The Duchess of Wrexe Part 83

This was where Lady Adela spent several hours of every morning and she had never attempted to "do" anything with it. A large marble clock on the mantelpiece ticked out its sublime indifference to time and change.

"We're the same, thank G.o.d," it said, "as we've always been."

Lady Adela had told Lizzie that she would come in from a drive at quarter to four and she would like then to speak to her.

Lizzie's eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment and catching in its s.h.i.+ning 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess has had a stroke....

The d.u.c.h.ess 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 grat.i.tude 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 a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.sing of time and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught the sun and Portland Place pa.s.sed 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.

"Miss Rand, I wonder whether--the fact is, my mother has just decided that she wishes to be moved to Beaminster House. I must of course go with her. I hope that this will not inconvenience you. You can, if you prefer not to leave your mother, come down every day by train; it only takes an hour. Just as you please...."

Lizzie's heart was strangely, poignantly stirred. The moment had come then; the house was to be deserted. This could only mean the end. She herself would never return here, her little room, the large solemn house, that walk from Saxton Square, the Round Church, the Queen's Hall, Regent's Park....

But she gave no sign.

Gravely she replied: "I think I'd better come down with you, Lady Adela, if you don't mind. My mother has my sister. Perhaps I might come up for the week-ends."

"Yes. That would be quite easy. The other places, you know, are let, but Beaminster has always been kept. The Duke has been there a good deal. It reminds me ... I was there for some years as a girl."

Lizzie realized that Lady Adela was very near to tears; she had never before seen her, in any way, moved. She was distressed and uncomfortable. It was as though Lady Adela were, suddenly, after all these years, about to be driven from a position that had seemed, in its day, impregnable.

"Oh! don't, please don't, now!" was Lizzie's silent cry. "It will spoil it all--all these years."

Lady Adela didn't. Her voice became dry and hard, her eyes without expression.

"We shall go down, I expect, on Monday if Dr. Christopher thinks that a good day."

"I hope that the d.u.c.h.ess----"

"My mother's very well to-day--quite her old self. I have just been up with her. It is odd, but for thirty years she has never expressed any interest in Beaminster. Now she is impatient to be there."

"One often, I think, has a sudden longing for places."

"Yes. I shall be glad myself to be there again."

"This house?"

"Oh! we shall shut it up--for the time Lord John will come down to Beaminster with us. I have spoken to Norris, but to-morrow morning, if you don't mind, we will go through things."

"Certainly."

"The house has not been shut for a great number of years--a very great number. During the last thirty years through the hottest weather my mother was here.

"It will seem strange ..." Her voice trembled.

"Is there anything more this afternoon?" Lizzie turned to the door.

"No, I think not. Except--perhaps ..." Lady Adela was in great agitation. Her eyes sought Lizzie, beseeching her help.

"Miss Rand--I think it only right to say. I'm afraid one cannot--in the nature of things--it's impossible, I fear, to expect--my mother to live very much longer." Her voice caught in a dry strangled cough. "Dr.

Christopher has warned us. After my mother's death my life, of course, will be very different. I shall live very quietly--a good deal in the country and abroad, I expect.

"I shall not, of course, have a secretary."

"I quite understand," said Lizzie quietly.

"I want you to know, Miss Rand," Lady Adela continued, "that although during all these years I have seemed very unappreciative.... It is not my way--I find it difficult to express--But I have, nevertheless, been very conscious--we have all been--of the things that you have done for me, indeed for the whole house. You have been admirable; quite admirable."

"I have been very happy here," said Lizzie.

"I am very glad of that. I must have seemed often very blind to all that you were doing. But I should like you to know that it is more--it is more--than simply your duty to the house--it is the many things that you have done personally for me. You have not yourself been, I dare say, aware of the effect that your company has had upon me. It has been very great."

Lizzie smiled. "I've loved the house and the work. It has meant a very important part of my life. I shall never forget it."

Their embarra.s.sment was terrible. After a moment of struggle Lady Adela's voice was hard and unconcerned again. "You know, Miss Rand, that--when the time comes for this change--anything that I, or any of us, can do ... I do not know what your own plans may be, but you need have no fear, I think."

"Thank you very much, Lady Adela. That is very kind."

There was a little pause--then they said good night.

As Lizzie went down the great staircase, on every side of her, the stones of the house were whispering, "You're all going--you're all going--you're all going."

Her heart was very sad.

II

As she pa.s.sed the Regent Street Post Office Francis Breton came out of it. They had not met often lately, but she was conscious that ever since that interview in Regent's Park, they had been very good friends. Her absorption with Rachel and affairs in the Portland Place house had a.s.sisted her own resolution and she had thought that she could meet him now without a tremor. Nevertheless the tremor came as she caught sight of him there and, for a moment, the traffic and the shouting died away and there was a great stillness.