"Well, to say the least of it, frankness is not one of her
characteristics. I tried to question her about this man. I had seen them
together in the Park, talking as intimates. So, when our conversation
had reached a friendly stage, I threw out a feeler or two, just to
satisfy myself about her. But--"
He pulled his fair mustaches and smiled.
"Well?" said the young man, with a kind of reluctant interrogation.
"She played with me, Jacob. But really she overdid it. For such a clever
woman, I assure you, she overdid it!"
"I don't see why she shouldn't keep her friendships to herself," said
Delafield, with sudden heat.
"Oh, so you admit it is a friendship?"
Delafield did not reply. He had laid down his cigar, and with his hands
on his knees was looking steadily into the fire. His attitude, however,
was not one of reverie, but rather of a strained listening.
"What is the meaning, Jacob, of a young woman taking so keen an interest
in the fortunes of a dashing soldier--for, between you and me, I hear
she is moving heaven and earth to get him this post--and then
concealing it?"
"Why should she want her kindnesses talked of?" said the young man,
impetuously. "She was perfectly right, I think, to fence with your
questions, Sir Wilfrid. It's one of the secrets of her influence that
she can render a service--and keep it dark."
Sir Wilfrid shook his head.
"She overdid it," he repeated. "However, what do you think of the man
yourself, Jacob?"
"Well, I don't take to him," said the other, unwillingly. "He isn't my
sort of man."
"And Mademoiselle Julie--you think nothing but well of her? I don't like
discussing a lady; but, you see, with Lady Henry to manage, one must
feel the ground as one can."
Sir Wilfrid looked at his companion, and then stretched his legs a
little farther towards the fire. The lamp-light shone full on his silky
eyelashes and beard, on his neatly parted hair, and the diamond on his
fine left hand. The young man beside him could not emulate his easy
composure. He fidgeted nervously as he replied, with warmth:
"I think she has had an uncommonly hard time, that she wants nothing but
what is reasonable, and that if she threw you off the scent, Sir
Wilfrid, with regard to Warkworth, she was quite within her rights. You
probably deserved it."
He threw up his head with a quick gesture of challenge. Sir Wilfrid
shrugged his shoulders.
"I vow I didn't," he murmured. "However, that's all right. What do you
do with yourself down in Essex, Jacob?"
The lines of the young man's attitude showed a sudden unconscious relief
from tension. He threw himself back in his chair.
"Well, it's a big estate. There's plenty to do."
"You live by yourself?"
"Yes. There's an agent's house--a small one--in one of the villages."
"How do you amuse yourself? Plenty of shooting, I suppose?"
"Too much. I can't do with more than a certain amount."
"Golfing?"
"Oh yes," said the young man, indifferently. "There's a fair links."
"Do you do any philanthropy, Jacob?"
"I like 'bossing' the village," said Delafield, with a laugh. "It
pleases one's vanity. That's about all there is to it."
"What, clubs and temperance, that kind of thing? Can you take any real
interest in the people?"
Delafield hesitated.
"Well, yes," he said, at last, as though he grudged the admission.
"There's nothing else to take an interest in, is there? By-the-way"--he
jumped up--"I think I'll bid you good-night, for I've got to go down
to-morrow in a hurry. I must be off by the first train in the morning."
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, it's only a wretched old man--that two beasts of women have put
into the workhouse infirmary against his will. I only heard it to-night.
I must go and get him out."
He looked round for his gloves and stick.
"Why shouldn't he be there?"
"Because it's an infernal shame!" said the other, shortly. "He's an old
laborer who'd saved quite a lot of money. He kept it in his cottage, and
the other day it was all stolen by a tramp. He has lived with these two
women--his sister-in-law and her daughter--for years and years. As long
as he had money to leave, nothing was too good for him. The shock half
killed him, and now that he's a pauper these two harpies will have
nothing to say to nursing him and looking after him. He told me the
other day he thought they'd force him into the infirmary. I didn't
believe it. But while I've been away they've gone and done it."
"Well, what'll you do now?"
"Get him out."
"And then?"
Delafield hesitated. "Well, then, I suppose, he can come to my place
till I can find some decent woman to put him with."
Sir Wilfrid rose.
"I think I'll run down and see you some day. Will there be paupers in
all the bedrooms?"
Delafield grinned.
"You'll find a rattling good cook and a jolly snug little place, I can
tell you. Do come. But I shall see you again soon. I must be up next
week, and very likely I shall be at Lady Henry's on Wednesday."
"All right. I shall see her on Sunday, so I can report."
"Not before Sunday?" Delafield paused. His clear blue eyes looked down,
dissatisfied, upon Sir Wilfrid.
"Impossible before. I have all sorts of official people to see to-morrow
and Saturday. And, Jacob, keep the Duchess quiet. She may have to give
up Mademoiselle Julie for her bazaar."
"I'll tell her."
"By-the-way, is that little person happy?" said Sir Wilfrid, as he
opened the door to his departing guest. "When I left England she was
only just married."
"Oh yes, she's happy enough, though Crowborough's rather an ass."
"How--particularly?"
Delafield smiled.
"Well, he's rather a sticky sort of person. He thinks there's something
particularly interesting in dukes, which makes him a bore."
"Take care, Jacob! Who knows that you won't be a duke yourself some
day?"
"What _do_ you mean?" The young man glowered almost fiercely upon his
old friend.
"I hear Chudleigh's boy is but a poor creature," said Sir Wilfrid,
gravely. "Lady Henry doesn't expect him to live."
"Why, that's the kind that always does live!" cried Delafield, with
angry emphasis. "And as for Lady Henry, her imagination is a perfect
charnel-house. She likes to think that everybody's dead or dying but
herself. The fact is that Mervyn is a good deal stronger this year than
he was last. Really, Lady Henry--" The tone lost itself in a growl
of wrath.
"Well, well," said Sir Wilfrid, smiling, "'A man beduked against his
will,' etcetera. Good-night, my dear Jacob, and good luck to your
old pauper."
But Delafield turned back a moment on the stairs.
"I say"--he hesitated--"you won't shirk talking to Lady Henry?"
"No, no. Sunday, certainly--honor bright. Oh, I think we shall
straighten it out."
Delafield ran down the stairs, and Sir Wilfrid returned to his warm room
and the dregs of his tea.
"Now--is he in love with her, and hesitating for social reasons? Or--is
he jealous of this fellow Warkworth? Or--has she snubbed him, and both
are keeping it dark? Not very likely, that, in view of his prospects.
She must want to regularize her position. Or--is he not in love with
her at all?"
On which cogitations there fell presently the strokes of many bells
tolling midnight, and left them still unresolved. Only one positive
impression remained--that Jacob Delafield had somehow grown, vaguely but
enormously, in mental and moral bulk during the years since he had left
Oxford--the years of Bury's Persian exile. Sir Wilfrid had been an
intimate friend of his dead father, Lord Hubert, and on very friendly
terms with his lethargic, good-natured mother. She, by-the-way, was
still alive, and living in London with a daughter. He must go and
see them.
As for Jacob, Sir Wilfrid had cherished a particular weakness for him
in the Eton-jacket stage, and later on, indeed, when the lad enjoyed a
brief moment of glory in the Eton eleven. But at Oxford, to Sir
Wilfrid's thinking, he had suffered eclipse--had become a somewhat
heavy, apathetic, pseudo-cynical youth, displaying his mother's inertia
without her good temper, too slack to keep up his cricket, too slack to
work for the honor schools, at no time without friends, but an enigma to
most of them, and, apparently, something of a burden to himself.
And now, out of that ugly slough, a man had somehow emerged, in whom Sir
Wilfrid, who was well acquainted with the race, discerned the stirring
of all sorts of strong inherited things, formless still, but struggling
to expression.
"He looked at me just now, when I talked of his being duke, as his
father would sometimes look."
His father? Hubert Delafield had been an obstinate, dare-devil, heroic
sort of fellow, who had lost his life in the Chudleigh salmon river
trying to save a gillie who had missed his footing. A man much
hated--and much beloved; capable of the most contradictory actions. He
had married his wife for money, would often boast of it, and would, none
the less, give away his last farthing recklessly, passionately, if he
were asked for it, in some way that touched his feelings. Able, too;
though not so able as the great Duke, his father.
"Hubert Delafield was never _happy_, that I can remember," thought
Wilfrid Bury, as he sat over his fire, "and this chap has the same
expression. That woman in Bruton Street would never do for him--apart
from all the other unsuitability. He ought to find something sweet and
restful. And yet I don't know. The Delafields are a discontented lot. If
you plague them, they are inclined to love you. They want something hard
to get their teeth in. How the old Duke adored his termagant of a wife!"
* * * * *
It was late on Sunday afternoon before Sir Wilfrid was able to present
himself in Lady Henry's drawing-room; and when he arrived there, he
found plenty of other people in possession, and had to wait for
his chance.
Lady Henry received him with a brusque "At last," which, however, he
took with equanimity. He was in no sense behind his time. On Thursday,
when parting with her, he had pleaded for deliberation. "Let me study
the situation a little; and don't, for Heaven's sake, let's be too
tragic about the whole thing."
Whether Lady Henry was now in the tragic mood or no, he could not at
first determine. She was no longer confined to the inner shrine of the
back drawing-room. Her chair was placed in the large room, and she was
the centre of a lively group of callers who were discussing the events
of the week in Parliament, with the light and mordant zest of people
well acquainted with the personalities they were talking of. She was
apparently better in health, he noticed; at any rate, she was more at
ease, and enjoying herself more than on the previous Wednesday. All her
social characteristics were in full play; the blunt and careless freedom
which made her the good comrade of the men she talked with--as good a
brain and as hard a hitter as they--mingled with the occasional sally or
caprice which showed her very much a woman.
Very few other women were there. Lady Henry did not want women on
Sundays, and was at no pains whatever to hide the fact. But Mademoiselle
Julie was at the tea-table, supported by an old white-haired general, in
whom Sir Wilfrid recognized a man recently promoted to one of the higher
posts in the War Office. Tea, however, had been served, and Mademoiselle
Le Breton was now showing her companion a portfolio of photographs, on
which the old man was holding forth.
"Am I too late for a cup?" said Sir Wilfrid, after she had greeted him
with cordiality. "And what are those pictures?"
"They are some photos of the Khaibar and Tirah," said Mademoiselle Le
Breton. "Captain Warkworth brought them to show Lady Henry."
"Ah, the scene of his exploits," said Sir Wilfrid, after a glance at
them. "The young man distinguished himself, I understand?"
"Oh, very much so," said General M'Gill, with emphasis. "He showed
brains, and he had luck."
"A great deal of luck, I hear," said Sir Wilfrid, accepting a piece of
cake. "He'll get his step up, I suppose. Anything else?"
"Difficult to say. But the good men are always in request," said General
M'Gill, smiling.
"By-the-way, I heard somebody mention his name last night for this
Mokembe mission," said Sir Wilfrid, helping himself to tea-cake.
"Oh, that's quite undecided," said the General, sharply. "There is no
immediate hurry for a week or two, and the government must send the best
man possible."
"No doubt," said Sir Wilfrid.
It interested him to observe that Mademoiselle Le Breton was no longer
pale. As the General spoke, a bright color had rushed into her cheeks.
It seemed to Sir Wilfrid that she turned away and busied herself with
the photographs in order to hide it.
The General rose, a thin, soldierly figure, with gray hair that drooped
forward, and two bright spots of red on the cheek-bones. In contrast
with the expansiveness of his previous manner to Mademoiselle Le Breton,
he was now a trifle frowning and stiff--the high official once more, and
great man.
"Good-night, Sir Wilfrid. I must be off."
"How are your sons?" said Sir Wilfrid, as he rose.
"The eldest is in Canada with his regiment."
"And the second?"
"The second is in orders."
"Overworking himself in the East End, as all the young parsons seem to
be doing?"
"That is precisely what he _has_ been doing. But now, I am thankful to
say, a country living has been offered him, and his mother and I have
persuaded him to take it."
"A country living? Where?"
"One of the Duke of Crowborough's Shropshire livings," said the General,
after what seemed to be an instant's hesitation. Mademoiselle Le Breton
had moved away, and was replacing the photographs in the drawer of a
distant bureau.
"Ah, one of Crowborough's? Well, I hope it is a living with something to
live on."
"Not so bad, as times go," said the General, smiling. "It has been a
great relief to our minds. There were some chest symptoms; his mother
was alarmed. The Duchess has been most kind; she took quite a fancy to
the lad, and--"
"What a woman wants she gets. Well, I hope he'll like it. Good-night,
General. Shall I look you up at the War Office some morning?"
"By all means."
The old soldier, whose tanned face had shown a singular softness while
he was speaking of his son, took his leave.
Sir Wilfrid was left meditating, his eyes absently fixed on the graceful
figure of Mademoiselle Le Breton, who shut the drawer she had been
arranging and returned to him.
"Do you know the General's sons?" he asked her, while she was preparing
him a second cup of tea.
"I have seen the younger."
She turned her beautiful eyes upon him. It seemed to Sir Wilfrid that he
perceived in them a passing tremor of nervous defiance, as though she
were in some way bracing herself against him. But her self-possession
was complete.
"Lady Henry seems in better spirits," he said, bending towards her.
She did not reply for a moment. Her eyes dropped. Then she raised them
again, and gently shook her head without a word. The melancholy energy
of her expression gave him a moment's thrill.
"Is it as bad as ever?" he asked her, in a whisper.
"It's pretty bad. I've tried to appease her. I told her about the
bazaar. She said she couldn't spare me, and, of course, I acquiesced.
Then, yesterday, the Duchess--hush!"
"Mademoiselle!"
Lady Henry's voice rang imperiously through the room.
"Yes, Lady Henry."
Mademoiselle Le Breton stood up expectant.
"Find me, please, that number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ which came
in yesterday. I can prove it to you in two minutes," she said, turning
triumphantly to Montresor on her right.
"What's the matter?" said Sir Wilfrid, joining Lady Henry's circle,
while Mademoiselle Le Breton disappeared into the back drawing-room.
"Oh, nothing," said Montresor, tranquilly. "Lady Henry thinks she has
caught me out in a blunder--about Favre, and the negotiations at
Versailles. I dare say she has. I am the most ignorant person alive."
"Then are the rest of us spooks?" said Sir Wilfrid, smiling, as he
seated himself beside his hostess. Montresor, whose information on most
subjects was prodigious, laughed and adjusted his eye-glass. These
battles royal on a date or a point of fact between him and Lady Henry
were not uncommon. Lady Henry was rarely victorious. This time, however,
she was confident, and she sat frowning and impatient for the book that
didn't come.
Mademoiselle Le Breton, indeed, returned from the back drawing-room
empty-handed; left the room apparently to look elsewhere, and came back
still without the book.
"Everything in this house is always in confusion!" said Lady Henry,
angrily. "No order, no method anywhere!"
Mademoiselle Julie said nothing. She retreated behind the circle that
surrounded Lady Henry. But Montresor jumped up and offered her
his chair.
"I wish I had you for a secretary, mademoiselle," he said, gallantly. "I
never before heard Lady Henry ask you for anything you couldn't find."
Lady Henry flushed, and, turning abruptly to Bury, began a new topic.
Julie quietly refused the seat offered to her, and was retiring to an
ottoman in the background when the door was thrown open and the footman
announced:
"Captain Warkworth."