The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

all of Ronnie; of Ronnie, solitary from Monday night to Friday in the ridiculous flat where Caroline Staley still tended his sparse requirements; of Ronnie, very loving, very confident of ultimate success. Latterly more than one important case--cases that brought publicity rather than fees--had been put in Ronnie's way; and Julia, reading his name in the papers, would gloat a little, seeing him already famous. With her son, too, whenever he visited them, Julia had grown curiously inquisitive, cross-examining him by the hour together about the work he had done during the week, about the intricacies of the law, about various prominent members of his profession. But when he grew inquisitive about her work, Ronnie's mother always pleaded tiredness. "I'm only playing at things," she used to say. "Don't worry me to tell you about my scribbling." 3 The love of a man for a woman, and of a woman for her mate are very blind, very selfish, when compared with the love of a mother for her son. Every week, as June flamed into July, as her fears for Julia subsided, as the fret of London dwindled into memory and the country wove its soothing spells more and more surely about her consciousness; every week-end when she drove to welcome her lover at the little wayside station which served Daffadillies, Aliette grew more and more radiant, more and more akin to the woman of a year ago, the woman whose kisses had made paradise of Chilworth Cove. Here, under the ramparting downs, even as then by the creaming beaches, no harsh breeze from the outer world blew cold to wither the crimson flowers of their lonely happiness. Even as at Chilworth, no strangers came nigh them. Friends, acquaintances, her chagrined family--Julia banned them all. The rare visitors from neighboring places had to content their curiosity with leaving cards. The press, satisfied of convalescence, left them undisturbed. Miraculously the telephone had ceased to ring. So while in the high rooms and on the smooth lawns of Daffadillies Julia worked undistracted, glad that her loved ones, all unknowing what they did, should make high holiday, Ronnie and Aliette, careless of Hector, careless of scandal, careless of ostracism, played man and wife: until, since no word, no thought, no living creature reminded them of reality, their play grew truth and they forgot. In this, their second honeymoon-time, their second oasis of make-believe in the desert of unmarried life, Daffadillies became very "Joyous Gard," love's castle whence they rode out together--every week-end--on hired nags--into fairyland. Southward to the downs or eastward into the weald they rode; and wonderful it was once again to feel even hired horseflesh under them, to recapture for ecstatic moments on swift scurries across sheep-bitten turf the mad inexplicable bliss of their first meeting long and long ago in the hunting-field. "Man, if only hounds ran in summertime," Aliette would laugh, and crack a playful whip at Ponto lolloping, stern high, beside them. For if the man and the woman were happy, the huge hound was in his seventh heaven. The great house suited him. His harlequin shape might have been bred to match the gleam and shadows of those stone terraces where--coat silken from the chamois-leather, slitty eyes somnolent yet watchful--he basked in sunshine or bayed the moon till Aliette, fearful for the invalid's comfort, drove him to the stables. In "Joyous Gard" even Dennis and Etta were forgotten. How could Aliette desire dream-children or any children so long as her present happiness endured? To feel that Ronnie still cared, that the mere touch of her hand could still kindle in him the flames of their early passion; to realize herself responsible for his mother's comfort; to know that at last she was being of real service to both of them--these things sufficed the woman. But the man, subconsciously, still yearned for material success, for the prizes of his profession, for the fame and the emoluments of it. At the woman's touch not only passion but ambition kindled him. If only once, just once, he could meet and defeat, snatch a forensic victory from the "hanging prosecutor." 4 Once again, as July sped, Julia Cavendish stumbled in her race with death. The sustained effort of the past weeks had exhausted her vitality. Her brain wearied of its weapon-forging; and for a week she stayed it from the anvil. But her brain, once released from its secret task, felt the impulse--as is the habit of creative brains--to burden itself with other tasks. The imaginative power, no longer under definite control, grew fearful, painting devils on every wall. She summoned Sir Heron Baynet from London, questioned and cross-questioned him about her disease. "You're a mind-specialist, _inter alia_?" was one of her questions. "Tell me, do you believe that a healthy mind can triumph over an unhealthy body?" "It depends on the quality of the mind," Sir Heron humored her. "In your own case, I should say that the sheer will to be cured has done more than all my drugs. But don't overdo the work." That--since all she now lived for was to bring her work to its conclusion--frightened her but the more. Torn between the desire for work and the fear lest, overworking, she should too soon pay the inevitable penalty, she drove her brain once more to the anvil--hammering, hammering, hammering at her sword of the written word till even Mrs. Sanderson dared to protest with her. "Your business is to type, not to argue," said Julia grimly; and once again, openly this time, she began to work o' nights--so that it was a novelist nearer than she had ever been to a nervous breakdown who said to her "daughter-in-law" one afternoon as they took their tea in the book-shelved morning-room overlooking the rain-dripped magnificence of the herbaceous borders: "I wonder if I ought to have my family down. They'll be a frightful nuisance, and I sha'n't be able to scribble while they're here. All the same, one has one's duties----" "I think your first duty is to get quite well," smiled the "daughter-in-law.'' "Perhaps you're right, child." Nervously Julia's tired mind broached another of its secret anxieties. "And _your_ family? Don't you ever feel the need of them?" "Mollie wrote last week," answered Aliette, burking the main question. "Yes, but your father, your mother, that other sister of yours? Don't you ever wish that they'd see reason; that they knew the exact truth; that somebody could tell them the inside story of your married life?" The questions came abruptly from the shawled figure in the easy chair. "Sometimes. Not that the truth would influence mother. Mother was a Roman Catholic, you know, before she married." "Ah! I'd nearly forgotten that. It's important, very important, because----" Julia, as though she had said too much, checked herself, leaving the other rather mystified. "Still," she went on, "your mother isn't a Roman Catholic now. She'd forgive you if there were a divorce, if you married my son?" "Yes. I suppose so." The younger woman brushed away the topic. "But mother and I never cared for one another as you and Ronnie care. Mollie and I were the pals in our family." "Quite so." A sudden plan formulated itself in Julia's troubled brain. "It must be lonely for you down here," she said after a pause. "Wouldn't you like to have your sister Mollie to stay for a week?" "But wouldn't she be a nuisance?" "No. I like having young people about me, and besides, I've a reason----" Again, as though fearful of betraying herself, Julia checked speech. But the next day and the next, work finished, her mind reverted to its plan. "We might invite young Wilberforce, too," she suggested when Ronnie came down on the Saturday. "That would make you four for tennis." "And two for match-making," retorted Ronnie, entirely unsuspicious of his mother's real motive. CHAPTER XXVII 1 Jimmy's two-seater was suffering from one of its usual breakdowns. That red-haired young man, instructing his porter to put his bag into a first-class smoker, had no idea of the coil woven about his destiny. Ronnie he had not seen for some weeks; Julia's letter to his firm requesting that "Mr. Wilberforce, Jr., should, if possible, come down and see me" conveyed an invitation to stay the Friday night, but no hint of Mollie's presence at Daffadillies. Nevertheless, as he watched Victoria Station slide past the lowered windows, the solicitor's thoughts visualized a girl whose letters from Clyst Fullerford showed all too plainly that she meant to insist, despite her love for him, on Aliette's divorce preceding her own marriage. Jimmy had written that girl only a week since, begging her--"for the absolutely last time of asking"--to be reasonable. But the veiled threat brought only the inevitable reply, "You mustn't ask me that. It wouldn't be fair to Alie." He had apologized for his veiled threat; but the reply to it still rankled. "Really," thought the junior partner in Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright, "it's getting a bit too thick. I've told her over and over again that I don't care _what_ her sister does. As far as I am concerned, she can go on living with Cavendish till the cows come home. But when it comes to that dear little idiot insisting that I should arrange my prospective sister-in-law's divorce before my own marriage--well, it's enough to try the temper of the lord chief!" Though temperamentally incapable of a grand passion, the solicitor had long ceased to regard matrimony, in his own particular and individual case, as an unsentimental contract. He wanted the girl; and "Dash it all," he decided, "this thing's got to stop. If necessary, I'll have to run down to Devonshire. I can't wait much longer. She's asking too much of a chap. _I_ can't settle this affair of her sister's. Nobody _can_ settle it except H. B. And H. B.'s as obstinate as a mule. Bit of a cad is H. B. Clever devil, though; I wish I had his income." Ruminating thus, James Wilberforce made Horsham Junction; changed trains; and arrived, still ruminating, at West Water. "Here, you," he called to the solitary porter, "is there a conveyance of any sort from Daffadillies?" "Yes, sir. There's a motor; and two ladies, sir." For a moment, Jimmy's eyes refused to recognize the two lone figures by the ticket-collector's gate of the little wayside platform: Aliette in a dove-gray coat and skirt, floppy straw shading her eyes; and Mollie, hatless, gloveless, almost too obviously unperturbed at his approach. Then, conquering surprise, he took off his hat; shook hands; and was whisked into the tonneau of a dusty car before he could collect his wits. "Astonished, Jimmy?" smiled the girl, still outwardly unperturbed, as Aliette, hardly restraining a sly chuckle of amusement, climbed up beside the driver. "I certainly didn't expect----" "To find me here." Imperturbability gave place to diffidence. "I didn't know _you_ were coming down till an hour ago. Perhaps, if I had known, I shouldn't have come." "That's a jolly remark to one's fiancé." "I'm not your fiancée." They were within two miles of Daffadillies before Jimmy ventured his next remark. "Then you haven't changed your mind, dear?" "Certainly not. And, Jimmy--please behave yourself." The man--his slight caress eluded--fell into a sulky silence. "Devilish awkward position," he decided--thought of his father's baronetcy, and of the social responsibilities entailed on a family solicitor, weighing heavily on his Philistine mind--"women _are_ the devil!" He felt that he