The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton
Coffee finished, they removed themselves to Julia's work-room--a square
box of an apartment, book-lined, an Empire desk in its exact center
under the illuminated top-light. Julia sat down at the desk; opened a
drawer; and took out her check-book.
"Eight hundred a year," she said, writing. "That's two hundred a
quarter. I'd better cross the check."
"Don't be absurd, mater." Ronnie frowned.
"But I want you to have it."
"What for?"
"Oh, clothes. You ought to dress better. Club subscriptions.
Entertaining. Cigars. I don't know what men spend their money on. Women,
mostly, I suppose."
Blotting the check, she would have given anything in the world to say:
"Ronnie, darling, do take it. I can't slobber like other women. But I
love you--you're everything I have in the world. Please, please Ronnie,
don't refuse this. It's not money--it's just a token--a token of my love
for you."
Actually, she said: "If your father hadn't been such a fool about money
matters, he'd have left _you_ his estate. He knew that I could always
make all I wanted."
Ronnie frowned again. "You know perfectly well that I won't take it."
"Not even to oblige me? I--I want you to take it. It may cheer you up.
You've been looking depressed lately."
"Have I?"
They had played this comedy of the allowance more than once since his
father's death; but never before had he seen her so insistent.
"Yes." She stretched out the check to him, knowing her offer already
rebuffed. In a way, she was proud of his independence. All the same, it
hurt. One ought to be able to do more for one's child.
"I'm not depressed. And I'm not hard up. Really."
He smiled at her across the desk--one of those rare smiles which
reminded her of the boy she had tried to tip at Winchester. She seemed
to hear his boyish voice, "The pater gave me a fiver when he was down
last. I don't need any more. Honestly, mater."
"You're quite sure?"
"Quite." He watched her tear up the check; noticed a sheaf of proofs on
her desk; and questioned her about them. "Another short story!"
"No. It's an article on 'Easy Divorce' for next month's 'Contemplatory.'
These are the duplicate proofs."
"You're opposing it?"
"Of course."
"On moral grounds?"
"Not entirely. Listen!" She put on her spectacles, and read him the
opening paragraphs. "The woman of to-day is asking that divorce and
remarriage should be made easier. Why? Because the woman of to-day
refuses to face the simple fact that primarily she is her husband's
helpmate. Personally I am a Churchwoman; and therefore find it
impossible to believe the remarriage of divorced people justified. I am
willing to admit that, in a limited number of cases, divorce itself may
be expedient. But I feel that to make divorce easier would be a direct
encouragement of immorality. We have to face facts. Woman is not, never
has been, and never will be capable of resisting the sentimental
impulse."
"You're a real Puritan at heart, aren't you, mater?" he interrupted.
She put down the proofs, vaguely distressed that he should prefer her
conversation to her written word. For work, to Julia Cavendish, counted
more than anything in life--except this lean, clean, sober-minded son of
hers.
"It isn't a very good article, I'm afraid. Dot was in too much of a
hurry for it. I never could write quickly."
These last months she had discovered herself writing even less quickly
than usual. Once or twice, even, she had been forced to break off in the
middle of the morning by a strange fatigue--a pain in her back. She had
meant to consult a doctor; meant to ask Ronnie's advice. But she hated
fussing about herself, hated fussing Ronnie. And besides, Ronnie _was_
depressed--in some trouble or other. She could feel that trouble
instinctively.
"You're sure nothing's worrying you?" she asked him as they said good
night.
"Quite sure. Sleep well, mater."
He kissed her, and went.
"No," he thought, striding home to the rooms in Jermyn Street which she
had insisted on furnishing for him. "No! Nothing's wording me. In point
of sheer fact, I've never been so bucked in my life."
And he was "bucked," ludicrously so; "bucked" because he had yielded to
his mother's persuasions; ludicrously so because, just for the moment,
he had altogether forgotten Hector Brunton's existence.
Only when he awoke next morning did Ronald Cavendish remember that
Aliette was a married woman--and the possibility that, after all, she
might not be one of the guests at her uncle-in-law's dinner-party.
3
The ambassadorial branch of the Brunton family occupies a palace of a
house in that palatial avenue, Kensington Palace Gardens.
Driving thither with his mother in the electric brougham with which she
compromised between the horseflesh of the Victorian past and the petrol
of the democratic present, Ronnie knew himself feverishly excited. All
the suppressed emotions of three months leaped to new anticipation as
they rolled away from Bruton Street, through Berkeley Square into the
park.
It was still daylight. Happy lower-middle-class folk crowded the seats
under the trees, the grass beyond. Here and there, lovers, splendidly
indifferent to the public eye, embraced one another with the frankness
of post-wartime. Subconsciously, the sight of these couples affected the
serious young man in the silk hat and stiff shirt of formal party-going.
Almost he envied them.
"The season has been the fiasco one expected," commented his mother.
"Decent people have no money to spend--the other sort don't know how to
spend it. I wish you'd order yourself a new dress-suit, Ronnie. And
those waistcoat buttons are very old-fashioned. I must get you some new
ones."
"Rather a contradictory sentence," he commented.
"Nothing of the kind. It's a man's duty to be well-groomed." She
sighed--it had been a tiring day, and she hated dinner-parties. "I often
wish you'd stayed on in the army."
"Why?"
"I think you were happier; and the army, in peace-time, is so healthy."
"You do worry about me, don't you?"
"Of course. That's what mothers are for."
The remark, coming from her, sounded curiously pathetic. For the moment,
Ronnie forgot his anticipations. He put a shy hand on his mother's arm.
"Cheer up, mater," he said, seeing her, once again, as a lonely old
woman--the intellect, the public fame of her, merest surface-stuff.
By now, they were through Hyde Park, and into Kensington Gardens. She
removed her arm; made her usual acrid comment on the Albert Memorial;
and the pair of them subsided into contemplation.
Contemplating, Ronald Cavendish realized for the first time exactly how
far he had already drifted toward violation of his mother's code. He
imagined himself saying to Julia, "Mater, I'm in love with Aliette
Brunton."
But he could not imagine Julia's reply. The old fear of her came back,
chilling him.
And yet, code or no code, mother or no mother, he had to admit himself
in love, passionately in love with Aliette Brunton. Even the possibility
of meeting her thrilled his whole being. Looking back now, he saw that
not for one hour since their ride together had she been entirely out of
his thoughts.
Their electric circled out of the gardens, climbed Palace Green, and
swung left between high lights, on to gravel, under an awning. A footman
opened the brougham-door. Ronnie, jumping out, helped his mother to
alight. "Thanks, dear. Tell him to be back by eleven," she said.
Obeying, Ronnie was conscious that he stood in the glare of impatient
headlights. Behind and above the glare, through the plate-glass front of
the approaching cabriolet, he saw two faces: one heavy-jowled above its
starched collar, the other--Aliette's.
4
"That looked like young Cavendish. If it was, and you get an
opportunity, don't forget about asking him to dine with us," said Hector
Brunton.
Aliette did not answer; but her gloved hands, as she alighted from her
husband's car, trembled ever so slightly. She had seen _him_. He had
seen her. And the wound, the wound in her heart, was _not_ cured. She
could feel it throbbing, throbbing with sheer joy. "I'm glad I wore this
dress," she thought.
Her chinchilla cloak, ermine at neck and wrists, covered a gown of soft
grays and softer mauves, silver-girdled. Pearls gleamed at her lustrous
throat, in the tiny ears under her vivid hair. Crossing the
black-and-white tessellated hall to the ambassadorial cloak-room, she
looked a very picture of dignified composure.
But the composure was mainly superficial. Her heart throbbed and
throbbed. She forgot Hector, remembered only Ronnie. This stately old
lady, just being divested of her mandarin opera-cloak, must be his
mother. She resembled him, about the chin, about the eyes.
"What a charming woman!" thought Julia Cavendish. "I wonder if she's
Hector Brunton's wife. I wish I could find a wife like that for Ronnie."
"I'm afraid we're the last," smiled the elder woman, eying the
formidable collection of furs.
"I'm afraid so too," smiled back the younger. She took off her own
cloak; gave one swift glance at the mirror, and was ready.
"Practical, too. Makes no fuss about herself," thought Julia Cavendish,
as they reëntered the hall together.
Aliette could not think. The meeting, unanticipated, had taken her off
her guard. Delight, apprehension, sheer eagerness, and sheer diffidence
made her utterly the girl. It seemed as though, at the instant,
something tremendous must occur.
But nothing tremendous occurred! Or if it did, their social sense saw
them through it. Ronnie was talking to Hector in the hall. He shook
hands with Aliette. He introduced her to his mother. He introduced
Hector to his mother. The four of them went up the wide stairs together.
Aliette heard them announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Hector Brunton. Mrs. Julia
Cavendish. Mr. Ronald Cavendish."
How silly she had been about him. How calm he was! How calm they both
were! Naturally! He hardly knew her. They hardly knew one another.
Hector Brunton's wife realized suddenly that her left glove had split in
the clenched palm, that she had forgotten to take off her gloves before
entering the drawing-room.
"My dear child, how are you? _En beauté_, as always. A credit to the
family." She found herself, among a mob of people, shaking hands with
Simeon.
5
The craftswoman in Julia Cavendish, the literary memory and sense of
"copy" which make her books such exact social pictures, functioned quite
independently from the rest of her personality. No one, watching her as
she talked international politics with her host, would have guessed
that, behind the calm, dignified face, the novelist's brain was busy.
Kodak-like, that brain registered its impressions, rolling them away for
development at leisure.
First impression: an oblong room--paneled--Venetian
bracket-lights--brocaded French windows either end--low scarlet flowers
on a long gold-decked table, narrowing as you looked down it--many faces
either side, two faces at each end--hum of subdued
conversation--servants' white-gloved hands and dark-coated arms
proffering bottles, plates, dishes.
The camera in the brain clicks, rolls away the picture.
Second impression: Sir Simeon, sixty-eight, a little man, white-haired,
blue-eyed, mustache floppy, charming, not very efficient, presumably the
weaker matrimonial vessel--his wife ought never to wear pink--Sir
Simeon's three daughters, obviously by his first marriage, two with
wedding-rings, thirty-eight, thirty-six, nonentities--their partners
ditto--an ugly one, younger, rather interesting.
"My sympathies are entirely with the Jugo-Slavs, Sir Simeon. Italy is