The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

had been trapped; first, into foregathering with Aliette, a situation he had done his best to avoid since the scandal; secondly, into a scene with Mollie; and thirdly, into yet another discussion with that very resolute old lady, Julia Cavendish, about her son's matrimonial troubles. Nevertheless, the drive soothed him; and by the time they made the stone lodge and the eagle-crowned pillars of the great house, the prospect--scene or no scene--of twenty-four hours in Mollie's company outweighed all other considerations. Moreover, it seemed impossible to associate the foursquare magnificence and tree-girt terraces of Daffadillies with any form of scandal! "And how _is_ Mrs. Cavendish?" he remembered to ask Aliette, as they alighted. "Bucking up, one hears." "She's ever so much better. She's in the garden to-day." 2 It is one of the tragedies of a long illness that those who live in daily contact with it fail to perceive the changes wrought in their loved one. James Wilberforce, as he made his way through the long hall and out of the French windows, down the stone steps on to the south lawns, was horrified at the first sight of his client. Only two days since he had read of her, somewhere or other, as "well on her way to recovery." Nearing the shawled figure in the long chair under the cedar-tree, he knew the full inaccuracy of that bulletin. Julia Cavendish had shrunk to a merest vestige of the woman he remembered. The hand she extended to him seemed so frail that he hardly dared clasp it. The gray hair was nearly white; the sunken cheeks hectic; the bloodless lips tremulous. Only in her eyes shone the old dominance. "Ronnie's coming down by the evening train," said the semblance of his old client. "We're wondering if you'll stay the week-end." A servant whom Jimmy remembered to have seen at Bruton Street brought silver tea-things, a table, a cake-stand, and a hot-water-bottle for the invalid's feet. "My daughter-in-law coddles me," she told him, as Aliette arranged the hot-water-bottle on the foot-rest of the chair and retucked an eiderdown round the thin knees. "But I don't grumble. It's so splendid to feel one's getting well again." The pathos of that last remark brought tears very close to Jimmy's eyes. But once Julia had been carried into the house by nurse and Smithers, the young man in the town clothes forgot all about her. He wanted to be alone with Mollie--and the "Brunton woman," confound her, refused to leave them alone. That tea-time, James Wilberforce learned yet another lesson, to wit, the exact meaning of our ancient saw, "one man's meat is another man's poison." To him Aliette, the exquisite Aliette, was a bore, a nuisance, an interloper. He had never pretended to like Mollie's sister. Now positively he loathed her. Had it not been for the old lady's "daughter-in-law"--Daughter-in-law, forsooth. Why, damn it all, the position was a public disgrace! Irritably surveying both sisters, Jimmy speculated why on earth Ronald Cavendish should have jeopardized his career for any one so utterly insipid as Aliette. She _was_ insipid, compared with Mollie. Except for her hair. And that, in the sunlight, was red. A rotten red! (Jimmy, like most red-haired people, could not bear the color in others.) As for the pale complexion and the carefully modulated, rather shy voice, he, personally, found them tiresome. "If only she'd go," he thought; and, at last, making the excuse that it was time for her to meet Ronnie's train, the "Brunton woman," still chuckling, went. "Isn't Alie a dear?" said Alie's sister, following her with her eyes across the lawn. "Isn't Hector a beast?" And again James Wilberforce was troublesomely aware of his own selfishness. "What did you think of Mrs. Cavendish?" went on the girl after a pause. "I've only met her once before. She seems rather--rather thin, don't you think?" "She _is_ rather thin," prevaricated Jimmy. "But you do think she's going to get well, don't you?" "Let's hope so." For both the new-comers had seen, though neither of them could speak it, the truth about Julia; and in the light of that truth, their own troubles seemed petty. They didn't want even to speak of themselves. With their eyes, they said to one another: "Not now. Not here. Not just under her windows." With their lips, till Ronnie and Aliette arrived, they made pretense. "She'll get well," they said, sheering away, by mutual consent, from every personal topic. And this game of make-believe--which only good breeding enabled them to play--endured all through the dinner of which those four partook (Mrs. Sanderson and the hospital-nurse mealed alone) in the paneled room whose heavy gold-framed pictures looked down across vast spaces on the pale oval pool of the candle-lit dining table. But Ronnie, even taking part in the game, seemed distrait, self-absorbed. Dinner finished and the sisters gone, he poured himself a second glass of port; and, extracting a piece of carefully-clipped newsprint from his waistcoat-pocket, handed it across the table. "Tell me," he said, "of whom does this remind you?" James Wilberforce took the proffered paper and scrutinized it carefully before replying: "Well--it's a little like----" "Like Aliette." Ronnie's self-absorption passed in a flash. "My dear chap, it's the very image of her. Look at those eyes, that mouth. I tell you I got the shock of my life when I opened the 'Evening News' on my way down to-night." "Really--and who is the lady? Lucy Towers, eh! Screen-star, I suppose." "Screen-star, you blithering idiot; she's just been arrested for murder." "By Jove!" Jimmy, whose wits had been wool-gathering, skimmed through the paragraph underneath the photo, and handed it back without further comment. His friend's excitement over the vague resemblance to Aliette--for that Ronnie was excited, quite uncontrollably excited, even the love-lorn solicitor could now see--appeared, to say the least of it, peculiar. "Jimmy," went on the barrister, his eyes shining, "I'll swear that woman's no murderess." "You'd better offer to defend her then." "Wouldn't I like the chance! Look here,"--another newspaper-cutting emerged from Ronnie's pocket,--"that's the chap she's alleged to have murdered. Her husband, apparently. A nice-looking blackguard, too. As far as I can make out, there's another person under arrest for complicity. A man----" "_Crime passionel_, eh?" "Possibly." Ronnie folded up both the cuttings and put them carefully back into his pocket. "And from the look of the late Mr. Towers, I can't say they're either of them much to blame." He relapsed into silence; and James Wilberforce realized, in a rare flash of psychological illumination, whither the chance remark had led his excited imagination. "Talking of murder," he said suddenly. "What would happen if I were to put a bullet into H. B.? There's been many a time when I've wanted to. It makes me mad to feel that that man, or any man, has the power to deny a woman her freedom. It's sheer slavery--our marriage system." "What the dickens is the matter with you to-night?" James Wilberforce had risen, and placed a restraining hand on his friend's shoulder. "I'm bothered if I know. Seeing that photograph got on my nerves, I suppose. Funny things--nerves. I never knew what they were till--Hello, what the hell's that?" A bell shrilled loud and long above their heads. "The mater's bell. I hope to Christ there's nothing wrong." Ronnie sprang from his chair, and they waited a moment or so--as those in invalids' houses do wait on sudden summonses. But the bell did not ring again, and after a little while appeared Smithers with the news that "Mrs. Cavendish would be very grateful if Mr. Wilberforce would go up and see her, alone, for a few minutes." 3 "I hope you've finished dinner?" Julia Cavendish lay, like a queen in state, on the smoothed bed. To the eyes of James Wilberforce, puzzling their way here and there about the subdued light of the room, she looked almost herself again. "You didn't mind my sending for you?" "Not in the very least. Isn't that what I came down for?" The solicitor, unpleasantly self-conscious of his own physical bulk, sat down awkwardly beside the weak form on the bed. The invalid dismissed her nurse. She had intended to postpone Wilberforce's interview till the next morning, to work an hour or so. But her mind was in one of its peculiar turmoils. To any other listener, the tremor in her voice alone would have betrayed the importance, to her plans, of the forthcoming talk. "I ought to have sent for your father, I suppose," she began. "Have you brought the will with you?" "Yes. It's in my room. Shall I go and get it?" "No. There's a copy on my desk. Do you mind handing it to me?" Obeying, James Wilberforce asked: "Is there anything you want altered?" "Well--no--not exactly. But tell me, suppose I _did_ want to make certain alterations, would it be necessary for you to draw up an entirely new document, or would this one do?" "If it was only a minor alteration," said Jimmy, quite unconscious of the thought at the back of his client's head, "we could execute a codicil." "A codicil." She played with the word. "That's a kind of postscript, isn't it?" "More or less. But, of course, a codicil has to be properly witnessed." Wilberforce went on to explain the law of last wills and testaments at some length; and the invalid listened carefully. She appeared curiously inquisitive on the subject. and he humored her inquisitiveness till nurse, returning with medicine-glass and bottle, interrupted their conversation. "I'm sure you're tired," said nurse. "I'm sure you ought to let me settle you down for the night." "I sha'n't go to sleep for at least another hour. I've a great deal to discuss." The nurse, realizing the patient in her stubbornest mood, left them alone again; and Julia, apparently satisfied on the subject of her will, began to talk of Ronnie. What did Mr. Wilberforce think of her son's chances at the criminal bar? What hopes were there, in Mr. Wilberforce's opinion, of Brunton's being forced to take action? Would publicity, for instance, the kind of publicity Belfield had used against Carrington, help? "I shouldn't worry about that till you're better." Jimmy strove to be cheerful. "But I do worry about it." "Why? It's only a question of time. H.B.'s bound to come round in the long run." "I doubt that." Dropped lashes veiled the interest in Julia's eyes. "Not without considerable pressure. He's a cruel man; and if he doesn't want to marry again, I'm afraid there's very little hope. That's why----" She grew thoughtful, silent. Then a new idea seemed to cross her mind. "If he doesn't bring his divorce soon, he won't be able to bring one at all, will he?" "That depends." Wilberforce laughed. "Divorce judges don't want to know too much in undefended cases." "That's good." Julia, her mind now more or less at rest about its main problem, lay back among her pillows. So far, apprehensive lest the solicitor should discover her secret, she had gone subtly to work. But there was no subtlety about her next speech: "Mr. Wilberforce, I suppose you know I'm going to die?" The directness of those words dumbed Jimmy. Only after the greatest difficulty could he manage the conventional prevarication: "We all of us have to die some day." "I'm too tired for clichés." The woman on the bed smiled superciliously, whimsically almost. "Death, in my case, is a very near certainty. That's a privileged communication." She smiled again. "You won't tell my son or my daughter-in-law, will you?"