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.