The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

Meanwhile, five hours away along the shining track beyond Chill Common, seven million exiles from paradise plied their harassed harassing earth-days in London City. Of all those seven millions only three people knew exactly what had happened; and only two--Julia Cavendish and Benjamin Bunce--the fugitives' address. Even Mollie, who had been overnighting with friends at Richmond during those few hours when her sister decided on flight, had been told--officially--nothing. But Mollie, from the first moment when she glanced at the incoherent scrawl Lennard handed her on her return, had suspected the worst. With her, Hector's reassurances, given over the telephone from his chambers, that "Alie had suddenly made up her mind to take a holiday," went for nothing. "Rather unexpected, wasn't it?" she said; and then, remembering the scene in the drawing-room: "On the whole, Hector, I think I'd better take a holiday, too." Hector, with a terse, "Of course, you must do what you think best," rang off; and the girl, now thoroughly perturbed, telephoned to Betty Masterman, her oldest school-friend, demanding hospitality. "Nothing wrong, I hope?" said Betty. "No, dear. Nothing. Only Alie's had to go away, and I can't very well stop here without a chaperon." Betty Masterman was a comforting creature who neither asked nor demanded confidences; but the interview with James Wilberforce hurt. It took Mollie three days to summon up enough courage to notify him of her new address; and when, throwing up his afternoon's work in Norfolk Street, he came to call at the little conventionally-furnished flat, it seemed to the girl as though they could never again be frank with one another; as though her very greeting, "Hello, James! Rotten of Alie to take a holiday, right in the middle of the season, isn't it?" were a deliberate lie. And his answer, "Oh, well, it's rather stuffy in town, these days," made any discussion of the topic nearest her heart impossible. "For, of course," thought the girl, "Jimmy knows that Aliette's run away from Hector." As a matter of fact, Jimmy had not previously suspected any connection between Aliette Brunton's sudden departure from Lancaster Gate and the news, previously imparted to him by Benjamin Bunce, that "Mr. Cavendish had been called out of town and might not be back for some days." It was, Jimmy said to himself, rather weird of old Ronnie to buzz off in the middle of the sessions; but then old Ronnie always had been rather weird, a peculiar kind of chap, pretty reticent about his private affairs. But subconsciously, the moment Mollie spoke of her sister, the solicitor's mind connected the two disappearances. At first blush, the connection seemed incredible. "Old Ronnie" was "as straight as they make 'em"; and "H. B.'s wife a regular Puritan." All the same, James Wilberforce--just to reassure himself--would have liked to ask a question or two, to take Mollie's summary of evidence. He wanted, for instance, to ask her if she knew her sister's address. Something restrained him from asking the question; but while he was taking tea his brain suddenly remembered a little twist of Ronnie's mouth when Julia Cavendish had mentioned Aliette's name during his lunch at Bruton Street. Scarcely noticed at the time, that remembered twist of the clean-shaven lips called up other memories; Ronald and Aliette at Key Hatch, playing patters at Queen's, shaking hands in Hyde Park. "But it's absurd," thought the big red solicitor, "absurd! I'd lay twenty to one against it. A hundred to one!" And, looking at Mollie across the tea-table, he forgot her sister. That afternoon the girl seemed more than ever desirable, just the sort of wife he was looking for. He liked the way she bobbed her dark hair, the cotton frock she was wearing, her strong white hands and arms; he liked being alone with her in this little room with its fumed oak furniture, its red wall-paper, its general air of coziness. He would have liked, very much, to kiss that full red mouth. But more than anything else, he liked this new shyness, this very hopeful shyness, which had replaced her old self-confidence. "What's the matter with you this afternoon, Mollie?" he chaffed her. "Got the hump about anything?" "No. I'm a bit tired; that's all." "Nothing worrying you?" "Nothing much." And again--vaguely--the solicitor in Wilberforce grew nervous. "Damn it all," he thought, "supposing my suspicions _are_ right. Suppose those two have gone off together. It's fifty to one against, but still----" The instinct to gamble on that fifty-to-one chance (it had been a hundred to one half an hour since), to propose and have done with it, came to him. But his caution subdued the instinct. The world, his world, was a pretty censorious place; and if one's father were almost a cert. for his baronetcy, if one were junior partner in a firm so entirely _sans reproche_ with the king's proctor as Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright--well, one just couldn't afford to take even thousand-to-one gambles on one's future wife's social position. The entrance of Betty, a thin golden-haired grass-widow, very much _à la mode_ from her trim feet to her modulated voice, tided over the awkward interview. That night, however, Mollie Fullerford--least sentimental of the modern young--cried herself to sleep. 3 Tears are not fashionable in Pump Court; but that melancholy individual, Benjamin Bunce, very nearly followed Mollie Fullerford's example, when "young Mr. Wilberforce"--anxious only to allay his suspicions--called at Ronnie's chambers next morning. "I'm sure _I_ don't know what to do, sir," wailed Benjamin. "Here's a couple of good briefs come in; and my instructions is not to send anything on to him. No, sir, I'm afraid I can't give you his address. I'm not allowed to give any one his address--except Mr. David Patterson. And that only if Mr. David Patterson asks me for it." "David Patterson!" exclaimed the solicitor. "Yes, sir. Mr. Brunton's--Mr. Hector Brunton's--clerk." "Good God!" said a young man whose ruddy complexion had gone suddenly white. "Good God!" And he walked out of the door, as Benjamin subsequently described it, "as though he'd been lifting the elbow ever since breakfast." 4 James Wilberforce did not gossip; nevertheless, within a week of the flight for paradise, rumor--the amazing omniscient rumor of London--began to weave, spider-like, her intangible filaments. As yet, rumor was unconfirmed: only a vague web of talk, spun from boudoir to drawing-room, from drawing-room to club, from club to Fleet Street, from Fleet Street to the Griffin. And in the center of the web, watching it a-weave, sat Aliette's husband. More than once, friends, those maddeningly tactful friends of the successful, touched on rumor; but none of them, not even Hector's father, succeeded in extracting a syllable. "My wife," said Hector Brunton, K.C, to his friends, "has not been feeling very well lately. I've sent her out of town for a bit of a holiday." At first the mere mention of Aliette's name enraged him; aroused in him a cruelty so melodramatic, so virulent that, for a full three days, he went in fear of becoming a murderer. He knew that he could find "the guilty pair" easily enough: Cavendish's clerk--Aliette's brief note told him--would give his solicitors their address. But even without Cavendish's clerk it would be simple to trace them. You couldn't lug a twelve-stone dog round the London railway termini without attracting the attention of at least half a hundred involuntary private detectives! Somehow (comedy and tragedy blend strangely in the heart of a man!) the idea of Ponto's accompanying his wife's elopement seemed in Brunton's eyes the culminating insult, a last intolerable outrage on the domestic decencies. He, Hector, had given Aliette that dog; and, though he hated the beast himself, he grudged it to Cavendish. To his enraged mind, the dog turned symbol of his betrayal. He had been betrayed by a dishonest woman. If Aliette had possessed any sense of honesty, she would have left Ponto behind: as she had left all his other gifts--the pearl necklace, the jeweled wrist-watch, the gray ostrich-feather fan. Then, hot on the heels of rage, came remorse--remorse, not for his cruelty, not for his infidelities, but only for the crass stupidity with which he believed himself to have handled the situation. He might have known the woman better than to attempt bluff. He ought to have pleaded with her. Or locked her in her bedroom. On no account ought he to have gone down to the courts next morning. Why hadn't he telephoned Mollie to return that very night? Why hadn't he wired to Clyst Fullerford for Aliette's mother? Self-pity succeeded. He pictured himself the injured husband; and, his heart softening towards Aliette, vowed "that seducer Cavendish should suffer." But Cavendish's sufferings did not suffice his imagination. Why should Cavendish alone suffer? Why should either the woman or the man get off scotfree? Why shouldn't both of them be made to suffer--damnably--as damnably as he himself was suffering? For, surely as love made paradise of Chilworth Cove, so surely did lust fashion hell at Lancaster Gate. From this hell in which--as Brunton imagined--the loss of a woman, and not the loss of his own self-esteem furnished the flame, Brunton's only escape was work; and into work he flung himself, as a scalded child into cold water, only to find the agony redoubled on emergence. For though his work--eight, ten, and sometimes sixteen hours a day of the tensest mental concentration--did momentarily banish introspection; always, his work concluded, came the Furies. In the night, they came--like evil old women--lashing him, sleepless, from room to room of that huge silent house, mocking him, mocking him. "Only wait," mocked the Furies. "She'll come back. Perhaps she's on her way home at this very moment. She'll soon tire of Cavendish--of Cavendish." Brunton tried to scream back at them (he knew, even before they showed him his face in the mirror of his dressing-room, that the scream could not pass his lips), "I wouldn't have her back. I wouldn't, I tell you--I wouldn't. She's a loose woman. An adulteress." "Oh, yes, you would," answered the Furies. "Oh, yes, you would. If she came into this house now--if she rang the front door-bell--listen! listen hard! didn't you hear a bell, Brunton?--if she offered herself to you, you'd take her. It's three years, Brunton. Three years since you went into that room. Think of her, Brunton. Think of her--her hair unbound--her arms open to receive--Cavendish!" And by day, when the evil old women slept, men mocked at him--voicelessly. All men--so it seemed to him--knew his shame. All men! Lennard and the chauffeur, so smooth-faced, so efficient, grinning behind smug hands: the acquaintances at his clubs: his co-barristers, lunching either side of him at Middle Temple Hall: his subservient clerk: his respectful clients--all these knew him for the deserted bull, for the male incapable of authority, for the public cuckold. Even the impassive pseudo-friendly judges who gave him his verdicts were wise to his cuckoldry. Curiously enough, in all that month of June, Brunton never lost a case. Possible defeats, probable compromises, doubtful prosecution, or still more doubtful defense--every legal battle he fought ended in sweeping victory. Treasury briefs, consultations, and demands for his "opinion" avalanched on his chambers in King's Bench Walk. Fleet Street echoed and reëchoed his name; till it appeared as though the herd, the damned