lizzie rand was just forty-six years of age when old mrs. roughton mckenzie died leaving her all her money. months later she had not thoroughly realised what had happened to her.
until that day of mrs. mckenzie's death she had never had any money. she had spent her life, her energies, her pluck and her humour in the service of one human being after another, and generally in the service of women. it seemed to her to be really funny that the one who had during her life begrudged her most should in the end be the one who had given her everything; but no one had ever understood old mrs. mckenzie, and as likely as not she had left her money to lizzie rand just to spite her numerous relations. lizzie had expected nothing. she never did expect anything, which was as well perhaps, because no one ever gave her anything. she was not a person to whom one naturally gave things; she had a pride, a reserve, an assertion of her own private liberty that kept people away and forbade intimacy. that had not always been so. in the long ago days when she had been adela beaminster's secretary she had given herself. she had loved a man who had not loved her, and out of the shock of that she had won a friendship[pg 201] with another woman, which was still perhaps the most precious thing that she had. but that same shock had been enough for her. she guarded, with an almost bitter ferocity, the purity and liberty of her soul.
all the women whose secretaries she had afterwards been had felt this in her, and most of them had resented it. old mrs. mckenzie had resented it more than any of them. she was a selfish, painted, over-decorated old creature, a widow with no children and only nephews and nieces to sigh after her wealth. one of lizzie's chief duties had been to keep these nephews and nieces from the door, and this she had done with a certain grim austerity, finding that none of them cared for the aunt and all for the money. the outraged relations decided, of course, at once that she was a plotting, despicable creature; it is doing her less than justice to say that the idea that the money would be left to her never for a single instant entered her head. mrs. mckenzie taunted her once for expecting it.
"of course you're waiting," she said, "like all of them, to pick the bones of the corpse."
lizzie rand laughed.
"now is that like me?" she asked. "and, more important, is it like you?"
mrs. mckenzie sniggered her tinkling, wheezy snigger. there was a certain honesty between them. they had certain things in common.
"i don't like you," she said. "i don't see how anyone could. you're too self-sufficient—but you certainly have a sense of humour."
[pg 202]
there had been a time once when many people liked lizzie, and she reflected now, with a little shudder, that perhaps only one person in the world, rachel seddon, the woman friend before-mentioned, liked and understood her. why had she shut herself off? why presented so stiff, so immaculate, so cold a personality to the world? she was not stiff, not cold, not immaculate. it was, perhaps, simply that she felt that it was in that way only that she could get her work done, and to do her work thoroughly seemed to her now to be the job best worth while in life.
during the war she had almost broken from her secretaryship and gone forth to do red cross work or anything that would help. a kind of timidity that had grown upon her with the years, a sense of her age and of her loneliness, held her back. twenty years ago she would have gone with the first. now she stayed with mrs. mckenzie.
mrs. mckenzie died on the day of the armistice, november 11, 1918. her illness had not been severe. lizzie had had, at the most, only a week's nursing; it had been obvious from the first that nothing could save the old lady. mrs. mckenzie had not looked as though she were especially anxious that anything should save her. she had lain there in scornful silence, asking for nothing, complaining of nothing, despising everything. lizzie admitted that the old woman died game.
there had followed then that hard, bewildering period that lizzie knew by now so well where she must pull herself, so reluctantly, so heavily towards the busi[pg 203]ness of finding a new engagement. she did not, of course, expect mrs. mckenzie to leave her a single penny. she stayed for a week or two with her friend rachel seddon. but rachel, a widow with an only son, was so tumultuously glad at the return of her boy, safe and whole, from the war, that it was difficult for her just then to take any other human being into her heart. she loved lizzie, and would do anything in the world for her; she was indeed for ever urging her to give up these sterile companionships and secretaryships and come and make her home with her. but lizzie, this time, felt her isolation as she had never done before.
"i'm getting old," she thought. "and i'm drifting off ... soon i shall be utterly alone." the thought sent little shivering ghosts climbing about her body. she saw in the gay, happy, careless, kindly eyes of young tom seddon how old she was to the new generation.
he called her "aunt liz," took her to the theatre, and was an angel ... nevertheless an angel happily, almost boastfully, secure in another, warmer planet than hers.
then came the shock. mrs. mckenzie had left her everything—the equivalent of about eight thousand pounds a year.
at first her sense was one of an urgent need of rest. she sank back amongst the cushions and pillows of rachel's house and refused to think ... refused to think at all.... she considered for a moment the[pg 204] infuriated faces of the mckenzie relations. then they, too, passed from her consciousness.
when she faced the world again, she faced it with the old common sense that had always been her most prominent characteristic. she had eight thousand a year. well, she would do the very best with it that she could. rachel, who had appeared to be more deeply excited than she over the event, had various suggestions to offer, but lizzie had her own ideas. she could not remember the time when she had not planned what she would do when somebody left her money.
she took one of the most charming flats in hortons, bought beautiful things for it, etchings by d. t. cameron, one nevinson, and a john drawing, some japanese prints; she had books and soft carpets and flowers and a piano; and had the prettiest spare room for a friend. then she stopped and looked about her. there were certain charities in which she had been always deeply interested, especially one for poor gentlewomen. there was a home, too, for illegitimate babies. she remembered, with a happy irony, the occasion when she had tried to persuade mrs. mckenzie to give something to these charities and had failed.... well, mrs. mckenzie was giving now all right. lizzie hoped that she knew it.
there accumulated around her all the business that clusters about an independent woman with means. she was on committees; many people who would not have looked twice at her before liked her now and asked her to their houses.
again she stopped and looked about her.
[pg 205]
still there was something that she needed. what was it? companionship? more than that. affection, a centre to her life; someone who needed her, someone to whom she was of more importance than anyone else in the world. even a dog....
she was forty-six. without being plain she was too slight, too hard-drawn, too masculine, above all too old to be attractive to men. an old maid of forty-six. she faced the truth. she gave little dinner-parties, and felt more lonely than ever. even it seemed there was nobody who wanted to make her a confidante. people wanted her money, but herself not at all. she was not good conversationally. she said sharp sarcastic things that frightened people. people did not want the truth; they wanted things to be wrapped up first, as her mother and sister had wanted them years ago.
she was a failure socially, in spite of her money. she could not be genial, and yet her heart ached for love.
at this moment mr. edmund lapsley appeared. lizzie met him at a party given by mrs. philip mark in bryanston square. mrs. mark was an old friend of rachel's, a kindly and clever woman with an ambitious husband who would never get very far.
her parties were always formed by a strange mixture dictated first by her kind heart and second her desire to have people in her house who might possibly help her husband. edmund lapsley originated in the former of these impulses. he was not much to look at—long, lanky, with a high bony head, a prominent roman nose and large, cracking fingers. he was shabbily dressed, awkward in his manner, and apprehensive.[pg 206] it was his eyes that first attracted lizzie's attention. they were beautiful large brown eyes, with the expression of a lost and lonely dog seated deep in their pupils. he sat with lizzie in a corner of the crowded drawing-room to arrange his long legs so that they should not be in the way, cracked his long fingers together and endeavoured to be interested in the people whom lizzie pointed out to him.
"that's henry trenchard," lizzie said, "that wild-looking boy with the untidy hair.... he's very clever. going to be our great novelist.... that's his sister, millie. mrs. mark's sister, too. isn't she pretty? she's the loveliest of the family. that stout clergyman is a trenchard cousin. they all hang together in the most wonderful way, you know. his wife ran away and never came back again. i don't think i wonder; he looks heavy...." and so on.
lizzie wondered to herself why she bothered. it was not her habit to gossip, and mr. lapsley was obviously not at all interested.
"i beg your pardon," she said; "you don't want to know who these people are."
"no," he said in a strange, sudden, desperate whisper. "i don't. i lost my wife only three months ago. i'm trying to go out into the world again. i can't. it doesn't do any good." he gripped his knee with one of his large bony hands.
"i'm so sorry," lizzie said. "i didn't know. how tiresome of me to have gone on chattering like that! you should have stopped me."
he seemed himself to be surprised at the confession[pg 207] that he had made. he stared at her in a bewildered fashion like an owl suddenly flashed into light. he stared, saying nothing. suddenly in the same hurried, husky whisper he went on: "do you mind my talking to you? i want to talk to somebody. i'd like to tell you about her."
"please," said lizzie, looking into his eyes, they were tender and beautiful, so unlike his ugly body, and full of unhappiness.
he talked; the words tumbled out in an urgent, tremulous confusion.
they had been married, it appeared, ten years, ten wonderful happy years. "how she can have cared for me, that's what i never understood, miss—miss——"
"rand," said lizzie.
"i beg your pardon. difficult to catch ... when you are introduced.... never understood. i was years older than she. i'm fifty now—forty when i married her, and she was only twenty. thirty when she—when she died. in childbirth it was. the child, a boy, was born dead. everyone prophesied disaster. they all told her not to marry me, she was so pretty, and so young, and so brilliant. she sang, miss rand, just like a lark. she did, indeed. she was trained in paris. i oughtn't to have proposed to her, i suppose. that's what i tell myself now, but i was carried off my feet, completely off my feet. i couldn't help myself at all. i loved her from the first moment that i saw her. you know how those things are, miss rand. and, in any case, i don't know. ten perfect years, that's a good deal for anyone to have, isn't it? and she[pg 208] was as happy as i was. it may seem strange to you, looking at me, but it was really so. she thought i was so much cleverer than i was—and better too. it used to make me very nervous sometimes lest she should find me out, you know, and leave me. i always expected that to happen. but she was so charitable to everyone. never could see the bad side of people, and they were always better with her than with anyone else. we'd always hoped for a child, and then, as the years went on, we gave it up. edmund, she said to me, we must make it up to one another. and then she told me it was going to be all right. you wouldn't have believed two ordinary people could be so happy as we were when we knew about it. we made many plans, of course. i was a little apprehensive that i'd be rather old to bring up a child, but she was so young that made it all right—so wonderfully young.... then she died. it was incredible, of course. i didn't believe it ... i don't believe it now. she's not dead. that's absurd. you'd feel the same if you'd seen her, miss rand. so full of life, and then suddenly ... nothing at all. it's impossible. nature isn't like that. things gradually die, don't they, and change into something else. not suddenly...."
he broke off. he was clutching his knees and staring in front of him. "i don't know why i talk to you like this, miss rand ... i hope you'll forgive me. i shouldn't have bothered you."
"i'm pleased that you have, mr. lapsley." she got up. she felt that he would be glad now to escape. "won't you come and see me? i have a flat in hortons[pg 209] chambers in duke street, no. 42.... do come. just telephone."
he looked up at her, not rising from his seat. then he got up.
"i will," he said. "thank you."
he was still staring at her, and she knew that he had something further to say. she could see it struggling in his eyes. but she did not want him to confess any more. he would be the kind of man to regret afterwards what he had done. she would not burden his conscience. and yet she had the knowledge that it was something very serious that he wanted to tell her, something that had been, in reality, at the back of all his earlier confession.
she refused the appeal in his eyes, said good-night, took his hand for a moment and turned away.
afterwards she was talking to katherine mark.
"i see you were kind to poor mr. lapsley," katherine said.
"how sad about his wife!" lizzie answered.
"yes. and she really was young and beautiful. no one understood why she married him, but i've never seen anything more successful.... i didn't think he'd come to-night, but i'm fond of him. philip doesn't care for him much, but he reminds me of a cousin of ours, john trenchard, who was killed in russia in the second year of the war. but john was unhappier than mr. lapsley. he never had his perfect years."
"yes, that's something," lizzie acknowledged.
it was strange to her afterwards that edmund lapsley should persist so vividly in her mind. she saw[pg 210] him with absolute clarity almost as though he were with her in her flat. she thought of him a good deal. he needed someone to comfort him, and she needed someone to comfort. she hoped he would come and see her.
he did come, one afternoon, quite unexpectedly and without telephoning first. fortunately she was there, alone, and wanting someone to talk to. at first he was shy and self-conscious. they talked stiffly about london, and the weather, and the approaching peace, and whether there would ever be a league of nations, and how high prices were, and how impossible it was to get servants and when they got them they went.... lizzie broke ruthlessly in upon this. "it isn't the least little good, mr. lapsley," she said, "our talking like this. it's mere waste of time. we both know plenty of people to whom we can chatter this nonsense. either we are friends, or we are not. if we are friends, we must go a little further. are we friends?"
he seemed to be at a loss. he blinked at her.
"yes," he said.
"well, then," she looked at him and smiled. "i don't want to force your confidence, but there was something that you were anxious to tell me about the other night, some way in which i could help you. i stopped you then, but i don't want to stop you now. i'll be honoured indeed if there's anything i can do."
he gulped, stammered, then out it came. at the first hint of his trouble it was all that lizzie could do to repress an impatient gesture. his trouble was—spiritualism.
of all the tiresome things, of all the things about[pg 211] which she had no patience at all, of all the idiotic, money-wasting imbecilities! he poured it all out. he had read books, at last a friend had taken him ... a dr. orloff, a very wonderful medium, a very trustworthy man, a man about whom there could be no question.
on the first occasion the results had been poor—on the second occasion his margaret had spoken to him, actually spoken to him. oh! but there could be no doubt! her very voice.... his own voice shook as he spoke of it.
since then he had been, he was forced to admit, a number of times—almost every day ... every day ... every afternoon. he talked to margaret every day now for half an hour or more.
he was sure it was right, he was doing nobody any harm ... they two together ... it could not be wrong, but.... he stopped. lizzie gave him no help. she sat there looking in front of her. she despised him; she was conscious of a deep and bitter disappointment. she did not know how he could betray his weakness, his softness, his gullibility. she had thought him.... she looked up suddenly, knowing that his voice had stopped. he was gazing at her in despair, his eyes wide with an unhappiness that struck deep to his heart.
"you despise me!" he said.
"yes," she answered. "i do." but she was aware at the same time that she could have gone across to him and put her hand on his head and comforted him. "that's all false! you know it is. you're only deluding[pg 212] yourself because you want to persuade yourself—it's weak of you. your wife can't come to you that way."
"don't take it from me!" his voice was an agonised cry. "it's all i have. it's true. it's true. it must be true!"
they were suddenly in contact ... she felt a warm sense of protection and pity, a longing to comfort and help so strong that she instinctively put her hand to her heart as though she would restrain it.
"oh, i didn't mean," she cried, "that i'd take anything away from you. no, no—never that. if you thought that i meant that, you're wrong. keep anything you've got. perhaps i'm mistaken. the mediums i've known have been charlatans. that's prejudiced me. then i don't think i want my friends to come back to me in quite that way.... if it's true, it seems to be forcing them, against their will, as it were. oh! i know a great many people now are finding it all true and good. i don't know anything about it. i shouldn't have said what i did. and then you see i've never lost anyone whom i loved very much."
"never?" mr. lapsley asked, staring at her with wide-open eyes.
"no, never, i think."
he got up and came across to her, standing near to her, looking down upon her. she saw that she had aroused his interest, that she had suddenly switched his attention upon herself.
she had aroused him in the only way that he could be aroused, by stirring his pity for her. she knew exactly how suddenly he saw her—as a lonely, unhappy,[pg 213] deserted old maid. she did not mind; that the attention of any one single human being should be centred upon her for herself was a very wonderful, touching thing.
silence fell between them; the pretty room, grey and silver in the half-light, gathered intimately around them. when at last he went away it seemed that the last ten minutes had added years to their knowledge of one another.
a strange time for lizzie followed. edmund lapsley had rushed into her life with a precipitate urgency that showed how empty before it had been. but there was more than their mere contact in the affair. she was fighting a battle; all her energies were in it; she was ruthless, savage, tooth-and-nail; he should be snatched from this spiritualism.
it was a silent battle. he never spoke to her again of it. he did not say whether he went or not, and she did not ask him. but soon they were meeting almost every day, and she felt with a strange, almost savage pleasure that her influence over him grew with every meeting. she discovered many things about his character. he was weak, undecided, almost subservient, a man whom she would have despised perhaps had it not been for the real sweetness that lay at the roots of him. she very quickly understood how this girl, margaret, although so young and so ignorant of the world, must have dominated him. "any woman could!" she thought almost angrily to herself, and yet there was a kind of pride behind her anger.
she would not confess to herself that what she was[pg 214] really fighting was the memory of the dead girl, or, if she confessed at all, it was to console herself with the thought that it was right for him now to "cheer up a little."
cheer up he did; it was curious to watch the rapidity with which he responded to lizzie's energy and humour and vitality.
at last she challenged him:
"well, what about dr. orloff?" she asked.
he looked at her with a sudden startled glance, then almost under his breath he said: "i don't go any more; i thought you didn't want me to."
so sudden a confession of her power took her breath away. she asked her next question.
"but margaret?" she said. he answered that as though he were arguing some long-debated question with himself:
"i don't know," he replied slowly. "you were right. that wasn't the proper way to bring her back, even though it were genuine. i must tell you, miss rand," he said suddenly flinging up his head and looking across at her, "you've shown me so many things since we first met. i was getting into a very bad way, indulging myself in my grief. margaret wouldn't have liked that either, but it wasn't until i knew you that i saw what i was doing. thank you."
"oh, you mustn't!" she shook her head. "you mustn't take me for gospel like that mr. lapsley. you make me frightened for my responsibility. we are friends, and we must help one another, but we must keep our independence."
[pg 215]
he shook his head, smiling.
"there's always been somebody who's taken my independence away," he said. "and i like it."
after he had gone she had the tussle of her life. she ate dinner alone, then sat far into the night fighting. why should she fight at all? here was the charge given straight into her hand, the gift for which she had longed and longed, the very man for her, the man whom she could care for as she would her child. care for and protect and guide and govern. govern! like a torch flaring between dark walls that word lit her soul for her. govern! that was what she wanted; all her life she had wanted it.
she wanted to feel her power, to dominate, to command. and all for his good. she loved him, she loved his sweetness and his goodness and his simplicity. she could make him happy and contented and at ease for the rest of his days. he should never have another anxiety, never another responsibility. why fight then? wasn't it obviously the best thing in the world, both for him and for her? she needed him. he her. she abandoned herself then to happy, tender thoughts of their life together. what it would be! what they could do with old mrs. mckenzie's money! she sat there trying to lose herself in that golden future. she could not quite lose herself. threading it was again and again the warning that something was not right with it, that she was pursuing some course that she should not. the clock struck half-past eleven. she gave a little shiver. the room was cold. she knew[pg 216] then, with that little shiver, of what she had been thinking. margaret lapsley....
why should she be thinking of her? she was dead. she could not complain. and if she were still consciously with them, surely she would rather that he should be cared for and loved and guarded than pursue a lonely life full of regrets and melancholy. what kind of girl had she been? had she loved him as he had loved her? how young she had died! how young and fresh and happy!... lizzie shivered again. ah! she was old. fifty and old—old in thoughts and hopes and dreams. pervaded by a damp mist of unhappiness, she went to bed and lay there, looking into the dark.
with the morning her scruples had vanished. she saw margaret lapsley no more. she was her own sane, matter-of-fact mistress. a delightful fortnight followed. all her life afterwards lizzie looked back to those fourteen days as the happiest of her time. they were together now every afternoon. very often in the evening too they went to the theatre or music. he was her faithful dog. he agreed with all her suggestions, eagerly, implicitly. mentally, he was not stupid; he knew many things that she did not, and he was not so submissive that he would not argue. he argued hotly, growing excited, calling out protests in a high treble, then suddenly laughing like a child. for those days she abandoned herself utterly. she allowed herself to be surrounded, to be hemmed in, by the companionship, the care, the affection.... oh, it was wonderful for her! only those who had known her years and[pg 217] years of loneliness could appreciate what it was to her now to have this. she warmed her hands at the fire of it and let the flames fan their heat upon her cheeks.
once she said to him:
"isn't it strange that we should have made friends so quickly? it isn't generally my way. i'm a shy character, you know."
"so am i," he answered her. "i never would have talked to you as i have if you hadn't helped me. you have helped me. wonderfully, marvellously. i only wish that margaret could have known you. you would have helped her too."
he talked to her now continually of margaret, but very happily, with great contentment.
"margaret would have loved you," he liked to say. lizzie was not so sure.
then suddenly came the afternoon, for days past now inevitable, when he asked her to marry him.
they were sitting together in the horton flat. it was a day of intense heat. all the windows were wide open, the blinds down, and into the dim, grey shadowy air there struck shafts and lines of heat, bringing with them a smell of dust and pavements. the roses in a large yellow bowl on the centre table flung their thick scent across the dusky mote-threaded light. the hot town lay below them like a still sea basking at the foot of their rock.
"i want you to marry me, lizzie," he said. "it may seem very soon after margaret's death, but it's what she would have wished, i know. please, please don't refuse me. i don't know how i have the impertinence[pg 218] to ask, but i must. i can't help myself——"
at his words the happiness that had filled her heart during the last fortnight suddenly left her, as water ebbs out of a pool. she felt guilty, wicked, ashamed. she had never before been so aware of his helplessness and also of some strange, reproaching voice that blamed her. why should she be blamed? she looked at him and longed to take his head in her hands and kiss him and keep him beside her and never let him go again.
at last she told him that she would give him her answer the next day.
when at last he left her, she was miserable, weighted with a sense of some horrible crime. and yet why? what was there against such a marriage? she was pursued that evening, that night. next day she would not see him, but sent down word that she was unwell and would he come to-morrow? all that day, keeping alone in her flat, feeling the waves of heat beat about her, tired, exhausted, driven, the whole of her life stole past her.
"why should i not marry him? why must i not marry him?"
the consciousness that she was fighting somebody or something grew with her through the day. towards evening, when the heat faded and dusk swallowed the colours and patterns of her room, she seemed to hear a voice: "you are not the wife for him. he will have no freedom. he will lose his character. he will become a shadow."
and her answer was almost spoken to the still and[pg 219] empty room. "but he will be happy. i will give him everything. why may i not think of myself at last after all these years? i've waited and waited, and worked and worked...."
and the answer came back: "you're old. you're old. you're old." she was old. she felt that night eighty, a hundred.
she went to bed at last; closed her eyes and slept.
she woke suddenly; the room swam in moonlight. she had forgotten to draw her blinds. the high, blue expanse of heaven flashing with fiery stars broke the grey spaces of her room with splendour.
she lay in bed watching the stars. she was suddenly aware that a figure stood there between her bed and the thin shadowy pane. she gazed at it with no fear, but rather as though she had known it before.
it was the figure of a young girl in a white dress. her hair was black, her face very, very young, her eyes deep and innocent, full of light. her hands were lovely, thin and pale, shell-coloured against the starry sky.
the women looked at one another. a little unspoken dialogue fell between them.
"you are margaret?"
"yes."
"you have come to tell me to leave him alone?"
"yes."
"why?"
"oh, don't you see? he won't be happy. he won't grow. his soul won't grow with you. you are not the woman for him. someone else—perhaps—later—[pg 220] but oh! let me have him a little longer just now. i love him so! don't take him from me!"
lizzie smiled.
"you beautiful dear!... how young you are! how lovely!"
"leave him to me! leave him to me!"
the moon fell into fleecy clouds. the room was filled with shadow.
with the morning nothing had been dimmed. lizzie was happy with a strange sense of companionship and comfort.
when edmund came she saw at once that he was greatly troubled.
"well?" he asked her.
"you've seen margaret!" she cried. "last night!" he nodded his head.
"it may have been a dream...."
"you don't want to marry me...."
"oh, yes! don't think i would go back...." she put her hands on his shoulders.
"it's all right, edmund. i'm not going to marry you. i'm too old. we're friends for always, but nothing more. margaret was right."
"margaret!" he stared at her. "but you didn't know her!"
"i know her now," she answered. then, laughing, "i've got two friends instead of one husband! who knows that i'm not the richer?"
as she spoke she seemed to feel on her cheek the soft, gentle kiss of a young girl.
