The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

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. 4 "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 the _sauce Béarnaise_, you see." Coaxed, he complimented her; but without enthusiasm--so that, hurt, she said to herself: "He's giving _me_ only 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, I _am_ grateful! 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 till _I_ thought fit to broach the subject." Nevertheless, the ghost of the schoolboy who had liked _sauce Béarnaise_ and 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. You _are_ in 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