It had been very cold in New York, and now there was thick snow outside the City which made the land through which they were passing look white and enchanting.
When she woke and had a glimpse of it through her bedroom window she got up early though it was, thinking she would be able to see better from the Drawing-Room.
She was in fact, so early that there was not even a sign of the servants. She drew up a blind and sat looking out.
The landscape stretching away into an indefinite distance was so lovely that she decided this would always be something to remember.
She had been there for nearly half-an-hour when a steward came in.
He seemed surprised to see her there before he said a hearty ‘good-morning!’ and started to tidy up the Drawing-Room and draw up the rest of the blinds.
Without her asking for it he brought her some coffee and put it in front of her.
She sat thinking how exciting everything was, until as the Earl joined her she knew this was what she had been waiting for.
“I somehow felt you would be unable to sleep and miss the view,” he said.
“It is so beautiful!” Lydia replied. “Exactly what I thought America would be like.”
The Earl raised his eyebrows and as if she had to explain she said:
“Very big, stimulating to the imagination, and asking for development which will spoil it!”
The Earl laughed.
“It is a new country with new ideas,” he said, “and you are quite right. Every time I come here I feel my imagination stimulated by something new.”
“I am so glad you feel like that.”
“Why?”
“Because when I have seen you out hunting I somehow thought you were restricted by the smallness of the country, not only by the fields and hedges, but by the social world in which you live.”
She paused. Then she said:
“I hope I am not being rude, but I did not realise that you were ‘thinking big.’ ”
The Earl laughed again.
“I suppose I should be insulted, but instead I can only justify myself by saying that I am investing in quite a number of new projects in America, and I am hoping some of their progressive ideas will be taken up by the British.”
“I have never read anything about this in your speeches in the House of Lords,” Lydia remarked.
“You have read my speeches?”
Too late she thought that perhaps what she had said had been too revealing.
The colour rose in her cheeks as she answered a little evasively:
“I am always interested in reforms.”
“Then you are certainly different from most women whose only idea of reform is whether they should change their hair-style for a different one or not,” the Earl replied cynically.
“I am sure that is unfair,” Lydia said quickly. “Perhaps when you are talking to them they think they should just listen and not try to force their ideas and opinions on you.”
The Earl’s eyes twinkled.
“It is certainly unusual for a woman to be anxious to defend her own sex, but then, Miss Westbury, you are very unusual.”
“Now I think you are being unkind,” Lydia said. “You know as well as I do that I am a very ordinary person.”
She nearly added: “In comparison with Heloise!” then thought that was obvious without her emphasising the fact.
As if once again he read her thoughts the Earl said quietly:
“That is the only unintelligent thing you have said since we first met!”
“It is true,” Lydia insisted because she felt she had to.
“Then we must disagree.”
As he spoke Sir Robert came into the Drawing Room and sat down beside them.
“I have had an excellent night!” he exclaimed. “If there is one thing the Americans know how to make better than anybody else it is a comfortable bed!”
Lydia knew now that her father was there it would be impossible to go on talking to the Earl.
It had been a sheer delight when they had duelled in words and she had known that she stimulated his mind as he stimulated hers.
But now it was her duty to go to see if Heloise was awake.
She had finished her breakfast which the stewards had brought to them together with the morning newspapers which had been picked up at the first station at which they stopped.
She knew there would be many things for her to do for her sister and that for the rest of the morning she would be kept busy helping her to dress.
chapter four
Owing to the bad weather there were frequent delays on the journey by train which actually Lydia enjoyed.
Instead of stopping for only a short time at the wayside stations they would be held up for perhaps two or even three hours.
When this happened the Earl and Sir Robert said they must have some exercise, and they would walk off into the countryside having instructed the guard to signal them by bursts on the engine’s whistle when it was time for them to return.
Whenever it was possible and Heloise would allow it, Lydia went with them.
She had been sensible enough knowing where they were going, to pack the thick boots she wore at home, and since it was so cold her father had bought her, at one of the stations, a fur coat made from white goatskins.
He had given Heloise a sable coat at Christmas when Lydia’s present had been just two books.
The goat-skin was the warmest coat she had ever owned and when she wore it she looked part of the snow scene as she tramped beside the two men, finding it hard at times to keep up with the pace set by the Earl.
It was wildly exciting not only because she had stepped into a world she had never known before, but also because she was with him.
As her father walked with them she did not join much in the conversation but listened, knowing that every day she was falling more and more in love.
While she admitted to herself that it was hopeless to love a man who belonged to her sister, she knew that the Earl had captured her heart and she would never love anybody else.
She found it difficult not to be angry with Heloise because she wasted so many opportunities of being with the man to whom she was engaged.
“Come with us, Heloise,” Lydia pleaded. “You will feel much better in the fresh air, and it is so enchanting to see everything white with snow. The beauty of the mountains in the distance will make you feel as if you had stepped onto another Planet.”
“I am quite content with this one,” Heloise replied sharply, “and if you think I am going to trudge about in the snow ruining my skin with the wind, you are very much mistaken!”
She would therefore either lie in bed or else sit in the Drawing-Room, looking when they returned exquisitely lovely in one of her expensive and elaborate gowns.
The Earl and Sir Robert on their walks would have been talking animatedly on all sorts of different subjects—Politics, horses, international finance, or the ever-expanding British Empire.
Yet when they entered the Rail Road Car to find Heloise waiting for them, Lydia knew that the Earl suddenly fell silent and she thought it must be because he was overwhelmed by her beauty and words were superfluous.
She then hurried to her own room, forcing herself not to feel jealous because she had known from the very beginning that it was impossible for her to compete in any way with Heloise.
“I will just have to be thankful to God that I have met anybody so wonderful,” she whispered to herself, “and have come on this exciting journey where I can be near him. How could I possibly be greedy enough to ask for more?”
Her body told her there was a great deal more she wanted, but her mind which she had disciplined for so many years made her think what she called ‘sensibly.’
Because she felt guilty at being in love with her sister’s fiancé she waited on Heloise, if it was possible, even more arduously and tried every morning to find a way of making her look even more lovely than she was already, by arranging he
r hair in different styles.
Not that she got any thanks for it.
Heloise, bored with the journey, took it out on Lydia because there was nobody else.
“I am sick of this train!” she said a thousand times when they were alone together. “I want to go to Balls. I cannot think why we did not stay in New York for the one which Mrs. Vanderbilt was giving, and I am sure when we do arrive at this dead-and-alive place on the other side of the world, it will be as boring as this is, if not more so!”
“How can you know that until you reach Honolulu?” Lydia asked. “And think how lovely it will be to see the sun and feel really warm!”
“I hope you remembered to pack all my sunshades,” Heloise said. “You know how delicate my skin is and must not get sunburnt.”
“Yes, of course I remembered and put in all the ones that match your gowns,” Lydia replied, “and you also have some big shady hats.”
When they reached the Rocky Mountains Lydia was so excited that she tried to imbue Heloise with some of her own delight at everything she saw.
It was not only the beauty of the mountains themselves, but the glaciers, the half-frozen rivers, and the incredible engineering feat which had been achieved in building a railroad through to California!
There were also the people they saw at every stop. Here at last, Lydia had a sight of the strange and different types of people who she knew had come to California in the Gold Rush and whose descendants were still struggling to find gold.
Forty thousand immigrants had, she learned, arrived from Europe, South America and Mexico, and Australia sent its ‘Sydney Ducks’ who were frequently ex-convicts.
There were also the Chinese who helped to build the railways and there seemed to be a mixed collection of nationalities at every station.
Lydia looked at them with wide eyes, but Heloise would not even go to the window of the Rail Road Car to look.
“Why should I concern myself with a lot of common, rough people like that?” she asked.
Lydia knew she was thinking of the aristocrats she had met in London and was resenting travelling further and further away from what she called ‘civilisation,’ even though the Earl was with her.
When they stopped at a station at the foot of one of the highest mountains and were told they could explore the tiny hamlet outside for an hour before the train moved off again, Lydia set out with the Earl and her father.
But they had only gone a little way before Sir Robert stopped and said he had a blister on his heel and intended to return to the train.
“Go on without me,” he said. “It is nothing serious and I will tell my valet not to give me these boots again.”
He walked away and Lydia looked a little apprehensively at the Earl.
“Do you mind if I come with you?” she asked.
“I should be very disappointed if I have to go alone,” the Earl replied. “I want you to tell me your impressions of what you have seen so far.”
“It is fascinating beyond words!”
“I saw you looking intently at the different types of people who were on the station just now,” he said. “It was almost as if you were looking for something.”
She smiled because she thought that was what he was always doing, and replied:
“I was thinking that the Gold Rush symbolised something which all men—and women for that matter—want.”
“Gold?” the Earl asked cynically.
“No, hope!” Lydia answered. “I am convinced that it was not only greed that brought so many people here in 1849 from every part of the world. It was hope which turned them into explorers, hope which sustained them through the incredible hardships they endured, which of course resulted in many of them dying.”
“I have never heard it explained like that before,” the Earl remarked.
“I think it is the same feeling that made the heroes of legend go out in search of the Golden Reece and the Holy Grail, and it was hope that stimulated Captain Cook to go further and further on his voyage of discovery until of course he finally found Hawaii.”
“And what do you hope to find?” the Earl enquired. As if she was surprised at his suddenly becoming personal Lydia thought before she replied:
“I have always hoped for many things which I never imagined for one moment would ever really materialise, and yet, incredibly and unbelievably, through you I have been able to find my ‘crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.’”
“And you think that will suffice you for the rest of your life?”
Lydia laughed.
“I think it will probably have to do so. But when I go home I shall keep praying and hoping there will be a chance for me to see other parts of the world and discover treasures which before I could only read about in my books.”
They walked on in silence, the only sound being the crispness of the hard crisp snow breaking under their feet.
Then there was the hoot of the engine in the distance and the Earl turned round.
“We must go back.”
Lydia looked ahead at the untouched whiteness of the ground and gave a deep sigh.
“I wonder how many explorers have felt frustrated when, having got so far, they have had to turn back.” She was speaking more to herself than to the Earl, but he replied:
“There is always tomorrow.”
“That is what we all hope,” Lydia said. “At the same time one always feels if one could just go a little further, just reach the next horizon to see if it is within our grasp.”
There was silence for a moment, then the Earl said: “Supposing when you find it there are reasons why you cannot make it yours?”
“Then of course,” Lydia answered, “you can only go on hoping that perhaps by a miracle, by fighting, will-power, or prayer you will be successful.”
She was thinking as she spoke that the Earl would be successful in anything he wanted, and because of the force of his personality he was inevitably the victor, the conqueror, and it would be impossible for anybody to gainsay him.
Then as she looked at him, wondering what he would reply, she saw he was looking serious and she had the feeling their conversation had changed from being just light-hearted and stimulating.
Then as they walked on he said:
“You have given me a great deal to think about, although there are some things to which there appears to be no solution.”
“I do not believe that,” Lydia said. “Not for you, at any rate. And if we fail because we are small and ineffectual, I believe there is always a Power to help us if we call upon it.”
As she spoke she thought perhaps it was a very strange thing to say to the Earl of Royston, and might almost sound as if she was preaching at him.
It seemed to her as if it was a long time before he answered:
“I hope you are right, Lydia.”
It was the first time he had called her by her Christian name, and she felt her heart turn a somersault because she had never known it to sound so attractive until she heard him say it.
Only yesterday when they had taken a short walk from another station he had called her ‘Miss Westbury,’ and her father had said:
“For goodness sake, Royston, call her Lydia! After all, she is going to be your sister-in-law. When you say ‘Miss Westbury’ it reminds me of one of my sisters who was an ugly and tiresome woman, who never found a man who was fool enough to marry her!”
The Earl had laughed, but he had not called her ‘Lydia’ until now.
Because it made her so happy she was smiling and her face must have been radiant as they climbed back into the train.
She went at once to Heloise to see if there was anything she could do for her.
Her sister looked at her and said disagreeably: “What have you got to smile about, I would like to know? And you had no right to stay with Hunter after Papa came back with a bad foot! You should have returned too!”
The way she spoke and the expression in her eyes wiped the smile from Lydia’s lips.
“I am sorry, Heloise,” she said, “I did not think of it, and I was enjoying the exercise.”
“Well, in future,” Heloise ordered, “you will keep away from Hunter, if I am not with him. I want him to be alone and miss me, and I am sure your stupid chatter only irritates him.”
Lydia said nothing. She merely went to take off her fur coat and her thick boots.
As she did so she wondered humbly if, in fact, the Earl found their talks together boring and stupid.
Then she told herself that although it might seem conceited she was certain he was as stimulated by the subjects they discussed as she was.
Although with her father he talked of ordinary matters the moment they were alone it seemed as if he was as eager as she was to discuss more fundamental subjects, which she knew Heloise would not understand.
“He is so different from what I expected,” she told herself.
As the train began to move out of the station Lydia began counting the days when she would still be on the train with the Earl, and however disagreeable her sister might be, she knew she could not be prevented from talking to him, if she had the chance.
Once they were through the Rocky Mountains and in California, it was only a short journey before they arrived in San Francisco.
Lydia had been hoping that they would see something of the City which she felt would be fascinating, and which her books had told her had grown up from a dusty, remote village called Yerba Buena which meant ‘the place of the good herb.’
The story of how it had begun with the Missions which came from Spain, then grown with the Russian-American Fur Company, and finally with the American occupation, was fascinating.
California had been a land of unrest and conspiracy with a wide-spread mistrust of foreigners until the Gold Rush turned it into a modem Babel.
Lydia would not have known so much about San Francisco if, at one of the larger stations at which they stopped she had not given a cry of delight when she saw there were books for sale on a stall.
“Books!” she had exclaimed. “Oh, please, Papa, let me buy some!”
The Island of Love (Camfield Series No. 15) Page 7