The Duchess of Wrexe Part 8

Mrs. Rand would have been handsome had her grey hair been less untidy and her clothes more uniform in design and colour. Her blouse was cut too low and she wore too many rings; her eyes always wore a lying-in-wait expression, as though she might be called on to be excited at any moment and didn't wish to miss the opportunity.

Daisy Rand was pretty and pink with light fluffy hair. All her clothes looked as though their chief purpose were to reveal other clothes. The impression that she left on a casual observer was that she must be cold in such thin things.

Lizzie, looking at Frank Breton, could not tell what impression her sister and mother had made upon him. "At any rate," she thought, "he's stayed a long time. That looks as though he had been entertained." She was introduced to him and liked the cool, firm grasp of his hand. She saw that her mother and Daisy were quiet and subdued--that was a good thing. She caught, before she sat down, his instinctive look of surprise. She knew that he had not expected her to be like that.

"We've been telling Mr. Breton, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand, "all about the theatres. He's been away so long that he's quite out of touch with things."

Lizzie always knew when her mother was finding conversation difficult by the amount of enthusiasm and surprise that she put into her sentences.

"So terrible it must be to have missed so many splendid things."

"I a.s.sure you, Mrs. Rand," said Breton, "that I've been seeing other splendid things in other countries. Now I'm ready for this one again."

Mrs. Rand was silent and at a loss. Lizzie knew the explanation of this.

Her mother had been trying to venture on to the subject of Breton's family and had found unexpected difficulty. Perhaps there had been something in Breton's att.i.tude that had warned her.

They talked for a little while, but disjointedly. Then suddenly there was a knock at the door, and young Mr. Caesar, a bony youth with a high collar and an unsuccessful moustache, came in. He had not very much to say, but the result of his coming was that Lizzie found herself standing at the window with Breton; they looked at the square now sinking into dusk.

He spoke; his voice was lowered: "I understand that you are secretary to my aunt, Miss Rand?"

"Yes," she said.

"They haven't heard of my return with any great delight, I'm afraid?"

She noticed that he was trying to steady his voice, but that it shook a little in spite of his efforts.

"I don't know," she said, looking up and smiling. "I'm far too busy to think of things that are not my concern."

"They are giving a ball to-morrow night for my cousin?"

"Yes."

"Do you see much of her?"

"No--nothing at all. She's been abroad, you know."

"Yes, so I heard. But I saw her driving yesterday. She looks different from the rest of them."

All this time, as he spoke to her, she was conscious of his eyes; if only she could have been sure that the protest in them was genuine she would have been moved by them.

She did not help him in any way, and perhaps her silence made him feel that he had done wrong to speak to her about his affairs. They looked at the square for a little time in silence. At last, speaking without any implied fierceness, he said:

"You know, Miss Rand, I'm a wanderer by nature, and sometimes I find cities very hard to bear. Do you know what I do?"

"No," she said.

"Turn them into other things. Now here in London, do you never think of streets as waterways? Portland Place, for instance, is like ever so many rivers I've seen, broad and s.h.i.+ning. And some of those high thin streets beside it are like ca.n.a.ls; Oxford Circus is a whirlpool, and so on----"

He laughed. "I get no end of relief from thinking of things like that."

"You hate cities?" she asked him.

"No--not really. But it depends how they receive you. If they're hostile----" He shrugged his shoulders.

"And this square?" she said. "What's this square?"

"A pool. All the houses hang over it as though they were hiding it. It's restful like a pool. There's no noise----"

The statue of the nymph had disappeared. The trees were a black splash against the lamp-lit walls. Lights were in the windows.

He seemed suddenly conscious that it was late. When he had gone Lizzie stood, for some time, looking into the square and thinking how right he had been.

All that evening Daisy was out of temper.

CHAPTER V

SHE COMES OUT

I

Downstairs the dinner-party was at its height. Mrs. Newton, the housekeeper, went softly down the pa.s.sages to give one last glimpse at the ballroom. There it lay, like a great golden sh.e.l.l, empty, expectant.

The walls were white, the ceilings gold; on the white walls hung the Lelys, the Van Dycks, and at the farther end of the room Sargent's portrait of Her Grace, brought up, for this especial occasion, from the Long Drawing-room. There was the gleaming, s.h.i.+ning floor, there the golden chairs with their backs against the wall, and there before each picture a little globe of golden flame ministering to its beauties, throwing the proud pale faces of the old Beaminsters into scornful relief, and none of them so scornful as that d.u.c.h.ess in the far distance, frowning from her golden frame.

Mrs. Newton was plump and important. She wors.h.i.+pped the Beaminster family, and it yielded her now intense satisfaction to see these rooms, that were used so seldom, given to their proper glory and ceremony. For a moment as she stood there and felt the fine reflection of all that light upon the s.h.i.+ning floor, absorbed the silence and the s.p.a.ce and the colour, she was uplifted with pride, and thanked her G.o.d that she was not as other women were, but had been permitted by Him to a.s.sist in no small measure in the glories and splendours of this great family.

Then, with a little sigh of satisfied approval, she softly walked away again.

II

Two hours later Rachel Beaminster, standing a little behind her aunt, saw the people pressing up the stairs. To those who watched her, she seemed perfectly composed, her flushed cheeks, her white dress, her dark hair and eyes gave her distinction against the colour and movement of the room.

Her eyes were a little stern, and her body was held proudly, but her hands moved with sharp spasmodic movements against her dress.

As she stood there men were brought up to her in constant succession and introduced. They wrote their names on her programme, bowed and went away. She smiled at each one of them. Before dinner she had been introduced to the Prince--German, fat and cheerful--and the second dance of the evening was to be with him. Some of the men who had been dining in the house she already knew--Lord Crewner, Roddy Seddon, Lord Ma.s.siter, and others--and once or twice now the faces that were led up to her were familiar to her.

The great ballroom seemed to be already filled with people, and still they came pressing up the stairs.

Rachel was miserably unhappy. For one moment before she had left her room, where her maid had stood admiringly beside her, when she herself had seen the reflection of the white dress and the dark hair and the flushed cheeks in the long mirror, for one great moment she had been filled with exaltation. This ball, this agitation, this excitement was all for her. The world was at her feet. The locked doors were at last rolling open before her and all life was to be revealed.

Pearls that Uncle John had given her were her only ornament. They laughed at her from the mirror, laughed and promised her success, conquest, glory. Life at that instant was very precious.

But, alas! the dinner had been a terrible failure. She had sat between Lord Crewner and Lord Ma.s.siter, and had no word to say to either of them. Lord Ma.s.siter was middle-aged and hearty and kind, and he had done his best for her, but she had been paralysed. They had talked to her about the opera, the theatres, hunting, books, Munich; she had had a great deal to say about all these things, and she had said nothing.

Always within her there seemed to be rivalry between the Beaminster way of saying things and the other way. When Lord Crewner said to her, "What I like in music is a real cheerful little piece that one can go to after dinner, you know," there were a whole number of Beaminster observations to make. But as soon as they rose to her mouth something within her whispered, "You know that you don't mean that. That's at second hand. Give him your opinion." And then that seemed presumption, so she said nothing.