Evan Hunter: Lizzie

She was surprised when, at the end of an acquaintance that had seemed entirely pleasant but altogether too brief, Alison offered her a visting card upon which was imprinted her name, address and telephone number, and asked her to be in touch should they need any sort of assistance in London. Albert reminded his wife that they were leaving for Paris next Wednesday, and Alison said, “Hush, darling, I meant until then, surely.” To Lizzie’s greater surprise, it was Albert who made certain that their baggage was transported from the luggage van to a large waiting vehicle, and then hailed another four-wheeler for the ladies themselves. When he tipped the porter for his services, Lizzie protested vigorously but in vain. When he advised the cabman to keep an eye out for the luggage carrier ahead, and gave him the number of the vehicle, Lizzie wondered aloud how they might have managed without him, and Albert — pleased and flushing — assured her it was no trouble at all. The women shook hands all around. Just before the Newburys’ hansom cab pulled away, Alison smiled and waved. Her eyes looked intensely green in the slanting ray of sunshine that touched her exquisite face.

Standing by the open fourth-floor windows in her nightdress, looking down at Piccadilly, Lizzie listened to what could only be considered a roar in comparison to last night’s hush.

In the early morning sunshine there was even more traffic below than she had seen on her several visits to New York. Looking down at the cabs and hansoms flying about below in such a hot and reckless fashion, she wondered how she would ever get from one side of the street to the other without being crushed beneath the thundering hooves of the horses.

In one of the beds across the room, Rebecca murmured in her sleep and then rolled over. Lizzie had suggested, when the women were registering for their rooms in the ornate Renaissance lobby below, that perhaps they should share the accommodations throughout Europe on a rotating basis (this to avoid Anna’s snoring, though she made no mention of it) and the others had readily agreed. They had paired off haphazardly, too tired to give any thought to contriving a system that would serve them all through Europe, and then had gone upstairs to unpack before taking their evening meal in the ground-floor dining room, which the headwaiter proudly informed them had been decorated in the style of Francis I. He blinked politely when Felicity asked him if that had been a British king.

The long day, which had started when they’d been awakened aboard ship at dawn, had finally caught up with them midway during their supper. Only Felicity ordered dessert; perhaps she had noticed that the predominant style of beauty among Englishwomen seemed to consist of a heavy bust, a narrow, corseted waist and a large bottom, and was determined to go back to Fall River looking as much like one of them as was possible. Anna, who’d scarcely eaten a bite anyway, abruptly excused herself and went directly upstairs to the room she would be sharing with Felicity. Rebecca, her eyes looking somewhat glazed, excused herself shortly afterwards; she was already asleep when Lizzie went up to their room at a little before nine.

She changed into her nightdress, padding quietly about the room so as not to awaken Rebecca, and then went to stand by the open windows, surprised by the utter calm of the city. A hush, rather, broken only by the muffled sound of distant vehicles. The scent of flowers and of freshly cut hay wafted through the open windows. Smiling she went to her bed and sat on the edge of it, savoring the silence. And then she lay down and pulled the covers to her chin, and the hush was broken suddenly by the sound of Big Ben tolling the hour, echoed by the liquid chiming of yet more bells on the muzzle of the night. She listened to the tolling of the bells in all the clock towers, and when they had faded, and when the hush was complete again, she drifted off into a deep and peaceful sleep.

“Is it morning?” Rebecca asked from the bed behind her, blinking at the sunshine.

“Oh, yes !” Lizzie said.

She might have been in Boston, the two cities seemed that similar. Not those sections of Boston that had been rebuilt since the Great Fire, certainly not, but those that had survived. London, like Boston, seemed to be a city of three-story buildings, a third of them stucco painted drab, the remainder fashioned of brick or stone. There was a quiet modesty to the buildings, an air of substance and dignity. The similarity startled her; perhaps it had to do with the fact that Boston, before the Revolution, had never been anything but British.

The soot! Dirt of the dirtiest sort! Corinthian columns with one side of them a pale gray and the other a black as deep as midnight. St. Paul’s, and Westminster Abbey and the squat Bank of England wearing robes of black soot except for their very tops, where the stonework stood out mysteriously pristine. Rebecca explained that this was because the British burned soft coal. Anna was certain that all those flying black globules would bring on a congestion of the nose, the throat and the lungs. Felicity, as only she might have noticed, commented that even the collars of the men’s shirts appeared black.

On their first morning in London, they went to the Tower, of course, and then the National Gallery, and took their midday meal in one of the precious few luncheon places recommended for ladies. The guide books had suggested the Criterion in Piccadilly Circus as convenient to the art galleries, and Gatti’s in the Strand for a meal that was not too costly. They settled on the Criterion and ate in the basement room as the guide books had advised, rather than upstairs where the same dishes were served at higher prices. As it was le diner Parisien would have cost them five shillings had they chosen it; they did not, because they intended to be in France within a fortnight. Instead they selected the table d’hote bill of fare at three and six, which Lizzie calculated to be something close to a dollar in American money.

Two things struck her as decidedly odd during lunch. The first of these was that although this was certainly a first-class restaurant, the men not only carried their hats into the dining room but carried them on their heads until they took their seats, this despite the presence of so many ladies in the room. The observation caused her to reevaluate her first impression of Albert Newbury, who’d kept his hat on his head all during the ride from Oxford to London. The second thing was that it was impossible to get a glass of water. The ladies were quick to learn that they were expected to order wine with their meal. As Alison Newbury would later tell her, the English people, when thirsty, drank wine, beer “or something stronger”. The simple white wine they ordered added an additional shilling and sixpence to their bill. Neither Lizzie nor Anna touched a drop of it.

After lunch Anna went back to the hotel for a nap, and the three other women — freed from her hypochondriacal tyranny — simply wandered the narrow streets at will, as they had read unescorted young ladies might do if they dressed sedately, walked fast and looked directly ahead of them. This was the part of their day, thus far, that most pleased Lizzie, although she was uncommonly aware of her frank and level gaze which, the guide books had warned, could easily be misinterpreted by foreigners. American girls — and she had never honestly thought about it before — had a habit, it seemed, of directly meeting the eyes of strangers, and she had no desire to be followed by any man eager for the chance of possible amusement. But, oh, so much to see in this marvelous city! Was she to walk with her head lowered and her eyes averted like a nun on her way to vespers?