The Duchess of Wrexe Part 52

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 a.s.sumed.

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. G.o.d, 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.

III

At Lewes a carriage was waiting for her and, in a moment, it seemed that she was driving through a dark village street and in front of her, like a great wall topping the skies, the Downs rose.

When the carriage entered the courtyard and stopped before the broad stone door Lizzie was seized with terror. She wished, oh! she wished that she had not come. The sense of descending trouble was so strong with her that she felt for the first time in her life that she was going to prove unequal to her task.

Her life was over and done with! Why had she allowed herself to be pushed back again into all these affairs of other people?

She was ushered into a square lighted hall where they were all having tea round a wide open fireplace. She was conscious of Rachel rising, slim and tall, to greet her, of the square ruddy-faced country-looking man who gripped her hand, jolly hard, and was, of course, Sir Roderick; of a handsome, athletic-looking girl in a riding-habit, of a man or two and an elderly smartly dressed woman.

They were all immensely cheerful and friendly and to Lizzie, white and tired, noisy and horribly robust. She would have liked to have slipped up to her room and stayed there alone until dinner, but Rachel said:

"Oh! you must be perished after that wet journey. Tea's just at its hottest and its freshest. Quick, Roddy--the toast--Never mind the rest of us, Miss Rand--just drink that tea and get warm."

They allowed her to sink back into an easy chair somewhere in the shadow and the tea was very comforting and the stern hall with its crackling fire and its cosy solid shape most friendly. She listened to them all noisily discussing people and dances and horses and dinners. She watched Rachel Seddon, sitting a little gravely, straight in her chair, throwing in a word now and again.

This was the woman.... This was the woman....

She felt a warm tongue that licked her hand. She looked down and saw at her side the oddest dog, a dog like a mat, shapeless with two brown eyes behind its hair and a black wet nose.

There was something about the eyes and the way that the warm body was pressed against her dress that won her instant affection.

"What an adorable animal!" she said to Roddy, who was sitting next to her.

"Oh! Jacob!" he said, laughing. "He really oughtn't to be in here at all--servants' hall's his proper place--If you care for dogs, Miss Rand, I'll show you some----"

As he spoke she caught the dog's eyes and saw in the depths of them shame. He had been sitting, very square and upright, with his eyes gravely fixed, with great interest, upon the company. Then, at the sound of Roddy's voice his head had dropped, instantly he became furtive, his eyes searching for some place of escape.

Her hand caught his rough coat and she drew him to her side and stroked his ears.

"I think he's perfectly delightful," she said. "I'm afraid I prefer mongrels to better dogs."

"Do you really?" said Roddy, looking kindly at her. "'Pon my word, Miss Rand, I must show you my little lot. I don't think you'll have much use for that animal there afterwards."

At last the girl in the riding-habit and the other woman and the young man noisily departed.

Rachel took Lizzie upstairs. "Are you sure," she said, "you'd like to come down to dinner? Wouldn't you rather, to-night, go early to bed and have it there?"

"No, thank you, Lady Seddon." Lizzie looked about the room. "This is all splendid, thank you. I'm not a bit tired."

"I'm so glad you've come," said Rachel, searching for Lizzie's eyes. But Lizzie had turned away.

At last she was alone.

Her room was splendid--so wide, and high, and such a fire!

She flung up her window. There the Downs were, black, huge before her; the rain came down hissing from the sky and a smell of wet earth and gra.s.s stole up to her.

"That's the woman ..." she said again to herself--"What shall we say to one another?"

Then as she stared into the fire she thought, "She wants me to help her."

Afterwards she heard a scratching at the door. A maid had been sent to her, but she had dismissed her, saying that she would manage for herself.

She went to the door and found outside it the s.h.a.ggy, square dog.

He walked into her room, sniffed for a time at the bed, p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at the noise that the fire made, listened to the sound of the rain, at last sat down in a distant corner with one leg stretched at right angles to his body and watched her.

She was indignant with herself for the softness in her heart that his company brought to her.

CHAPTER XI

RODDY IS MASTER

"I and my mistress, side by side, Shall be together, breathe and ride, So, one day more am I deified, Who knows but the world may end to-night?"

ROBERT BROWNING.

I

Introspection had been always to Roddy a thing unknown. He had never regarded himself as in any way different from the other men whom he met, and he would have been greatly distressed had he thought that he _was_ different.--"What you writin' fellers," he had once said to Garden, "can find amusin' in inventin' people for I can't think; you've got to make 'em odd for people to be interested in 'em and then they aren't like anyone."