Lady Rose's Daughter Part 41

Warkworth came at five.

He entered in the dusk; a little pale, with his graceful head thrown back, and that half-startled, timid look in his wide, blue eyes--that misleading look--which made him the boy still, when he chose.

Julie was standing near the window as he came in. As she turned and saw him there, a flood of tenderness and compunction swept over her. He was going away. What if she never saw him again?

She shuddered and came forward rapidly, eagerly. He read the meaning of her movement, her face; and, wringing her hands with a violence that hurt her, he drew a long breath of relief.

"Why--why"--he said, under his breath--"have you made me so unhappy?"

The blood leaped in her veins. These, indeed, were new words in a new tone.

"Don't let us reproach each other," she said. "There is so much to say.

Sit down."

To-day there were no beguiling spring airs. The fire burned merrily in the grate; the windows were closed.

A scent of narcissus--the d.u.c.h.ess had filled the tables with flowers--floated in the room. Amid its old-fashioned and distinguished bareness--tempered by flowers, and a litter of foreign books--Julie seemed at last to have found her proper frame. In her severe black dress, opening on a delicate vest of white, she had a muselike grace; and the wreath made by her superb black hair round the fine intelligence of her brow had never been more striking. Her slender hands busied themselves with Cousin Mary Leicester's tea-things; and every movement had in Warkworth's eyes a charm to which he had never yet been sensible, in this manner, to this degree.

"Am I really to say no more of yesterday?" he said, looking at her nervously.

Her flush, her gesture, appealed to him.

"Do you know what I had before me--that day--when you came in?" she said, softly.

"No. I cannot guess. Ah, you said something about Lord Lackington?"

She hesitated. Then her color deepened.

"You don't know my story. You suppose, don't you, that I am a Belgian with English connections, whom Lady Henry met by chance? Isn't that how you explain me?"

Warkworth had pushed aside his cup.

"I thought--"

He paused in embarra.s.sment, but there was a sparkle of astonished expectancy in his eyes.

"My mother"--she looked away into the blaze of the fire, and her voice choked a little--"my mother was Lord Lackington's daughter."

"Lord Lackington's daughter?" echoed Warkworth, in stupefaction. A rush of ideas and inferences sped through his mind. He thought of Lady Blanche--things heard in India--and while he stared at her in an agitated silence the truth leaped to light.

"Not--not Lady Rose Delaney?" he said, bending forward to her.

She nodded.

"My father was Marriott Dalrymple. You will have heard of him. I should be Julie Dalrymple, but--they could never marry--because of Colonel Delaney."

Her face was still turned away.

All the details of that famous scandal began to come back to him. His companion, her history, her relations to others, to himself, began to appear to him in the most astonishing new lights. So, instead of the mere humble outsider, she belonged all the time to the best English blood? The society in which he had met her was full of her kindred. No doubt the d.u.c.h.ess knew--and Montresor.... He was meshed in a net of thoughts perplexing and confounding, of which the total result was perhaps that she appeared to him as she sat there, the slender outline so quiet and still, more attractive and more desirable than ever. The mystery surrounding her in some way glorified her, and he dimly perceived that so it must have been for others.

"How did you ever bear the Bruton Street life?" he said, presently, in a low voice of wonder. "Lady Henry knew?"

"Oh yes!"

"And the d.u.c.h.ess?"

"Yes. She is a connection of my mother's."

Warkworth's mind went back to the Moffatts. A flush spread slowly over the face of the young officer. It was indeed an extraordinary imbroglio in which he found himself.

"How did Lord Lackington take it?" he asked, after a pause.

"He was, of course, much startled, much moved. We had a long talk.

Everything is to remain just the same. He wishes to make me an allowance, and, if he persists, I suppose I can't hurt him by refusing.

But for the present I have refused. It is more amusing to earn one's own living." She turned to him with a sharp brightness in her black eyes.

"Besides, if Lord Lackington gives me money, he will want to give me advice. And I would rather advise myself."

Warkworth sat silent a moment. Then he took a great resolve.

"I want to speak to you," he said, suddenly, putting out his hand to hers, which lay on her knee.

She turned to him, startled.

"I want to have no secrets from you," he said, drawing his breath quickly. "I told you lies one day, because I thought it was my duty to tell lies. Another person was concerned. But now I can't. Julie!--you'll let me call you so, won't you? The name is already"--he hesitated; then the words rushed out--"part of my life! Julie, it's quite true, there is a kind of understanding between your little cousin Aileen and me. At Simla she attracted me enormously. I lost my head one day in the woods, when she--whom we were all courting--distinguished me above two or three other men who were there. I proposed to her upon a sudden impulse, and she accepted me. She is a charming, soft creature. Perhaps I wasn't justified. Perhaps she ought to have had more chance of seeing the world. Anyway, there was a great row. Her guardians insisted that I had behaved badly. They could not know all the details of the matter, and I was not going to tell them. Finally I promised to withdraw for two years."

He paused, anxiously studying her face. It had grown very white, and, he thought, very cold. But she quickly rose, and, looking down upon him, said:

"Nothing of that is news to me. Did you think it was?"

And moving to the tea-table, she began to make provision for a fresh supply of tea.

Both words and manner astounded him. He, too, rose and followed her.

"How did you first guess?" he said, abruptly.

"Some gossip reached me." She looked up with a smile. "That's what generally happens, isn't it?"

"There are no secrets nowadays," he said, sorely. "And then, there was Miss Lawrence?"

"Yes, there was Miss Lawrence."

"Did you think badly of me?"

"Why should I? I understand Aileen is very pretty, and--"

"And will have a large fortune. You understand that?" he said, trying to carry it off lightly.