Delafield was walking through the Park towards Victoria Gate. A pair of beautiful roans pulled up suddenly beside him, and a little figure with a waving hand bent to him from a carriage.
"Jacob, where are you off to? Let me give you a lift?"
The gentleman addressed took off his hat.
"Much obliged to you, but I want some exercise. I say, where did Freddie get that pair?"
"I don't know, he doesn't tell me. Jacob, you must get in. I want to speak to you."
Rather unwillingly, Delafield obeyed, and away they sped.
"J'ai un tas de choses à vous dire," she said, speaking low, and in French, so as to protect herself from the servants in front. "Jacob, I'mveryunhappy about Julie."
Delafield frowned uncomfortably.
"Why? Hadn't you better leave her alone?"
"Oh, of course, I know you think me a chatterbox. I don't care. Youmustlet me tell you some fresh news about her. Itisn'tgossip, and you and I are her best friends. Oh, Freddie's so disagreeable about her. Jacob, you've got to help and advise a little. Now, do listen. It's your duty--your downright catechism duty."
And she poured into his reluctant ear the tale which Miss Emily Lawrence nearly a fortnight before had confided to her.
"Of course," she wound up, "you'll say it's only what we knew or guessed long ago. But you see, Jacob, we didn'tknow. It might have been just gossip. And then, besides"--she frowned and dropped her voice till it was only just audible--"this horrid man hadn't made our Julie so--so conspicuous, and Lady Henry hadn't turned out such a toad--and, altogether, Jacob, I'm dreadfully worried."
"Don't be," said Jacob, dryly.
"And what a creature!" cried the Duchess, unheeding. "They say that poor Moffatt child will soon have fretted herself ill, if the guardians don't give way about the two years."
"What two years?"
"The two years that she must wait--till she is twenty-one. Oh, Jacob, you know that!" exclaimed the Duchess, impatient with him. "I've told you scores of times."
"I'm not in the least interested in Miss Moffatt's affairs."
"But you ought to be, for they concern Julie," cried the Duchess. "Can't you imagine what kind of things people are saying? Lady Henry has spread it about that it was all to see him she bribed the Bruton Street servants to let her give the Wednesday party as usual--that she had been flirting with him abominably for months, and using Lady Henry's name in the most impertinent ways. And now, suddenly, everybody seems to knowsomethingabout this Indian engagement. You may imagine it doesn't look very well for our poor Julie. The other night at Chatton House I was furious. I made Julie go. I wanted her to show herself, and keep up her friends. Well, it washorrid! One or two old frights, who used to be only too thankful to Julie for reminding Lady Henry to invite them, put their noses in the air and behaved odiously. And even some of the nicer ones seemed changed--I could see Julie felt it."
"Nothing of all that will do her any real harm," said Jacob, rather contemptuously.
"Well, no. I know, of course, that her real friends will never forsake her--never, never! But, Jacob"--the Duchess hesitated, her charming little face furrowed with thought--"if only so much of it weren't true. She herself--"
"Please, Evelyn," said Delafield, with decision, "don't tell me anything she may have said to you."
The Duchess flushed.
"I shouldn't have betrayed any confidence," she said, proudly. "And I must consult with some one who cares about her. Dr. Meredith lunched with me to-day, and he said a few words to me afterwards. He's quite anxious, too--and unhappy. Captain Warkworth's always there--always! Even I have been hardly able to see her the last few days. Last Sunday they took the little lame child and went into the country for the whole day--"
"Well, what is there to object to in that?" cried Jacob.
"I didn't say there was anything to object to," said the Duchess, looking at him with eyes half angry, half perplexed. "Only it's so unlike her. She had promised to be at home that afternoon for several old friends, and they found her flown, without a word. And think how sweet Julie is always about such things--what delicious notes she writes, how she hates to put anybody out or disappoint them! And now, not a word of excuse to anybody. And she looks soill--so white, so fixed--like a person in a dream which she can't shake off. I'm just miserable about her. And I hate,hatethat man--engaged to her own cousin all the time!" cried the little Duchess, under her breath, as she passionately tore some violets at her waist to pieces and flung them out of the carriage. Then she turned to Jacob.
"But, of course, if you don't care twopence about all this, Jacob, it's no good talking to you!"
Her taunt fell quite unnoticed. Jacob turned to her with smiling composure.
"You have forgotten, my dear Evelyn, all this time, that Warkworth goes away--to mid-Africa--in little more than two weeks."
"I wish it was two minutes," said the Duchess, fuming.
Delafield made no reply for a while. He seemed to be studying the effect of a pale shaft of sunlight which had just come stealing down through layers of thin gray cloud to dance upon the Serpentine. Presently, as they left the Serpentine behind them, he turned to his companion with more apparent sympathy.
"We can't do anything, Evelyn, and we've no right whatever to talk of alarm, or anxiety--totalkof it, mind! It's--it's disloyal. Forgive me," he added, hastily, "I know you don't gossip. But it fills me with rage that other people should be doing it."
The brusquerie of his manner disconcerted the little lady beside him. She recovered herself, however, and said, with a touch of sarcasm, tempered by a rather trembling lip:
"Your rage won't prevent their gossiping, Mr. Jacob, I thought, perhaps, yourfriendshipmight have done something to stop it--to--to influence Julie," she added, uncertainly.
"My friendship, as you call it, is of no use whatever," he said, obstinately. "Warkworth will go away, and if you and others do their best to protect Miss Le Breton, talk will soon die out. Behave as if you had never heard the man's name before--stare the people down. Why, good Heavens! you have a thousand arts! But, of course, if the little flame is to be blown into a blaze by a score of so-called friends--"
He shrugged his shoulders.
The Duchess did not take his rebukes kindly, not having, in truth, deserved them.
"You are rude and unkind, Jacob," she said, almost with the tears in her eyes. "And you don't understand--it is because I myself am so anxious--"
"For that reason, play the part with all your might," he said, unyieldingly. "Really, even you and I oughtn't to talk of it any more. But thereisone thing I want very much to know about Miss Le Breton."
He bent towards her, smiling, though in truth he was disgusted with himself, vexed with her, and out of tune with all the world.
The Duchess made a little face.
"All very well, but after such a lecture as you have indulged in, I think I prefer not to say any more about Julie."
"Do. I'm ashamed of myself--except that I don't retract one word, not one. Be kind, all the same, and tell me--if you know--has she spoken to Lord Lackington?"
The Duchess still frowned, but a few more apologetic expressions on his part restored a temper that had always a natural tendency to peace. Indeed, Jacob'sboutadesnever went long unpardoned. An only child herself, he, her first cousin, had played the part of brother in her life, since the days when she first tottered in long frocks, and he had never played it in any mincing fashion. His words were often blunt. She smarted and forgave--much more quickly than she forgave her husband. But then, with him, she was in love.
So she presently vouchsafed to give Jacob the news that Lord Lackington at last knew the secret--that he had behaved well--had shown much feeling, in fact--so that poor Julie--
But Jacob again cut short the sentimentalisms, the little touching phrases in which the woman delighted.
"What is he going to do for her?" he said, impatiently. "Will he make any provision for her? Is there any way by which she can live in his house--take care of him?"
The Duchess shook her head.
"At seventy-five one can't begin to explain a thing as big as that. Julie perfectly understands, and doesn't wish it."
"But as to money?" persisted Jacob.
"Julie says nothing about money. How odd you are, Jacob! I thought that was the last thing needful in your eyes."
Jacob did not reply. If he had, he would probably have said that what was harmful or useless for men might be needful for women--for the weakness of women. But he kept silence, while the vague intensity of the eyes, the pursed and twisted mouth, showed that his mind was full of thoughts.
Suddenly he perceived that the carriage was nearing Victoria Gate. He called to the coachman to stop, and jumped out.
"Good-bye, Evelyn. Don't bear me malice. You're a good friend," he said in her ear--"a real good friend. But don't let people talk to you--not even elderly ladies with the best intentions. I tell you it will be a fight, and one of the best weapons is"--he touched his lips significantly, smiled at her, and was gone.
The Duchess passed out of the Park. Delafield turned as though in the direction of the Marble Arch, but as soon as the carriage was out of sight he paused and quickly retraced his steps towards Kensington Gardens. Here, in this third week of March, some of the thorns and lilacs were already in leaf. The grass was springing, and the chatter of many sparrows filled the air. Faint patches of sun flecked the ground between the trees, and blue hazes, already redeemed from the dreariness of winter, filled the dim planes of distance and mingled with the low, silvery clouds. He found a quiet spot, remote from nursery-maids and children, and there he wandered to and fro, indefinitely, his hands behind his back. All the anxieties for which he had scolded his cousin possessed him, only sharpened tenfold; he was in torture, and he was helpless.
However, when at last he emerged from his solitude, and took a hansom to the Chudleigh estate office in Spring Gardens, he resolutely shook off the thoughts which had been weighing upon him. He took his usual interest in his work, and did it with his usual capacity.
Towards five o'clock in the afternoon, Delafield found himself in Cureton Street. As he turned down Heribert Street he saw a cab in front of him. It stopped at Miss Le Breton's door, and Warkworth jumped out. The door was quickly opened to him, and he went in without having turned his eyes towards the man at the far corner of the street.
Delafield paused irresolute. Finally he walked back to his club in Piccadilly, where he dawdled over the newspapers till nearly seven.
Then he once more betook himself to Heribert Street.
"Is Miss Le Breton at home?"
Thérèse looked at him with a sudden flickering of her clear eyes.
"I think so, sir," she said, with soft hesitation, and she slowly led him across the hall.
The drawing-room door opened. Major Warkworth emerged.
"Ah, how do you do?" he said, shortly, staring in a kind of bewilderment as he saw Delafield. Then he hurriedly looked for his hat, ran down the stairs, and was gone.
"Announce me, please," said Delafield, peremptorily, to the little girl. "Tell Miss Le Breton that I am here." And he drew back from the open door of the drawing-room. Thérèse slipped in, and reappeared.
"Please to walk in, sir," she said, in her shy, low voice, and Delafield entered. From the hall he had caught one involuntary glimpse of Julie, standing stiff and straight in the middle of the room, her hands clasped to her breast--a figure in pain. When he went in, she was in her usual seat by the fire, with her embroidery frame in front of her.
"May I come in? It is rather late."
"Oh, by all means! Do you bring me any news of Evelyn? I haven't seen her for three days."
He seated himself beside her. It was hard, indeed, for him to hide all signs of the tumult within. But he held a firm grip upon himself.
"I saw Evelyn this afternoon. She complained that you had had no time for her lately."
Julie bent over her work. He saw that her fingers were so unsteady that she could hardly make them obey her.
"There has been a great deal to do, even in this little house. Evelyn forgets; she has an army of servants; we have only our hands and our time."
She looked up, smiling. He made no reply, and the smile died from her face, suddenly, as though some one had blown out a light. She returned to her work, or pretended to. But her aspect had left him inwardly shaken. The eyes, disproportionately large and brilliant, were of an emphasis almost ghastly, the usually clear complexion was flecked and cloudy, the mouth dry-lipped. She looked much older than she had done a fortnight before. And the fact was the more noticeable because in her dress she had now wholly discarded the touch of stateliness--almost old-maidishness--which had once seemed appropriate to the position of Lady Henry's companion. She was wearing a little gown of her youth, a blue cotton, which two years before had been put aside as too slight and juvenile. Never had the form within it seemed so girlish, so appealing. But the face was heart-rending.
After a pause he moved a little closer to her.
"Do you know that you are looking quite ill?"
"Then my looks are misleading. I am very well."
"I am afraid I don't put much faith in that remark. When do you mean to take a holiday?"
"Oh, very soon. Léonie, my little housekeeper, talks of going to Bruges to wind up all her affairs there and bring back some furniture that she has warehoused. I may go with her. I, too, have some property stored there. I should go and see some old friends--thesoeurs, for instance, with whom I went to school. In the old days I was a torment to them, and they were tyrants to me. But they are quite nice to me now--they give mepatisserie, and stroke my hands and spoil me."
And she rattled on about the friends she might revisit, in a hollow, perfunctory way, which set him on edge.
"I don't see that anything of that kind will do you any good. You want rest of mind and body. I expect those last scenes with Lady Henry cost you more than you knew. There are wounds one does not notice at the time--"
"Which afterwards bleed inwardly?" She laughed. "No, no, I am not bleeding for Lady Henry. By-the-way, what news of her?"
"Sir Wilfrid told me to-day that he had had a letter. She is at Torquay, and she thinks there are too many curates at Torquay. She is not at all in a good temper."
Julie looked up.
"You know that she is trying to punish me. A great many people seem to have been written to."
"That will blow over."
"I don't know. How confident I was at one time that, if there was a breach, it would be Lady Henry that would suffer! It makes me hot to remember some things I said--to Sir Wilfrid, in particular. I see now that I shall not be troubled with society in this little house."
"It is too early for you to guess anything of that kind."
"Not at all! London is pretty full. The affair has made a noise. Those who meant to stand by me would have called, don't you think?"
The quivering bitterness of her face was most pitiful in Jacob's eyes.
"Oh, people take their time," he said, trying to speak lightly.
She shook her head.
"It's ridiculous that I should care. One's self-love, I suppose--thatbleeds! Evelyn has made me send out cards for a little house-warming. She said I must. She made me go to that smart party at Chatton House the other night. It was a great mistake. People turned their backs on me. And this, too, will be a mistake--and a failure."
"You were kind enough to send me a card."
"Yes--and you must come?"
She looked at him with a sudden nervous appeal, which made another tug on his self-control.
"Of course I shall come."
"Do you remember your own saying--that awful evening--that I had devoted friends? Well, we shall soon see."
"That depends only on yourself," he replied, with gentle deliberation.
She started--threw him a doubtful look.
"If you mean that I must take a great deal of trouble, I am afraid I can't. I am too tired."
And she sank back in her chair.
The sigh that accompanied the words seemed to him involuntary, unconscious.
"I didn't mean that--altogether," he said, after a moment.
She moved restlessly.
"Then, really, I don't know what you meant. I suppose all friendship depends on one's self."
She drew her embroidery frame towards her again, and he was left to wonder at his own audacity. "Do you know," she said, presently, her eyes apparently busy with her silks, "that I have told Lord Lackington?"
"Yes. Evelyn gave me that news. How has the old man behaved?"
"Oh, very well--most kindly. He has already formed a habit, almost, of 'dropping in' upon me at all hours. I have had to appoint him times and seasons, or there would be no work done. He sits here and raves about young Mrs. Delaray--you know he is painting her portrait, for the famous series?--and draws her profile on the backs of my letters. He recites his speeches to me; he asks my advice as to his fights with his tenants or his miners. In short, I'm adopted--I'm almost the real thing."
She smiled, and then again, as she turned over her silks, he heard her sigh--a long breath of weariness. It was strange and terrible in his ear--the contrast between this unconscious sound, drawn as it were from the oppressed heart of pain, and her languidly, smiling words.
"Has he spoken to you of the Moffatts?" he asked her, presently, not looking at her.
A sharp crimson color rushed over her face.
"Not much. He and Lady Blanche are not great friends. And I have made him promise to keep my secret from her till I give him leave to tell it."
"It will have to be known to her some time, will it not?"
"Perhaps," she said, impatiently. "Perhaps, when I can make up my mind."
Then she pushed aside her frame and would talk no more about Lord Lackington. She gave him, somehow, the impression of a person suffocating, struggling for breath and air. And yet her hand was icy, and she presently went to the fire, complaining of the east wind; and as he put on the coal he saw her shiver.
"Shall I force her to tell me everything?" he thought to himself.
Did she divine the obscure struggle in his mind? At any rate she seemed anxious to cut short theirtête-à-tête. She asked him to come and look at some engravings which the Duchess had sent round for the embellishment of the dining-room. Then she summoned Madame Bornier, and asked him a number of questions on Léonie's behalf, with reference to some little investment of the ex-governess's savings, which had been dropping in value. Meanwhile, as she kept him talking, she leaned herself against the lintel of the door, forgetting every now and then that any one else was there, and letting the true self appear, like some drowned thing floating into sight. Delafield disposed of Madame Bornier's affairs, hardly knowing what he said, but showing in truth his usual conscience and kindness. Then when Léonie was contented, Julie saw the little cripple crossing the hall, and called to her.
"Ah, ma chérie! How is the poor little foot?"
And turning to Delafield, she explained volubly that Thérèse had given herself a slight twist on the stairs that morning, pressing the child to her side the while with a tender gesture. The child nestled against her.
"Shall maman keep back supper?" Thérèse half whispered, looking at Delafield.
"No, no, I must go!" cried Delafield, rousing himself and looking for his hat.
"I would ask you to stay," said Julie, smiling, "just to show off Léonie's cooking; but there wouldn't be enough for a great big man. And you're probably dining with dukes."
Delafield disclaimed any such intention, and they went back to the drawing-room to look for his hat and stick. Julie still had her arm round Thérèse and would not let the child go. She clearly avoided being left alone with him; and yet it seemed, even to his modesty, that she was loath to see him depart. She talked first of her littleménage, as though proud of their daily economies and contrivances; then of her literary work and its prospects; then of her debt to Meredith. Never before had she thus admitted him to her domestic and private life. It was as though she leaned upon his sympathy, his advice, his mere neighborhood. And her pale, changed face had never seemed to him so beautiful--never, in fact, truly beautiful till now. The dying down of the brilliance and energy of the strongly marked character, which had made her the life of the Bruton Street salon, into this mildness, this despondency, this hidden weariness, had left her infinitely more lovely in his eyes. But how to restrain himself much longer from taking the sad, gracious woman in his arms and coercing her into sanity and happiness!
At last he tore himself away.
"You won't forget Wednesday?" she said to him, as she followed him into the hall.
"No. Is there anything else that you wish--that I could do?"
"No, nothing. But if there is I will ask."
Then, looking up, she shrank from something in his face--something accusing, passionate, profound.
He wrung her hand.
"Promise that you will ask."
She murmured something, and he turned away.
She came back alone into the drawing-room.
"Oh, what a good man!" she said, sighing. "What a good man!"
And then, all in a moment, she was thankful that he was gone--that she was alone with and mistress of her pain.
The passion and misery which his visit had interrupted swept back upon her in a rushing swirl, blinding and choking every sense. Ah, what a scene, to which his coming had put an end--scene of bitterness, of recrimination, not restrained even by this impending anguish of parting!
It came as a close to a week during which she and Warkworth had been playing the game which they had chosen to play, according to its appointed rules--the delicacies and restraints of friendship masking, and at the same time inflaming, a most unhappy, poisonous, and growing love. And, finally, there had risen upon them a storm-wave of feeling--tyrannous, tempestuous--bursting in reproach and agitation, leaving behind it, bare and menacing, the old, ugly facts, unaltered and unalterable.
Warkworth was little less miserable than herself. That she knew. He loved her, as it were, to his own anger and surprise. And he suffered in deserting her, more than he had ever suffered yet through any human affection.
But his purpose through it all remained stubbornly fixed; that, also, she knew. For nearly a year Aileen Moffatt's fortune and Aileen Moffatt's family connections had entered into all his calculations of the future. Only a few more years in the army, then retirement with ample means, a charming wife, and a seat in Parliament. To jeopardize a plan so manifestly desirable, so easy to carry out, so far-reaching in its favorable effects upon his life, for the sake of those hard and doubtful alternatives in which a marriage with Julie would involve him, never seriously entered his mind. When he suffered he merely said to himself, steadily, that time would heal the smart for both of them.
"Only one thing would be absolutely fatal for all of us--that I should break with Aileen."
Julie read these obscure processes in Warkworth's mind with perfect clearness. She was powerless to change them; but that afternoon she had, at any rate, beaten her wings against the bars, and the exhaustion and anguish of her revolt, her reproaches, were still upon her.
The spring night had fallen. The room was hot, and she threw a window open. Some thorns in the garden beneath had thickened into leaf. They rose in a dark mass beneath the window. Overhead, beyond the haze of the great city, a few stars twinkled, and the dim roar of London life beat from all sides upon this quiet corner which still held Lady Mary's old house.
Julie's eyes strained into the darkness; her head swam with weakness and weariness. Suddenly she gave a cry--she pressed her hands to her heart. Upon the darkness outside there rose a face, so sharply drawn, so life-like, that it printed itself forever upon the quivering tissues of the brain. It was Warkworth's face, not as she had seen it last, but in some strange extremity of physical ill--drawn, haggard, in a cold sweat--the eyes glazed, the hair matted, the parched lips open as though they cried for help. She stood gazing. Then the eyes turned, and the agony in them looked out upon her.
Her whole sense was absorbed by the phantom; her being hung upon it. Then, as it faded on the quiet trees, she tottered to a chair and hid her face. Common sense told her that she was the victim of her own tired nerves and tortured fancy. But the memory of Cousin Mary Leicester's second sight, of her "visions" in this very room, crept upon her and gripped her heart. A ghostly horror seized her of the room, the house, and her own tempestuous nature. She groped her way out, in blind and hurrying panic--glad of the lamp in the hall, glad of the sounds in the house, glad, above all, of Thérèse's thin hands as they once more stole lovingly round her own.
The Duchess and Julie were in the large room of Burlington House. They had paused before a magnificent Turner of the middle period, hitherto unseen by the public, and the Duchess was reading from the catalogue in Julie's ear.
She had found Julie alone in Heribert Street, surrounded by books and proofs, endeavoring, as she reported, to finish a piece of work for Dr. Meredith. Distressed by her friend's pale cheeks, the Duchess had insisted on dragging her from the prison-house and changing the current of her thoughts. Julie, laughing, hesitating, indignant, had at last yielded--probably in order to avoid anothertête-à-têteand another scene with the little, impetuous lady, and now the Duchess had her safe and was endeavoring to amuse her.
But it was not easy. Julie, generally so instructed and sympathetic, so well skilled in the difficult art of seeing pictures with a friend, might, to-day, never have turned a phrase upon a Constable or a Romney before. She tried, indeed, to turn them as usual; but the Duchess, sharply critical and attentive where her beloved Julie was concerned, perceived the difference acutely! Alack, what languor, what fatigue! Evelyn became more and more conscious of an inward consternation.
"But, thank goodness, he goes to-morrow--the villain! And when that's over, it will be all right."
Julie, meanwhile, knew that she was observed, divined, and pitied. Her pride revolted, but it could wring from her nothing better than a passive resistance. She could prevent Evelyn from expressing her thoughts; she could not so command her own bodily frame that the Duchess should not think. Days of moral and mental struggle, nights of waking, combined with the serious and sustained effort of a new profession, had left their mark. There are, moreover, certain wounds to self-love and self-respect which poison the whole being.
"Julie! youmusthave a holiday!" cried the Duchess, presently, as they sat down to rest.
Julie replied that she, Madame Bornier, and the child were going to Bruges for a week.
"Oh, but that won't be comfortable enough! I'm sure I could arrange something. Think of all our tiresome houses--eating their heads off!"
Julie firmly refused. She was going to renew old friendships at Bruges; she would be made much of; and the prospect was as pleasant as any one need wish.
"Well, of course, if you have made up your mind. When do you go?"
"In three or four days--just before the Easter rush. And you?"
"Oh, we go to Scotland to fish. We must, of course, be killing something. How long, darling, will you be away?"
"About ten days." Julie pressed the Duchess's little hand in acknowledgment of the caressing word and look.
"By-the-way, didn't Lord Lackington invite you? Ah, there he is!"
And suddenly, Lord Lackington, examining with fury a picture of his own which some rascally critic had that morning pronounced to be "Venetian school" and not the divine Giorgione himself, lifted an angry countenance to find the Duchess and Julie beside him.
The start which passed through him betrayed itself. He could not yet see Julie with composure. But when he had pressed her hand and inquired after her health, he went back to his grievance, being indeed rejoiced to have secured a pair of listeners.
"Really, the insolence of these fellows in the press! I shall let the Academy know what I think of it. Not a rag of mine shall they ever see here again. Ears and little fingers, indeed! Idiots and owls!"
Julie smiled. But it had to be explained to the Duchess that a wise man, half Italian, half German, had lately arisen who proposed to judge the authenticity of a picture by its ears, assisted by any peculiarities of treatment in the little fingers.
"What nonsense!" said the Duchess, with a yawn. "If I were an artist, I should always draw them different ways."
"Well, not exactly," said Lord Lackington, who, as an artist himself, was unfortunately debarred from statements of this simplicity. "But theludicrousway in which these fools overdo their little discoveries!"
And he walked on, fuming, till the open and unmeasured admiration of the two ladies for his great Rembrandt, the gem of his collection, now occupying the place of honor in the large room of the Academy, restored him to himself.
"Ah, even the biggest ass among them holds his tongue about that!" he said, exultantly. "But, hallo! What does that call itself?" He looked at a picture in front of him, then at the catalogue, then at the Duchess.
"That picture is ours," said the Duchess. "Isn't it a dear? It's a Leonardo da Vinci."
"Leonardo fiddlesticks!" cried Lord Lackington. "Leonardo, indeed! What absurdity! Really, Duchess, you should tell Crowborough to be more careful about his things. We mustn't give handles to these fellows."
"What do you mean?" said the Duchess, offended. "If it isn't a Leonardo, pray what is it?"
"Why, a bad school copy, of course!" said Lord Lackington, hotly. "Look at the eyes"--he took out a pencil and pointed--"look at the neck, look at the fingers!"
The Duchess pouted.
"Oh!" she said. "Then there is something in fingers!"
Lord Lackington's face suddenly relaxed. He broke into a shout of laughter,bon enfantthat he was; and the Duchess laughed, too; but under cover of their merriment she, mindful of quite other things, drew him a little farther away from Julie.
"I thought you had asked her to Nonpareil for Easter?" she said, in his ear, with a motion of her pretty head towards Julie in the distance.
"Yes, but, my dear lady, Blanche won't come home! She and Aileen put it off, and put it off. Now she says they mean to spend May in Switzerland--may perhaps be away the whole summer! I had counted on them for Easter. I am dependent on Blanche for hostess. It is really too bad of her. Everything has broken down, and William and I (he named his youngest son) are going to the Uredales' for a fortnight."
Lord Uredale, his eldest son, a sportsman and farmer, troubled by none of his father's originalities, reigned over the second family "place," in Herefordshire, beside the Wye.
"Has Aileen any love affairs yet?" said the Duchess, abruptly, raising her face to his.
Lord Lackington looked surprised.
"Not that I know of. However, I dare say they wouldn't tell me. I'm a sieve, I know. Have you heard of any? Tell me." He stooped to her with roguish eagerness. "I like to steal a march on Blanche."
So he knew nothing--while half their world was talking! It was very characteristic, however. Except for his own hobbies, artistic, medical, or military, Lord Lackington had walked through life as a Johnny Head-in-Air, from his youth till now. His children had not trusted him with their secrets, and he had never discovered them for himself.
"Is there any likeness between Julie and Aileen?" whispered the Duchess.
Lord Lackington started. Both turned their eyes towards Julie, as she stood some ten yards away from them, in front of a refined and mysterious profile of the cinque-cento--some lady, perhaps, of the d'Este or Sforza families, attributed to Ambrogio da Predis. In her soft, black dress, delicately folded and draped to hide her excessive thinness, her small toque fitting closely over her wealth of hair, her only ornaments a long and slender chain set with uncut jewels which Lord Lackington had brought her the day before, and a bunch of violets which the Duchess had just slipped into her belt, she was as rare and delicate as the picture. But she turned her face towards them, and Lord Lackington made a sudden exclamation.
"No! Good Heavens, no! Aileen was a dancing-sprite when I saw her last, and this poor girl!--Duchess, why does she look like that? So sad, so bloodless!"
He turned upon her impetuously, his face frowning and disturbed.
The Duchess sighed.
"You and I have just got to do all we can for her," she said, relieved to see that Julie had wandered farther away, as though it pleased her to be left to herself.
"But I would do anything--everything!" cried Lord Lackington. "Of course, none of us can undo the past. But I offered yesterday to make full provision for her. She has refused. She has the most Quixotic notions, poor child!"
"No, let her earn her own living yet awhile. It will do her good. But--shall I tell you secrets?" The Duchess looked at him, knitting her small brows.
"Tell me what I ought to know--no more," he said, gravely, with a dignity contrasting oddly with his school-boy curiosity in the matter of little Aileen's lover.
The Duchess hesitated. Just in front of her was a picture of the Venetian school representing St. George, Princess Saba, and the dragon. The princess, a long and slender victim, with bowed head and fettered hands, reminded her of Julie. The dragon--perfidious, encroaching wretch!--he was easy enough of interpretation. But from the blue distance, thank Heaven! spurs the champion. Oh, ye heavenly powers, give him wings and strength! "St. George--St. George to the rescue!"
"Well," she said, slowly, "I can tell you of some one who is very devoted to Julie--some one worthy of her. Come with me."
And she took him away into the next room, still talking in his ear.
When they returned, Lord Lackington was radiant. With a new eagerness he looked for Julie's distant figure amid the groups scattered about the central room. The Duchess had sworn him to secrecy, indeed; and he meant to be discretion itself. But--Jacob Delafield! Yes, that, indeed, would be a solution. His pride was acutely pleased; his affection--of which he already began to feel no small store for this charming woman of his own blood, this poor granddaughterde la main gauche--was strengthened and stimulated. She was sad now and out of spirits, poor thing, because, no doubt, of this horrid business with Lady Henry, to whom, by-the-way, he had written his mind. But time would see to that--time--gently and discreetly assisted by himself and the Duchess. It was impossible that she should finally hold out against such a good fellow--impossible, and most unreasonable. No. Rose's daughter would be brought back safely to her mother's world and class, and poor Rose's tragedy would at last work itself out for good. How strange, romantic, and providential!
In such a mood did he now devote himself to Julie. He chattered about the pictures; he gossiped about their owners; he excused himself for the absence of "that gad-about Blanche"; he made her promise him a Whitsuntide visit instead, and whispered in her ear, "You shall haveherroom"; he paid her the most handsome and gallant attentions, natural to the man of fashionpar excellence, mingled with something intimate, brusque, capricious, which marked her his own, and of the family. Seventy-five!--with that step, that carriage of the shoulders, that vivacity! Ridiculous!
And Julie could not but respond.
Something stole into her heart that had never yet lodged there. She must love the old man--she did. When he left her for the Duchess her eyes followed him--her dark-rimmed, wistful eyes.
"I must be off," said Lord Lackington, presently, buttoning up his coat. "This, ladies, has been dalliance. I now go to my duties. Read me in theTimesto-morrow. I shall make a rattling speech. You see, I shall rub it in."
"Montresor?" said the Duchess.
Lord Lackington nodded. That afternoon he proposed to strew the floor of the House of Lords with thedébrisof Montresor's farcical reforms.
Suddenly he pulled himself up.
"Duchess, look round you, at those two in the doorway. Isn't it--by George, it is!--Chudleigh and his boy!"
"Yes--yes, it is," said the Duchess, in some excitement. "Don't recognize them. Don't speak to him. Jacob implored me not."
And she hurried her companions along till they were well out of the track of the new-comers; then on the threshold of another room she paused, and, touching Julie on the arm, said, in a whisper:
"Now look back. That's Jacob's Duke, and his poor, poor boy!"
Julie threw a hurried glance towards the two figures; but that glance impressed forever upon her memory a most tragic sight.
A man of middle height, sallow, and careworn, with jet-black hair and beard, supported a sickly lad, apparently about seventeen, who clung to his arm and coughed at intervals. The father moved as though in a dream. He looked at the pictures with unseeing, lustreless eyes, except when the boy asked him a question. Then he would smile, stoop his head and answer, only to resume again immediately his melancholy passivity. The boy, meanwhile, his lips gently parted over his white teeth, his blue eyes wide open and intent upon the pictures, his emaciated cheeks deeply flushed, wore an aspect of patient suffering, of docile dependence, peculiarly touching.
It was evident the father and son thought of none but each other. From time to time the man would make the boy rest on one of the seats in the middle of the room, and the boy would look up and chatter to his companion standing before him. Then again they would resume their walk, the boy leaning on his father. Clearly the poor lad was marked for death; clearly, also, he was the desire of his father's heart.
"The possessor, and the heir, of perhaps the finest houses and the most magnificent estates in England," said Lord Lackington, with a shrug of pity. "And Chudleigh would gladly give them all to keep that boy alive."
Julie turned away. Strange thoughts had been passing and repassing through her brain.
Then, with angry loathing, she flung her thoughts from her. What did the Chudleigh inheritance matter to her? That night she said good-bye to the man she loved. These three miserable, burning weeks were done. Her heart, her life, would go with Warkworth to Africa and the desert. If at the beginning of this period of passion--so short in prospect, and, to look back upon, an eternity--she had ever supposed that power or wealth could make her amends for the loss of her lover, she was in no mood to calculate such compensations to-day. Parting was too near, the anguish in her veins too sharp.
"Jacob takes them to Paris to-morrow," said the Duchess to Lord Lackington. "The Duke has heard of some new doctor."
An hour or two later, Sir Wilfrid Bury, in the smoking-room of his club, took out a letter which he had that morning received from Lady Henry Delafield and gave it a second reading.
/# "So I hear that mademoiselle's social prospects are not, after all, so triumphant as both she and I imagined. I gave the world credit for more fools than it seems actually to possess; and she--well, I own I am a little puzzled. Has she taken leave of her senses? I am told that she is constantly seen with this man; that in spite of all denials there can be no doubt of his engagement to the Moffatt girl; and thaten sommeshe has done herself no good by the whole affair. But, after all, poor soul, she is disinterested. She stands to gain nothing, as I understand; and she risks a good deal. From this comfortable distance, I really find something touching in her behavior.
"She gives her first 'Wednesday,' I understand, to-morrow. 'Mademoiselle Le Breton at home!' I confess I am curious. By all means go, and send me a full report. Mr. Montresor and his wife will certainly be there. He and I have been corresponding, of course. He wishes to persuade me that he feels himself in some way responsible for mademoiselle's position, and for my dismissal of her; that I ought to allow him in consequence full freedom of action. I cannot see matters in the same light. But, as I tell him, the change will be all to his advantage. He exchanges a fractious old woman, always ready to tell him unpleasant truths, for one who has made flattery hermétier. If he wants quantity she will give it him. Quality he can dispense with--as I have seen for some time past.
"Lord Lackington has written me an impertinent letter. It seems she has revealed herself, andil s'en prend à moi, because I kept the secret from him, and because I have now dared to dismiss his granddaughter. I am in the midst of a reply which amuses me. He is to cast off his belongings as he pleases; but when a lady of the Chantrey blood--no matter how she came by it--condescends to enter a paid employment, legitimate or illegitimate, she must be treateden reine, or Lord L. will know the reason why. 'Here is one hundred pounds a year, and let me hear no more of you,' he says to her at sixteen. Thirteen years later I take her in, respect his wishes, and keep the secret. She misbehaves herself, and I dismiss her. Where is the grievance? He himself made her alectrice, and now complains that she is expected to do her duty in that line of life. He himself banished her from the family, and now grumbles that I did not at once foist her upon him. He would like to escape the odium of his former action by blaming me; but I am not meek, and I shall make him regret his letter.
"As for Jacob Delafield, don't trouble yourself to write me any further news of him. He has insulted me lately in a way I shall not soon forgive--nothing to do, however, with the lady who says she refused him. Whether her report be veracious or no matters nothing to me, any more than his chances of succeeding to the Captain's place. He is one of the ingenious fools who despise the old ways of ruining themselves, and in the end achieve it as well as the commoner sort. He owes me a good deal, and at one time it pleased me to imagine that he was capable both of affection and gratitude. That is the worst of being a woman; we pass from one illusion to another; love is only the beginning; there are a dozen to come after.
"You will scold me for a bitter tongue. Well, my dear Wilfrid, I am not gay here. There are too many women, too many church services, and I see too much of my doctor. I pine for London, and I don't see why I should have been driven out of it by anintrigante.
"Write to me, my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I paint myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is sixty-five, and her new companion reads aloud with a twang; then you will only wonder at my moderation." #/
Sir Wilfrid returned the letter to his pocket. That day, at luncheon with Lady Hubert, he had had the curiosity to question Susan Delafield, Jacob's fair-haired sister, as to the reasons for her brother's quarrel with Lady Henry.
It appeared that being now in receipt of what seemed to himself, at any rate, a large salary as his cousin's agent, he had thought it his duty to save up and repay the sums which Lady Henry had formerly spent upon his education.
His letter enclosing the money had reached that lady during the first week of her stay at Torquay. It was, no doubt, couched in terms less cordial or more formal than would have been the case before Miss Le Breton's expulsion. "Not that he defends her altogether," said Susan Delafield, who was herself inclined to side with Lady Henry; "but as Lady Henry has refused to see him since, it was not much good being friendly, was it?"
Anyway, the letter and its enclosure had completed a breach already begun. Lady Henry had taken furious offence; the check had been insultingly returned, and had now gone to swell the finances of a London hospital.
Sir Wilfrid was just reflecting that Jacob's honesty had better have waited for a more propitious season, when, looking up, he saw the War Minister beside him, in the act of searching for a newspaper.
"Released?" said Bury, with a smile.
"Yes, thank Heaven. Lackington is, I believe, still pounding at me in the House of Lords. But that amuses him and doesn't hurt me."
"You'll carry your resolutions?"
"Oh, dear, yes, with no trouble at all," said the Minister, almost with sulkiness, as he threw himself into a chair and looked with distaste at the newspaper he had taken up.
Sir Wilfrid surveyed him.
"We meet to-night?" he said, presently.
"You mean in Heribert Street? I suppose so," said Montresor, without cordiality.
"I have just got a letter from her ladyship."
"Well, I hope it is more agreeable than those she writes to me. A more unreasonable old woman--"
The tired Minister took upPunch, looked at a page, and flung it down again. Then he said:
"Are you going?"
"I don't know. Lady Henry gives me leave, which makes me feel myself a kind of spy."
"Oh, never mind. Come along. Mademoiselle Julie will want all our support. I don't hear her as kindly spoken of just now as I should wish."
"No. Lady Henry has more personal hold than we thought."
"And Mademoiselle Julie less tact. Why, in the name of goodness, does she go and get herself talked about with the particular man who is engaged to her little cousin? You know, by-the-way, that the story of her parentage is leaking out fast? Most people seem to know something about it."
"Well, that was bound to come. Will it do her good or harm?"
"Harm, for the present. A few people are straitlaced, and a good many feel they have been taken in. But, anyway, this flirtation is a mistake."
"Nobody really knows whether the man is engaged to the Moffatt girl or no. The guardians have forbidden it."
"At any rate, everybody is kind enough to say so. It's a blunder on Mademoiselle Julie's part. As to the man himself, of course, there is nothing to say. He is a very clever fellow." Montresor looked at his companion with a sudden stiffness, as though defying contradiction. "He will do this piece of work that we have given him to do extremely well."
"The Mokembe mission?"
Montresor nodded.
"He had very considerable claims, and was appointed entirely on his military record. All the tales as to Mademoiselle's influence--with me, for instance--that Lady Henry has been putting into circulation are either absurd fiction or have only the very smallest foundation in fact."
Sir Wilfrid smiled amicably and diverted the conversation.
"Warkworth starts at once?"
"He goes to Paris to-morrow. I recommended him to see Pattison, the Military Secretary there, who was in the expedition of five years back."
"This hasn't gone as well as it ought," said Dr. Meredith, in the ear of the Duchess.
They were standing inside the door of Julie's little drawing-room. The Duchess, in a dazzling frock of white and silver, which placed Clarisse among the divinities of her craft, looked round her with a look of worry.
"What's the matter with the tiresome creatures? Why is everybody going so early? And there are not half the people here who ought to be here."
Meredith shrugged his shoulders.
"I saw you at Chatton House the other night," he said, in the same tone.
"Well?" said the Duchess, sharply.
"It seemed to me there was something of a demonstration."
"Against Julie? Let them try it!" said the little lady, with evasive defiance. "We shall be too strong for them."
"Lady Henry is putting her back into it. I confess I never thought she would be either so venomous or so successful."
"Julie will come out all right."
"She would--triumphantly--if--"
The Duchess glanced at him uneasily.
"I believe you are overworking her. She looks skin and bone."
Dr. Meredith shook his head.
"On the contrary, I have been holding her back. But it seems she wants to earn a good deal of money."
"That's so absurd," cried the Duchess, "when there are people only pining to give her some of theirs."
"No, no," said the journalist, brusquely. "She is quite right there. Oh, it would be all right if she were herself. She would make short work of Lady Henry. But, Mademoiselle Julie"--for she glided past them, and he raised his voice--"sit down and rest yourself. Don't take so much trouble."
She flung them a smile.
"Lord Lackington is going," and she hurried on.
Lord Lackington was standing in a group which contained Sir Wilfrid Bury and Mr. Montresor.
"Well, good-bye, good-bye," he said, as she came up to him. "I must go. I'm nearly asleep."
"Tired with abusing me?" said Montresor, nonchalantly, turning round upon him.
"No, only with trying to make head or tail of you," said Lackington, gayly. Then he stooped over Julie.
"Take care of yourself. Come back rosier--andfatter."
"I'm perfectly well. Let me come with you."
"No, don't trouble yourself." For she had followed him into the hall and found his coat for him. All the arrangements for her little "evening" had been of the simplest. That had been a point of pride with her. Madame Bornier and Thérèse dispensing tea and coffee in the dining-room, one hired parlor-maid, and she herself active and busy everywhere. Certain French models were in her head, and memories of her mother's bare little salon in Bruges, with its good talk, and its thinnest of thin refreshments--a few cups of weak tea, or glasses ofeau sucrée, with a plate ofpatisserie.
The hired parlor-maid was whistling for a cab in the service of some other departing guest; so Julie herself put Lord Lackington into his coat, much to his discomfort.
"I don't think you ought to have come," she said to him, with soft reproach. "Why did you have that fainting fit before dinner?"
"I say! Who's been telling tales?"
"Sir Wilfrid Bury met your son, Mr. Chantrey, at dinner."
"Bill can never hold his tongue. Oh, it was nothing; not with the proper treatment, mind you. Of course, if the allopaths were to get their knives into me--but, thank God! I'm out of thatgalère. Well, in a fortnight, isn't it? We shall both be in town again. I don't like saying good-bye."
And he took both her hands in his.
"It all seems so strange to me still--so strange!" he murmured.
"Next week I shall see mamma's grave," said Julie, under her breath. "Shall I put some flowers there for you?"
The fine blue eyes above her wavered. He bent to her.
"Yes. And write to me. Come back soon. Oh, you'll see. Things will all come right, perfectly right, in spite of Lady Henry."
Confidence, encouragement, a charming raillery, an enthusiastic tenderness--all these beamed upon her from the old man's tone and gesture. She was puzzled. But with another pressure of the hand he was gone. She stood looking after him. And as the carriage drove away, the sound of the wheels hurt her. It was the withdrawal of something protecting--something more her own, when all was said, than anything else which remained to her.
As she returned to the drawing-room, Dr. Meredith intercepted her.
"You want me to send you some work to take abroad?" he said, in a low voice. "I shall do nothing of the kind."
"Why?"
"Because you ought to have a complete holiday."
"Very well. Then I sha'n't be able to pay my way," she said, with a tired smile.
"Remember the doctor's bills if you fall ill."
"Ill! I am never ill," she said, with scorn. Then she looked round the room deliberately, and her gaze returned to her companion. "I am not likely to be fatigued with society, am I?" she added, in a voice that did not attempt to disguise the bitterness within.
"My dear lady, you are hardly installed."
"I have been here a month--the critical month. Now was the moment to stand by me, or throw me over--n'est-ce pas? This is my first party, my house-warming. I gave a fortnight's notice; I asked about sixty people, whom I knewwell. Some did not answer at all. Of the rest, half declined--rather curtly, in many instances. And of those who accepted, not all are here. And, oh, how it dragged!"
Meredith looked at her rather guiltily, not knowing what to say. It was true the evening had dragged. In both their minds there rose the memory of Lady Henry's "Wednesdays," the beautiful rooms, the varied and brilliant company, the power and consideration which had attended Lady Henry's companion.
"I suppose," said Julie, shrugging her shoulders, "I had been thinking of the Frenchmaîtresses de salon, like a fool; of Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse--or Madame Mohl--imagining that people would come tomefor a cup of tea and an agreeable hour. But in England, it seems, people must be paid to talk. Talk is a business affair--you give it for a consideration."
"No, no! You'll build it up," said Meredith. In his heart of hearts he said to himself that she had not been herself that night. Her wonderful social instincts, her memory, her adroitness, had somehow failed her. And from a hostess strained, conscious, and only artificially gay, the little gathering had taken its note.
"You have the old guard, anyway," added the journalist, with a smile, as he looked round the room. The Duchess, Delafield, Montresor and his wife, General McGill, and three or four other oldhabituésof the Bruton Street evenings were scattered about the little drawing-room. General Fergus, too, was there--had arrived early, and was staying late. His frank soldier's face, the accent, cheerful, homely, careless, with which he threw off talk full of marrow, talk only possible--for all its simplicity--to a man whose life had been already closely mingled with the fortunes of his country, had done something to bind Julie's poor little party together. Her eye rested on him with gratitude. Then she replied to Meredith.
"Mr. Montresor will scarcely come again."
"What do you mean? Ungrateful lady! Montresor! who has already sacrificed Lady Henry and the habits of thirty years to yourbeaux yeux!"
"That is what he will never forgive me," said Julie, sadly. "He has satisfied his pride, and I--have lost a friend."
"Pessimist! Mrs. Montresor seemed to me most friendly."
Julie laughed.
"She, of course, is enchanted. Her husband has never been her own till now. She married him, subject to Lady Henry's rights. But all that she will soon forget--and my existence with it."
"I won't argue. It only makes you more stubborn," said Meredith. "Ah, still they come!"
For the door opened to admit the tall figure of Major Warkworth.
"Am I very late?" he said, with a surprised look as he glanced at the thinly scattered room. Julie greeted him, and he excused himself on the ground of a dinner which had begun just an hour late, owing to the tardiness of a cabinet minister.
Meredith observed the young man with some attention, from the dark corner in which Julie had left him. The gossip of the moment had reached him also, but he had not paid much heed to it. It seemed to him that no one knew anything first-hand of the Moffatt affair. And for himself, he found it difficult to believe that Julie Le Breton was any man's dupe.
She must marry, poor thing! Of course she must marry. Since it had been plain to him that she would never listen to his own suit, this great-hearted and clear-brained man had done his best to stifle in himself all small or grasping impulses. But this fellow--with his inferior temper and morale--alack! why are the clever women such fools?
If only she had confided in him--her old and tried friend--he thought he could have put things before her, so as to influence without offending her. But he suffered--had always suffered--from the jealous reserve which underlay her charm, her inborn tendency to secretiveness and intrigue.
Now, as he watched her few words with Warkworth, it seemed to him that he saw the signs of some hidden relation. How flushed she was suddenly, and her eyes so bright!
He was not allowed much time or scope, however, for observation. Warkworth took a turn round the room, chatted a little with this person and that, then, on the plea that he was off to Paris early on the following morning, approached his hostess again to take his leave.
"Ah, yes, you start to-morrow," said Montresor, rising. "Well, good luck to you--good luck to you."
General Fergus, too, advanced. The whole room, indeed, awoke to the situation, and all the remaining guests grouped themselves round the young soldier. Even the Duchess was thawed a little by this actual moment of departure. After all, the man was going on his country's service.
"No child's play, this mission, I can assure you," General McGill had said to her. "Warkworth will want all the powers he has--of mind or body."
The slim, young fellow, so boyishly elegant in his well-cut evening-dress, received the ovation offered to him with an evident pleasure which tried to hide itself in the usual English ways. He had been very pale when he came in. But his cheek reddened as Montresor grasped him by the hand, as the two generals bade him a cordial godspeed, as Sir Wilfrid gave him a jesting message for the British representative in Egypt, and as the ladies present accorded him those flattering and admiring looks that woman keeps for valor.
Julie counted for little in these farewells. She stoodapartand rather silent. "Theyhave had their good-bye," thought the Duchess, with a thrill she could not help.
"Three days in Paris?" said Sir Wilfrid. "A fortnight to Denga--and then how long before you start for the interior?"
"Oh, three weeks for collecting porters and supplies. They're drilling the escort already. We should be off by the middle of May."
"A bad month," said General Fergus, shrugging his shoulders.
"Unfortunately, affairs won't wait. But I am already stiff with quinine," laughed Warkworth--"or I shall be by the time I get to Denga. Good-bye--good-bye."
And in another moment he was gone. Miss Le Breton had given him her hand and wished him "Bon voyage," like everybody else.
The party broke up. The Duchess kissed her Julie with peculiar tenderness; Delafield pressed her hand, and his deep, kind eyes gave her a lingering look, of which, however, she was quite unconscious; Meredith renewed his half-irritable, half-affectionate counsels of rest and recreation; Mrs. Montresor was conventionally effusive; Montresor alone bade the mistress of the house a somewhat cold and perfunctory farewell. Even Sir Wilfrid was a little touched, he knew not why; he vowed to himself that his report to Lady Henry on the morrow should contain no food for malice, and inwardly he forgave Mademoiselle Julie the old romancings.