But she spoke far less generously of the cotton mills, and the rolling and slitting mills, and the nail factory and the ironworks and the oil manufactory, and the granite quarries, and all the various other commercial enterprises that had turned what had been a peaceful village in her father’s youth to what was now a bustling port of entry concerned only with business. She rather imagined it had all changed after the Great Fire of ’43, which had consumed the town and necessitated its reconstruction.
Her father (and she smiled now with the memory) had told her stories of what it had been like to be a boy back then, walking the dusty sidewalks of the village, listening for the sound of the fire-alarm bell — fire was always a hazard in a town constructed almost entirely of wood, as it was then — rushing out into the streets, barefooted more often than not, to race after the horse-drawn engines. Back then, all of the engines — even those still drawn by hand — had names as well as numbers, mysterious names that conjured all sorts of derring-do for Lizzie when her father repeated them, names like Hydraulion Number Two and Cataract Number Four and Torrent Number Two and — her favorite because she always visualized an Indian lashing the horses — Mazeppa Number Seven.
Whenever her father heard the cry “Fire!” he would rush through the streets echoing it, “Fire!” Fire!”, hoping to be the first to reach the bell rope and ring the alarm bell, the hero who would save the town from destruction. He could vividly recall — and recreated for Lizzie as she did now for Alison — the two men who drove horse-drawn wagons in the performance of street-work for the city. Whenever the fire bell rang, those two would leap down from their high seats, unhook the whiffletrees, leave the wagons wherever they stood and drive their horses bareback — the horizontal wooden crossbars clattering behind them — to the nearest station, there to harness them to engines and race off to the conflagration. Her father—
“You love him very much, don’t you?” Alison said softly.
“Yes, I do,” Lizzie said.
“And Fall River? Do you miss it terribly now?”
“Not in the slightest,” Lizzie said. “Why? Do I sound nostalgic?”
“Not in the slightest,” Alison said, and smiled.
And when later each night, they crawled into bed and turned out the bedside lamps and lay together in their nightdresses side by side in the darkness, they still talked, though with lowered voices now lest the sound carry across the courtyard to awaken other guests. Lizzie wanted to know what it felt like to be a twin, and Alison told her she had once heard twinship described as “a gang in miniature”, which wasn’t too far from the truth.
“You have no idea how uncomfortable it is for anyone to be with Geoff and me when we’re rattling on together. It’s as though we were some sort of two-headed monster controlled by a common brain. Our speech overlaps, we will make the same gestures, the same grimaces; it’s as if we speak with a single tongue and with no real awareness of each other except as an echo of sorts. I’m told we drive people to distraction. You’re fortunate, truly, in not having had to put up with us à la fois. But he’s such a darling, and I truly love him to death. And when it comes to hugging and kissing, oh my, you have never witnessed such affection or demonstration! Were we not brother and sister, I’m sure we should have been arrested and imprisoned ages ago! I must telegraph him soon, you know, to arrange for your escort through the wilderness.”
As the days stretched into a week and Lizzie’s strength gradually returned, she knew she could no longer postpone the journey that would reunite her with her friends. Moreover the virtually daily telephone calls from the south of France made it apparent that Albert was not enjoying the overseeing of a household full of servants and would most earnestly welcome Alison’s presence in as near the future as she could manage. When he asked to speak to Lizzie on the telephone one day, he brusquely asked, “Well, then, Lizzie, how much longer do you suppose it’ll be till you’ve fully regained your health?” When Lizzie reported this to Alison afterwards, she said, “Oh, the rude bastard!” thoroughly shocking Lizzie, who had never heard profanity from the lips of any woman, whatever her social class.
But still they procrastinated.
They consulted Lizzie’s itinerary and figured it would be so much easier to catch the other women at such and such a place rather than at such and such, and then revised their estimate when they realized that this or that train would take seven or eight or nine hours as opposed to this or that which would take only six should she decide to meet them here rather than there. Alison kept promising Albert on the telephone that she would be there momentarily, and then asked to speak to Moira, and the gardener, and the coachman and the cook, giving them long-distance instructions on how to maintain the equilibrium of the household in her absence. She sent a tin of Russian caviar to Albert as well as a box of expensive cigars.
When she suggested one night — as though the idea had suddenly occurred to her, an inspiration purely out of the blue — that Lizzie accompany her to Cannes to complete her recuperation there at the villa, Lizzie was too astonished to speak for a moment.
“Well?” Alison said.
“But I’m already fully recuperated,” Lizzie said.
“Nonsense!” Alison said. “I’m sure you’ll suffer an immediate relapse on these abominable French trains — unless your friends are already in Italy, whose rail system is even more wretched. Where are they now, anyway? I have such a difficult time keeping up with them, and truly I don’t care where they are!”
The bedside light snapped on. Alison sat up abruptly. She was wearing a white linen nightdress with lace tucking and pink ribbon ties, its yoke neck cut low over her breasts. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon that matched those on the nightdress, and her eyes were flashing with the familiar intensity Lizzie now associated with anger or resolve or both.
“Now listen to me,” she said. “I have no desire to spoil your first trip abroad or to deprive you of the obviously enchanting company of sour-faced Anna, voluptuous Felicity-Twit, or Rebecca and her exquisite German, which she tells me is even superior to her French, God help us! Nor am I suggesting for a moment that you miss the splendors of Italy — I should be a cruel and unfeeling friend if such a thought ever once crossed my mind. But, surely, Lizzie, you can spend a fortnight with us on the Riviera, can you not? In a sun-washed villa on a promontory overlooking the sea, with rooms enough to house the entire royal family, and gardens so lush they are virtually edible? I have rooms and rooms full of orchids, too, my pride and joy, unless that idiot gardener has allowed them to wither and die in my absence. Oh, Lizzie, do you wish me to wither and die in your absence? How shall I face each morning without my dearest child to greet me with those pale gray eyes in her round pale face — you must have sunshine, Lizzie, or you will perish! I promise I shall telegraph Geoffrey the instant you weary of our hospitality, and he will lead you to your sheeplike companions — do forgive me, I know they are dear to you — wherever they may be grazing at the time, be it Florence, Venice, Berlin, Siberia, wherever! You must grant me this single wish or I shall fill the tub with water again and drown myself in it, even as those swarthy French bandits might have drowned you. Say yes or I shall open the faucets at once!”