Evan Hunter - Lizzie

“... to be making your first trip abroad now,” Alison was saying.

“Pardon?” Lizzie said.

“Our clutter has overwhelmed you,” Alison said, smiling.

“No, it’s... beautiful,” Lizzie said. “Forgive me, I was simply admiring everything.”

“The cottage is Albert’s,” Alison said.

“The cottage?”

“The small piano. He plays abominably, but it relaxes him after a day of coping with high finance. He should be here by now, but undoubtedly he’s been buttonholed by one of his money-worshiping cronies. Sugar?”

“Yes, please,” Lizzie said. “You were saying earlier?”

“Only that you’re fortunate to be making your first trip abroad now, and not ten years ago — or even five, for that matter.”

“How do you mean?” Lizzie asked.

She considered herself fortunate to be making the trip at any time, and she could scarcely believe the stroke of good luck that had led first to their chance encounter on the train, and now this — to be invited into an English home! And such a home! As Alison continued speaking, Lizzie’s eyes roamed the room in wonder, touching upon the silver everywhere about, and the framed paintings and drawings, the cut-glass decanters, the bric-a-brac, the dark mahogany cabinet with its glass doors and its fine china within, the iridescent globes on the unlighted gas fixture overhead, the—

“... convenience, of course. Until last year, the only London hotel offering separate tables for dining in public was the St. James — quite near you, in fact — on the corner of Piccadilly and Berkeley Street. Now there’s the Savoy, of course, and many other such establishments where a well-bred lady” (and she rolled her eyes) “can dare to dine in public with a friend of her own sex, and without the fortifying presence of family or spouse. One can even dine at the Savoy on a Sunday now, rather than rushing off to Evensong, or wherever it is religious people are always scurrying to in the fog. You’re quite fortunate, truly.”

There was in Alison’s voice, as a counterpoint to its low and typically English musicality, a note of — mockery, was it? — and Lizzie felt somewhat uncomfortable in her presence. She could not imagine any respectable woman of her acquaintance making sport, first, of the cherished precepts of ladylike expectation, and next — not a moment later — of religion, which Lizzie considered the mainstay of her life in Fall River. Nor could she imagine that Alison would have dared to speak so boldly in the presence of her husband. And yet, hadn’t there been that same challenging tone on the train when Albert was talking about naming a child? “Note the male posture,” Alison had said, with the same slight raising of her eyebrows, the same half smile on her mouth, the same liltingly derisive edge to her voice.

“Not too many years ago, had you been a woman traveling alone,” she said now, “and I include your friends, of course — women traveling alone — you’d have taken a hotel in Bond Street, most likely, or perhaps Cork Street, and your accommodations would have included a dining room of your own. Horrors to have thought that a proper lady would have rubbed elbows with strangers at a common table in the coffee room below! Nor would you have enjoyed, as I’m sure you do at the Albemarle, the conveniences of running water and a gas fire, though I imagine the Albemarle has those new electric radiators, has it not?”

“Yes, it does,” Lizzie said. She was thinking that she herself would not have enjoyed dining with strangers, either, and she was grateful for the separate tables offered at the Albemarle last night and at the Criterion this noon.

“You’ll find things have changed on the Continent as well,” Alison said, “though most of the women there still consider any visiting American girl an opportunist.”

“Opportunist?” Lizzie said.

“Yes. Setting her cap for marriage to a titled foreigner with scads of money. You’re not looking for a French or Italian nobleman, are you?”

“No, of course not,” Lizzie said, and lowered her eyes.

“Am I embarrassing you?” Alison asked.

“Why would you be?”

“I shouldn’t think I was, but nowadays so much pressure is put upon young women to marry — how old are you, Lizzie?”

“Thirty,” Lizzie said. “Just.”

“I would have thought much younger.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s something so... fresh about you,” Alison said.

“Well... thank you,” Lizzie said again.

“Which could be said about most American girls, I suppose. Forgive me, I had no desire to dilute my compliment. It’s just that here in the Old World, we’ve become so accustomed to the sort of woman we see everywhere about us that American girls take us quite by storm. So open and frank, so — well, fresh is the word for it, after all. Now I am embarrassing you, do forgive me.”

“I’m flattered,” Lizzie said.

“One grows so weary of our young English girls, with their horsey ways, their lack of elegance and their brusque manner of walking,” Alison said. “And how tiresome the French girls are, those humble violets of supposed femininity. The American girl is more like an orchid, I would say, blooming in a way that surprises me incessantly. Beautiful, dazzling, it first charms by its strangeness, and then intoxicates with its subtle perfume. It lives on air, an orchid, and needs none of the material conditions of existence for other plants. The surprise is that it often comes from a gnarled stem which seems to defy beauty. Yet from this hideous stem, it blossoms frequently — with singular, but always incomparable, attractiveness. The American girl is surely the orchid among all feminine flowers.”

Lizzie was struck speechless.

“Considering the more than eleven thousand virgins who migrate semiannually from America to the shores of England and France,” Alison said, “one might be compelled to argue that there is no such creature as the American girl, since — like the orchid — she comes in many different species and varieties. And, certainly, I’ve met or observed a great many American girls who commit the commonest sins — or supposed sins,” she added, “against public manners, like loud laughing and talking in hotel parlors or salles à manger. But rarely is she badly dressed, however unmusical her cackle, however much slang may pepper her speech. Her stylishness, of course, may be due either to the quickness of her eye or the length of her purse; one has no way of judging. But surely Paris dresses her à ravir, and she wears her clothes like a queen — or, rather, as queens but seldom do.”

Lizzie was staring at her now, quite overwhelmed.

“Here in the Old World,” Alison said, “the American girl is certain of attracting any young man who’s abused life, who’s a little blase, and who — to be captivated — has need of what we call du montant. But, surely, it’s the same for you at home, is it not? Your father must be plagued by gentlemen callers ringing your doorbell day and night.”

“Well... no,” Lizzie said.

“No?” Alison said. “I’m surprised, truly. I should have thought just the opposite. You have such marvelous color, Lizzie, that wonderfully fiery hair, and those incredible gray eyes. It’s a pity cosmetics are so frowned upon these days — oh, a little pearl powder, perhaps, or a faint dusting from a papier poudré, but only for married women, of course,” she said, and again rolled her eyes. “But how I would love to rouge your cheeks — or my own, for that matter — as many dotty dowagers do, or daub a bit of lip salve on your mouth, or line your eyes with kohl as black as Cleopatra must have used. How silly of me, you’re quite beautiful enough without any artifice.”