Lady Rose's Daughter Part 31

"I see," said the d.u.c.h.ess, pouting--"it meant that it was possible for us to enjoy ourselves without Lady Henry. That was the offence."

"Precisely. It showed that you _were_ enjoying yourselves. Otherwise there would have been no lingering, and no coffee."

"I never knew coffee so fatal before," sighed the d.u.c.h.ess. "And now"--it was evident that she shrank from the answer to her own question--"she is really irreconcilable?"

"Absolutely. Let me beg you to take it for granted."

"She won't see any of us--not me?"

Sir Wilfrid hesitated.

"Make the Duke your amba.s.sador."

The d.u.c.h.ess laughed, and flushed a little.

"And Mr. Montresor?"

"Ah," said Sir Wilfrid in another tone, "that's not to be lightly spoken of."

"You don't mean--"

"How many years has that lasted?" said Sir Wilfrid, meditatively.

"Thirty, I think--if not more. It was Lady Henry who told him of his son's death, when his wife daren't do it."

There was a silence. Montresor had lost his only son, a subaltern in the Lancers, in the action of Alumbagh, on the way to the relief of Lucknow.

Then the d.u.c.h.ess broke out:

"I know that you think in your heart of hearts that Julie has been in fault, and that we have all behaved abominably!"

"My dear lady," said Sir Wilfrid, after a moment, "in Persia we believe in fate; I have brought the trick home."

"Yes, yes, that's it!" exclaimed Lord Lackington--it! When Lady Henry wanted a companion--and fate brought her Miss Le Breton--"

"Last night's coffee was already drunk," put in Sir Wilfrid.

Meredith's voice, raised and a trifle harsh, made itself heard.

"Why you should dignify an ugly jealousy by fine words I don't know. For some women--women like our old friend--grat.i.tude is hard. That is the moral of this tale."

"The only one?" said Sir Wilfrid, not without a mocking twist of the lip.

"The only one that matters. Lady Henry had found, or might have found, a daughter--"

"I understand she bargained for a companion."

"Very well. Then she stands upon her foolish rights, and loses both daughter and companion. At seventy, life doesn't forgive you a blunder of that kind."

Sir Wilfrid silently shook his head. Meredith threw back his blanched mane of hair, his deep eyes kindling under the implied contradiction.

"I am an old comrade of Lady Henry's," he said, quickly. "My record, you'll find, comes next to yours, Bury. But if Lady Henry is determined to make a quarrel of this, she must make it. I regret nothing."

"What madness has seized upon all these people?" thought Bury, as he withdrew from the discussion. The fire, the unwonted fire, in Meredith's speech and aspect, amazed him. From the corner to which he had retreated he studied the face of the journalist. It was a face subtly and strongly lined by much living--of the intellectual, however, rather than the physical sort; breathing now a studious dignity, the effect of the broad sweep of brow under the high-peaked lines of grizzled hair, and now broken, tempestuous, scornful, changing with the pliancy of an actor.

The head was sunk a little in the shoulders, as though dragged back by its own weight. The form which it commanded had the movements of a man no less accustomed to rule in his own sphere than Montresor himself.

To Sir Wilfrid the famous editor was still personally mysterious, after many years of intermittent acquaintance. He was apparently unmarried; or was there perhaps a wife, picked up in a previous state of existence, and hidden away with her offspring at Clapham or Hornsey or Peckham?

Bury could remember, years before, a dowdy old sister, to whom Lady Henry had been on occasion formally polite. Otherwise, nothing. What were the great man's origins and antecedents--his family, school, university? Sir Wilfrid did not know; he did not believe that any one knew. An amazing mastery of the German, and, it was said, the Russian tongues, suggested a foreign education; but neither on this ground nor any other connected with his personal history did Meredith encourage the inquirer. It was often reported that he was of Jewish descent, and there were certain traits, both of feature and character, that lent support to the notion. If so, the strain was that of Heine or Disraeli, not the strain of Commerce.

At any rate, he was one of the most powerful men of his day--the owner, through _The New Rambler_, of an influence which now for some fifteen years had ranked among the forces to be reckoned with. A man in whom politics a.s.sumed a tinge of sombre poetry; a man of hatreds, ideals, indignations, yet of habitually sober speech. As to pa.s.sions, Sir Wilfrid could have sworn that, wife or no wife, the man who could show that significance of mouth and eye had not gone through life without knowing the stress and shock of them.

Was he, too, beguiled by this woman?--_he, too?_ For a little behind him, beside the d.u.c.h.ess, sat Jacob Delafield; and, during his painful interview that day with Lady Henry, Sir Wilfrid had been informed of several things with regard to Jacob Delafield he had not known before.

So she had refused him--this lady who was now the heart of this whirlwind? Permanently? Lady Henry had poured scorn on the notion. She was merely sure of him; could keep him in a string to play with as she chose. Meanwhile the handsome soldier was metal more attractive. Sir Wilfrid reflected, with an inward shrug, that, once let a woman give herself to such a fury as possessed Lady Henry, and there did not seem to be much to choose between her imaginings and those of the most vulgar of her s.e.x.

So Jacob could be played with--whistled on and whistled off as Miss Le Breton chose? Yet his was not a face that suggested it, any more than the face of Dr. Meredith. The young man's countenance was gradually changing its aspect for Sir Wilfrid, in a somewhat singular way, as old impressions of his character died away and new ones emerged. The face, now, often recalled to Bury a portrait by some Holbeinesque master, which he had seen once in the Basle Museum and never forgotten. A large, thin-lipped mouth that, without weakness, suggested patience; the long chin of a man of will; nose, bluntly cut at the tip, yet in the nostril and bridge most delicate; grayish eyes, with a veil of reverie drawn, as it were, momentarily across them, and showing behind the veil a kind of stern sweetness; fair hair low on the brow, which was heavy, and made a ma.s.sive shelter for the eyes. So looked the young German who had perhaps heard Melanchthon; so, in this middle nineteenth century, looked Jacob Delafield. No, anger makes obtuse; that, no doubt, was Lady Henry's case. At any rate, in Delafield's presence her theory did not commend itself.

But if Delafield had not echoed them, the little d.u.c.h.ess had received Meredith's remarks with enthusiasm.

"Regret! No, indeed! Why should we regret anything, except that Julie has been miserable so long? She _has_ had a bad time. Every day and all day. Ah, you don't know--none of you. You haven't seen all the little things as I have."

"The errands, and the dogs," said Sir William, slyly.

The d.u.c.h.ess threw him a glance half conscious, half resentful, and went on:

"It has been one small torture after another. Even when a person's old you can't bear more than a certain amount, can you? You oughtn't to. No, let's be thankful it's all over, and Julie--our dear, delightful Julie--who has done everybody in this room all sorts of kindnesses, hasn't she?"

An a.s.senting murmur ran round the circle.

"Julie's _free_! Only she's _very_ lonely. We must see to that, mustn't we? Lady Henry can buy another companion to-morrow--she will. She has heaps of money and heaps of friends, and she'll tell her own story to them all. But Julie has only us. If we desert her--"

"Desert her!" said a voice in the distance, half amused, half electrical. Bury thought it was Jacob's.

"Of course we sha'n't desert her!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess. "We shall rally round her and carry her through. If Lady Henry makes herself disagreeable, then we'll fight. If not, we'll let her cool down. Oh, Julie, darling--here you are!"

The d.u.c.h.ess sprang up and caught her entering friend by the hand.

"And here are we," with a wave round the circle. "This is your court--your St. Germain."

"So you mean me to die in exile," said Julie, with a quavering smile, as she drew off her gloves. Then she looked at her friends. "Oh, how good of you all to come! Lord Lackington!" She went up to him impetuously, and he, taken by surprise, yielded his hands, which she took in both hers. "It was foolish, I know, but you don't think it was so _bad_, do you?"

She gazed up at him wistfully. Her lithe form seemed almost to cling to the old man. Instinctively, Jacob, Meredith, Sir Wilfrid Bury withdrew their eyes. The room held its breath. As for Lord Lackington, he colored like a girl.

"No, no; a mistake, perhaps, for all of us; but more ours than yours, mademoiselle--much more! Don't fret. Indeed, you look as if you hadn't slept, and that mustn't be. You must think that, sooner or later, it was bound to come. Lady Henry will soften in time, and you will know so well how to meet her. But now we have your future to think of. Only sit down.

You mustn't look so tired. Where have you been wandering?"

And with a stately courtesy, her hand still in his, he took her to a chair and helped her to remove her heavy cloak.

"My future!" She shivered as she dropped into her seat.