II
Over Lizzie's other life, also, the Duchess hovered. Were any disaster to snatch Her Grace from the domination of this world into a comparatively humble position in the next, Lizzie did not doubt that the Beaminsters would once more take Francis Breton into their ranks. It was the Duchess who held the gate against him.
The romantic side of her did not hold complete dominion. She knew that were Francis Breton once more accepted by the family, his distance from her would be greatly increased. Were he, on the other hand, to marry her whilst he was yet an exile, then had she no fear of after consequences. She could hold her own with anyone.
She had now very little doubt that he loved her. She had seen, during the last year, the flame of some passion burning in his eyes, increasingly he depended upon her and found opportunities for being with her. There was no other woman whom he saw, of that she was convinced.
Often he had been about to tell her some secret and then had refrained; she thought that he was waiting until he could be quite assured that she loved him, and she had fancied that since that day in last December when the first snow had fallen and they had had that little talk together he had been much happier, as though he were now convinced of her love for him.
The spring passed and still his confession did not come. With the early summer he seemed to be once more unhappy and unsettled, and throughout May she scarcely saw him.
Then in July he asked her whether she would dine with him and go to the theatre. He had two dress circle tickets for Mrs. Lemiter's Decision.
Something told her that on this evening he would speak to her.
As she dressed her fingers trembled so that buttons and hooks and laces were of terrible difficulty. In the glass she saw her cheeks flaming; she wished she were taller, not so sturdy. The lines of her face, she thought, were all so set as though they knew well for what purpose they were there. "Business we're here for ..." they seemed to say.
For once she envied her sister's fair rounded fluffiness. Her black evening dress was fashionable, almost smart, but just a little stern: she fastened some dark red carnations into her waist and hung around her throat a chain of tiny pearls, her only piece of jewellery. Her hair was restrained and disciplined—she could not extract from it any waves or soft indulgencies.
At the end, staring at her reflection, she let herself go.
"He's seen me all this time as I am. How silly to try to alter things!" Her face glowed, the pearls and carnations seemed to smile encouragement to her.
What possibilities had this new, this wonderful Lizzie Rand! What a life might be hers! What a happy, fortunate woman she was!
God, how grateful she was!
Mrs. Rand saw them off in a four-wheeler with an air of reluctance. It always hurt her that anyone should go to the theatre without her.
Of course Lizzie was old enough by now to look after herself, but at the same time this Mr. Breton was no safe character and it would have been altogether "nicer" if Lizzie had suggested her company—
Lizzie had not suggested it; with a shiver Mrs. Rand resigned herself to an evening made hideous by a vision of a world crowded with theatres through whose portals gay audiences were pouring—
"Of course it's selfish of her," she said again and again to Daisy—"Selfish is the only word."
Meanwhile the cab was, for Lizzie, a chariot of happiness. He looked splendid to-night, more romantic than he had ever been, with his pointed beard, his armless sleeve buttoned across on to his coat, his top-hat shining, his clothes fitting so perfectly. Poor though he was, he always stood up as smart as anyone, the Duke or Lord John were no smarter.
Did he realize, she wondered, that the edge of his hand touched the silk of her dress? Did he notice the absurd way that the pearls jumped up and down on her throat? Did he feel the little shiver of happiness that ran through her body and out at her toes and fingers?
The chariot was dark, but beyond it there were piled lighted buildings; before these ran streets that flung dark figures, here one by one, now in throngs, against the glittering colour.
She could not believe that anyone there by the lumbering cab could show happiness that could equal hers.
Had she been coldly surveying, from the careful distance of an outside observer, these emotions in some other woman she would have demanded her reasons for such expectation of happiness, but it was her very inexperience of any other such affair in her life that allowed her now to rest assured. As he touched her hand to help her into the restaurant she was sure, by the beating of her heart, that she could not be deceived.
The restaurant was in Pall Mall, and as she went in she noticed the string of faithful people waiting round the corner of Her Majesty's Theatre; she was glad that there were so many others enjoying themselves to-night.
They sat at a little round table on a balcony and below them other happy people were laughing and talking—Flowers, lights, women not so beautiful that they disheartened one, and, from the open windows, a whir, a rattle, a shout, a cry, a bell, a hurdy-gurdy, a laugh—Oh! the world was turning to-night!
There was a beautiful dinner, but she was far too happy to eat much. He seemed to understand. They both talked a little, but it was, it appeared, implied between them that their real conversation should be postponed.
She was, to herself, an utterly new Lizzie Rand to-night, inarticulate, uncertain, confused.
"What's this the papers say about South Africa?"
"Yes, it looks as though there were going to be trouble there. But you can trust Milner—a strong man——"
"Yes, I suppose so—but it seems a pity that this Conference that they hoped so much from has all fallen through, doesn't it? They do seem obstinate people."
"Well, they are. I was out in Pretoria in '95—obstinate as mules. But there won't be much trouble—a troop or two of our fellows have only got to show their faces——"
"Yes, of course. Isn't that a pretty woman down there? There to the right—with the black hair and the diamonds—tall—"
But tall women with black hair and Boers in South Africa were merely points to catch hold, and, for an instant, the thrill of the contact and the anticipation and the glorious vision of the wonderful future.
Him all this time she closely observed. He was not entirely at his ease, when she had been in public with him before she had noticed it, his glance at every new-comer, his conscious summoning of control lest it should be someone whom he had once known, someone who might now, perhaps, not know him.
It made him in her eyes all the younger, all the more happily demanding her protection; how terribly she loved him she had never, she thought, realized until this moment.
The Haymarket Theatre, where Mrs. Lemiter's Decision had been given to a grateful world for nearly two hundred nights, was next door.
In a moment they were there and the band was playing and the lights were up, and then the band was not playing and the lights were down, and she was instantly conscious of the places where his body touched hers and of his hand lying white upon his knee.
She, Lizzie Rand, most perfect of private secretaries, most sedate and composed of women, found it all that her self-control could secure that she should not then and there have touched that hand with her own.
It was not really a good play. There was a lady, Mrs. Lemiter, who had once done what she should not have done. There were a number of ladies and gentlemen, placed round her by the author, in order that she should, for the benefit of as many audiences as possible, confess what she had done.
During the first and second acts Mrs. Lemiter made little dashes towards escape and the author (naturally omniscient) always placed someone in front of her just in time and there were cries of "Not this way, my good woman." At the end of the third act, Mrs. Lemiter, thoroughly bored and exasperated, turned on them all and, for a good twenty minutes, told them what she thought of them.
During the fourth act they all assured her that they liked her very much and that, as it was now eleven o'clock and she'd lost her temper so successfully that the house would certainly be filled for many months to come, they'd all better have tea or dinner, whilst a young couple, who had throughout the play loved one another and quarrelled, made it up again.
When the play was at an end Lizzie did not know what it had been about. She took his hand and when he was about to hail a cab stopped him.
"Let's walk," she said, "it's such a lovely night."
He eagerly agreed and they started.