The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

irrevocable mistake." The novelist, rather pleased with the epigram, sat back in her basketwork chair. For the first time since her quarrel with Ronnie, she had regained that peculiar power of mental detachment--of seeing real personalities, her own included, as characters in a book--which is the exclusive property of the literary temperament. "All the same," she went on, "I can't help feeling that a personal interview would be risky. It might only exacerbate the position." "Risky or not," said a determined Ronnie, "it's the only possible thing to be done. Unless H. B. files his petition at once, we shall have to wait the best part of a year before we can get married. And remember, we haven't only ourselves to consider--there's Aliette's family. _They'll_ have to be told sooner or later. Think how much easier it would be if we could tell them that everything was properly arranged." Julia's newly-regained detachment deserted her. Turning to Aliette, she asked nervously: "But don't _your_ parents know? Haven't you written to them?" "Not yet." Beyond the lamplight, the younger woman's face showed scarcely an emotion. "It seemed so useless. You see, I'm not an only child. There'll be no forgiveness--on their side. Mollie may stand by me. But Eva won't. Mother and Andrew will take Eva's advice. They only cared for my brothers. When my brothers were killed, it was just as if everything had gone out of their lives." And she added--pathetically, thought Julia Cavendish, who, loving her own son more than anything in the world, always found difficulty in realizing how frail is the average tie between parents and grown-up daughters: "Mother's rather fond of Eva's children." "Still, we have to consider them," interrupted Aliette's, lover. "We don't want them to hear the news from--the other side. I think you _should_ write to them, Alie. Mollie I'll go and see myself. Jimmy's sure to know her address. I wonder if she and Jimmy are engaged----" "Your friend Wilberforce," interrupted Julia, "may be an excellent solicitor; but he's an extremely selfish young man." "What makes you say that?" asked Aliette; and as Julia did not reply, "Has he spoken to you--about my sister?" "He has." Julia's voice was rather grim. "And is--what we've done--going to make any difference?" "I think not. But if it does," the suspicion of a twinkle gleamed in the blue eyes, "if it does, my dear, your sister will owe you a great debt of gratitude for--running away with my son. That kind of man," definitely, "is no use." "I've been rather worried about Mollie," began Aliette, whose decision not to await her sister's return had been the most difficult of all the decisions she took in those few hours before she bolted from Lancaster Gate. "That letter of mine----" She broke off the sentence, divining nevertheless that her letter--meant as a precise document--must have been incoherent to the last degree; divining how impossible a situation her selfishness must have created for Mollie. "I _am_ selfish," she said to herself. "Utterly selfish! I deserve no consideration. And yet these two consider only me." "Never mind about Mollie." Stubbornly--for now that his mother had joined forces with them it seemed more than ever necessary that they should bring Brunton swiftly to reason--Ronald Cavendish returned to his point. "The question is: When do I go up to town? In my opinion, the sooner the better. Once I _have_ seen H. B., we shall at least know where we stand." "And suppose," faltered Aliette, "suppose he refuses to see you?" "He won't." "Suppose he refuses to do anything?" "You needn't be afraid of that. A man in his position is bound to take action. If he doesn't----" "If he doesn't," broke in Julia, "we must fight him. We three." She rose from the creaky chair; and Aliette, seeing the determination, the courage in those old eyes, felt suddenly ashamed of her own weakness. "Meanwhile, I think I'll go to bed. Your maid promised to wait up for me." Kissing "that woman" good night, Ronnie's mother whispered: "Don't try to overpersuade him. If he feels it is right--he must be allowed to go." 6 Very early next morning, before dawn lightened to palest rose behind the clematis blossoms, the woman who had left her husband, waking with her lover's arms about her, prayed voicelessly to that God whose priests would henceforth bar her from His communion, that Ronnie's love might endure to the end. For now, Aliette was afraid. CHAPTER XV 1 Two days subsequent to his mother's arrival at Chilworth Cove, Ronald Cavendish set out for London. Aliette, masking her anxiety, drove him to the station; and for nearly an hour after the slow train left Chilton Junction he visualized nothing except her pale, exquisite face and the wistful smile in her brown eyes. Looking back, it seemed to him that those eyes had been very close to tears. Thinking of her, imagination roused all the tenderness, all the fighting instinct in him. But gradually, as the lush countryside slid by, Ronnie's mind recovered a little of its legal function; and he began to map out, as carefully as he could, his plan of campaign. The fear lest Brunton should refuse to take any action still hardly troubled him. To one of his public school training, it appeared utterly incredible that a man in Brunton's position, childless and without religious scruples, should refuse to set free a wife who obviously did not care for him, and for whom (equally obviously, as it seemed) he did not himself care. Sheer caddishness of that description was the prerogative of rank outsiders like Carrington. Nevertheless, Ronnie's instinct dictated caution. It would he best, he thought, to see Jimmy immediately on his arrival in London; and to ascertain from Jimmy how far his flight with Aliette had become public knowledge. Possibly, if there had been no open scandal, Brunton might hold his hand till after the long vacation. Scandal, whether at the bar or elsewhere, never did any one any good. And at that, Ronald Cavendish knew apprehension. His brain, hitherto blinded by the grand passion, began to see the ordinary point of view, the point of view he himself might have adopted towards their case a twelvemonth since. "Rather sordid," he would have considered the whole business, "rather hard luck on the husband." And so thinking, he imagined the bare legal tale as it might one day appear in the press. Commonplace enough! Mrs. Smith had left Mr. Smith, and was living in open adultery with Mr. Jones. Mr. Smith asked for a divorce; produced the usual evidence; secured the usual decree. He tried to put apprehension away from him. He said to himself, "As if a little publicity mattered; as if anything mattered except her freedom." All the same, he knew that publicity would matter, that publicity would hurt Aliette and hurt his mother. "Damnable," he thought; "damnable that the law should take so little cognizance of the personal equation!" And London, seen in the hot sunlight of a July afternoon as his taxi crawled over Waterloo Bridge, only intensified the unimportance of the individual. The isolation of Chilworth, the paradise of enchantment which love and Aliette had made for him at Chilworth, seemed a million miles removed from this peopled city. He recognized himself one of the herd again, forced to think as the herd, to act as the herd dictated. Moses Moffatt's face, smiling most confidential of welcomes at the green door in Jermyn Street, typified the herd point of view--the basement point of view--the feeling that, potentially, one was a mere co-respondent. While the man was unpacking for him in the bare ascetic bedroom, Ronnie rang up Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright; and got through to Jimmy. Jimmy on the telephone sounded cold, serious, dignified. Only after some persuasion would he consent to dine at the club. "And by the way," asked Ronnie, "do you happen to know if Mollie Fullerford's in town?" "Why?" "I've got a letter for her." "From her sister?" "Yes." "I'll give you her address this evening," said James Wilberforce, and replaced his receiver. 2 The Lustrum is one of those semi-social, semi-political clubs which combine sound cookery, a cellar beyond reproach, and a chairman of the utmost distinction, with the architectural style of a Turkish bath and the gloom of a family mausoleum. A tape-machine ticks by the glass-doored porter's box in the hall; an enormous gold-framed oil of Mr. Asquith stares down the red marble staircase; English waiters--last of their breed--move in unhurried dignity through the vast dining-room; while "members bringing guests" are subject to rules so complicated that even the honorary secretary--who takes most of the credit for the paid secretary's work when he appears before a somnolent committee--has been known to infringe them. The constraint of this atmosphere weighed so heavily on the friends as to make immediate conversation impossible. Only after a bottle of the Lustrum's pre-war Pommard, a glass apiece of the Lustrum's '68 port, and the third of a cigar consumed over coffee in the stuffy guest-room, did Jimmy Wilberforce manage: "Old chap, I'm afraid this is a devil of a mess. You've seen your mater, I suppose!" "Seen her!" Ronnie smiled--and then, cautiously: "Didn't you know that she was staying with us?" "Us?" Wilberforce repeated the word. "You mean----" "With myself and Aliette." Wilberforce's eyes narrowed. He took the tawny cigar from under his auburn mustache, and scrutinized it a longish while before saying: "Tell me, then: why are you in town?" "Primarily to see H. B. We've waited quite long enough for him to make a move." The matter-of-fact tone annoyed Wilberforce. Despite his resolves not to let the personal issue between himself and Aliette's sister cloud impersonal judgment, that issue had been recurring to his mind all through the dreary bachelor dinner. For six weeks Mollie had been on the defensive with him, unseizable if not unapproachable; for six weeks he had been wavering between the strong desire to "go gently till this damn mess was cleared up," and the fear of what "Society" would think about the match. Therefore, it irritated him that Ronnie should speak about the whole affair as though running away with another man's wife were an every-day occurrence, as though he, Ronnie, were the injured party. "Rather an unwise move, don't you think?" he said. "Unwise! One can't let him go on shilly-shallying like this." "If you've got it into your head that you're going to bully Hector Brunton into giving Mrs. Brunton her freedom," retorted Jimmy, "I should give up the idea"; and he added: "_I_ should have thought your best plan would be to lie doggo. After all, you must remember that he's the aggrieved party." "If you feel that way about it," Ronnie's eyes kindled to anger, "we won't discuss the matter further." At that Wilberforce became the solicitor. "My dear fellow," he began, assuming his father's blandness, "do be reasonable. Don't think I fail to understand your feelings. I know you well enough to realize that you wouldn't have acted as you have acted without imagining yourself justified. Very possibly you are justified. Very possibly there are circumstances--I hold no brief for H. B. All _I_ want to do is to help you and your mother. And so if you come to me for advice, I am bound to tell you exactly what I think. It's for Brunton to move, not you." "He's had plenty of time. And I'm sick of waiting."