Colonel Pickering carefully laid down an envelope and turned to Eliza.
"Dear Eliza, would you be so kind and let me invite you to a spectacular exhibition in the Royal Albert Hall?"
Eliza didn't react much but ran her hand over the decorated envelope.
"Impressionists. Impressionist exhibition," he whispered, almost conspiratorially.
"Professor Higgins could," Eliza begun but Pickering waved his hand.
"Higgins is sometimes too traditional. You could say I'm more traditional than him, at least judging from the clothes," Pickering said and touched his white collar. "But when it comes to art, he's unreasonably conservative," he said with a wink. "And you'd be the most charming companion."
"Oh, but Freddy, Mr. Hills still writes to me three times a day and I agreed to meet him for a chaise ride around London."
"Ah, young Eynsford-Hill is very persistent. That's not the worst quality to have for a marriage."
"But I am not going," Eliza began, wanted to continue 'to marry him. … At least not yet.'
"I know I know, these things should not be talked about," Pickering said and slightly bowed to Eliza and left the room.
xxxxx
"Eliza!" Higgins stormed into the room.
"Are you looking for your slippers?"
"I couldn't care less about my slippers, besides you have already brought them to me. I need you. I need you to go with me to this Impressionist exhibition. Pickering has been talking about art for weeks. I need to see it with my own eyes so that I have well-founded evidence and can tell him that he may know about ladies' dresses but his taste in art leaves a lot to be desired."
"I cannot be the Duchess forever. Passing one exam after another. Just accompanying you and pretending."
Higgins looked at Eliza in confusion. "Why not?"
"Because I'm not a duchess. Yes, I wanted to be more than a flower girl on a street but a duchess is too much."
"Do not tell me you are afraid. We, or Pickering I believe, introduced you as our cousin, that is enough. Everyone in the London society knows you as my and Pickering's cousin. Fait accompli."
xxxxx
"Mr. Eynsford-Hill," Mrs. Pearce announced.
xxxxx
"Ohoho, now I understand that a duchess is too much. Too much for Freddy Eynsford-Hill."
"Last time you laughed at Freddy, I left," Eliza reminded him.
"I will be ready in five minutes," Eliza called.
Eliza took a deep breath.
"We have to kill the duchess, Freddy," she announced.
"Darling? Eliza? Kill the duchess? Which duchess? Ki- Kill?" Freddy panicked.
"I cannot pretend forever," Eliza sighed.
"I'm not a duchess. I'm not the lady Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering were showing around."
Freddy touched Eliza's hand and said: "I just know you are the lady I fell in love with."
After a while he tilted his head and asked: "But who are you then?"
"So.. I'll tell ya," Eliza winked playfully.
"Pickering said you were his and Professor Higgins' cousin, right?"
"Oh… so… I'm a very very very distant relative of Colonel Pickering. He has so many relatives and has been living in India for so long… Mrs. Higgins' cousin was a duchess. I lived at her manor as the lady's companion. But she was very ill and spent a few months in a hospital, I moved to Colonel Pickering uhm … because he returned from India and didn't have any own housing he himself moved to Professor Higgins. Uhm. And the duchess died a few days ago. I think it was just fun for them saying I was a duchess. They would normally go to the races and to the ball with the real duchess. But it was nice to see the aristocrats without serving them," Eliza quickly finished and congratulated herself that everything went according to her elaborate plan.
"Oh, Eliza, you are so pure. Saying you cannot pretend. Look at us, Eynsford-Hills, we have been pretending for so long that we have money. And everyone is content."
Eliza smiled. "And now I have to find a job!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, darling. Working!"
"I have been working all my life," she said.
"Oh, that's true. I have to confess that while writing all the letters to you, I realized I am not bad at expressing myself."
"Ya wanna oh you would like to be a writer then?"
"Goodness no, I'm not that well at expressing myself, though I thought that maybe I could be selling houses, talking to people, or doing something around horses. Speaking at races or auctions."
"You would do something like this?"
"I would do this for you, so that we could afford marriage," Freddy blushed.
When Eliza returned home, she heard Pickering and Higgins talking and opened the door but they didn't notice her.
"Too bad. Too bad, Eliza refused to go with me to the exhibition. A man has to simply appear with a woman at his side from time to time," Pickering sighed.
"I tried to ask her too… Though we could both go with my mother. I just have to invite her," Higgins winked and put a light kiss on Pickering's hand.
After a moment Eliza quietly closed the door and opened them again.
xxxxx
"I killed the duchess," Eliza proclaimed dramatically in Higgins' salon.
"What have you said?" Higgins jumped out of the armchair.
Eliza retold them the explanation she offered to Freddy.
"But my dear did you not want to pay for Higgins' lessons here so that you could be a lady?"
"A lady in a flower-shop. Not at the King's ball."
"Hm… so you lied that you were Pickering's distant cousin and that my mother's non-existent cousin, who was the real duchess, died?"
"You lied first," Eliza said dryly.
"If I say I am the duchess there will always be a Zoltan Karpathy or dozens like him trying to find why I so suddenly appeared in London. But nobody asks a girl in a flower-shop. It is enough if she speaks nicely and not too bad if she occasionally slips."
"This charming young woman has thought it trough, Higgins," Pickering noted.
"And by the way, I may go with you, Colonel, or with you, Professor, from time to time somewhere, in theatre, to an exhibition, if you would like," she said. "I know what is love and secrets," she added without further explanations.
Higgins shrugged his shoulders and Pickering whispered. "I don't think she talked about us."
"You have courage, my dear, and I have to say it is a good plan, indeed. Henry can't always win and show you off as a duchess as if you were an animal in the zoo. You own your life," Mrs. Higgins said after Eliza and Higgins told her about Eliza's plan and instructed her which story should Mrs. Higgins say about Eliza among all the peers, dukes and duchess, bishops and ladies Mrs. Higgins met regularly.
"I'm not courageous, everyone talks about suffrage and independence and all that. But I'm not clever, I just do not want to stand out, neither as the poorest flower girl nor as an aristocrat," Eliza said.
"I think that my cousin, whom I had never had, would be very honoured if she could bequeath a nice sum of money to you. She would trust you to know what to do with it. I will instruct my valet to arrange for it."
"When are you opening a flower-shop, Eliza?" Higgins asked, showing real interest.
"I'm not opening a flower-shop."
"But you got money for it from my mother, as a reward that you taught me I cannot always win, I shall point out."
"She said I could do anything with it. I will save the money. And use just some of it now. One has to think about a place to stay and such things. For now, I will be working in a coffeehouse. They have so much chocolate there. And many aristocrats come there; and they need a nice lady there who would smile at the ladies and gentlemen and would talk nicely."
xxxxx
"I think Eliza is quite wisely choosing something in between. Not a common flower girl, not a duchess. Not selling flowers on a street, not waiting for a rich husband to bring her money," Pickering said and bowed slightly to Eliza.
"It will be lovely," she said with full confidence.