Lady Rose's Daughter Part 29

"I've thought of that," said Julie, wearily. "But, shall we really go on with it, Evelyn?"

The d.u.c.h.ess looked entreaty. Julie repented, and, drawing her friend towards her, rested her head against the chinchilla cloak.

"I'm tired, I suppose," she said, in a low voice. "Don't think me an ungrateful wretch. Well, there's my foster-sister and her child."

"Madame Bornier and the little cripple girl?" cried the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Excellent! Where are they?"

"Leonie is in the French Governesses' Home, as it happens, looking out for a situation, and the child is in the Orthopaedic Hospital. They've been straightening her foot. It's wonderfully better, and she's nearly ready to come out."

"Are they nice, Julie?"

"Therese is an angel--you must be the one thing or the other, apparently, if you're a cripple. And as for Leonie--well, if she comes here, n.o.body need be anxious about my finances. She'd count every crust and cinder. We couldn't keep any English servant; but we could get a Belgian one."

"But is she nice?" repeated the d.u.c.h.ess.

"I'm used to her," said Julie, in the same inanimate voice.

Suddenly the clock in the hall below struck four.

"Heavens!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess. "You don't know how Clarisse keeps you to your time. Shall I go on, and send the carriage back for you?"

"Don't trouble about me. I should like to look round me here a little longer."

"You'll remember that some of our fellow-criminals may look in after five? Dr. Meredith and Lord Lackington said, as we were getting away last night--oh, how that doorstep of Aunt Flora's burned my shoes!--that they should come round. And Jacob is coming; he'll stay and dine. And, Julie, I've asked Captain Warkworth to dine to-morrow night."

"Have you? That's n.o.ble of you--for you don't like him."

"I don't know him!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess, protesting. "If you like him--of course it's all right. Was he--was he very agreeable last night?" she added, slyly.

"What a word to apply to anybody or anything connected with last night!"

"Are you very sore, Julie?"

"Well, on this very day of being turned out it hurts. I wonder who is writing Lady Henry's letters for her this afternoon?"

"I hope they are not getting written," said the d.u.c.h.ess, savagely; "and that she's missing you abominably. Good-bye--_au revoir!_ If I am twenty minutes late with Clarisse, I sha'n't get any fitting, d.u.c.h.ess or no d.u.c.h.ess."

And the little creature hurried off; not so fast, however, but that she found time to leave a number of parting instructions as to the house with the Scotch caretaker, on her way to her carriage.

Julie rose and made her way down to the drawing-room again. The Scotchwoman saw that she wanted to be alone and left her.

The windows were still open to the garden outside. Julie examined the paths, the shrubberies, the great plane-trees; she strained her eyes towards the mansion itself. But not much of it could be seen. The little house at the corner had been carefully planted out.

What wealth it implied--that s.p.a.ce and size, in London! Evidently the house was still shut up. The people who owned it were now living the same c.u.mbrous, magnificent life in the country which they would soon come up to live in the capital. Honors, parks, money, birth--all were theirs, as naturally as the sun rose. Julie envied and hated the big house and all it stood for; she flung a secret defiance at this coveted and elegant Mayfair that lay around her, this heart of all that is recognized, accepted, carelessly sovereign in our "materialized"

upper cla.s.s.

And yet all the while she knew that it was an unreal and pa.s.sing defiance. She would not be able in truth to free herself from the ambition to live and shine in this world of the English rich and well born. For, after all, as she told herself with rebellious pa.s.sion, it was or ought to be her world. And yet her whole being was sore from the experiences of these three years with Lady Henry--from those, above all, of the preceding twenty-four hours. She wove no romance about herself.

"I should have dismissed myself long ago," she would have said, contemptuously, to any one who could have compelled the disclosure of her thoughts. But the long and miserable struggle of her self-love with Lady Henry's arrogance, of her gifts with her circ.u.mstances; the presence in this very world, where she had gained so marked a personal success, of two clashing estimates of herself, both of which she perfectly understood--the one exalting her, the other merely implying the cool and secret judgment of persons who see the world as it is--these things made a heat and poison in her blood.

She was not good enough, not desirable enough, to be the wife of the man she loved. Here was the plain fact that stung and stung.

Jacob Delafield had thought her good enough! She still felt the pressure of his warm, strong fingers, the touch of his kiss upon her hand. What a paradox was she living in! The d.u.c.h.ess might well ask: why, indeed, had she refused Jacob Delafield--that first time? As to the second refusal, that needed no explanation, at least for herself. When, upon that winter day, now some six weeks past, which had beheld Lady Henry more than commonly tyrannical, and her companion more than commonly weary and rebellious, Delafield's stammered words--as he and she were crossing Grosvenor Square in the January dusk--had struck for the second time upon her ear, she was already under Warkworth's charm. But before--the first time? She had come to Lady Henry firmly determined to marry as soon and as well as she could--to throw off the slur on her life--to regularize her name and place in the world. And then the possible heir of the Chudleighs proposes to her--and she rejects him!

It was sometimes difficult for her now to remember all the whys and wherefores of this strange action of which she was secretly so proud.

But the explanation was in truth not far from that she had given to the d.u.c.h.ess. The wild strength in her own nature had divined and shrunk from a similar strength in Delafield's. Here, indeed, one came upon the fact which forever differentiated her from the adventuress, had Sir Wilfrid known. She wanted money and name; there were days when she hungered for them. But she would not give too reckless a price for them. She was a personality, a soul--not a vulgar woman--not merely callous or greedy.

She dreaded to be miserable; she had a thirst for happiness, and the heart was, after all, stronger than the head.

Jacob Delafield? No! Her being contracted and shivered at the thought of him. A will tardily developed, if all accounts of his school and college days were true, but now, as she believed, invincible; a mystic; an ascetic; a man under whose modest or careless or self-mocking ways she, with her eye for character, divined the most critical instincts, and a veracity, iron, scarcely human--a man before whom one must be always posing at one's best--that was a personal risk too great to take for a Julie Le Breton.

Unless, indeed, if it came to this--that one must think no more of love--but only of power--why, then--

A ring at the door, resounding through the quiet side street. After a minute the Scotchwoman opened the drawing-room door.

"Please, miss, is this meant for you?"

Julie took the letter in astonishment. Then through the door she saw a man standing in the hall and recognized Captain Warkworth's Indian servant.

"I don't understand him," said the Scotchwoman, shaking her head.

Julie went out to speak with him. The man had been sent to Crowborough House with instructions to inquire for Miss Le Breton and deliver his note. The groom of the chambers, misinterpreting the man's queer English, and thinking the matter urgent--the note was marked "immediate"--had sent him after the ladies to Heribert Street.

The man was soon feed and dismissed, and Miss Le Breton took the letter back to the drawing-room.

So, after all, he had not failed; there on her lap was her daily letter.

Outside the scanty March sun, now just setting, was touching the garden with gold. Had it also found its way into Julie's eyes?

Now for his explanation:

"First, how and where are you? I called in Bruton Street at noon. Hutton told me you had just gone to Crowborough House.

Kind--no, wise little d.u.c.h.ess! She honors herself in sheltering you.

"I could not write last night--I was too uncertain, too anxious. All I said might have jarred. This morning came your note, about eleven. It was angelic to think so kindly and thoughtfully of a friend--angelic to write such a letter at such a time. You announced your flight to Crowborough House, but did not say when, so I crept to Bruton Street, seeing Lady Henry in every lamp-post, got a few clandestine words with Hutton, and knew, at least, what had happened to you--outwardly and visibly.

"Last night did you think me a poltroon to vanish as I did?

It was the impulse of a moment. Mr. Montresor had pulled me into a corner of the room, away from the rest of the party, nominally to look at a picture, really that I might answer a confidential question he had just put to me with regard to a disputed incident in the Afridi campaign. We were in the dark and partly behind a screen. Then the door opened. I confess the sight of Lady Henry paralyzed me. A great, murderous, six-foot Afridi--that would have been simple enough. But a woman--old and ill and furious--with that Medusa's face--no!

My nerves suddenly failed me. What right had I in her house, after all? As she advanced into the room, I slipped out behind her. General Fergus and M. du Bartas joined me in the hall. We walked to Bond Street together. They were divided between laughter and vexation. I should have laughed--if I could have forgotten you.

"But what could I have done for you, dear lady, if I had stayed out the storm? I left you with three or four devoted adherents, who had, moreover, the advantage over me of either relationship or old acquaintance with Lady Henry. Compared to them, I could have done nothing to shield you. Was it not best to withdraw? Yet all the way home I accused myself bitterly. Nor did I feel, when I reached home, that one who had not grasped your hand under fire had any right to rest or sleep. But anxiety for you, regrets for myself, took care of that; I got my deserts.

"After all, when the p.r.i.c.ks and pains of this great wrench are over, shall we not all acknowledge that it is best the crash should have come? You have suffered and borne too much.

Now we shall see you expand in a freer and happier life. The d.u.c.h.ess has asked me to dinner to-morrow--the note has just arrived--so that I shall soon have the chance of hearing from you some of those details I so much want to know. But before then you will write?

"As for me, I am full of alternate hopes and fears. General Fergus, as we walked home, was rather silent and bearish--I could not flatter myself that he had any friendly intentions towards me in his mind. But Montresor was more than kind, and gave me some fresh opportunities of which I was very glad to avail myself. Well, we shall know soon.

"You told me once that if, or when, this happened, you would turn to your pen, and that Dr. Meredith would find you openings. That is not to be regretted, I think. You have great gifts, which will bring you pleasure in the using. I have got a good deal of pleasure out of my small ones. Did you know that once, long ago, when I was stationed at Gibraltar, I wrote a military novel?

"No, I don't pity you because you will need to turn your intellect to account. You will be free, and mistress of your fate. That, for those who, like you and me, are the 'children of their works,' as the Spaniards say, is much.