The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton
Paul Flower, busy rewriting some of his earlier books for American
admirers and utterly unable to discuss anything else, almost monopolized
the once-crowded drawing-room. Paul, engrossed with pre-war literature,
became in those days Julia's best refuge from post-war life. He
succeeded--sometimes for hours together--in stimulating her creative
imagination.
And since, to a literary craftswoman, the creative imagination is only
as the first nip to a confirmed toper, Paul Flower soon succeeded in
more than this--in arousing the actual creative instinct: so that the
creative instinct awoke and demanded work.
Gradually Julia grew hungry for the pen, for the long and lonely hours
when the creative mind is as God, fashioning puppets for His pleasure.
But always, when Paul Flower had left her, her imagination switched back
from literature to life.
"The man Brunton," said imagination, "is _not_ beaten. He'll bring no
action. He is working, working secretly, to ruin your boy's career."
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And indeed, during those few days which preceded the close of the autumn
sessions, it did not require his mother's imagination to perceive that
some curious and sinister influence must be at work against Ronald
Cavendish in the quiet quadrangles and the gray-pinnacled courts either
side the Griffin.
From the unwigged Mr. Justice Mallory, sipping the port of midday
adjournment in his private room behind King's Bench Seven, to
melancholious Benjamin Bunce, perusing his "Law Times" at Groom's
coffee-shop in Fleet Street, the whole "legal world" was aware that "H.
B. meant to make trouble." Alike in Middle and in Inner Temple halls, in
robing-rooms, in chambers, in corridors, and in offices, wheresoever and
whensoever barristers or solicitors foregathered to talk "shop," one
heard the buzz of dignified curiosity, rumors of instant citation, of
citation delayed.
Meanwhile Ronnie, growing less and less inclined to intimacy with his
fellow-lawyers as he grew more and more conscious of their interest in
him, visited Pump Court with a regularity which held more of bravado
than of necessity. The flow of his briefs, never broad, had dwindled to
the tiniest trickle. Barring the work he still did for Wilberforce,
Wilberforce & Cartwright, he foresaw almost complete idleness at the
Hilary sessions.
The foresight, financially, frightened him. Never a spendthrift, his own
needs, small though they were, had to be met. His savings and the Jermyn
Street rent, paid six months in advance, were almost exhausted. The idea
of borrowing from his mother did not appeal; and to let Aliette bear her
part in the "family" expenses was unthinkable.
But even Ronnie failed to realize the full extent of his financial
shipwreck until that afternoon just before Christmas when James
Wilberforce, preannounced by telephone, strode into the duck's-egg-green
paneled chambers, and, having made certain that they could not be
overheard, plumped his long bulk into the dilapidated armchair with a
diffident, "Old chap, I've come on a devilish unpleasant mission."
The barrister did not answer; and after a constrained pause the
solicitor went on, picking each word as though fearful of its giving
offense: "Pater would have come and seen you himself. But he thought,
you and me being pals, that perhaps I'd better be the one. You see,
being your mother's executor, and, so to speak, a friend of the family,
pater's always tried to do everything he could for you----"
"You needn't say any more," interrupted Ronnie. "I quite understand.
You've come to tell me I'm not to expect any further briefs from
Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright."
"Hardly that," prevaricated Jimmy. "But the fact is--you know how I hate
beating about the bush--pater's afraid of offending Brunton. We've got
the big Furlmere divorce case coming on fairly soon. 'Bout the end of
January, I expect. We're pretty high up on the list. Furlmere insisted
on H. B. leading for us. We sent round the brief to him in the usual
way, and of course he had to accept it. But when he took our retainer,
his clerk, that fellow Patterson, hinted--mind you, he only hinted--that
if there were any question of 'a certain gentleman' acting as junior to
him, 'Mr. Brunton' would not appear in court when the case came on."
"But surely you had no idea----"
"Of briefing you as junior? Of course not. I shouldn't be such an
incredible ass. Still, straws show which way the wind blows. And we
simply can't afford to quarrel with H. B. Not till the Furlmere case is
over, anyway."
The friends looked at each other for one silent minute. Outside, a thin
rain had begun to patter on the flagstones. Within the room darkled.
Ronnie clicked on the table-lamp, and began to scrawl with vagrant
pencil on the blotting-paper.
"I'm not quarreling with your position, Jimmy," he said at last. "Tell
your pater I'd do the same if I were he."
Jimmy's voice softened. "Old man, I don't want to interfere. But I do
wish you'd arrange for some mutual friend to see Brunton. Take it from
me, he's going on playing dog-in-the-manger. And he can do you a hell of
a lot of harm."
"Let him!" Ronnie's jaw set. "If this is going to be a fight between us,
it may as well be a fight to a finish. I don't propose asking favors,
even by proxy. If he thinks he's going to succeed in driving me out of
the bar----"
"No one's suggested your leaving the bar. In fact"--Jimmy began to
stammer, as a man making offer of a gift which is almost certain to be
refused--"another thing I came round to see you about was----"
The sentence refused to complete itself: and Jimmy started a new one.
"As you know, our partners, the Cartwrights, do quite a lot of work that
never comes into the High Court at all; criminal stuff, county courts,
and all that sort of thing. If you'd care to accept their briefs----"
Again the sentence refused to complete itself; again the two friends
looked at one another in silence. Then the barrister said:
"A bit of a come-down, isn't it? Almost as bad as 'taking soup.'"
This allusion to the practice of young and briefless barristers, who sit
all day long in the criminal courts waiting their chance to defend any
prisoners that may be allotted to them, made Ronnie's friend squirm.
"Hang it all, it isn't as bad as that. John Cartwright's quite a good
sort. And a big criminal case brings other work. Anyway, think it over,
and let me know." Jimmy rose to go. "And by the way, will you give my
regards to the little lady? Tell her how sorry I am about the whole
thing and that I'm sure it'll all come out right in the long run."
At the door, James Wilberforce turned; and, coming back, extended a
hand. "Buck up, old boy," he mumbled rather shamefacedly.
Left alone, Ronnie sat for a long while, scrawling on the blotting-pad.
"After all," he thought, "it was pretty decent of Jimmy to send Alie
that message. I wonder why he did it. I wonder whether he's still keen
on Mollie. Jolly rough luck on him if he is. Curse that fellow Brunton!
He's stirred up a pretty kettle of fish."
And from that he fell to evil-tempered rumination--in which his
newly-aroused ambition for legal success played no small rôle--finally
deciding, _faute de mieux_, to accept the work offered.
CHAPTER XIX
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Every year, toward the end of November, Betty Masterman had been
accustomed to receive an invitation to spend Christmas at Clyst
Fullerford. This year, to her surprise, she received a long,
carefully-worded letter in Mollie's childish handwriting: a letter which
contained the unusual suggestion that Mollie should spend Christmas with
her. "My dear," wrote the girl, "I simply daren't ask you down here.
It's too utterly dull for words."
Betty, nothing if not extravagant, wired back an immediate answer; and
met her friend, two days before Christmas eve, in the holiday bustle at
Waterloo station.
"Mollie," greeted the grass-widow, "you look like a ghost. What on
earth's happened to you since the summer?"
But it was not until Betty's "daily woman" had completed her hasty
washing up of the dinner things, and they sat alone in front of the
gas-fire in the little red-papered sitting-room, that Mollie answered
the question.
"Betty dear," she said, puffing a vague cigarette. "I'm feeling too
rotten for words. Nothing seems to go right with me these days."
Betty's experienced eyes sparkled with laughter. "Give sorrow words,"
she quoted chaffingly; and then, a note of seriousness in her voice,
"What's the trouble? The sister or the Wilberforce man?"
"You've heard something then?"
"Only gossip." The other trod carefully. "But of course I'm not quite a
fool. I thought when you came rushing round here from Lancaster Gate
that something must have gone pretty wrong."
"Everything's gone wrong." Mollie repeated the inevitable slogan, of
post-war youth, "Everything. You remember Ronald Cavendish----"
"I've met him once or twice."
"Well, Alie's run away from Hector----"
"And run away to Cavendish."
"You did know then?"
"My dear, everybody knows." Betty considered the position. "Still,
that's their affair, isn't it? Why should _you_ worry about it? There'll
be a divorce, I suppose, and after that they'll get married."
"That's just the trouble."
"How do you mean?"
"Apparently, Hector's refused to divorce Alie."
"Oh!"
The pair inspected one another across the mellow firelight. After a long
pause, the elder said:
"You're not much of a pal, Mollie. You've only told me half the story."
Mollie Fullerford blushed. Her reticent virginity revolted from the idea
of confessing herself, to Betty, in love with James Wilberforce. Yet
that she _was_ in love with the man, most uncomfortably in love with
him, Mollie knew. Despite all her efforts to maintain the pose of the
modern young, the pose of cold-blooded mate-selection, she had failed as
lamentably as most others of her kind to control nature. Nature and the
modern creed refused to be reconciled. She realized now that she
wanted--exclusively--James. She wanted to belong to him; she wanted him
to belong to her; she wanted him--and no other--to father her children.
That last thought rekindled Mollie's blushes. Succeed as she might in
curbing her tongue, she could not curb her feelings. She fell to
wondering if Jimmy _would_ ask her to marry him, to speculating whether,
even if their friendship so abruptly broken off should be renewed (as
she had subconsciously hoped it would be renewed when she invited
herself to London), whether, even if Jimmy did ask her to marry him, she
would be capable of sacrificing Aliette. Would she not be forced to make
conditions--conditions that no man in Jimmy's position could possibly
accept? Would she not be forced to say: "If I marry you, you'll have to
let me receive my sister and my sister's lover"?
"How about the Wilberforce man?" Betty's words interrupted reverie.
"Does he know you're in town?"
"Yes," admitted Mollie.
"You still write to each other then?"
"Only occasionally."
"My dear, how exciting! When did you hear from him last?"
But at that Aliette's sister broke off the conversation with a wry
"Betty, I simply won't be cross-examined."
"You needn't get ratty, dear thing," retorted the grass-widow. "_I_
don't want to pry into your secrets. But"--she rustled up from her
chair, and made a movement to begin undressing--"if he _should_ write
that he's coming to see you, for goodness' sake try and make yourself
look a little less of a 'patient Griselda.' What about face-massage? I
know a man in Sloane Street who's simply wonderful!"
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