The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

"Then why don't you get some mutual friend to see him? That's the usual thing." Ronnie rose from the deep saddle-bag chair. His instinct was all for a row. Unreasonably, with the divine unreason of a lover, he had expected sympathy; instead he had met a wall, a wall of misunderstanding between himself and his best friend. "Damn Jimmy," he thought. "Jimmy's common sense ought to tell him that this isn't the usual thing." And suddenly Aliette's lover realized that Jimmy's common sense had told him nothing, that Jimmy's very common sense prevented him from understanding the peculiar relationship between Aliette and her legal owner. He wanted to tell Jimmy the truth about that relationship; but his training, the code of decent reticence, every tradition of public schooldom restrained him. Decency suggested that neither then to James Wilberforce, nor eventually in court, could he make public the matrimonial position between Aliette and Hector. "Tongue-tied!" he thought. "Even if I were an orator, in _her_ defense I should always be tongue-tied." Nevertheless, his anger relented. "Except yourself, Jimmy," he went on, "there's no mutual friend who could act for us; and I can't ask you to act because of your firm's relations with him. Therefore, I'm going to do the job myself." There was almost admiration in the other's "You always were a plucky devil." "Plucky! I don't see anything plucky in it." "Supposing H. B. cuts up rough?" "Why should he? He's in the wrong, and he knows it." "All the more reason." Wilberforce, too, rose. Watching his friend carefully, he saw that their conversation had aroused him to fighting-pitch; and Ronnie at fighting-pitch--as Jimmy remembered from their Oxford days--was capable of being a rather desperate person. "Don't _you_ cut up rough, old man," he continued. "There'll be quite enough trouble without a police-court case into the bargain." "You needn't be afraid, Jimmy." Ronnie controlled himself. "I'll manage to keep my temper with the fellow. By the way, you don't feel there's any chance of his refusing to file his petition, do you?" "Hardly. H. B. isn't a religious chap, or anything of that sort. He might go for damages, of course." "We could settle that before we went into court." They simmered down; sat down; relit cigars; and began to discuss the legal aspect of the case which each felt sure that Brunton must eventually bring; finally deciding that Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright could not, under the special circumstances, act for either party. "J. J. W. would be your best man," said James. So interested did they become in the professional issue that it was nearly midnight before Ronnie said, "By the way, I'd almost forgotten to ask you for Mollie Fullerford's address"; and Wilberforce, "Do you really think it's advisable for you to go and see her?" "Advisable! How do you mean?" The two friends faced one another in silence, each constrained by the peculiar diffidence of their class, the diffidence which makes the discussion of women, and especially of their own women, so terribly difficult to decent Englishmen. At last Wilberforce said: "You see, old chap, if this case comes on, I'm afraid it will be a big shock to her. H. B. might call her as a witness. Pretty rough on a girl, being dragged into"--he hesitated--"this sort of thing." "Yes, rotten. We'll have to keep her name out." Ronnie, too, hesitated. "She hasn't said anything to you, I suppose?" "No, but I feel she knows." The red man nearly blushed. "I say, you'll be decent about breaking things, won't you? You'll let her down lightly. Mollie's jolly fond of her sister, and--er--you mustn't mind my saying it--her sister hasn't behaved over-well in this business--leaving her all by herself at Brunton's." "My fault, Jimmy. It was I who persuaded Aliette not to wait. But I promise you, I'll see that Brunton keeps Mollie Fullerford's name out of the affair. "By the way," added Ronnie casually, "you remember something you said to me just before we went into court in the Ellerson case?" A pause. "Does that still hold good? What I mean is this. I should never forgive myself if I thought that this--this trouble of mine----" "I'm not that sort of cad," retorted James Wilberforce hotly. But all the same, walking home through the night, he realized once more--with revolting clarity--himself. Which self-knowledge is no bad discipline for the James Wilberforces of this world! 3 Ronnie, too, walked home from the Lustrum. The interview with Wilberforce had clarified his mind; he foresaw now exactly how his world would regard the case. The foreknowledge hardened his determination to see Brunton. He _must_ see Brunton. Brunton _must_ be brought to immediate action. Otherwise---- Resolutely the man strove to put that "otherwise" away from him. But the "otherwise" kept on intruding. Suppose Aliette's legal owner refused to take any action at all? Carrington had waited five years. And that night, his first bereft of her, alone and sleepless at Jermyn Street, Aliette's lover began to conceive a hatred of Aliette's legal owner. The Wixton imagination, always most active in darkness, showed him pictures of Brunton, of the sandy hair, the cold gray eyes, the feet in their big boots. Tossing sleepless on his tumbled pillows, imagination bade him remember that once--long ago though it must have been--Brunton had actually---- Horrors, physical horrors, capered and sarabanded before his eyes, rousing the blood-lust in him--the old blood-lust experienced four years since. He remembered, just as sleep overtook him, the face of a Turk he had killed. His squadron was charging. Behind him, he heard the galloping stamp of shod hoofs on desert, the creak of saddlery, the jingle of accoutrements, the curses of his men; in front of him rose a face, the face of the Turk, bearded above dirty linen. The face was afraid; he could see the face twitch as he fired. Only as he fired, the face changed--became the face of Hector Brunton. 4 "I'm afraid you didn't sleep very well last night, sir," said Moses Moffatt, serving the usual faultless rashers in Ronnie's beige-papered sitting-room. "What makes you say that?" Ronnie, clear-eyed after his morning tub, looked across the breakfast-table. "Well, sir," Moses Moffatt smiled deprecatingly, "if you don't mind my mentioning it, the missus and me heard you calling out in your sleep." "Is that so? I'm sorry if I disturbed you." Ronnie, remembering his dream only very vaguely, ate his breakfast; skimmed through the "Morning Post"; took his top-hat, and sauntered downstairs into Jermyn Street. It had not yet struck ten. Fishmongers were still swilling down their marbles. The usual early morning crowd had emerged into sunshine from the Piccadilly Tube. Ronnie swung past them down the Haymarket. The asphalt of London, the cars, the buses, and the taxicabs seemed more than ever alien after the sea and the solitude of Chilworth Cove. He felt like a stranger in a strange, hostile city. Only as he emerged through Northumberland Avenue upon the Embankment did London seem home again; only as he turned leftward from the river into the Temple did there come over him the full realization of the issue at stake. In his chambers at Pump Court nothing had altered. Tho other three barristers were, as usual, away; Benjamin Bunce, as usual, pottering among the foolscaps. The little clerk's watery eyes lit with curiosity at sight of the returning wanderer. "There were papers," hinted Benjamin, "there was correspondence." Benjamin's employer glanced at the taped documents on the table, at the unopened letters. "They can wait," he said. "Has Mr. Brunton's clerk inquired for my address?" "No, sir." "You're sure?" "Quite sure, sir." "Very good. I'll ring when I want you." The clerk--a thousand unanswered questions seething in his soul--withdrew. Ronnie hung his hat behind the door, and began striding up and down the book-shelved room. Here, he remembered, he had first tried to reason out his feelings for Aliette. Here, just before the Ellerson case, he had almost decided it his duty to give her up. And now, now--in fact if not in law--Aliette was actually his. For a little while he dreamed of her, but soon the professional atmosphere of Pump Court infected him; and he began to see their case impersonally--as a "case." In law, unless Brunton acted, they had no remedy. His whole career, Aliette's whole happiness, their whole future lives depended on the clemency of Aliette's legal owner. Neither the old divorce-laws nor the proposed divorce-reforms could help them. Whatever wrongs Aliette might have suffered at her husband's hands in the past, she had forfeited those rights by running away; and only her husband could set her free. Would Brunton set her free? That was the whole issue. Best face it out of hand! Ronnie pressed the bell on his desk, and the clerk popped through the door. "Bunce, I want you to go over to Mr. Brunton's chambers. Ask Mr. Brunton's clerk if he can see me before he goes into court. You can say that it is on a private matter, and rather important." Bunce--Ms curiosity satisfied--sidled out. Waiting for Brunton's decision, Cavendish knew both curiosity and fear. Suppose Brunton refused even to discuss the matter? And Brunton did refuse. The message Benjamin brought back was perfectly definite, perfectly courteous. He, Benjamin, had seen Mr. Brunton's clerk, David Patterson, and Mr. Brunton had sent word by Mr. Patterson to say that he was very sorry not to be able to see Mr. Cavendish, but that he was extremely busy and would be busy all day. "Funk!" thought Ronnie; and remembered suddenly how Brunton had avoided the war. Brunton's refusal to see him was sheer cowardice. Rage kindled in his mind. For the flash of a second, he saw red. He _would_ see Brunton. Damn it all, he _would_ see him. How dared Brunton shelter behind a clerk! But it would be no use trying to force his way into Brunton's chambers. Brunton would be in court. Very well, then, he would wait for him; wait till the court adjourned; wait, if necessary, all day. "Won't you look through your letters, sir?" reminded Bunce. Ronnie tried to look through his letters; tried to examine the few briefs which had come in during his absence. But his legal mind refused to concentrate. Between his mind and his correspondence, between his mind and his briefs, rage hung a scarlet and impenetrable curtain. 5 That morning, yet another legal brain refused to concentrate on its immediate business. All through the long hours in the stuffy court-room, Hector Brunton, K.C., was conscious of the Furies. "Cavendish," whispered the Furies, "Cavendish has come back." He tried to dismiss the fellow from his mind, to attack the case in hand. But again and again the witnesses under cross-examination eluded him. Instead of the faces in the witness-box, he saw Cavendish's face--the face of his wife. And when--his cross-examinations concluded--the court adjourned for luncheon, those two faces were still before his eyes, mocking him, mocking him. "God's curse on them," he thought. "God's curse on both of them. I'll not see Cavendish. Let them lie in the bed they made for themselves. Let the adulterer and the adulteress rot together." Angrily Brunton disrobed; angrily he left the law courts and made across Fleet Street toward King's Bench Walk. Even David Patterson, dour, heavy-jowled as the K.C. himself; who followed, brief-bag slung over his shoulder, at a respectful distance; was awed at his employer's obvious fury.