The "grand passion" (it is unfortunate that no single word in the English language exactly pictures that emotional process) was a little beyond Caroline Staley's philosophy.
Yet within twelve hours of Aliette's interview with Hector, even Caroline Staley realized that "Miss Aliette was about through with that husband of hers." Lennard and the rest of the staff--though Caroline refused to gossip--were also aware, basement-wise, of the connubial position. In fact, at Lancaster Gate, only Mollie remained in ignorance.
For, at the moment, Mollie Fullerford was far too absorbed to bother herself overlong about either sister or brother-in-law; a sublime selfishness held her aloof from both.
The girl's mind was concentrated on Jimmy. It had become a point of honor with her not to think of anybody except Jimmy. Jimmy--for his own sake--must be neither "fascinated" nor "put off." He must be given his exact measure of attraction as of repulsion, his exact chance of finding out her faults as well as her virtues. Then, when he had definitely fallen in or out of love with the real her--shewould decide exactly how much she could love the real him. "Marriage," the girl said to herself, "is a pretty serious business. Jimmy and I mustn't make any mistake about it."
Mollie Fullerford, you see, was of the modern young, who are trying, vainly, to avoid the troubles of their romantic and unreasoning elders--such troubles, for instance, as Hector's.
Hector, reticent always, confided his troubles to nobody. He spent the first twelve hours after the quarrel in kicking himself for a fool and a savage who had nearly thrashed his wife; the next twelve in cursing himself for a fool and a softy who ought to have thrashed his wife--and the rest of the week fighting against the impulse to apologize.
Meanwhile he was a stranger in his own house; excluded, as surely as though he had been a servant under notice, from domestic conversation. His wife had taken to breakfasting in bed (the rattle of the tray infuriated him every morning), and refused to get up till he had left the house: he, retorting in the only way open to him, dined at his clubs. On the one occasion when they did meet, her manners were beyond criticism--and her unattainable beauty a positive bar to any plans for sex-consolation.
As a matter of psychological fact, both husband and wife were in a momentary state of complete sex-revulsion. Hector, thwarted of his one desire, seeing Aliette unobtainable as the only woman in the world; and Aliette--love's dream obscured by thought of love's material consequences--regarding herself, for the nonce, as the mere quarry of two males, a quarry anxious only to escape both pursuers.
Twice, at least, Aliette's thoughts renounced womanhood completely. The physical Hector, the Hector of the writhing lips, she hated; but when her yearning for the physical Ronnie grew so desperately acute that she had to rush out of the library lest she should telephone to him; when every post which brought no letter seemed the last bodily hurt she could endure: then, looking back on her lost virginity of temperament, she could be amazingly sorry for, amazingly grateful to the abstemious Hector of the last three years.
Yet all the time, she knew subconsciously that she loved Ronnie; that, without him, life was one mazed loneliness.
Aliette, like Hector, kept her own counsel. Mary O'Riordan, to whom--as in duty bound--she confided a hint of her distress, pumped her for full confession, but pumped in vain. Only Ponto, the huge harlequin Dane with the magpie coat and the princely manners, shared her mazed loneliness. She used to fetch the dog, every after-lunch-time, from the garage in Westbourne Street where he had his abode; and wander with him by the hour together through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Ponto, unlike her other pursuers, desired nothing but an occasional caress. He would pad and pad after her, close to heel, disdainful of all distractions, his eyes on the hem of her skirt, his stern slapping only the mildest disapproval of an occasional fly. And when she sat her down to meditate, the beast--as though conscious of the fret in his mistress--would content affection with the rare up-thrust of an enormous consolatory paw.
Vaguely during that week Ponto's mistress conceived the scheme of sending to Moor Park for Miracle, of condescending to ride in the Row. Dumb animals, of a sudden, seemed so much wiser, so much kinder than men. But to ride in the Row would make one conspicuous, and instinct warned her that the less conspicuous she made herself during the season, the easier things might be--in the event of a social crash.
One other woman in London--during the days which followed Aliette's definite break with Hector--was meditating the probabilities of a social crash.
"Julia," said Dot Fancourt, dropping in to lunch on Friday, "you're not looking so well. You ought to see Baynet again. You've nothing on your mind, have you?"
"My dear Dot," retorted the novelist, smiling, "I'm quite well, and I have nothing on what you are pleased to call my mind--except the vulgarity of your methods in booming my divorce article."
But after Dot had gone back to his office, Julia Cavendish's face lost its smile.
Surveyed in cool retrospect, her momentary thought-panic in Hyde Park appeared a mere firework of the literary imagination. Nevertheless, ever since Sunday, when she had tried, over dinner, to let him inkle her knowledge, to warn him, she had been reproaching herself about Ronnie. Other mothers--her own sister Clementina among them--did not apparently find it at all difficult to discuss sex matters with their sons. Yet she, the celebrated psychologist, had found it impossible.
"If only I could have been open with him," she thought, "if only I could have said: 'I'm afraid that you've fallen in love with that charming Mrs. Brunton. You won't let it go too far--will you? Women's heads are so easily turned.'"
She would not, of course, have said more than that. Ronnie was so sensible, so straight and clean, that he would have needed no further warning. Ronnie--her Ronnie--did not in the least resemble the heroes of her novels, the passionate men with cleft chins who occasionally counted the world well lost for love. Ronnie was the very spit of his father, the Oxford don.
Still even dons were human. And Ronnie, unwarned, might have lost his head.
As for the woman--women, according to Julia Cavendish, could always fall prey to the sentimental impulse. If only a man were sufficiently ardent the entire sex yielded to him. Why should this Mrs. Brunton be the exception? Ronnie--her Ronnie--must be terribly attractive. Therefore----
And quite suddenly, Julia panicked again. Her literary imagination saw the worst; Aliette in Ronnie's arms, Ronnie in the divorce court. Her heart went cold at the imaginary prospect. The mother, the religious woman, and the Victorian in her were alike appalled.
Jealousy spread a yellow jaundice film over her intellect. Seen through that film, the "charming Mrs. Brunton" became a harpy, an over-dressed, over-scented, over-manicured harpy, her unguented claws sharp for an innocent boy.
Whereupon Julia Cavendish--turning, as most literary people in a crisis, to her pen--began the composition of a letter which should convey, tactfully, of course, the picture of the harpy to the mind of the boy. But the letter, completed, read so much more like a piece of fiction than a statement of fact, that she tore it up; and contented herself with the usual note ordering him to dinner on Saturday.
The note itself contained nothing to alarm Ronnie; and yet, dressing to obey its commands in his severe mannish bedroom, he felt nervous about the coming interview. For five days now he had been on edge; sleepless, unable to concentrate thought.
Every night he had expected that Aliette would telephone; every morning, every evening, he had expected a letter from her. It never dawned on his mind that she should be equally on edge, equally expectant. Since she had admitted her love, asking only that he should not hurry her, chivalry forbade the obvious course which his impatient manhood dictated--attack. Chivalry, too, urged him not to make any final move before weighing the uttermost consequences.
For himself, he had already weighed them; and they weighed light enough. But for her, even though a man and a woman decided their love justified before God and the law, remained always their justification before their fellow-creatures. Under any circumstances, the consequences would include a divorce. And even the farcical divorce of the period carried--for a woman in Aliette's position--its stigma. Ronnie remembered the Carrington case. Suppose Brunton cut up rough; perjured himself in court as Carrington had done--purely for spite. In an undefended divorce case, the man and woman cited could not defend themselves against a perjurer without risking their freedom.
And then, then--there was Julia to consider.
The mind of the clean-shaven man who let himself out of the dark-green door of 127b Jermyn Street, and strode rapidly across Piccadilly, may be compared to the hair-trigger of a cocked pistol.
"Your mother is already in the dining-room, Mr. Ronald," said the uniformed parlormaid, who had valeted him while he was still at Winchester.
"Thank you, Kate." Ronnie handed the woman his hat and strode in.
Julia stood by the be-ferned fireplace, inspecting a newly-acquired print, only that afternoon hung. Kissing him, she called his attention to the treasure.
"It's 'The Match-Seller'--a proof before letters. Only two more to find, and my collection of 'The Cries of London' will be complete."
They talked prints, engravings and china throughout dinner. Julia, acting on Sir Heron Baynet's advice, ate sparingly, and drank nothing stronger than Evian water; but for her son she had ordered a miniature feast--all the particular foods of his particular boyhood--and the last bottle of his father's Chambertin.
Usually, when she prepared such a feast, Ronnie would compliment her on her memory, her forethought; but to-night he seemed scarcely aware of what he ate. She had to coax him: "Turbot, dear, your favorite fish," or, "I remembered thesauce Béarnaise, you see."
Coaxed, he complimented her; but without enthusiasm--so that, hurt, she said to herself: "He's givingmeonly half his mind. He's thinking of that woman. I'm certain he'd rather be dining her at Claridge's"--(Julia's heroes often "dined" their discreetly illicit passions at the more expensive caravanserais)--"than sitting here with his old mother."
Meanwhile he said to himself, "She's taken so much trouble over this little dinner. I ought to be more grateful. Dash it, Iamgrateful! Good Lord, it's nearly nine o'clock! The last post will be in soon. Perhaps there'll be a letter. Perhaps Aliette will telephone to-night. I must get away by ten."
Resultantly, by the time Kate brought coffee and cigarettes, the moment for confidences was as unpropitious as any Julia Cavendish could possibly have chosen.
"Ronnie," she, began, as soon as they were alone, "I hope you won't be angry at what I'm going to say."
The opening, so entirely foreign to her usual abruptness, made Ronnie--on the instant--suspicious. The Wixton imagination in him said: "Danger! She's found out. She knows something about Aliette. She may know about Aliette's having been to your rooms." And immediately the magisterial Cavendish in him decided: "I shall refuse to be drawn. It's not her business. Even if she does know, she ought to have waited tillIthought fit to broach the subject."
Nevertheless, the ghost of the schoolboy who had likedsauce Béarnaiseand been vaguely frightened of his mother was in a funk. The ghost of the schoolboy, looking at his mother's determined chin, did not see the unhappiness behind his mother's blue eyes.
After a second's hesitation, the magisterial Cavendish laughed.
"It depends on what you are going to say, mater."
"It isn't much." Julia braced herself to the unpleasant task. "Perhaps it isn't anything at all. But I feel that you're keeping something from me. Something rather--important. Something that's making you unhappy. Can't you confide in me? I might be able to help. We've never had any secrets from each other, you and I."
Kate, coming in to clear the table, was shooed away with a calm "We haven't quite finished our coffee. I'll ring when I want you."
"We oughtn't to have secrets from one another," went on Julia diffidently.
Her son, stiff-lipped, uncompromising, made no answer; and she continued, a little afraid:
"You told me about Lucy. Can't you tell me about this--love affair?"
The tone irritated him.
"My dear mater, what love affair?"
"Flirtation, then?" Fleetingly, her suspicions lulled by his presence, she thought how ridiculous it was of him to be so stubborn. Dot Fancourt, Paul Flower, and many other of the literary among her acquaintances rather liked talking about their flirtations. Then his very stubbornness perturbed her.
"Ronnie," she said, "be open with me. Youarein love?"
"What if I am?" He had never lied to her, and had no intention of doing so now. Apparently she did not know about Aliette's having been to Jermyn Street; otherwise--reticence with him not being one of her characteristics--she would have said so. Obviously, though, she suspected quite enough!
"What if I am?" he repeated.
"You mean--it's not my business?" she faltered.
"Yes. I do mean that. I don't want to be unkind, or unfair. But you must see that I can't discuss--that sort of thing with you."
"Why not?" Thoroughly alarmed now, she tried to hide alarm with a smile. "Lots of people do confide in me. I--you know I wouldn't betray your confidence."
"Is that quite the point?"
Julia Cavendish deigned to plead: "I've been so worried, Ronnie. I feel, somehow, that you're in trouble. I feel I understand why. And I only want you to let me help you."
His mood softened. "Poor old mater," he thought. But her next words dispelled softness; irritated him again.
"You see," she said, "you're still so young. Only a boy really. You don't know the world as I know it. You mustn't reject my advice."
"I'm thirty-six," he parried.
"And I'm over sixty."
"You don't look it, mater."
She felt herself being edged away from her topic. She saw a vision of Aliette Brunton--standing palpably between herself and her son. Vague jealousy clouded her love, her kindness.
"You don't deny the correctness of my statement," she shot at him. "You admit that you are in love?"
"Suppose I admit that much----" His lean face flushed.
"Then the least you can do is to tell me with whom. You say you don't want to be unkind or unfair. Is it fair, or kind, to let me"--Julia hesitated over the word--"suspect things?"
He said bluntly, "There is nothing to suspect."
She said with equal bluntness, "Then why am I not to be told?"
Ronnie's temper rose. He, too, saw a vision of Aliette, palpably demanding his protection.
"Because there's nothing to tell."
"Ronnie, that's not the truth." The words burst from her. "You've never lied to me before. Why can't you tell me the truth now? Ever since Sunday, I've known----"
"Known what?"
Her heart dropped a beat at his obvious anger. It was as though she already knew the worst. Love and jealousy, strangely commingling in her ego, ousted--for one flash of a second--all other emotions. So that it might have been an adoring wife rather than a religious mother who answered.
"That you and Mrs. Brunton were in love with each other."
"So she knew all the time," thought Ronnie. His first feeling was relief. At least the mater knew nothing of what had happened since Sunday. Only her uncanny intuition had led her to the truth. Then fear--no longer fear for himself, but fear for Aliette--keyed his legal brain to defense.
"You have no right to make that statement. Where's your proof, your evidence?"
She looked him full in the face; noted the blood at his temples, the working nostrils, the angry sparks in his light blue eyes. The effort to stand up against his obstinacy wrenched her in pieces. Her knees, her very stomach trembled. The known room, the beloved things, seemed suddenly worthless. She felt self-reproachfully that she had loved things too much, her son too little. She could have cried, then and there--she who had never let the tears to her eyes.
"Ronnie," she pleaded, "why must you be so hard, so hostile? Mothers don't need 'evidence.' At least, I don't. Not where you are concerned. You said just now that this--this affair was none of my business. Isn't it a mother's business to protect her child, to save him? Would it have been fair for me not to have spoken? It isn't as if you couldn't trust me----"
She broke off; and fear faded from the mind of her son. He was no longer even angry. Once again he saw in Julia the "lonely old woman," dependent solely on his affection; saw her--very radiant down the years--fetching him, still a child, from his "Dame's School" in Welbeck Street; saw her visiting him at Winchester, at the Varsity. Always, she had been the confidante, the rather stern confidante, of his troubles. Surely, surely when she knew the fineness of Aliette, when she knew how Aliette had refused to let him hurt her, she would help him, help both of them?
"Of course I trust you. It isn't that. And if--if we'd decided anything definitely, I'd tell you about it. But, as things are, I can't tell you anything. You see that, don't you?"
"No. I don't," said Julia sternly--the mother, the religious woman and the traditionalist in her alike roused to bay by the sudden frankness. "It seems to me that, having admitted so much, you owe me the rest."
"But it wouldn't be fair----"
"I can't see why. Unless--unless there's something you--you're both afraid of my knowing."
"Mater!" All the chivalry in him, revolting at the slur on Aliette, urged full confession. "You've spoken with her. You can't possibly imagine that she's the sort of woman who----"
Indignation dumbed him; and in his moment of dumbness the mother realized her mistake, realized him in that hair-trigger state of emotion when the slightest touch will loose the explosion; realized that he and Aliette were on the verge of disaster, that Aliette was the wife of a king's counselor, that she, Julia, must cut out her tongue rather than say the word which would decide her son to wreck his career. But realization came too late.
"You don't imagine that she--that we would do anything underhand," burst out the boy in Ronnie.
"Of course not, dear." Almost Julia had it in her to hate the woman's virtue. To love in secret was certainly a sin before God; but to commit open adultery was a sin before both God and what remained of English Society.
"And, mater," he bent forward boyishly, across the table, "I love her; we love each other."
"Another man's wife?"
"Only in name." His teeth clenched. "Only in law."
She wanted to say, "You believe that?"; but instinct restrained her. She grew frightened at the passion in Ronnie's eyes. He talked on--vehemently. "I can't live without her. I won't. Why should I? What's a divorce nowadays? Who cares? Except a few snuffy old priests. And half of them don't know their own minds."
"Ronnie!" She conjured up every atom of force in her to wrestle with his vehemence. "What's happened to you? divorce means scandal. It means sin. But I won't talk about the religious part. One either believes or one doesn't. I only beg of you, I implore you, to think of your career----"
"Who cares about my career----"
"I do."
"My career won't suffer----"
"It will. You'll be disbarred. Brunton's a power. You'll have him for enemy instead of for friend. You'll make a thousand enemies. The snuffy old priests, as you call them, aren't the only ones who care about divorce. Half the houses I visit will be closed to you."
"For six months."
"No. For good. And you'll never be able to go into politics."
"Politics!" scornfully.
"People will cut you."
"Let them." Opposition, clarifying his mind, keyed him to fight. "Let them! What do I care? We sha'n't have done anything wrong."
"It's always wrong to set ourselves up against the world."
"That's sheer cowardice. And it isn't true, either. What about Jesus Christ?"
"That's sheer blasphemy."
One of the dinner-table candles guttered and went out. To Julia, it seemed like an omen. She saw her son's career gutter out in that curling smoke; saw him entrapped by the powers of darkness, prey to the personal devil. Now no one except God, her own particular secular god, could help. She prayed voicelessly to that particular secular god for words to save the entrapped soul of her boy.
"Ronnie! You've always been so good, the best of sons. You've never given me a moment's anxiety--never--since the day you were born. Until now! And you've always trusted me. Won't you trust me in this? Won't you believe me when I tell you that the thing you contemplate is a sin?"
Quietly, he answered, "If God is love, how can love be a sin?"
The phrase shot a tiny sliver of doubt through the armor of Julia Cavendish's belief, pricking her unwisdom to retort:
"Love! Love isn't passion. Love is service. If you loved her, really and truly loved her, you'd save this woman from herself. And if she loved you, really and truly loved you, she'd be the last person in the world----"
He wanted to argue: "You don't understand. You're too prejudiced to understand." Instead, comprehending abruptly how far his confidences had outrun actuality, he blustered:
"We won't discuss her motives, please. Or mine. Neither of us is a child--as you seem to think. We're quite capable of deciding things for ourselves. When we do----"
"She hasn't consented then?" Julia grasped at the life-buoy.
"No."
Another doubt entered like a dart into the mother's mind. Suppose Sir Heron's warnings came true? Then soon there might be nobody to care for Ronnie. Suppose, suppose this woman really did care--as she, Julia, cared? A woman in Mrs. Brunton's position would hardly risk divorce for abéguin.
Nervously she played with her favorite ring--a diamond-set miniature of her son in earliest boyhood. Nervously she said: "You won't do things in a hurry. Promise me that."
"I can't promise anything," He blustered again, feeling that she was trying to fetter his independence. "I'd rather not discuss the subject any more."
The bluster, so foreign to him, irritated her dignity.
"Very well. It shall be as you wish. We'll say no more about this matter. It's been very painful to me, and I can only hope it won't be still more painful--to both of us--before it's over."
His irritated dignity answered hers. "Why to both of us? It's entirely my affair."
"Not entirely. I've tried to keep myself out of this question; but, as your mother, I have certain claims. And you know, or at least you ought to know, my feelings on the subject of divorce. I ask you to believe that I'm trying to sympathize with you, to see your point of view. But I can't. To me, any union, however legalized, between you and Hector Brunton's wife, means deadly sin. You call this passion of yours love. I don't. I call it by an uglier name." His eyes kindled. "That angers you. I'm sorry. But I'm speaking the truth, as I see it. If you and she decide to commit this deadly sin, don't come to me for forgiveness."
Julia rose, weary with words, to her feet. "Shall we go upstairs to the drawing-room? Kate will be waiting to clear the table."
"Not for a moment." Ronnie, too, rose. "What do you mean, exactly, when you say, 'Don't come to me for forgiveness'?"
"What do I mean?" Sheer physical fatigue unnerved Julia's mind. Jealousy, the mad mother jealousy for the mate which her brain had been holding in leash all evening, broke its bonds; so that she saw her only son, the baby she had cherished from his cradle, lost to her in another woman's arms. White arms--young and smooth and sinful! "What do I mean? Only this--that you must choose between your mother and your--mistress."
Even as that last word escaped the barrier of her teeth, Julia Cavendish knew the mistake irretrievable. Her dignity flickered out like a match in a storm. She wanted to throw herself on his mercy, to beg his pardon with bended knees. But the word, the unpardonable insult of a word, was out. Slowly, she saw his mind grip its full significance. Then his face paled to harsh granite; and his eyes, for once in their lives, grew sterner than her own.
"Ihavechosen," said Ronald Cavendish.
"Aliette dear: You asked me not to hurry you. I've tried to be patient; but life without you has become impossible. I can't see what duty either of us owes to anybody except each other. It isn't as though you had children. It isn't as though you were really married. At worst, we only risk a little scandal. I wouldn't ask you even to risk that, unless I felt confident that I could make you happy. Icanmake you happy. Won't you come to me? We needn't do anything mean. We can play the game.Ronald."
It was nearly one o'clock on Sunday morning. The torn sheets of at least twenty letters in Ronnie's tiny legal handwriting littered his sitting-room grate. He reread the last of them; and thinking how utterly it failed to express his yearning, added as postscript, "I love you." Then he addressed his envelope; folded the single sheet; thrust it in; and gummed down the flap. The fragments in the fireplace he gathered up very carefully, and kindled to ashes.
As yet no sorrow for his quarrel with Julia had entered into her son's heart. He could see her only as an obstacle between himself and happiness. Of her last word, he could not bring himself to think sanely. That she, his own mother, the one person on whose help he ought to have been able to rely, should be the first to cast a stone at the woman he loved, seemed to him--in his bitterness--to make her his chiefest enemy; no longer "the mater," no longer "the lonely old lady," but "Julia Cavendish," publicly and in private the upholder of an effete religion, the champion of fust-ridden prudery.
No longer could he sympathize with that religious prudery. Passion, not the physical desires of a Brunton, but the grand passion, the passion of the poets, blinded him--for the nonce--to every point of view except his own. He and Aliette loved each other. To the torture, then, with whosoever loved other gods!
Passing, on his way downstairs, the door of the bachelor-flat beneath him, Ronnie heard, very low but quite distinct, a woman's laughter. "And that sort of thing," he thought angrily, "is what one is allowed to do. Moses Moffatt winks at it. The world winks at it. Meanwhile the women who won't stoop to concealment foot the world's social bill."
But the woman's laughter still echoed in his ears as he slid his letter into the mouth of the pillar-box.
Caroline Staley brought Ronnie's letter, the only one of Monday's post, on Aliette's breakfast-tray. The handwriting of the envelope was strange; but instinct warned her from whom it came. Her heart fluttered--breathlessly--under the satin bath-robe as she said, "I'll ring when I'm ready to dress, Caroline."
But once alone, Aliette did not dare touch the envelope. Casting thought back, she knew that she had loved Ronnie from first sight. Suppose--suppose he had written to make an end?
The breakfast on the tabled tray cooled and cooled. Through the curtained alcove came sound of a housemaid emptying her bath, polishing at the taps. Aliette heard nothing, saw nothing. The cheerful yellow-and-white of her bedchamber had gone dark about her, as though a cloud obscured the sun outside.
At last she took the envelope in her hands. But her hands trembled. And suddenly she saw her own face.
Her face, seen in the triptych mirror of the dressing-table, looked old, haggard. "Iamold." she thought. "Nearly thirty. Too old for Ronnie. He ought to have some girl, some quite young girl, for bride."
Then, still trembling, her hands slit the envelope; and hungrily, she began to read.
Reading, joy flooded her face. He wanted her to come to him. He needed her! The mazed loneliness of the last week was a vanished nightmare. She would never be lonely any more. Love had come into her life, into their lives, making them one life. At his postscript, the scarlet of her lips crinkled to a smile.
No longer was the room dark about her. Sunlight flashed back into it, flashed square shafts of gold on the rugs at her feet. A warmth, a rare warmth compound of blood and sunshine, pervaded her body. She saw herself, in the mirror, young again, fit to be his mate.
"I love you." She repeated the words under her breath. "I love you." Rereading the letter, her eyes sparkled. Life was good--good.
But gradually the sparkle in her eyes dimmed; joy went out of her face. "Julia Cavendish," she thought, "Julia Cavendish!" And again, "But life's hard--hard."
Nevertheless life had to be faced.
She faced it, there and then, sitting tense and quiet in the sunlit room. Ronnie was a man. To him, love once confessed must seem a bond, an irrevocable troth. Ought she to take him at his word? Ought she not to strive once again--as they had both so long and so uselessly striven--to forget? Yet could she ever forget? Forgetting, would she not be false to the best in her? To the best in both of them?
Suppose--suppose she ran away with Ronnie? What would be the consequences? A divorce! She could face that, as Mary O'Riordan had faced it. Mary, other friends, would stand by her. If only Ronnie's mother were less the Puritan.
"I must go to Ronnie," she thought. "I must ask him if he has spoken with his mother."
Yes! She must go to Ronnie. No other's counsel could avail her now. No third party could help. They, and they alone, would bear the burden if--if she decided to run away with him. And yet--and yet other people would be affected by their action--his mother, her own family, Mollie.
Impulsively she decided to send for Mollie, to sound her. She rang the bell for Caroline, but Caroline told her that "Miss Mollie" had gone out.
"Will I dress you now, madam?" asked the maid. "The master's been gone nearly an hour." It seemed impossible to find any excuse for remaining longer alone.
Dressing, the unsolved problem still haunted her mind. But already one aspect of the problem had solved itself--the aspect of Ronnie. Ronnie's word was not to be doubted. He loved her, he needed her--as she him. For themselves, they must no more funk the issue of Hector divorcing her than they had funked Parson's Brook. "Parson's Brook," thought Aliette. "Was it an omen?"
And at that, ominously, her imagination concentrated on the other aspect of the problem, on the public aspect; till it seemed as though a whole host of people, his mother, her own parents, Mollie, James Wilberforce, and her husband among them, were actually visible in the bedchamber; till it seemed as though Aliette could actually feel the eyes of the host on her, appraising the curves of her figure, the vivid masses of her hair.
Fastidiously she tried to avoid the eyes; but the eyes would not be gainsaid; they turned to her breast, seeking out Ronnie's letter, his love-letter, which she had hidden there. The eyes were not yet hostile, only appraising; but behind them--imagination knew--lurked souls ready to kindle into hostility. "They're waiting," thought Aliette, "waiting to know my decision. Yet the decision is mine--mine only." Imagination petered out, leaving her mind a blank.
Caroline asked a question; and she answered it automatically, "Yes; the green hat, please."
Her maid brought the hat--and, in a second as it seemed, she was standing before the long cheval-glass, completely dressed, completely ready to--leave Hector's house.
Looking back, Aliette now realizes that moment to have been the definitive crossing of her Rubicon. Subconsciously, in that one particular instant of time, her decision crystallized. She, who had always hated "funking things," would not funk love. Love was either worth the leap, or worth nothing. If nothing, then life's self was not worth while. And the risk was the leaper's, only the leaper's. Considering others, she had forgotten to consider herself.
She looked at that self in the long mirror.
Surely those brown eyes, burning deep into their own semblance, were never fashioned for long perplexity; surely, they had been given her so that she might visualize truth. Surely, those scarlet lips were not made for lying; nor those slim feet for running away.
And suddenly, subconsciously, Aliette knew that all her life hitherto she had been lying to her own soul, running away from truth. Life, woman's life at its highest, meant mating. Without matehood, motherhood's self must be a failure. And she, she was neither mate nor mother. Remaining with Hector, her very bodily beauty would wither--wither unmated, sterile. For, to Hector--even if she yielded to Hector--and how, loving Ronnie, could she yield herself to Hector?--she would never be more than legal concubine. No matehood there, only degradation. Better to kill one's self, better to smash the sacred vessel in pieces, than allow it to be profaned--as profaned it must be--by any man's touch save Ronnie's.
"And surely," said some dim voice in that soul which was Aliette, "surely this is nature's verity: To each one of us, unhindered, our mate- and mother-hood! Surely, in nature's eyes, our parents are but dry and empty vessels, milkless gourds rattling on a dead tree."
Herletter, sent "express" to Jermyn Street, read: "If you are quite, quite sure of your own feelings, I will come to you to-morrow afternoon. Whatever we decide best to do, must be done openly. I love you--perhaps that is why I have been so afraid. I am not afraid any more.Aliette."
This time, ringing the bell at 127b Jermyn Street, Hector Brunton's wife was no more nervous than on the day she put Miracle at Parson's Brook. In that last flash of understanding, it seemed as though even the Mollie aspect of the problem were solved. Let Mollie, too, learn nature's verity; learn that if Wilberforce's love-flame blew out at a breath of scandal, she would do better to warm herself at some healthier fire.
The twenty-four hours which followed her decision had gone by like a single minute, marked only by Ronnie's second letter, by those eight sheets of tenderness, of passion, of high resolve and deep desire, which Aliette held close to her heart as she followed Moses Moffatt up the quiet stairs.
Ronnie met them in the tiny hall. The conventional smile assumed for Moffatt's benefit was still on his lips as he relieved her of bag and parasol, as he led her into the sitting-room. But so soon as the sitting-room door closed, his arms went round her; and their lips met in a long kiss. There was no passion in that kiss, only an overwhelming tenderness; yet, yielding to it, letting herself sink into his arms, Aliette knew that the die was cast, that she belonged to him, he to her, so long as life lasted. And freeing herself, quaintly, irresistibly, the impulse to laughter overwhelmed her mind.
"I'm going to take my hat off," laughed Aliette. "You won't object, will you? Do you know, I wanted to take my hat off, that first afternoon--at the Bull?"
He watched, dumb, while she ungloved her pale hands, while she lifted them to her hat-pins. The curve of her raised arms fascinated his eyes. Still laughing, she removed the hat; and stretched it out to him.
"You don't recognize this, I suppose?"
"No."
"Nor the dress? It's rather a funny dress for town--don't you think, man? Do you like being called 'man'? I decided that should be my name for you on my way here."
But he could not remember either the hat or the dress. "I like them both," he said, "they're wallflower-brown--the same color as your eyes."
"It's a winter dress--a country dress," she prompted. "So hot--that I'll have to take my coat off."
Recollection stirred in him. His mind went back to the winter. He saw two figures, his and hers, strolling down-hill in the low March sunlight.
"It's the dress you wore at Key Hatch."
"Man, you're getting quite clever. Now tell me why I put it on this afternoon."
Standing before him, her coat over one arm, the vivid of her hair uncovered, the brown silk of her blouse revealing the full throat, she seemed like a young girl; more an affianced bride than a woman who intended running away from her husband.
He took the coat from her, and their hands met. He raised her fingers to his lips; and again she dimpled to laughter.
"Tell me," said Aliette, "or I sha'n't give you any tea, why I put on this dress. Women, even when they're in love, don't wear their winter tweeds in the middle of the season."
Instead, he kissed her--still tenderly.
"How should I know, Aliette? This afternoon you're all a mystery to me. Tell me, why you are so different."
"Light the kettle; and I'll try to tell you." She balanced herself on the edge of the settee. "You say I'm different this afternoon. I'm only different because I'm happy. And I'm happy because of you, because of us, because of everything. You, too?"
"Yes." Her spirits infected him: he, too, laughed.
"Happiness, you see, is our only justification," said the woman who intended running away from her husband. "I've got to make you happy. Otherwise, from the very outset, I fail. And if"--the tiniest note of seriousness crept into her voice--"if I can't make you happy, not just this afternoon, but always----"
"You will," he interrupted. "And I you."
Tea was rather a silent meal. They were content to sit through it, hand touching hand occasionally, their eyes on each other. To each of them it seemed as though, after long wandering, they had come home. For the moment, passion hardly existed. Almost they might have been boy and girl.
"Did you fall in love with me that day with the Mid-Oxfordshire?" she asked.
"I've often wondered."
"It all seems so strange, Ronnie. Not like--like doing wrong."
"We're not going to do anything wrong."
"We are. That's the strangest part of it."
To the man, too, it was all strange, strange and fantastic beyond belief. He could not imagine himself the same Cavendish who had so long wrestled against the inculcated traditions of his upbringing, of his profession; he could not visualize himself potential sinner against society. Sin was a bodily thing; and he wanted no more of this radiant, dimpling creature than to hear the happy laughter in her voice.
So, for a little while, those two remade their rose-bubble of enchantment, forgetful alike of the problems put behind them and the greater problems yet to be faced.
But at last Aliette said, "Let's be sensible."
"Not this afternoon." He tried to take both her hands, but her hands eluded him.
"Don't!" Her eyes darkled. "We mustn't play any more." And after a pause, she asked him: "I wonder exactly how much you really need me?"
"More than any man ever needed any woman."
"You're quite, quite sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Then," she laughed, a little low laugh deep in the throat; for she knew that her elusion had thrilled him to passion, and the knowledge was very sweet, "will you please tell me, man, what you're going to do about me?"
"Do about you?" His meditative drawl stimulated a newborn impishness in her.
"Yes--do about me."
"Why--run away with you, if you'll let me."
"Where to?"
"Anywhere."
"Shall I be allowed to take any luggage?"
"Of course."
"Then we can't very well run away this afternoon."
"No. I suppose we can't," he muttered; and the impishness in her chuckled to see the puzzled thoughts chase themselves across his forehead.
How boyish he was--she thought--how utterly unlike the conventional unconventional lover. The maternal instinct awakened in her heart, and went out to the boy in him. She wanted to pat his head, to say: "Never mind, Ronnie. I'll arrange everything. You sha'n't be worried." Then she remembered that he wasn't a boy; that he was a man, her man.
The man in him burst out: "I wish to God that you needn't go back----"
"Go back?" His outburst frightened her.
"To his house----"
"But I must go back--for a day or two."
"Why should you?" His eyes were flame. "I hate it. I hate the idea of your being under his roof."
"Jealous?" she soothed, still afraid.
"Yes. I suppose I am jealous."
"Is that fair? There isn't anything to be jealous about."
"Forgive me!" His hand gripped her knee. "But I can't bear his being your husband even in name. Aliette, kiss me."
"No." She knew that she must not yield to him. "No. We've got to be sensible. We've got to make plans."
"We can make plans to-morrow."
"We can't. Don't you see that when I go back to--to his house this evening, I'll have to tell him? It wouldn't be straight if I didn't. We've got to be straight, haven't we?"
"Yes." The flame went out of his eyes, leaving them cold and hard as agate. "We've got to be straight. But--telling him isn't your job. It's mine." He heaved himself up from the settee; and she had her first glimpse of a different Ronnie--a fighting Ronnie, chin protruded, lips set. "My job," he repeated.
"I'm not Andromeda. I don't want a Perseus to free me from the dragon." She tried chaff; but chaff left him unmoved. She tried argument; but argument only strengthened the resolve in him. Finally she said:
"There's no need to say much. Hector knows everything--except your name."
"You told him?" There was no anger in the phrase.
"Everything except your name. We had a quarrel. After I got home last Monday. He offered to let me divorce him if--if I'd promise there was no one else." She, too, rose--her face, for all its fineness, obstinate as her lover's. "Of course, I couldn't promise that. So to-night, I shall just tell him--the rest."
The tall man and the little woman faced each other in silence: each equally determined to carry, right from the beginning, the other's burden.
"It doesn't seem right, somehow or other," Ronnie said at last. "He might--might hurt you."
"Hurt me!" laughed Aliette. "Nothing, nobody in the world can hurt me now. Except you. And you will hurt me if you insist. Don't insist, Ronnie."
"Very well." His hands, thrilling to passion once again, clasped her waist. He kissed her; and this time she did not seek to elude him. For now she knew her power, the power which all women exercise over imaginative lovers; knew that, at her least word, he would loose her--fearful lest, by not loosing, he forfeit the greater gift.
And all through the half-hour which followed, that power, that fear was on Ronnie. He was afraid of forfeiting this Aliette who had let him hold her in his arms; who had let him press his lips to hers in passion; but who, admitting her love for him, could yet sit aloof--a goddess with a time-table.
"I shall take Caroline," she said. "You don't mind?"
He only wanted to take Aliette, there and then; to kiss those rounded wrists, those arms bare to the elbow, that scarlet mouth, those cheeks ivory as curds, the smooth forehead under its loops of shining hair.
"Kiss me!" he whispered. "Kiss me!"
"Ronnie!" She put down the time-table. "Don't let's do anything we might--might regret. Remember that to-night, and perhaps for many nights, I must sleep under his roof."
He yielded again; and a few minutes later she prepared to leave him. The plans they had meant to make were still chaotic--chaotic as her mind.
She realized, as she pinned on her hat, as she let him help her into her coat, that the sweet hour had been full of danger, that--had Ronnie been less chivalrous, more the man and less the boy--she might have given way to him. The realization made her very humble; and in her humility she began to doubt herself.
"You--you've been very good to me," she said; and then, the vivid lashes veiling her vivid eyes, her low voice trembling into shyness: "That's why there's just one--one favor I must ask you."
"Favors! Between us!" He took her ungloved hands, and pressed them to his lips.
"Yes, dear. It's about--about your mother."
"Julia!" His tone hardened. "But we discussed all that last time."
"We mustn't hurt her more than we can help. We must tell her the truth, before--before we do anything. She's a woman, and perhaps--perhaps she'll understand----"
"Aliette----" He hesitated; and her intuition leaped to the cause.
"You--you haven't quarreled with her?"
Her intuition startled him into reply: "Yes. We have quarreled. But I can't tell you anything about it."
She drew away from him, and her eyes grew sorrowful. "Did you quarrel because of anything she said to you about me?"
Again he hesitated; again her intuition leaped to the truth. "I've been afraid you might. Something told me, that morning in the park, that she must have guessed. I can't come between you and your mother. You mustn't quarrel with her on my account. Whatever she may have said, you must go to her, tell her everything, and ask her--if she can--to forgive----"
"Never!" The very humility angered him. "Never! It's not for her to forgive, but for me----"
"Then itwasbecause of me that you quarreled?"
"Yes."
"Foolish man!" It hurt her desperately to think that his mother should have understood so little; but she knew that she must conceal the hurt. "As if I'd let you quarrel with any one, least of all your mother, on my account. You'll go to her, won't you? You'll tell her that I--that I don't ask for any recognition----"
Rudely, obstinately, he interrupted her: "Of course she must recognize you. Either she's on our side or she's against us."
"Ronnie"--her eyes suffused with tears--"Ronnie, I told you we'd got to be happy with one another. You make me unhappy--when you speak like that. You make me feel like a thief. You do want me to be happy, don't you?"
"Yes. Always." His anger vanished. Bending down, he tried to kiss the tears from her eyes. "Always, darling."
"Then won't you"--she was in his arms now; the warmth, the perfume, the very unhappiness of her a fresh thrill--"won't you grant me this one favor? It's the only favor I'll ever ask."
"How can I?"
"So easily. Just go to her. She's your mother. She loves you, she understands you. But she may not understand--about me. She may think that I'm just--just a dissolute woman. That doesn't matter. Tell her that it doesn't matter. Tell her that I don't want to keep you from her; that until--until we're properly married, you'll be as free to go to her as if"--he could hardly hear the last words--"as if you'd taken any--any ordinary mistress."
"Don't, don't!" He strained her to him, fiercely protective. "You're not to speak of yourself like that."
"Why not?" She lifted a face brave despite her tears. "It's true. Don't let's funk things. From the day I come to you till the day Hector sets me free Ishallbe your mistress. You mustn't expect your mother or any one else to take a different view. But I'll be so happy, man; so much happier than I've ever been in my life before--if only you'll make it up with your mother. You will, won't you? Promise me."
"Tell me," he whispered, and his lips trembled, "is this thing so vital to your happiness?"
"Yes," she whispered back.
"Then--it shall be as you wish." His arms were still round her; and she felt herself weakening--weakening. She felt herself all exhausted--all a limpness in his arms.
"Sweetheart," his voice was hoarse in her ears, "don't go. I want you so much. Every day, every night without you is misery."
"Ronnie--Ronnie! Don't tempt me----"
Feverishly her ungloved hands fondled him; feverishly her arms looped his neck, drawing his face down to hers. She could see, under the gray-gold of his hair, the great vein throbbing on his forehead, the dart and pulse of passion in his eyes. His lips, trembling still, fastened on her mouth. The kiss was torment. Feverishly her mouth clung to his; feverishly, blent in ecstasy, fire feeding flame, they clung to one another--till, at last, half fainting, she tore herself away.
"Don't!" she stammered. "Don't torture me, don't tempt me any more. Don't let me think--either now or ever--that this love of ours is only--only physical. Because, if I thought that, I'd kill myself."
And a moment afterwards, she was gone.