Lady Rose's Daughter Part 36

"My mother? Oh, she will be greatly pleased. I go down to the Isle of Wight for a day or two to see her to-morrow. But now, dear lady, that is enough of my wretched self. You--do you stay on here with the d.u.c.h.ess?"

She told him of the house in Heribert Street. He listened with attention.

"Nothing could be better. You will have a most distinguished little setting of your own, and Lady Henry will repent at leisure. You won't be lonely?"

"Oh no!" But her smile was linked with a sigh.

He came nearer to her.

"You should never be lonely if I could help it," he said, in a low voice.

"When people are nameless and kinless," was her pa.s.sionate reply, in the same undertone as his, "they must be lonely."

He looked at her with eagerness. She lay back in the firelight, her beautiful brow and eyes softly illuminated. He felt within him a sudden snapping of restraints. Why--why refuse what was so clearly within his grasp? Love has many manners--many entrances--and many exits.

"When will you tell me all that I want to know about you?" he said, bending towards her with tender insistence. "There is so much I have to ask."

"Oh, some time," she said, hurriedly, her pulses quickening. "Mine is not a story to be told on a great day like this."

He was silent a moment, but his face spoke for him.

"Our friendship has been a beautiful thing, hasn't it?" he said, at last, in a voice of emotion. "Look here!" He thrust his hand into his breast-pocket and half withdrew it. "Do you see where I carry your letters?"

"You shouldn't--they are not worthy."

"How charming you are in that dress--in that light! I shall always see you as you are to-night."

A silence. Excitement mounted in their veins. Suddenly he stooped and kissed her hands. They looked into each other's eyes, and the seconds pa.s.sed like hours.

Presently, in the nearer drawing-room, there was a sound of approaching voices and they moved apart.

"Julie, Emily Lawrence is going," said the d.u.c.h.ess's voice, pitched in what seemed to Julie a strange and haughty note. "Captain Warkworth, Miss Lawrence thinks that you and she have common friends--Lady Blanche Moffatt and her daughter."

Captain Warkworth murmured some conventionality, and pa.s.sed into the next drawing-room with Miss Lawrence.

Julie rose to her feet, the color dying out of her face, her pa.s.sionate eyes on the d.u.c.h.ess, who stood facing her friend, guiltily pale, and ready to cry.

XIV

On the morning following these events, Warkworth went down to the Isle of Wight to see his mother. On the journey he thought much of Julie.

They had parted awkwardly the night before. The evening, which had promised so well, had, after all, lacked finish and point. What on earth had that tiresome Miss Lawrence wanted with him? They had talked of Simla and the Moffatts. The conversation had gone in spurts, she looking at him every now and then with eyes that seemed to say more than her words. All that she had actually said was perfectly insignificant and trivial. Yet there was something curious in her manner, and when the time came for him to take his departure she had bade him a frosty little farewell.

She had described herself once or twice as a _great_ friend of Lady Blanche Moffatt. Was it possible?

But if Lady Blanche, whose habits of sentimental indiscretion were ingrained, _had_ gossiped to this lady, what then? Why should he be frowned on by Miss Lawrence, or anybody else? That malicious talk at Simla had soon exhausted itself. His present appointment was a triumphant answer to it all. His slanderers--including Aileen's ridiculous guardians--could only look foolish if they pursued the matter any further. What "trap" was there--what _mesalliance_? A successful soldier was good enough for anybody. Look at the first Lord Clyde, and scores besides.

The d.u.c.h.ess, too. Why had she treated him so well at first, and so cavalierly after dinner? Her manners were really too uncertain.

What was the matter, and why did she dislike him? He pondered over it a good deal, and with much soreness of spirit. Like many men capable of very selfish or very cruel conduct, he was extremely sensitive, and took keen notice of the fact that a person liked or disliked him.

If the d.u.c.h.ess disliked him it could not be merely on account of the Simla story, even though the old maid might conceivably have given her a jaundiced account. The d.u.c.h.ess knew nothing of Aileen, and was little influenced, so far as he had observed her, by considerations of abstract justice or propriety, affecting persons whom she had never seen.

No, she was Julie's friend, the little wilful lady, and it was for Julie she ruffled her feathers, like an angry dove.

So his thoughts had come back to Julie, though, indeed, it seemed to him that they were never far from her. As he looked absently from the train windows on the flying landscape, Julie's image hovered between him and it--a magic sun, flooding soul and senses with warmth. How unconsciously, how strangely his feelings had changed towards her! That coolness of temper and nerve he had been able to preserve towards her for so long was, indeed, breaking down. He recognized the danger, and wondered where it would lead him. What a fascinating, sympathetic creature!--and, by George! what she had done for him!

Aileen! Aileen was a little sylph, a pretty child-angel, white-winged and innocent, who lived in a circle of convent thoughts, knowing nothing of the world, and had fallen in love with him as the first man who had ever made love to her. But this intelligent, full-blooded woman, who could understand at a word, or a half word, who had a knowledge of affairs which many a high-placed man might envy, with whom one never had a dull moment--this courted, distinguished Julie Le Breton--his mind swelled with half-guilty pride at the thought that for six months he had absorbed all her energies, that a word from him could make her smile or sigh, that he could force her to look at him with eyes so melting and so troubled as those with which she had given him her hands--her slim, beautiful hands--that night in Grosvenor Square.

How freedom became her! Dependency had dropped from her, like a cast-off cloak, and beside her fresh, melancholy charm, the airs and graces of a child of fashion and privilege like the little d.u.c.h.ess appeared almost cheap and trivial. Poor Julie! No doubt some social struggle was before her. Lady Henry was strong, after all, in this London world, and the solider and stupider people who get their way in the end were not, she thought, likely to side with Lady Henry's companion in a quarrel where the facts of the story were unquestionably, at first sight, damaging to Miss Le Breton. Julie would have her hours of bitterness and humiliation; and she would conquer by boldness, if she conquered at all--by originality, by determining to live her own life. That would preserve for her the small circle, if it lost her the large world. And the small circle was what she lived for, what she ought, at any rate, to live for.

It was not likely she would marry. Why should she desire it? From any blundering tragedy a woman of so acute a brain would, of course, know how to protect herself. But within the limits of her life, why should she refuse herself happiness, intimacy, love?

His heart beat fast; his thoughts were in a whirl. But the train was nearing Portsmouth, and with an effort he recalled his mind to the meeting with his mother, which was then close upon him.

He spent nearly a week in the little cottage at Sea View, and Mrs.

Warkworth got far more pleasure than usual, poor lady, out of his visit.

She was a thin, plain woman, not devoid of either ability or character.

But life had gone hardly with her, and since her husband's death what had been reserve had become melancholy. She had always been afraid of her only son since they had sent him to Charterhouse, and he had become so much "finer" than his parents. She knew that he must consider her a very ignorant and narrow-minded person; when he was with her she was humiliated in her own eyes, though as soon as he was gone she resumed what was in truth a leading place among her own small circle.

She loved him, and was proud of him; yet at the bottom of her heart she had never absolved him from his father's death. But for his extravagance, and the misfortunes he had brought upon them, her old general would be alive still--pottering about in the spring sunshine, spudding the daisies from the turf, or smoking his pipe beneath the thickening trees. Silently her heart still yearned and hungered for the husband of her youth; his son did not replace him.

Nevertheless, when he came down to her with this halo of glory upon him, and smoked up and down her small garden through the mild spring days, gossiping to her of all the great things that had befallen him, repeating to her, word for word, his conversation with the Prime Minister, and his interview with the Commander-in-Chief, or making her read all the letters of congratulation he had received, her mother's heart thawed within her as it had not done for long. Her ears told her that he was still vain and a boaster; her memory held the indelible records of his past selfishness; but as he walked beside her, his fair hair blown back from his handsome brow, and eyes that were so much younger than the rest of the face, his figure as spare and boyish now as when he had worn the colors of the Charterhouse eleven, she said to herself, in that inward and unsuspected colloquy she was always holding with her own heart about him, that if his father could have seen him now he would have forgiven him everything. According to her secret Evangelical faith, G.o.d "deals" with every soul he has created--through joy or sorrow, through good or evil fortune. He had dealt with herself through anguish and loss. Henry, it seemed, was to be moulded through prosperity. His good fortune was already making a better man of him.

Certainly he was more affectionate and thoughtful than before. He would have liked to give her money, of which he seemed to have an unusual store; but she bade him keep what he had for his own needs. Her own little bit of money, saved from the wreck of their fortunes, was enough for her. Then he went into Ryde and brought her back a Shetland shawl and a new table-cloth for her little sitting-room, which she accepted with a warmer kiss than she had given him for years.

He left her on a bright, windy morning which flecked the blue Solent with foam and sent the clouds racing to westward. She walked back along the sands, thinking anxiously of the African climate and the desert hard-ships he was going to face. And she wondered what significance there might be in the fact that he had written twice during his stay with her to a Miss Le Breton, whose name, nevertheless, he had not mentioned in their conversations. Well, he would marry soon, she supposed, and marry well, in circles out of her ken. With the common prejudice of the English middle cla.s.s, she hoped that if this Miss Le Breton were his choice, she might be only French in name and not in blood.

Meanwhile, Warkworth sped up to London in high spirits, enjoying the comforts of a good conscience.

He drove first to his club, where a pile of letters awaited him--some letters of congratulation, others concerned with the business of his mission. He enjoyed the first, noticing jealously who had and who had not written to him; then he applied himself to the second. His mind worked vigorously and well; he wrote his replies in a manner that satisfied him. Then throwing himself into a chair, with a cigar, he gave himself up to the close and shrewd planning of the preparations necessary for his five weeks' march, or to the consideration of two or three alternative lines of action which would open before him as soon as he should find himself within the boundaries of Mokembe. Some five years before, the government of the day had sent a small expedition to this Debatable Land, which had failed disastrously, both from the diplomatic and the military points of view. He went backward and forward to the shelves of the fine "Service" library which surrounded him, taking down the books and reports which concerned this expedition. He buried himself in them for an hour, then threw them aside with contempt. What blunders and short-sight everywhere! The general public might well talk of the stupidity of English officers. And blunders so easily avoided, too! It was sickening. He felt within himself a fulness of energy and intelligence, a perspicacity of brain which judged mistakes of this kind unpardonable.

As he was replacing some of the books he had been using in the shelves, the club began to fill up with men coming in to lunch. A great many congratulated him; and a certain number who of old had hardly professed to know him greeted him with cordiality. He found himself caught in a series of short but flattering conversations, in which he bore himself well--neither over-discreet nor too elate. "I declare that fellow's improved," said one man, who might certainly have counted as Warkworth's enemy the week before, to his companion at table. "The government's been beastly remiss so far. Hope he'll pull it off. Ripping chance, anyway.

Though what they gave it to him for, goodness knows! There were a dozen fellows, at least, did as well as he in the Mahsud business. And the Staff-College man had a thousand times more claim."

Nevertheless, Warkworth felt the general opinion friendly, a little surprised, no doubt, but showing that readiness to believe in the man coming to the front, which belongs much more to the generous than to the calculating side of the English character. Insensibly his mental and moral stature rose. He exchanged a few words on his way out with one of the most distinguished members of the club, a man of European reputation, whom he had seen the week before in the Commander-in-Chief's room at the War Office. The great man spoke to him with marked friendliness, and Warkworth walked on air as he went his way.

Potentially he felt himself the great man's equal; the gates of life seemed to be opening before him.

And with the rise of fortune came a rush of magnanimous resolution. No more shady episodes; no more mean devices; no more gambling, and no more debt. _Major_ Warkworth's sheet was clean, and it should remain so. A man of his prospects must run straight.

He felt himself at peace with all the world. By-the-way, just time to jump into a cab and get to Park Crescent in time for his sister's luncheon. His last interview with his brother-in-law had not been agreeable. But now--he felt for the check-book in his pocket--he was in a position to repay at least half the last sum of money which Bella had lent him. He would go and give it her now, and report news of the mother. And if the two chicks were there--why, he had a free hour and he would take them to the Zoo--he vowed he would!--give them something pleasant to remember their uncle by.

And a couple of hours later a handsome, soldierly man might have been seen in the lion-house at the Zoo, leading a plump little girl by either hand. Rose and Katie Mullins enjoyed a golden time, and started a wholly new adoration for the uncle who had so far taken small notice of them, and was a.s.sociated in their shrewd, childish minds rather with tempests at home than buns abroad. But this time buns, biscuits, hansom-drives and elephant-rides were showered upon them by an uncle who seemed to make no account of money, while his gracious and captivating airs set their little hearts beating in a common devotion.

"Now go home--go home, little beggars!" said that golden gentleman, as he packed them into a hansom and stood on the step to accept a wet kiss on his mustache from each pink mouth. "Tell your mother all about it, and don't forget your uncle Harry. There's a shilling for each of you.

Don't you spend it on sweets. You're quite fat enough already.

Good-bye!"