The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton
brain was a gutted mechanism, unfunctioning, telling neither success nor
failure. Of all the words his lips had spoken, no memory remained.
And then, sharply, the actual world came back. He saw the faces
distinctly; Heber's face, the faces of the jury. Followed tumult. Men,
men and women, were applauding; applauding him, Ronald Cavendish, who
could remember no word of all the words he had spoken. Had he succeeded?
Surely, he must have succeeded? Mr. Justice Heber was threatening to
have the court cleared; but the men, the men and the women in the well
of the court still applauded. Even Cartwright--"that old stick
Cartwright" was applauding. . . .
At last the tumult quelled; and Ronnie was conscious of a silence, the
silence of abashed English folk. Only one sound--the sound of a woman's
sobs--intruded upon that silence. And Ronnie knew that the woman in the
dock was crying; crying like a broken soul; crying to herself, faintly,
feebly, careless of the judge, careless of the spectators, careless of
the other woman, the woman in the blue prison-uniform, who bent over
her, patting her shoulder, striving to comfort.
Then even that sound ceased; and Ronnie, leaning back exhausted against
the oak, saw that his enemy had risen.
But no words came from Hector Brunton. Speechless, he eyed the jury. The
jury turned from him; turned their heads this way and that in
conference. The jury--men and women--shifted up and down on their
benches, taking counsel with one another. Whispers carried across from
the jury-box; tense shrill whispers: "It ought to stop." "I've heard
enough." "Too much." "Don't let _him_ say any more." And promptly, a
bearded man rose among the jury and turned to the judge.
"My lord," the man's lips trembled, "we have heard all we want to hear.
We are all of one opinion. We have made up our minds. We find the
prisoner not guilty."
Once again, tumult--the tumult of men and women applauding--broke upon
Ronnie's ears. Then he saw Mr. Justice Heber hold up his hand; heard the
crier calling for silence; heard his lordship's quiet "Prisoner at the
bar, the jury have found you not guilty. With that verdict I concur. You
are discharged"; and saw Hector Brunton collapse, as a stricken boxer
collapses to the knock-out.
5
There followed, on that amazing and unprecedented verdict, the craziest
half-hour in Ronnie's life. Still stunned by the swiftness of his
victory, he heard--as a man battle-mazed hears gunfire--the plaudits in
the court, the plaudits on landing and staircase, the plaudits of the
mob without.
The plaudits of the mob deepened to a roar, to a great sullen roar of
cheers, till it seemed to Ronnie as though all England must have been
waiting in the street below. And within, all about him, were men; mad
excitable men. One of those men--Cartwright--was shouting in his ear,
"Bravo, my boy! Bravo!" A second--Spillcroft--kept on smiting him
between the shoulders. A third--the gigantic Henry Smith-Assher--had
grasped both his hands, whispering, "By God, you deserved to beat us,"
as another robed figure, a figure whom Ronnie remembered to have been
his one-time enemy, slunk off through the crowding people.
Then, for a second, the people parted; and his eyes--dazed as his
brain--saw Aliette. Aliette stood, high above him, ringed by people, in
the oak-paneled dock. A wardress, a blue-uniformed prison-wardress, was
kissing her; kissing his Aliette on the cheeks. Damn it, he had freed
Aliette, freed her from the dock! Why didn't the wardress release her?
Damn it, he'd release her himself.
"Come on, old man," said a voice; Spillcroft's voice; and suddenly
Ronnie felt himself impelled through the people, impelled toward the
dock.
And Aliette came down to him from the dock! Only now his brain, clearing
a little, knew that this was not Aliette, but Lucy, Lucy Towers whom he
had saved from the hangman's rope and the felon's cell.
She came toward him through the ringing, crowding people. He was looking
into her eyes; Aliette's eyes. The eyes were tear-stained; and he knew,
thrilling, that her reserve--the reserve stubborn as Aliette's own--had
been broken at last.
They had reached one another. Both her hands were outstretched. Her
hands grasped his. He knew that she was trying to raise his hands to her
lips. But people pressed on them. People--panting, emotional
people--pressed them apart. He heard some one say, "Let's chair them.
Let's chair them both." He felt himself lifted off his feet. He heard a
constable's voice: "Easy on, gentlemen. Easy on. This ain't a
bear-garden."
And suddenly he found himself in the street of Old Bailey. The street,
from wall to wall, was a river of upturned faces, laughing faces,
cheering faces, shouting faces.
For the London mob had gone mob-mad; and the police could not hold them,
hardly tried to hold them. "Good old Cavendish," howled the mob. "Good
old Cut Cavendish. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it!" And again:
"Luc-ee Towers. We want ter see Luc-ee. Where's Luc-ee? We want to see
Standon--Standon. Where's Bertram Standon?"
6
Hector Brunton, K.C., hearing, alone in the deserted robing-room, the
hoarse cheering of the mob, seemed to hear in it his father's rumbling
voice: "The man who lets his wife live with somebody else is a common or
garden pimp."
CHAPTER XXXIV
1
"I think I'll be going now, if you'll permit me, sir," said Benjamin
Bunce. "And, if I may be allowed to say so, sir, congratulations."
"Thanks, Bunce. Toddle off if you like."
It was past eight o'clock, and the Temple curiously quiet. Ronnie,
kindling himself a pipe and leaning back in his battered armchair, heard
his clerk's boot-soles hurrying through, the colonnade of Pump Court;
and after that, never a footfall.
Despite Spillcroft's invitation and Cartwright's, despite an imploring
wire from Bertram Standon to meet his entire staff at the Savoy, the
barrister had dined early and alone. His work had played him out.
Looking back, he could remember nothing of the case, except that last
frenzied scene outside the court, whence--the police good-temperedly
intervening--he and his client and the armless sailor had escaped in
John Cartwright's car. Trying to recapture the events of the last three
days, and more especially the words of his final speech, it seemed as
though he had been some one other than himself, as though the hand of
fate itself had steered him to victory. Perhaps that was why victory
seemed so valueless!
To sit there in the old chambers where he had dreamed so many dreams; to
watch the pipe-smoke curling round his head, and know Lucy Towers saved;
to imagine Lucy Towers and Bob Fielding happily married; even to realize
Brunton, his enemy Brunton, beaten--afforded no satisfaction. Curious,
he thought, how little his public triumph over Aliette's husband, his
public success, affected him! So often in the last fifteen months he had
thrilled to the vision of himself successful: yet now--now that success
had actually been accomplished--it held no joy.
Glooming, Ronnie's thoughts switched from the public issue to the
personal. What did it avail that he, Ronald Cavendish, should have
rolled the "hanging prosecutor" in the dust; that the press was already
blazing his fame from one end of England to another--so long as Brunton
remained, as Brunton would remain, the legal owner of Aliette? What did
it profit him to have saved the woman in the dock if he could not save
the woman in his own home?
The pipe went out, and his slack fingers could not be bothered to
rekindle it. Depression, the terrible depression of overstrain, settled
like a miasma-cloud on his brain. His triumph became a mockery, his fame
a whited sepulcher. Saving others, he could save neither himself nor the
woman he loved. Aliette was outcast, would remain outcast; and he with
her. All the pleasant things his success might have won for them
both--social position, companionship of friends, political
possibilities--were beyond their reach. To them, success could only
bring money.
Bitterly he fell to reproaching himself--as all the lovers of all the
Aliettes do reproach themselves in those hours when love comes not to
their aid--for ever having persuaded her to run away with him. What was
the use of blaming Brunton, of hating Brunton? He himself and no other
was responsible. He felt the flame of his old hatred against Brunton
blow back, scorching his own head. Truly loving Aliette, he should have
been satisfied--as Robert Fielding had been satisfied--with
renunciation.
"I've been selfish," he thought, "selfish"; and, so thinking, remembered
his mother.
Toward her, too, he had played the complete egoist; forgetful--in his
self-concentration, in the absorption of his work and the battle against
his enemy--of her need for him, of her illness.
And abruptly, luminous through the darkness which had settled on his
mind, Ronnie saw a picture of Daffadillies. The great house stood
foursquare under the moon. Trees spired sable from the gleam of its
lawns. Its roof glittered under a glittering sky. From its gabled
windows glowed the saffron welcome of lamp-light. Behind one of those
gabled windows, his mother, who had loved him all her life, who had
grudged him never a thought, never a sacrifice, lay ill; mortally ill
perhaps.
And suddenly it seemed to Julia's son as though the darkness of his own
mind came between the moon and Daffadillies. Black clouds, ragged and
menacing, drifted down from the glitter of the skies, blurring the
saffron window-gleams. Mists swirled about the spring trees, across the
gleam of the lawns. Watching the menace of those ragged clouds, the cold
swirl of the mists, he knew fear, the old battle-fear of death.
If only the clouds would break, the mists roll away from Daffadillies.
But there came no break in the ragged clouds. Black they banked, and
blacker, round the high moon; till the moon was no more, and only the
ghost of a ghostly house trembled--as smoke seen through smoked
glass--through the swirl of the mist.
Then even the ghost of Daffadillies vanished; and, sightless, he peered
at the void.
Till, out of the void, sound issued--the sound of a woman's voice--of
his mother's voice: "Ronnie! Ronnie! I am afraid. Come to me."
2
With a start, Ronald Cavendish awoke.
The green-shaded lamp still burned at his head, showing up every stain
on the leather desk-top, every ink-spot on the pewter inkstand. There
were his quill pens; his thumb-soiled brief. There, on the shelves, were
his law-books. At his feet, its ashes spilled from cracked bowl to worn
carpet, lay the pipe he had been smoking. "I must have been dreaming,"
he thought.
But the dream and the fear of the dream still haunted his mind. Vainly,
rubbing his eyes, he strove for courage. Always, his imagination saw the
darkness gathering about Daffadillies; always, out of the gathering
darkness, he heard his mother's voice--calling--calling. Till,
fear-haunted, he sprang to his feet.
His feet moved under him. They moved very slowly, as the feet of a
sleep-walker. He said to his feet, "This is foolishness, foolishness."
He said to his feet, "Be still."
He found himself in the corridor. He found himself at the telephone. He
said to himself, "I might just make certain that she's all right."
Then, startlingly, the telephone-bell rang; and, startled, he picked the
receiver from the clip. Ages seemed to pass before he heard the
operator's: "City double-four two eight? Don't go away. I want you."
Followed, very distinct at that hour of the night, "Horsham, you're