The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

His lordship thought it quite possible there might be a case to go to the jury. Nevertheless, his lordship felt it his duty to impress on both parties the painfulness, the unnecessary painfulness, of such a case as this. Would not the distinguished counsel on both sides consult with their clients? Surely there must be some way by which--Mr. Justice Mallory coughed judicially--a compromise, if necessary a financial compromise, could be effected. "Interfering old fool," whispered Brunton to his junior. Ensued a further orgy of whispering: Lord Arthur, his solicitor and Sir Martin on one side: Brunton, Lady Hermione and Sir Peter on the other. Behind him, Ronnie heard Lady Cynthia's muffled staccato, "I say, she isn't going to settle, is she?" and Miss Elizabeth Cattistock's "If she does, I win my bet." Now the K.C.'s withdrew from their clients; drew together, still whispering; drew away from each other; whispered with their clients again; and returned to conference. "I'm afraid it's a wash-out, Cavendish," the leader managed to convey behind his hand as Sir Martin Duckworth rose to address the court. His lordship and the jury, announced Sir Martin, would not--he was delighted to say--be further troubled with this--er--very painful case. His client had agreed to terms, the financial aspect of which--with his lordship's permission--Sir Martin did not think it necessary to disclose. Did he understand, interrupted Mr. Justice Malory, that the action would be withdrawn? Brunton took up the cue. "_My_ client," boomed Brunton, "has consented to withdraw her action; not that she feels her case in any way weakened, but because--acting on your Lordship's advice, and, if I may be allowed to say so, on my own--she has, at the very earnest solicitation of her husband, decided," the K.C.'s voice dropped to its point, "to return to him." Lady Cynthia's audible "Well, I'm damned!" a little rustle of mannerly applause, and a beam from Mr. Justice Mallory marked the ending of Ellerson _v._ Ellerson--a happy ending, as it seemed to Lady Hermione's junior counsel. 6 But Hector Brunton thought otherwise. Recently it had seemed to him as though Aliette might relent. Ever since her return from Devonshire he had been conscious of some subtle, incomprehensible change in her. Therefore it piqued his pride to find her, on his return from court, not even vaguely interested in the newspaper reports of his speech--more especially as that speech was quoted almost verbatim under the heading: "K.C. says woman is not man's property." "We ought to have fought the thing out," he told her. "That's what I said to Cavendish." Aliette's face did not betray her, but her heart--the heart which had almost persuaded itself of cure--dropped two telltale beats. "Clever chap, young Cavendish," went on the K.C. "I'd like to have him to dinner one evening." With a thoughtful "Why not take him to the club, Hector?" the K.C.'s wife went upstairs to dress. CHAPTER IV 1 Julia Cavendish was always at home on Saturday afternoons. You used to meet nearly all social sorts and conditions of men and women in that exquisitely tended Bruton Street house: literary folk, financial folk, embassy folk, Anglican priests, politicians, schoolmasters with their wives, young soldiers with their fiancées, old soldiers with their grievances, the "Ritz crowd" (which thinks itself Society), and real Society (which does not need to think about itself at all), intellectual aristocrats and democratic intellectuals--the whole curious "London" which an eclectic woman of means can, if she be so minded, gather about herself by the time she reaches sixty. But the house itself betrayed, to a trained observer, the fact that Ronnie's mother really preferred things to people. Not necessarily expensive things--only occasionally could she afford a real "piece": but pleasant things; beautiful things that became, as it were, part of one's life; things one could feel about the house as though they were people, but people without too many claims on one. Despite which, No. 67a was neither over-large nor over-crowded with possessions. Old prints had space on its panels, old furniture on its floors. Jade idols, Toby mugs, Dresden, Chelsea, and Japanese figures did not jostle one another on its mantelpieces or in its cabinets. Spanish velvets and Venetian brocades forbore to pose as "specimens," but were curtains, cushions, or chair-covers as use demanded. Georgian silver employed itself in a hospitable capacity; Satsuma vases held flowers; Bokhara rugs covered the parquet, not the walls. "I'm a practical old woman," said Julia; and she looked it now, as she lay reading on the sofa in the square bow-windowed drawing-room. A rather stern face was Julia Cavendish's: the Wixton chin dimpled but very determined; the eyes, under their tortoise-shell spectacles, bluer, harder than the eyes of her son. The wrinkles in the scarcely powdered cheeks and at the high temples, as well as the graying of the light brown hair, not all her own, betrayed her age. But the hands which held the novel still appeared the hands of a young woman; nor had the years robbed her of her figure. Her dress--a black tea-gown, real lace at bosom and wrist--was so unfashionable as to be almost smart. Black silk stockings and black satin shoes--she had elegant feet--complete the picture. A bell rang below. Julia laid her novel on a little lacquered stand by the sofa; took off her spectacles; and sat up to the maid's announcement of "Mr. Fancourt." Dot Fancourt, a sentimental, unhappy old man with over-red cheeks, sunken eyes and beetling gray brows, his weak mouth hidden by a walrus mustache, extended both dry hands in effusive salutation. "My dear, how are you?" "In the best of health, as usual." Julia Cavendish released her fingers from the dry hands. "Tell me what Fleet Street thinks about the Ellerson case." The editor of "The Contemplatory Magazine" began to gossip; and she listened to him. The pair had been friends for thirty years, the man's weakness of character finding comfort in the woman's strength. "Poor Dot!" thought Julia. His last illness, and the inevitable last sentimental complication, had aged him. Probably he would go next of the Victorians. That would leave only Harrison, Gosse, Hardy, and . . . "Mr. Paul Flower, madam," announced the maid. There entered a pale, hairless sexagenarian who resembled nothing so much as a very large white slug. He greeted them both sluggishly; and began to discuss, with an almost Biblical frankness, the psychology of Lady Hermione Ellerson--whom he had never met. "A passionate limpet," he pronounced her, pulverizing that imaginary mollusc between thumb and forefinger. "The clinging type. I remember when I was a young man in Paris----" Paul Flower's conversation, unfortunately, will no more bear the ordeal of cold print than Rear-Admiral Billy's. He continued holding forth on the subject of his Parisian youth till interrupted by tea, and Lucien Olphert--a bald-headed, under-sized creature whose real life was as mild as his historical novels were heroic. Various other novelists--Jack Coole, Robert Backwell, and John Binney with Mrs. Binney--dropped in. Literary "shop," inanest of all "shops" to an outsider, was in full blast when the maid ushered in Lady Simeon Brunton. The ex-ambassadress swept across Julia's drawing-room like a well-bred monsoon. Her Paquin confection--frailest gossamer black with gold underskirt--rustled condescension. The ospreys in her Lewis hat waved approving patronage to art and letters. "You see that I took you at your word, Mrs. Cavendish." The hostess, who had been introduced to Lady Simeon (and promptly forgotten her) at a Foreign Office reception some weeks previously, said the appropriate word and made the appropriate presentations. "But this isn't a mere social call." explained the new-comer. "This is a call with a purpose." She accepted some tea; and subsided on to the sofa. Paul Flower judged her a Philistine (i.e., a woman who did not regard Paul Flower as the last living exponent of English literature), but decided her attractive. He approved her age, about forty-five; her eyes, which were darkly vivacious; her figure, which was inclined to the abundant; her hair and complexion, which were both _soigné_, the one matching her eyes and the other her pearls. Jack Coole, the two Binneys, and Robert Backwell, his prominent teeth parted in a valedictory grin, departed. Flower, Fancourt, and Olphert continued to talk shop. "A call with a purpose sounds very serious," prompted Julia. Sir Simeon's wife smiled diplomatically. "The fact is, dear Mrs. Cavendish, that I want you to dine with us. Next Thursday. You will, won't you? Although it is such a short invitation. We shall be quite a small party--not more than twenty at the outside. And will you bring your son?" "My son----" Julia, whose inclination was to decline--for some time now, late nights had wearied her--became visibly more gracious. "Yes. My cousin Hermione--poor dear, what a time she's been going through--and all this publicity--so distressing for everybody--says he was simply charming to her during the case. So wise! So calm! So helpful! You must be very proud of your son, Mrs. Cavendish." Not for nothing had the heiress of The Raneegunge Jute and Cotton Mills married an ambassador! "Ronnie's coming to dinner this evening," said Ronnie's mother. "If he's free on Thursday we shall both be delighted. May I telephone you?" 2 Ronnie, who had been watching the polo at Ranelagh, arrived ten minutes late for dinner. He came unannounced into the drawing-room; kissed his mother; complimented her on her clothes (she had changed into a dinner-gown in his honor); and inquired about the afternoon. "Dullish," pronounced Julia--and broached the Brunton invitation. "The Bruntons!" He seemed a little taken aback at the name. "I don't think I care to go." "Nonsense. Of course you must go. A barrister's career is mainly social." She prolonged the argument over dinner; she mentioned the Brunton "influence," the Ellerson case: till eventually--somewhat against his better judgment--she persuaded him to go. A very different Julia this from the hostess of the afternoon! Always a little constrained, a little too dignified in company; with her son, she hid affection under a mask of brusquerie almost dictatorial. In boyhood Ronnie had been frightened by the mask; even at thirty-six he was only just beginning to realize the affection it concealed. Only since his return from the war had full knowledge of this affection come to him. He saw her now--sipping her coffee in the print-hung, walnut-furnished dining-room--as a lonely old woman dependent on his love. And the sight hurt, because his heart was already aware of the possibility that one day there might be another woman, a younger woman, in his life. "I wish you'd let me make you a decent allowance," she said abruptly. "You ought to be about everywhere. You ought to stand for Parliament. Even if you don't get in, it's an advertisement." "I thought you hated publicity, mater." "So I do--for myself." She cogitated. "I could manage another eight hundred a year." "And deprive yourself of----" "Of nothing. I don't want any money. I'm too old to know how to spend it. You'll have it all when I'm dead," she added. "Mater!"--he was the softer in many ways--"I wish you wouldn't talk like that." "Why not? Death's a fact. I've no patience with people who won't face facts. Life isn't a kinema show."