are you the new person drawn towards me?
to begin with take warning, i am surely far different from what you suppose.
walt whitman.
on a cold morning in july, 1913, lettice climbed down from a belgian third-class carriage, dragging her luggage behind her, and found herself at graide station, province of luxemburg. lettice was an expert in the art of traveling cheaply. she had left victoria the previous afternoon, in a slow train, because the boat expresses don't take third-class passengers. after a wait at dover, she had crossed by night in the fetid atmosphere of the second-class ladies' cabin of the old rapide, and had been excessively ill. continuing her journey at 4 a.m., she had traveled to brussels in a smoking compartment with all the windows shut. namur, dinant, houyet—she lost count of her changes after that. sometimes she faced the engine; more often she had to ride back; once a belgian père de famille marched across the width of the carriage and ruthlessly pulled up the window, her window, under her very nose. always somebody was smoking, to the usual accompaniments, under the notice "niet rooken"; and always, at every change, she had to drag her heavy basket down steps and across lines of rail and heave it up to racks far above her aching head. we buy our pleasures dear when we are young. but this was the end. at graide she was to meet the diligence which should land her at the doors of the h?tel bellevue.
of course there was no porter. in those days there never were any porters at a belgian country station. if you didn't expédier your baggage (as every self-respecting[pg 44] traveler should), you had to carry it yourself. lettice's baggage was what is known as a pilgrim basket, gone at the corners, with a double strap which had slipped into a string round its middle, leaving the ends bulging. bending to it like a patient donkey, she trailed across the loose gray gravel to the exit, and at last was outside in the road. the café de la gare confronted her, a yellow house with red facings and a blue slate roof. "bureau de la diligence" appeared on its sign, but the customary shabby, dirty, stuffy, rickety ruin of a two-horse shandrydan was nowhere to be seen.
"pour rochehaut, madame?"
a smart commissionaire had seized her basket. round his cap in gilt lettering ran the words, "h?tel bellevue." lettice nodded distrustfully, and in a trice was whisked round the corner, still clinging to her strap. behold the diligence of the h?tel bellevue—a brand-new motor char-à-banc, glistening in tan-colored varnish! the commissionaire threw open the door with a flourish worthy of the boulevards, and lettice subsided in a corner as if her patient knees had at last given way.
in the fresh air she presently revived enough to take notice of her fellow-travelers. there were two, both women, the elder obviously a maid. lettice had seen them before, at dinant, descending from a voiture-salon with a porter in attendance, and had marked them with a malevolent eye, having tried in vain to secure that porter herself. but even without that memory she would have noticed the younger of the two.
she was a tall slip of a girl, scarcely out of her teens, but not dressed like an ingénue. her french hat, her furs, her gloves, the exquisite cloth of her suit, all her traveling appointments might have belonged to a married woman of thirty. yet she was not married, for there was no wedding ring among the diamonds on her finger, and lettice, whose eyes were as good as opera-glasses, could read the label on the gold-mounted dressing-case in the rack above her head—miss d. m. o'connor, h?tel bellevue. she looked fragile,[pg 45] as if recovering from an illness, and her figure was still slender and undeveloped; but she had masses of exquisitely glossy dark hair, and great dark eyes, full of fire and gloom. young though she was, she knew how to get herself obeyed. when she scowled (and she could scowl, with those black brows), even a belgian porter came to attention. lettice was wondering what it was that had set her at odds with the world, and written such bitterness on the small, brooding face, when the dark eyes looked up and met hers with a smile, sudden and child-like, which had just the effect of a sunburst over a gloomy landscape.
but before she could speak the unsociable lettice hurriedly averted her eyes and blotted herself in her corner. she make talk with a stranger for an hour, and begin an acquaintance which would have to be continued, with smiles and remarks about the weather, every time they chanced to meet in the hotel? no, thank you! the most interesting character study was not worth that. lettice would have walked a couple of miles any day to avoid a chance acquaintance.
miss o'connor stared, half incredulous; then the clouds came down again with a vengeance, and she turned her back on the ungrateful lettice and looked out of the window. they were passing down a straight road between long strips of arable land, wheat, potatoes, cabbages, beets, fenceless and flat as a table; and with the road went an avenue of trees, each lopped to a mop-head atop of its naked stem, crawling away like a green caterpillar to the limit of sight. in the distance a tiny white church raised a gray conical spire like an extinguisher; a group of white and gray dolls'-houses clustered below, drowsily basking, blue haze and brown dust, under the hazy sky.
"louisa! what time do we get to rochehaut?"
"half-past twelve the book said, miss dot."
"which means half-past one, i suppose," said dorothea o'connor in her caustic young voice. they were speaking in undertones, but lettice, whose ears were as sharp as her eyes, could not help hearing every word. "this is the[pg 46] most hatefully ugly place i've ever seen. of course one expects advertisements to lie, but there is such a thing as overdoing it."
when dorothea was annoyed, she let it be known. louisa, faithful soul, bowed her head before the storm; but she paid about as much attention as to the rages of a child.
"oh, miss dot dear, i wish you'd leave this dreadful heathen country and come back to england!"
"i'm coming back to england when i've done what i want, and not before." there was a pleasing vigor and directness in dorothea's statements. "i'm sorry for you, louisa, but after all you'll be able to get a cup of real english tea at the bellevue—all the advertisements said so!"
"'tisn't tea i'm thinking of, miss dot, but this dreadful wicked idea of yours. deceiving your dear kind uncle and all—"
"it's no business of uncle jack's what i do, and if i don't tell him it's only because i don't want him to be bothered." louisa sighed and shook her head. "i won't be moaned at," dorothea declared, with an inimical flash. "no, and i won't be prayed at either! i've told you, you can go home if you like; but if you stay, you'll just have to resign yourself, because i am going through with it—i should despise myself for ever and ever if i didn't! there: is that plain?"
"oh, miss dot, you have shook your hat so crooked!" was louisa's earnest reply. dorothea laughed, as she submitted to have it set straight.
"i rather hate you sometimes, louisa darling, you make me feel such a brute," she said, "but i'm going on, all the same. dear me, is this place an example of the unsurpassed view, i wonder? it'll add a fresh joy to rochehaut if there's an outbreak of typhoid!"
they were passing through the village which in the distance had looked so trim. set well back from the road on either side was a row of white houses; before each house, a midden, foursquare; before the middens, a gutter, running auburn; between the gutters, the main street, down which[pg 47] the omnibus had to pass. dorothea, her face buried in her handkerchief, was rummaging her bag impatiently for a bottle of lavender salts, when something made her glance at her fellow-traveler. lettice was no longer gray, she was green, and trying weakly to unfasten her veil. suddenly her surprised and unyielding waist was clasped by a peremptory arm, and the lavender salts were thrust under her nose.
"how many hatpins have you?—oh, here's the last. move my things off the seat, louisa. now put your head down on these rugs; that's better. we shall be out of this hateful village directly."
the amazed lettice found herself laid flat on the cushions. automatically she rose up, reacting like a bent twig; instantly she was pressed back again.
"no, you must lie still. i saw you at brussels, looking as ill as ill, even then. are you ill, or is it only the traveling that's upset you?"
"i had a bad crossing," said lettice, in a tone that was almost surly.
"a bad crossing? you came over last night? then i don't wonder at anything. my flask, louisa—no, that's the eau-de-cologne, how stupid you are! i'm going to give you a liqueur; brandy's hateful, and no good at all, but a cura?ao does pull you together. open your mouth—that's right—"
lettice had opened her mouth to say she did not like liqueurs, but she was given no time; her zealous nurse immediately poured the dose down her throat. this was an outrage—it was forcible feeding—and on lettice, of all people! lettice, who could not bear so much as to be touched against her will! coughing in the most lady-like way, pink with choking and with injured dignity, she presented a pathetic sight for any one with eyes to see. dorothea had none.
"you aren't one bit fit to be going about alone and looking after yourself," she said, in a mixture of severity and solicitude. "you ought to be in bed! are you cold?—why, your hands are like lumps of ice! my cloak, louisa.[pg 48] when we get to the hotel you shall have a hot bottle and i'll see after you properly. no, don't try to talk."
hitherto lettice had expressed no gratitude, but now, having been told to keep silence, she said "thank you," in a tone of acid obstinacy. it is trying to be done good to against your will. nobody had ever before attempted such a liberty with lettice. denis might lecture, but he never dreamed of enforcing his advice; while her own sisters would have laughed at the possibility. "make lettice do what she doesn't choose?" cried rosabel. "you might just as well argue with the leg of that table!"
lettice, of course, did not agree with them; she considered herself to be of a yielding disposition, bordering on flabbiness; but there are things the meekest cannot stand. the moment dorothea's back was turned she rose up and put on her hat again. after that she felt happier, if less comfortable. lettice was one of those persons who are never really happy when they are comfortable; instinctive dread of slackness (springing by rebound from innate love of luxury) drove her to deny her body in order to ease her soul. certainly her body was not at ease. violent remedies did not suit her. it might have been the cura?ao, or the insult, or both of them together, but her sensations were growing acute.
she saw nothing when they plunged into a rick dark green valley of woods. she was blind to the silvery splendors of distant hills and river. they turned into a wide courtyard and drew up. lettice saw only that the h?tel bellevue had many piazzas and balconies, all full of people, all watching the arrival of the coach. dorothea descended on one side. her patient slipped out on the other and made towards the door.
"why, lettice!"
it was denis, who had sprung out of his chair and was advancing towards her, smiling, as the phrase goes, all over his face. lettice, while wishing him at jericho, produced an answering smile.
"well," said she.
[pg 49]
"why didn't you tell me you were coming? you said you meant to spend the night in brussels! you might have sent a wire!"
"i forgot," said lettice, still edging towards the door. she wished he would not stand directly in the way. denis at last began to perceive that something was wrong.
"did you have a bad crossing? you're all the colors of the rainbow, my dear girl—"
lettice suddenly swerved past him and almost ran towards the house. as she reached the door another dense and solid person came out, and got hopelessly in the way. a delay at such a moment ... well, if it had been anybody in the world but lettice ... and even as it was....
"good lord!" said denis.
the new-comer, who was harry gardiner, turned with commendable presence of mind and rang for a maid. "show this lady to her room—"
"and take her a cup of tea at once," finished dorothea, coming up breathless to resume command. "i'll see to her myself in a moment."
lettice's last thought, as she hid her shame within the house, was that she must on no account forget to lock her door.
