
you--someone strong and sensible, without my rotten sentiment and
impulses. We'll always be friends, won't we?"
He held her hand.
"Always," she said, smiling at him.
But, perhaps, to both of them there came, just then, sighing through the
dark still hall, a breath, a whisper, of that hour when life had been at
its intensest, that hour when Breton had held Rachel in his arms, that
hour when Lizzie had dressed, with trembling hands, for the theatre....
For Breton his place once again in the world, for Lizzie work and peace
of heart, but once on a day life had flamed before both of them and they
would never forget--
"Well, good night, Mr. Breton."
"Good night, Miss Rand."
When he had gone, she stood in the hall a moment.
Their little dialogue had closed, with the sound of a closing door, a
stage in her life. She would never be the same as she had been before
that episode. It had shown her that she was as romantic as the rest of
the world. It had made her kinder, tenderer, wiser. And now once again
she was independent--once again her soul was her own. She could be, once
more, his friend, seeing him with all his faults, his impetuosities, his
weak impulses.
Her place was there for her to fill. It was not the place that she would
once have chosen. But she had regained her soul, had once more control
of her spirit. She was free.
There stretched before her a world of work, of thrilling and
ever-changing interest. There were Rachel and Rachel's baby....
"You seem in very good spirits, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand as she came in.
"I'm sure I'm very glad because it's too tiresome. Here's Daisy gone
off...."
III
Afterwards she said to her mother:
"I'm going down to Beaminster on Monday. I'm afraid I shall be away some
time."
"Oh! Lizzie!" said Mrs. Rand reproachfully. "Well, now--That _is_ a
pity. Why must you?"
"The Duchess is going and Lady Adela must go with her and I must go with
Lady Adela."
"Dear, dear. Whatever shall we do, Daisy and I? Daisy gets idler every
day. It's always clothes with her now.... I suppose we shall manage."
"I shall come up for week-ends."
"What a way you speak of it! Of course you don't care! If you went away
for years you wouldn't miss us, I dare say. I can't think why it is,
Lizzie, that you're always so hard. Daisy and I have got plenty of
feeling and emotion and your father, poor man, had more than he could
manage. But I'm sure more's better than none at all, where feelings are
concerned."
"I suppose," said Lizzie, speaking to more than her mother, "that if
everyone had so much feeling there'd be nobody to give the advice.
Feelings don't suit everybody."
"You're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand, "and you're like no one in our
family. All your aunts and uncles are kind and friendly. I don't suggest
that you don't do your best, Lizzie. You do, I'm sure--and nobody could
deny that you've got a head for figures and running a house. But a
little heart...."
"I've come to the conclusion I'm better without any," Lizzie laughed. "I
expect I'm more like you and Daisy, mother, than you know----"
"Well, you're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand again, "and I never
understand half you say."
Lizzie came to her and kissed her.
"You always miss me, you know, mother, when I'm away, in spite of my
hard heart."
"Well, that's true," said Mrs. Rand, looking at her daughter with wide
and rather tearful eyes. "But I'm sure I don't know why I do."