IV
She found Lizzie sitting alone—"Where's Roddy?"
Lizzie looked up at her. "He had to go and see about a horse or something."
Rachel came down to the table and poured out some tea and then sat smiling at Lizzie; Lizzie smiled back.
"I hope you liked your walk."
"Yes, there's a storm coming up. You've no idea how deeply one gets to care for these Downs—their quiet and their size."
They were silent for a little and then Rachel said:
"Miss Rand—I do hope—that this really has been something of a holiday for you, being here, away from all your London work!"
Lizzie's eyes were sharp—"Yes—It's delightful for me. The first holiday I've had for years...."
"Don't think it impulsive of me—but I've asked you here hoping that we'd get to know one another better. I've wanted to know you, to have you for a friend—for a long time. I've always admired so immensely the way that you've helped Aunt Adela—done things that I could never possibly have done——"
She stopped, but Lizzie said nothing—Then she went on more uncertainly—
"You see, I hoped that perhaps you'd teach me a little order and method. I've married so young—I've hoped...." Then almost desperately—"But you know, Miss Rand, I don't feel as though your coming here has helped us to know one another any better."
The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie's face, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set—there was no kindness in her eyes.
"Perhaps, Lady Rachel," she said slowly, "I'm not a very emotional kind of woman. If one's worked, as I have, since one was small—had to earn one's living and fight for one's place—it makes one perhaps rather self-reliant and independent of other people—Our lives have been so different, I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, "that I'm a dried-up, unsatisfactory kind of person—I know that my mother and sister have always found me so."
"Yes," Rachel said, "our lives have been different. Perhaps if mine had been a little more like yours—perhaps if I had had to work for my living—I...."
She broke off—a little catch was in her voice—she rose from her chair and went to the window and stood there, with her back to Lizzie, gazing into the darkening garden.
She knew that Lizzie had repulsed her; she was hardly aware why she had made her appeal, but she was now frightened of Lizzie and to her overstrung brain it seemed that she could now see Lizzie and Roddy in league against her.
She heard a step and turning round found Peters, the butler, large, square, of an immense impassivity.
"Please, my lady, might I speak to you a moment?"
She went out.
Lizzie, left in the darkening room, could think now only of the letter. The sight of that handwriting had stirred in her passions that she had never before imagined as hers—that first pathetic appeal of Roddy and then the sight of that letter!
Her brain, working feverishly, showed her the words that that letter would contain—the passion, the passion! There in the very face of her husband, Rachel was receiving letters from her lover, letters that she could not wait a moment to read, but must go instantly and open them.
This hour brought to a crisis Lizzie's agony. Had such a letter been written to her!
She tortured herself now with the picture of him as he sat there in his room in Saxton Square writing it! It appeared to her now as though they two—there in the very throne of their triumphant love—had plotted this insult, this snap of the fingers, to show her, Lizzie Rand, how desolate, how lonely, how neglected and unwanted she was!
That then, after this, Rachel should appeal to her for friendship! The cruel insult of it.
She felt as she heard the fast drops of rain lash the window-frames, that no revenge that she could secure would satisfy her thirst for it.