Lizzie, My Love

by Sara Bennett - Lizzie, My Love

  “Oh you’re most efficient, and very polite. But I get the impression, my dear Lizzie Banister, that you hate the sight of me. Perhaps you even begin to wish yourself back in the workhouse, eh? Is that it?”

  “Of course not!”

  She put a hand to her head, shaking it and feeling suddenly weary. What did he want? Why was he treating her so? He admitted she did her job well, what more could he ask?

  Before she had realized what he intended, Zek reached his arm slipping naturally about her waist, his other hand covering her brow.

  “Are you feeling ill, Lizzie?”

  The genuine frowning concern in his eyes shook her to the core, and for a moment she blinked up at him feeling as shy as a child. “No, I... only tired, sir.”

  “You work too hard girl. I never expected a slave. I saw you out there in that damned garden. The sun is too hot for you, Lizzie. You shouldn’t do it.”

  She was astonished by the suppressed fury in his voice, and stiffened in his grip. “You don’t... I am your employee, sir, and must work for my living. I enjoy gardening. I had little chance to work in a garden in London.”

  “Not even in the workhouse?” But all the anger was gone, and he smiled lazily down at her, suddenly squeezing her against his side before releasing her altogether. “But as your employer I have a certain liberty to order you about, and I am ordering you now to go and lie down for a few hours. Mind, I shall ask Mary if you did!”

  “Mr. Gray, really, I–”

  His smile grew grim. “Lizzie.”

  She turned and marched from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  He was not at dinner, so she had to keep all her frustrated comments to herself. Mary said he had gone over to the nearest town for some meeting of the district’s landholders, and would not return until late. Lizzie thought he at least might have told her, so that she could mention it to the kitchen. The thought set her brooding, and she grumbled at him inwardly, not admitting to herself how glad she was to find something to hate him for, after the rather unsettling concern of the afternoon.

  He had acted as if... as if her cold distance were all a game he was willing to go along with, to play with her, unless something important occurred, like her being ill. And then the game was finished and he’d come and hold her and treat her just as he had treated her the night of the spider. Was it a game she was playing? The thought puzzled her, and she went apprehensively to her bed.

  ***

  Time went by. Lizzie did her best, which she decided was rather good. She enjoyed being housekeeper, even if she was lonely. It was a lofty, lonely position, she told herself. She must expect that. And yet sometimes she would wake from dreams, tears drying on her cheeks, in which she had played a part totally different from the drab housekeeper. Only she didn’t remember what it was.

  Jessie Grant continued to hate her, though she kept it hidden under that efficient exterior, and, really, Lizzie could make no complaints about her meals. The cooking and preparation was excellent. The other servants she managed well enough. They deferred to her higher position, and if they felt anything for her under their masks they hid it well. Most of the girls who worked around the kitchen and the dairy, were assignees, which Lizzie had learnt meant they were convict girls assigned by the Government to work for Zek Gray for a certain time, until they were either given their ticket-of-leave, or misbehaved and were returned to the Government.

  There were convict men too, who worked about the place, but mainly the men were ticket-of-leave men or free laborers. Ralph Grant was the foreman, and Lizzie often received a smile from him. He seemed a nice man, and even took time to chat to her, bringing out her own tentative smile, and making her feel almost welcome.

  “Mr. Gray acts on impulse, you might say,” he told her, one afternoon, when she had met him on the verandah. “He hired you on impulse. He bought this place on impulse, and he’s built it up into something remarkable.”

  Lizzie let her gaze follow his out over the paddocks. Perhaps he was right, perhaps Zek Gray was a remarkable man. He certainly worked hard. Butdid that excuse him for being such a despicable rake?

  Ralph cleared his throat, and Lizzie wondered uneasily if something of her feelings had shown on her face. But he wasn’t looking at her. He reached into his waistcoat pocket for his tobacco pouch, changed his mind, and shuffled his feet.

  “Of course, a man like that creates talk, Miss Banister. Can’t help but talk about him. You shouldn’t believe all you hear. We’re all influenced by likes and dislikes, aren’t we? I always find it better to make my own judgments about people.”

  “Yes.” Her brown eyes flickered to him almost shyly. “You seem to like him, Mr. Grant. Not just as an employer, but for himself.”

  He nodded. “Aye, I do, Miss Banister.”

  Lizzie wondered if the poor man realized his wife was in love with the master he so admired. She liked him suddenly, and wished she could like his wife as well. But Jessie Grant had put that feeling well beyond her reach. So her smile was friendly when he took his leave of her, and he afterwards told a silently furious Jessie that he thought Miss Banister a sweet girl.

  Angelica came again, but Lizzie didn’t see her. She went in search of Zek, and by the smile on her pink mouth when she rode by, Lizzie knew whatever ploy she had used had been successful. Somehow this made her angry—the thought of that poor old man being deceived, she told herself—and when Zek came in for his dinner she glared at him.

  He looked rather irritated himself, and barely murmured a civil good evening to her.

  “Did Mrs. Bailey find you?” she said sweetly, glancing at him. “Mary said she was looking for you.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he said evenly enough, “She found me.”

  “I meant to offer her refreshment, but she didn’t come into the house. It must have been quite urgent.”

  After a moment he said, “She thought so.”

  And what one must make of that, Lizzie decided later, the Lord alone knew.

  One evening he went out to dinner at the Baileys’, and didn’t return until early morning. Lizzie heard him come in, his boots a little unsteady on the floor. She hoped he had a headache in the morning, and lay smiling darkly to herself. But other than a rather pale cast to his features he showed no signs of outward suffering over the breakfast table.

  “Did you enjoy your evening out, sir,” she dared, making her smile coolly pleasant.

  He eyed her rather balefully. “I did, Miss Banister. Angelica’s dinners are always worth attending, for their amusement value anyway. Quite scandalous, sometimes. I won’t soil your ears with examples.”

  But her own eyes narrowed, and seeing that he smiled.

  “Does that upset your puritan notions of the way things should be, Miss Banister? It shouldn’t. After all, thinking about something and doing something are much the same, aren’t they? Some people think, some do.”

  “And Mrs. Bailey does, Mr Gray? Is that what you’re saying?”

  He laughed quietly. “Haven’t you heard about Angelica’s favorite pastime? Men, Miss Banister, in a word. She has played fast and loose with every man below fifty within two hundred miles of here. And yet...” he considered her ever widening eyes. “... I think I could keep her in line. If I had a mind to, that is.”

  “You deserve each other!” she spat, her face flushing, her eyes gleaming with hatred and rage and misery.

  He saw only the hatred, and laughed softly. “I was beginning to wonder where she was. The real Lizzie Banister. I began to fear that polite, colorless creature had overcome her altogether.”

  “You’re loathsome.”

  “In short, a toad. Toads can be loathsome, I suppose. But surely, Lizzie, there are some good toads?”

  She clenched her hands until the nails dugs into her palms, glaring at him over the polished surface of the dining-room table. After a moment will triumphed over emotion, and she allowed herself to relax a little. Smiling, arrogant devil! She would n
ot listen to him.

  “And perhaps we do deserve each other,” he mused. “Angelica and I. I do admit my reputation is not all that it could be. I like a pretty ankle, the same as most men, and I’m not averse to a little dalliance, if both parties know the rules of the game. I don’t purposefully break hearts, Lizzie.”

  You’ve broken mine. The words formed so clearly in her mind she blinked in astonishment. She couldn’t... she didn’t... Oh Lord, but she did! She loved the creature! She was in love with a drawling, conceited, handsome, arrogant lecher.

  “By the way,” he went on, as if something momentous had not just occurred, “as I’m considering marriage so seriously of late, I think it might be an idea to do some redecorations. I want you to take a look around, decide if you think anything needs painting up. New furnishings and the like.”

  She stared at her plate, trying to get a grip on the waves of misery threatening to flood her.

  “Why bother asking me?” she muttered gruffly, retreating behind the shield from her vulnerability. “Why not ask Angelica Bailey? I’m sure she would love to come and look over the house. I’m sure she has wonderful taste, too.”

  “But I’m asking you, Lizzie. You are my housekeeper, aren’t you?”

  She was that. She could not refute the insidious voice on that count. She felt a little like weeping. He was asking her to prepare the house for when he could bring Angelica here, asking her, who had suddenly discovered she loved him.

  In the midst of her jumbled thoughts, she heard him stand, his chair sliding back, and the sound of his boots coming around towards her own chair. He must never know. How he would roar! Plain old Lizzie Banister, the girl he half-despised, half-pitied, in love with him. It was amusing, but in such a miserable way she could not laugh. It took the residue of her courage to fling up her head and glare at him with all the old, fierce hatred. He laughed, looking down at her.

  “I hope you fall off your horse,” she hissed.

  He put out a hand, and before she could move, snatched out the pins that held her severe chignon in place. Her hair fell down her back, wave upon unruly wave, suddenly softening the sharpness of her features. Her mouth dropped open, and he kindly closed it with a tap under her chin.

  “That’s better,” he said, stroking the flesh a moment, head to one side as he considered her. “I’ve been meaning to do that for ages.” He smiled into her glittering eyes. “Ah, it’s refreshing talking to you, Lizzie! No simpering, no groveling. Just unadorned loathing.”

  Stuttering, she began trying to repair the damage. But he was already gone. She gave up then, and slumped over her plate, wondering why such a thing had to happen to her. To plain, clumsy, foolish Lizzie, who had never had a proposal in her life, and whose one experience of seduction, before Zek Gray took her in hand, was a drunken kiss in the corridor of a London townhouse.

  And now, Zek Gray had turned her life upside down. She spent her time swinging from bewildering desire to red rages, and back again. She had been prey to jealousy and night-time weeping, tenderness and uncontrollable fury. He had made her life a misery and now, to top it all off, she was in love with him! Well, they said women were always fools over rakes; something to do with the fact that their wickedness made one want to tame them. After all, the woman who trained a rake to heel must be some woman!

  Not that Lizzie expected to tame Zek Gray. He was totally beyond her comprehension in almost everything he did. Why had he spoken to her about marrying Angelica Bailey, and the next moment pulled the pins from her hair? It made no sense, none of it. “What will I do?” she whispered softly, and blinked blindly at her plate.

  “Miss Banister?”

  She started. Mary had come in softly. The girl’s eyes were on her, and for a moment Lizzie thought she surprised sympathy in them, before she had hidden whatever expression they held behind her servant’s trained blankness.

  “Mary, take the breakfast things back to the kitchen, please.”

  “Yes, Miss Banister.”

  “Mr. Gray tells me he wishes to redecorate the house.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “He is thinking of getting married, he says.”

  Mary’s eyes popped even more. She swallowed, “But...who to, Miss?”

  Lizzie shrugged, and glanced away, pushing ineffectually at her hair. After a moment she became aware of a hand on her shoulder.

  Mary’s eyes were warm. “Miss Banister, you mustn’t think... I mean, men being what they are... I mean, he’ll come around, I’m sure...”

  She meant well, though she had the wrong idea altogether if she thought Lizzie was hoping to wed Zek Gray. But Lizzie smiled and said, kindly, “You’re very thoughtful, Mary. Don’t... don’t tell the others I spoke. I was a little upset, I think.”

  The girl nodded, and bobbing a curtsy went out.

  The house could certainly do with work, Lizzie decided, as she cast her keen eye around it for the first time in the light of a prospective bride. If it were she who was coming here to live, she would remove that paneling for a start, and... yes, and recover those chairs in green. Something cool. Perhaps a rug here, before the fireplace, and that dreadful lacy thing over the curtains could come down! The work kept her occupied most of the day, and even Jessie’s watchful blue eyes couldn’t disturb her.

  At dinner, she launched out on a long monologue about what needed doing and what she had to say about this and that. He listened thoughtfully, without looking at her, and in the end nodded.

  “Yes, I can see it as you say. I’ll get Ralph in tomorrow and we can see about hiring the necessary labor. I’ll get some stuff sent up from Bathurst, too.” He looked at her, a thin smile curling his mouth lopsidedly. “Thank you, Lizzie. You’ve done a thoroughly fine job.”

  She nodded, pretending sudden interest in her meal. “I hope your... bride will be pleased, sir. Perhaps you should ask her to come and look, I mean, in case she doesn’t like my suggestions.”

  But he shook his head, and his eyes were suddenly quite expressionless. “I think not, Lizzie. I want it to be a surprise, you see.”

  She did see. Or tried to. The fact that the thought of Angelica’s smile of happiness, the excitement in her blue eyes when he brought her in, still dressed in her white bridal gown, made Lizzie physically ill was beside the point. She put that all to one side, and concentrated on her meal. After a time she was even able to ask him about the wheat crop, and listen to his remarks with a certain interest.

  Afterwards, she did some stitchery in the sitting-room, while he prowled the room, glass in hand, making her nervous. He stood behind her chair once, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled because of it. She had to bite her lip to prevent herself from telling him to go away. Was marriage to Angelica so disturbing to him, and if so, why did he pretend he wanted to marry her? Lizzie gave up trying to fathom his thoughts; they were quite incomprehensible to her. She would be thanking God it was not she he was marrying, if she didn’t love him so.

  A knock on the door startled them, and at Zek’s yell to enter, Ralph appeared.

  “Mr. Gray,” he said, with a brief smile to Lizzie, “just thought you’d like to know one of the convict men is gone. Jessie says one of the kitchen girls gave him food and a jacket this afternoon. She’s down in the office. I thought you’d want to question her.”

  “Of course.”

  He put his glass down, and went out. Lizzie sat a moment, wondering if anything was expected of her, and if so, what. But after a time Zek Gray returned.

  “Have you found him?” she asked.

  He shook his head, moodily gazing out of the window into the night. “The girl didn’t know where he was going, but I’ve an idea it’d be Bathurst. Poor devil. Anyway, we’ll get after him in the morning. I suppose this’ll mean the magistrate will have to be informed, and all the rest.”

  “Why did he run away?” she asked softly. “It seems to me ... it seems to me you are not a harsh taskmaster, sir.”

  He sh
rugged. “I suppose there are men who can’t abide containment at any price. I do try to make it... comfortable. I’ve known some who don’t even feed their men the regulation amounts, and then expect them to work like galley-slaves. I always try to do what I can.”

  Something about his manner was so downhearted, Lizzie felt her hands itching to hold and comfort him. She bit her lip, but he happened to look up at that moment and caught her eye—she wondered afterwards if he had not perhaps done it all on purpose.

  The old mockery was dancing in his own black eyes, and he said in a soft, loathsomely drawling voice, “Feeling sorry for me, Lizzie? There’s no need. I’ve done my best and there’s no more I can do.”

  “But you feel responsible.”

  An eyebrow rose in the old way. “Yes, I feel responsible. You’re very perceptive, Miss Banister.”

  She ignored that. “Is there any way in which I can help, sir?”

  He grinned. “Well now...” But the grin faded and he shook his head, as if thinking better of what he had been about to say. “No, there’s nothing you can do, thank you, Lizzie. Go off to bed.”

  She rose, her shoulders rigid. “You’re always telling me that! As though I’m a... a child!”

  His laughter was soft. “Is that so? Perhaps it’s because I prefer to think of you as one. It’s safer that way, isn’t it? If I start thinking of you as a grown woman again, Lizzie-mine, even your acid tongue may not save you.”

  The look in his eyes frightened her so much she could hardly get out her goodnight, and rushed out of the room as if all the devils in hell were after her.

  To mull over what he had meant seemed pointless when she understood him so little. He could be teasing her again, or taunting her—he may even be serious. Perhaps she represented a challenge to his seductive powers? It only made her more than ever certain that he must never, never discover how hopelessly she loved him. The following morning Zek was already gone, and she was glad to breakfast alone. He spent the day out, looking for the man, and then, when he couldn’t be found, riding into town to speak with the magistrate there and put out a description of the escapee.