by Hugh Walpole
Death.... She had never — until this instant — given it a thought. Everything was gone before its presence. In a week or two, a month or two, silence —
Rachel — she saw her standing there by the fire, full of life and energy, so young, so strong.
She, the Duchess of Wrexe, the great figure, courted by kings, princes, artists, all the men and women of her time, now must crumble into the veriest dust, be forgotten, be followed by others, banished by this new world.
She and her Times were slipping, slipping into disuse. Who cared now for those other glories? What minds now were fit to tackle those minds that she had known? What beauty now could stand beside that beauty that had shone when she was young?
The beast crouched nearer. The room darkened. She could feel the hot breath, could be dazed by the shining of those eyes. Behind her, around her, the trumpery toys that she had gathered faded.
Darkness rose; a great space and desolation was about her — She tried to summon all her energy.
She cried out and Dorchester, coming in, found that her mistress had, for the first time in her life, fainted, bending, an old, broken woman, forward in her chair.
CHAPTER X
LIZZIE’S JOURNEY — II
I
The world, during all these months, had seemed to Lizzie Rand a very silent place. Before that July night it had been loud with incident, coloured with possibilities, strange and varied and thrilling. Now she was only conscious of the duties that must be fulfilled between daybreak and darkness; she was unconscious of all life and movement, only she was aware of the demands on her deliberate activity — these demands she obeyed.
Slowly, as the dreary autumn dragged its days past her, she accustomed herself to forestall the horrid moments that would leap from some hidden darkness upon her. There was the moment when a something said: “Fancy caring for someone who had never asked nor shown any sign....” Another moment when something said: “Remember how here you stood, with your heart beating, waiting for him to come — There you caught some light in his 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, Lady Adela, Dr. Christopher (always kind to her), other friends — they were not 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 her defence before, but to hate anyone was new to her. She had never hated any human being and now the restlessness that this new emotion brought confused her.
Night after night stretched ironically before her, banishing sleep. All her life she had slept from the moment that her head was upon the pillow; now, at that instant, her brain sprang to fire, thought after thought, memory after memory, passed in dancing procession before her.
She saw him as little as possible, she supposed that in time she would not care, would be indifferent to him; she hoped so.
Meanwhile she went out when he came in; saw his kind distress because he thought that she was not well, and shuddered at it.
Then Lady Adela told her that Rachel had asked whether she were free for Christmas.
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 was some food for the burning restlessness that was always at her breast — Through these months she had longed for some step that would help to kill the pain.
Now she would watch Rachel and discover her heart and perhaps find from that discovery some way for her own release. For her shame, night and day, was that she still cared, cared, yes, as deeply as she had ever done — 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 and remoteness of those many months.
She would go to Seddon and she would not leave it without finding some way by which she might still make some use of life.
II
She had really stayed at very few houses before. The anticipation at any other time would have excited her, now nothing mattered except that she would meet Rachel.
Her mother and sister had watched her during these past months with a dismay stirred by the sudden absence of her genial friendliness.
They had taken so much of her kindliness for granted and now when she refused them the sympathy that they had always demanded for a thousand unimportant 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 with relief the promise of a three-weeks’ holiday. “She’ll come back,” said Mrs. Rand, “as fresh as paint, and taken out of herself.”
Meanwhile no solution of Lizzie’s trouble occurred to them; that she should ever feel the tyranny of love, like more sentimental mortals, was, at this time of day, impossible. “We know Lizzie, thank you,” said Mrs. Rand.
They watched her, on the afternoon of the 23rd of December, depart in a cab for Seddon Court. She was grave and pale and beautifully neat. “I do admire Lizzie, you know,” said Daisy, returning with her mother into the house. “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 hard impatient spurts against the windows of the cab. Few people were about: Hyde Park Corner was grey and deserted, umbrellas like black mushrooms started here and there from the shining ground.
Victoria Station also had, on this afternoon, nothing beautiful to offer. She found her way to her train, chose an empty carriage, sat in her corner with her hands upon her lap, waited for the train to move.
People, grey people with white faces, hurried past her carriage. She wondered whether they too had something in their hearts that made every thought, every movement a danger.
Because the train would not move and because for the first time in all these months she found herself without any occupation, she could not hold thought at bay. She resisted, she tried to sweep her brain empty, she surrendered. She, Lizzie Rand, always so fond of her self-discipline and restraint, found control now slipping from her. Before she had met Breton her duties, the skilful manipulation and arrangement of detail, her work and her place as a worker, these had supplied her needs. Now all those things were dust and ashes; high and lofty above them shone that bright fire whose warmth and colour she had, for an instant, felt and seen. What was life going to be, through all the years to come, if she were never to recapture her tranquillity?
The train moved off and she sat there, her eyes bright and shining, her little body stiff and resolute. Somewhere, a long way away, like a rounded coloured cloud, hovered emotion — emotion that would break her heart, would tear her to pieces and then perhaps build up for her a new life. 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 were buried below the window, and with the noise and movement there danced before 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 she love her husband?” And then, beyond that, “Why did she come and take from me all that I had, she who had already so much?”
And then, most bitter of all, “Ah, but you never had him. She took nothing from you. He never thought of you except as someone to whom he could talk — —”
She had no doubt that these weeks were intended for a crisis. Something was going to happen at Seddon.... Something in which she was to have her share. She felt as though she had known that she would be sent to meet Rachel — 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 had never been alone before and now that the Duchess had had, a fortnight ago, that fainting fit, they were all unsettled and alarmed. What would happen if the Duchess died? Then all the dignity and splendour of 104 Portland Place would pass away! other people might inhabit it, but the soul of that house would be dead.
Everything on every side of her seemed to be hastening to a climax and Lizzie could see that old woman fighting, behind her closed doors, for Life, beaten at last, dead, swept away, others laughing in her place — a new world to whom she was only a portrait cleverly painted by some young artist.
Yes, there were other histories developing now besides Lizzie’s and she felt as though she had been whirled, during the last months, into a wild, tossing medley of contacts and revelations — all this after a life so grey and quiet and steadily busy.
As the train plunged into Sussex the rain stayed for a little and the shining earth steamed upwards to a grey sky broken here and there to saffron. Little towns quietly rested under the hills and many streams ran through the woods and the roads drove white like steel through the crust of the soil. White lights spread in the upper air and the heaving grey was pushed, as though by some hand, back into the distant horizon. For a moment it seemed that the sun was bursting through; trees were suddenly green where they had been black and fields red where they had been sombre dark — Light was on all the hills.
But the hand was stayed. Back the grey rolled again, heavily like chariots the clouds wheeled round and drove down upon the earth — The rain fell.
The carriage was very cold. Lizzie’s hand and feet were so chill that they seemed not to belong to her at all. Pictures of houses at Brighton and the dining-car of some train and two public-houses at the bottom of a hill stared at her.
The sense of some coming disaster grew with her. It was as though someone were telling her that she must prepare to be very brave and controlled and wise because, very soon, all her restraint and wisdom would be needed. She summoned now, as she had learnt to do, a stern armoured resolution that sat always a little oddly upon her. Any observer who had seen her sitting there would have noticed the mild softness of her eyes, the tenderness of some curve at the corners of her mouth, and would have smiled at the lines of resolution as though he had known that the sternness was all assumed.
But she was saying that nothing should touch or move her down here at Seddon; her heart should be closed. She must grow into a woman who had no need of emotion — and even as she determined that some vision swept her by, revealing to her the happy dear uses that she could have made of love and sympathy had life been set that way for her. How she could have cared!... A dry little sob was at her throat and burning pain behind her tearless 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 woman with a little child, the three of them tired, wet, bedraggled, entered the carriage.
The man was gaunt with a beard and large helpless eyes, the woman shapeless, loose-breasted, little eyes sunk in her cheeks, an old black straw 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 small child, yellow wisps of hair falling about her dirty face, detached herself from them, crept into the furthest corner of the carriage and from there stared at Lizzie.
The train droned on through a country now shrinking beneath a deluge of rain. The child moved a little, looked at the woman, looked again at Lizzie, crept to Lizzie’s side of the carriage, at last, still without a word, came close and, finally, stole fingers towards Lizzie’s dress.
Lizzie turned and smiled at the child, who stared back at her, now with wide terrified eyes. Lizzie looked away, out of the window, and after a long 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 again at the wide baby face. The child was very, very young and very, very dirty —
No child had ever come near her before. She wondered why it had come now.
III
At Lewes a carriage was waiting for her and, in a moment, it seemed that she was driving through a dark village street and in front of her, like a great wall topping the skies, the Downs rose.
When the carriage entered the courtyard and stopped before the broad stone door Lizzie was seized with terror. She wished, oh! she wished that she had not come. The sense of descending trouble was so strong with her that she felt for the first time in her life that she was going to prove unequal to her task.
Her life was over and done with! Why had she allowed herself to be pushed back again into all these affairs of other people?
She was ushered into a square lighted hall where they were all having tea round a wide open fireplace. She was conscious of Rachel rising, slim and tall, to greet her, of the square ruddy-faced country-looking man 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 two and an elderly smartly dressed woman.
They were all immensely cheerful and friendly and to Lizzie, white and tired, noisy and horribly robust. She would have liked to have slipped up 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 its hottest and its freshest. Quick, Roddy — the toast — Never mind the rest of us, Miss Rand — just drink that tea and get warm.”
They allowed her to sink back into an easy chair somewhere in the shadow and the tea was very comforting and the stern hall with its crackling fire and its cosy solid shape most friendly. She listened to them all noisily discussing people and dances and horses and dinners. She watched Rachel Seddon, sitting a little gravely, straight in her chair, throwing in 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 at her side the oddest dog, a dog like a mat, shapeless with two brown eyes behind its hair and a black wet nose.
There was something about the eyes and the way that the warm body was pressed against her dress that won her instant affection.
“What an adorable animal!” she said to Roddy, who was sitting next to her.
“Oh! Jacob!” he said, laughing. “He really oughtn’t to be in here at all — 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 them shame. He had been sitting, very square and upright, with his eyes gravely fixed, with great interest, upon the company. Then, at the sound of Roddy’s voice his head had dropped, instantly he became furtive, his eyes searching for some place of escape.
Her hand caught his rough coat and she drew him to her side and stroked his ears.
“I think he’s perfectly delightful,” she said. “I’m afraid I prefer mongrels to better dogs.”
“Do you really?” said Roddy, looking kindly at her. “‘Pon my word, Miss Rand, I must show you my little lot. I don’t think you’ll have much use for that animal there afterwards.”
At last the girl in the riding-habit and the other woman and the young man noisily departe
d.
Rachel took Lizzie upstairs. “Are you sure,” she said, “you’d like to come down to dinner? Wouldn’t you rather, to-night, go early to bed and have it there?”
“No, thank you, Lady Seddon.” Lizzie looked about the room. “This is all splendid, thank you. I’m not a bit tired.”
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” said Rachel, searching for Lizzie’s eyes. But Lizzie 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 and grass stole up to her.
“That’s the woman ...” she said again to herself— “What shall we say to one another?”
Then as she stared into the fire she thought, “She wants me to help her.”
Afterwards she heard a scratching at the door. A maid had been sent to her, but she had dismissed her, saying that she would manage for herself.
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 his ears 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 right angles to his body and watched her.
She was indignant with herself for the softness in her heart that his company brought to her.
CHAPTER XI
RODDY IS MASTER
“I and my mistress, side by side, Shall be together, breathe and ride, So, one day more am I deified, Who knows but the world may end to-night?”
Robert Browning.