Lizzie's eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment and catching in its shining surface some hint of the blue sky above it. There was a great deal just then to occupy her thoughts. Ten days ago, in the middle of a little dinner-party that Lady Adela was giving, upstairs the Duchess had had a stroke. Lizzie had, of course, not been there, but, coming next morning she had been told of it. Her Grace was soon well again, no unhappy effects could be discovered, she had not, herself, been apparently disturbed by it, but it had rung, like a warning bell, through the house. "The beginning of the end.... We've been watching, we've been waiting—soon these walls will be ours again," said the portraits of those stiff and superior Beaminsters.
News ran through the Beaminster camp—"The Duchess has had a stroke.... The Duchess has had a stroke."
But, for many weeks now, Lizzie had been aware that some crisis had found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day's work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that house....
Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her. She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came.
She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round Church began to ring. "Poor old thing," thought Lizzie; she would not have considered her thus, a year ago.
Lady Adela came in; she reminded Lizzie of Mrs. Noah in her stiff wooden hat, her stiff wooden clothes, her anxiety to prevent any mobility that might give her away. She looked, as she always did, carefully about the room, at the "Cornhills" and "Blackwoods," at the marble clock, at the prints of Beaminster House and Eton College Chapel, a little as though she would ascertain that no enemy, no robber, no brigand, no outlaw, was concealed about the premises, a little as though she would say—"Well, these things are all right anyway, nothing wrong here."
"I'm sorry, Miss Rand," she said. "I hope that I haven't kept you."
"No, thank you, Lady Adela, I have only just finished."
Lady Adela sat down; they discussed correspondence, trivial things that were, Lizzie knew, placed as a barrier against something that frightened her.
At length it came.