London (England) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
As spring glowed into summer two factors gradually decided Lilian to
proceed to London. Visitors increased in Folkestone; the Leas were no
longer a desert, and she didn’t care to be much remarked. And further,
Dr. Samson advised her to have her child in London, and to settle there
well in advance of the ordeal. He suggested more than one house; but
Lilian would listen to no counsel on this matter. She gave out sharply
that she would have Felix’s child in Felix’s house, which was her
house--and nowhere else. The ever-silent Miss Grig was still there, but
Lilian had no objection to her staying there. She knew what was due to
her husband’s sister. She sent for the solicitor and invited him to
make all the arrangements, and to report when he had done so. In due
course she journeyed to London, deliberately missing train after train
on the day of departure. Dr. Samson accompanied her to the doorstep of
her house and Felix’s, he paid the taxi-driver, and then he shook hands
and vanished. She wished to present herself alone, and to this end had
postponed ringing the bell until all that Dr. Samson could do was done.
The facade of the house had been modernized, not untastefully, and was
different from nearly all the other houses in Montpelier Square. The
front door was of a rich, deep blue. The curtains of the windows had
individuality. Lilian looked the façade up and down and from side to
side. She had not even seen the house before; no, nor yet the Square.
Felix! It was all Felix. "Felix" was written right across it. And it
was hers--at any rate, the lease of the house was hers! It belonged to
none but herself. She knew the fact, but could not imaginatively grasp
it, and the effort to grasp it made her feel faint with emotion. She
was frightened, she was proud, she was ashamed, she was defiant, she was
almost sick.
"Why did I insist on coming here like this?" she thought. "No girl was
ever in such a position before!"
The blue door opened, as it were the door of a chamber of unguessed
tortures. A flush spread slowly over Lilian’s face.
"Now," she thought, "now I am in the middle of it all, and can’t go
back."
A parlourmaid stood in the doorway--tall, stiff, prim, perfect--such a
creature as would have refused to recognize for fellow-creatures the
cook-generals of Putney. Her mature, hard face relaxed into the minimum
of a ceremonial smile.
"Oh, good evening!" said Lilian awkwardly, no better than a typewriting
girl, and stepped into the house.
"Good evening’m," said the parlourmaid, and, as she realized Lilian’s
condition the face relented still further and its smile flickered into
genuineness. Though her eyes and mouth showed that she was virtuous to
the verge of insanity, she seemed to be moved, in spite of herself, by
the spectacle of languid and soft and mourning Lilian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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