Meanwhile the Duchess had dropped Julie Le Breton at Lady Henry's door.
Julie groped her way up-stairs through the sleeping house. She found her
room in darkness, and she turned on no light. There was still a last
glimmer of fire, and she sank down by it, her long arms clasped round
her knees, her head thrown back as though she listened still to words
in her ears.
"Oh, such a child! Such a dear, simple-minded child! Report engaged her
to at least ten different people at Simla. She had a crowd of cavaliers
there--I was one of them. The whole place adored her. She is a very rare
little creature, but well looked after, I can tell you--a long array of
guardians in the background."
How was it possible not to trust that aspect and that smile? Her mind
travelled back to the autumn days when she had seen them first; reviewed
the steps, so little noticed at first, so rapid lately and full of fate,
by which she had come into this bondage wherein she stood. She saw the
first appearance of the young soldier in Lady Henry's drawing-room; her
first conversation with him; and all the subtle development of that
singular relation between them, into which so many elements had entered.
The flattering sense of social power implied both in the homage of this
young and successful man, and in the very services that she, on her
side, was able to render him; impulsive gratitude for that homage, at a
time when her very soul was smarting under Lady Henry's contemptuous
hostility; and then the sweet advances of a "friendship" that was to
unite them in a bond, secret and unique, a bond that took no account of
the commonplaces of love and marriage, the link of equal and kindred
souls in a common struggle with hard and sordid circumstance.
"I have neither family nor powerful friends," he had written to her a
few weeks after their first meeting; "all that I have won, I have won
for myself. Nobody ever made 'interest' for me but you. You, too, are
alone in the world. You, too, have to struggle for yourself. Let us
unite our forces--cheer each other, care for each other--and keep our
friendship a sacred secret from the world that would misunderstand it. I
will not fail you, I will give you all my confidence; and I will try and
understand that noble, wounded heart of yours, with its memories, and
all those singular prides and isolations that have been imposed on it by
circumstance. I will not say, let me be your brother; there is something
_banal_ in that; 'friend' is good enough for us both; and there is
between us a community of intellectual and spiritual interest which will
enable us to add new meaning even to that sacred word. I will write to
you every day; you shall know all that happens to me; and whatever
grateful devotion can do to make your life smoother shall be done."
Five months ago was it, that that letter was written?
Its remembered phrases already rang bitterly in an aching heart. Since
it reached her, she had put out all her powers as a woman, all her
influence as an intelligence, in the service of the writer.
And now, here she sat in the dark, tortured by a passion of which she
was ashamed, before which she was beginning to stand helpless in a kind
of terror. The situation was developing, and she found herself wondering
how much longer she would be able to control herself or it. Very
miserably conscious, too, was she all the time that she was now playing
for a reward that was secretly, tacitly, humiliatingly denied her. How
could a poor man, with Harry Warkworth's ambitions, think for a moment
of marriage with a woman in her ambiguous and dependent position? Her
common-sense told her that the very notion was absurd. And yet, since
the Duchess's gossip had given point and body to a hundred vague
suspicions, she was no longer able to calm, to master herself.
Suddenly a thought of another kind occurred to her. It added to her
smart that Sir Wilfrid, in their meeting at Lady Hubert's, had spoken to
her and looked at her with that slight touch of laughing contempt. There
had been no insincerity in that emotion with which she had first
appealed to him as her mother's friend; she did truly value the old
man's good opinion. And yet she had told him lies.
"I can't help it," she said to herself, with a little shiver. The story
about the biography had been the invention of a moment. It had made
things easy, and it had a small foundation in the fact that Lady Henry
had talked vaguely of using the letters lent her by Captain Warkworth
for the elucidation--perhaps in a _Nineteenth Century_ article--of
certain passages in her husband's Indian career.
Jacob Delafield, too. There also it was no less clear to her than to Sir
Wilfrid that she had "overdone it." It was true, then, what Lady Henry
said of her--that she had an overmastering tendency to intrigue--to a
perpetual tampering with the plain fact?
"Well, it is the way in which such people as I defend themselves," she
said, obstinately, repeating to herself what she had said to Sir
Wilfrid Bury.
And then she set against it, proudly, that disinterestedness of which,
as she vowed to herself, no one but she knew the facts. It was true,
what she had said to the Duchess and to Sir Wilfrid. Plenty of people
would give her money, would make her life comfortable, without the need
for any daily slavery. She would not take it. Jacob Delafield would
marry her, if she lifted her finger; and she would not lift it. Dr.
Meredith would marry her, and she had said him nay. She hugged the
thought of her own unknown and unapplauded integrity. It comforted her
pride. It drew a veil over that wounding laughter which had gleamed for
a moment through those long lashes of Sir Wilfrid Bury.
Last of all, as she sank into her restless sleep, came the remembrance
that she was still under Lady Henry's roof. In the silence of the night
the difficulties of her situation pressed upon and tormented her. What
was she to do? Whom was she to trust?
* * * * *
"Dixon, how is Lady Henry?"
"Much too ill to come down-stairs, miss. She's very much put out; in
fact, miss (the maid lowered her voice), you hardly dare go near her.
But she says herself it would be absurd to attempt it."
"Has Hatton had any orders?"
"Yes, miss. I've just told him what her ladyship wishes. He's to tell
everybody that Lady Henry's very sorry, and hoped up to the last moment
to be able to come down as usual."
"Has Lady Henry all she wants, Dixon? Have you taken her the evening
papers?"
"Oh yes, miss. But if you go in to her much her ladyship says you're
disturbing her; and if you don't go, why, of course, everybody's
neglecting her."
"Do you think I may go and say good-night to her, Dixon?"
The maid hesitated.
"I'll ask her, miss--I'll certainly ask her."
The door closed, and Julie was left alone in the great drawing-room of
the Bruton Street house. It had been prepared as usual for the
Wednesday--evening party. The flowers were fresh; the chairs had been
arranged as Lady Henry liked to have them; the parquet floors shone
under the electric light; the Gainsboroughs seemed to look down from the
walls with a gay and friendly expectancy.
For herself, Julie had just finished her solitary dinner, still buoyed
up while she was eating it by the hope that Lady Henry would be able to
come down. The bitter winds of the two previous days, however, had much
aggravated her chronic rheumatism. She was certainly ill and suffering;
but Julie had known her make such heroic efforts before this to keep her
Wednesdays going that not till Dixon appeared with her verdict did she
give up hope.
So everybody would be turned away. Julie paced the drawing-room a
solitary figure amid its lights and flowers--solitary and dejected. In a
couple of hours' time all her particular friends would come to the door,
and it would be shut against them. "Of course, expect me to-night," had
been the concluding words of her letter of the morning. Several people
also had announced themselves for this evening whom it was extremely
desirable she should see. A certain eminent colonel, professor at the
Staff College, was being freely named in the papers for the Mokembe
mission. Never was it more necessary for her to keep all the threads of
her influence in good working order. And these Wednesday evenings
offered her the occasions when she was most successful, most at her
ease--especially whenever Lady Henry was not well enough to leave the
comparatively limited sphere of the back drawing-room.
Moreover, the gatherings themselves ministered to a veritable craving in
Julie Le Breton--the craving for society and conversation. She shared it
with Lady Henry, but in her it was even more deeply rooted. Lady Henry
had ten talents in the Scriptural sense--money, rank, all sorts of
inherited bonds and associations. Julie Le Breton had but this one.
Society was with her both an instinct and an art. With the subtlest and
most intelligent ambition she had trained and improved her natural gift
for it during the last few years. And now, to the excitement of society
was added the excitement of a new and tyrannous feeling, for which
society was henceforth a mere weapon to be used.
She fumed and fretted for a while in silence. Every now and then she
would pause in front of one of the great mirrors of the room, and look
at the reflection of her tall thinness and the trailing satin of
her gown.
"The girl--so pretty, in a gossamer sort of way," The words echoed in
her mind, and vaguely, beside her own image in the glass, there rose a
vision of girlhood--pale, gold hair, pink cheeks, white frock--and she
turned away, miserable, from that conscious, that intellectual
distinction with which, in general, she could persuade herself to be
very fairly satisfied.
Hutton, the butler, came in to look at the fire.
"Will you be sitting here to-night, miss?"
"Oh no, Hutton. I shall go back to the library. I think the fire in my
own room is out."
"I had better put out these lights, anyway," said the man, looking round
the brilliant room.
"Oh, certainly," said Julie, and she began to assist him to do so.
Suddenly a thought occurred to her.
"Hutton!" She went up to him and spoke in a lower tone. "If the Duchess
of Crowborough comes to-night, I should very much like to see her, and I
know she wants to see me. Do you think it could possibly disturb Lady
Henry if you were to show her into the library for twenty minutes?"
The man considered.
"I don't think there could be anything heard up-stairs, miss. I should,
of course, warn her grace that her ladyship was ill."
"Well, then, Hutton, please ask her to come in," said Miss Le Breton,
hurriedly. "And, Hutton, Dr. Meredith and Mr. Montresor, you know how
disappointed they'll be not to find Lady Henry at home?"
"Yes, miss. They'll want to know how her ladyship is, no doubt. I'll
tell them you're in the library. And Captain Warkworth, miss?--he's
never missed a Wednesday evening for weeks."
"Oh, well, if he comes--you must judge for yourself, Hutton," said Miss
Le Breton, occupying herself with the electric switches. "I should like
to tell them all--the old friends--how Lady Henry is."
The butler's face was respectful discretion itself.
"Of course, miss. And shall I bring tea and coffee?"
"Oh no," said Miss Le Breton, hastily; and then, after reflection,
"Well, have it ready; but I don't suppose anybody will ask for it. Is
there a good fire in the library?"
"Oh yes, miss. I thought you would be coming down there again. Shall I
take some of these flowers down? The room looks rather bare, if
anybody's coming in."
Julie colored a little.
"Well, you might--not many. And, Hutton, you're sure we can't disturb
Lady Henry?"
Hutton's expression was not wholly confident.
"Her ladyship's very quick of hearing, miss. But I'll shut those doors
at the foot of the back stairs, and I'll ask every one to come
in quietly."
"Thank you, Hutton--thank you. That'll be very good of you. And,
Hutton--"
"Yes, miss." The man paused with a large vase of white arums in his
hand.
"You'll say a word to Dixon, won't you? If anybody comes in, there'll be
no need to trouble Lady Henry about it. I can tell her to-morrow."
"Very good, miss. Dixon will be down to her supper presently."
The butler departed. Julie was left alone in the now darkened room,
lighted only by one lamp and the bright glow of the fire. She caught her
breath--suddenly struck with the audacity of what she had been doing.
Eight or ten of these people certainly would come in--eight or ten of
Lady Henry's "intimates." If Lady Henry discovered it--after this
precarious truce between them had just been patched up!
Julie made a step towards the door as though to recall the butler, then
stopped herself. The thought that in an hour's time Harry Warkworth
might be within a few yards of her, and she not permitted to see him,
worked intolerably in heart and brain, dulling the shrewd intelligence
by which she was ordinarily governed. She was conscious, indeed, of some
profound inner change. Life had been difficult enough before the Duchess
had said those few words to her. But since!
Suppose he had deceived her at Lady Hubert's party! Through all her
mounting passion her acute sense of character did not fail her. She
secretly knew that it was quite possible he had deceived her. But the
knowledge merely added to the sense of danger which, in this case, was
one of the elements of passion itself.
"He must have money--of course he must have money," she was saying,
feverishly, to herself. "But I'll find ways. Why should he marry
yet--for years? It would be only hampering him."
Again she paused before the mirrored wall; and again imagination evoked
upon the glass the same white and threatening image--her own near
kinswoman--the child of her mother's sister! How strange! Where was the
little gossamer creature now--in what safe haven of money and family
affection, and all the spoiling that money brings? From the climbing
paths of her own difficult and personal struggle Julie Le Breton looked
down with sore contempt on such a degenerate ease of circumstance. She
had heard it said that the mother and daughter were lingering abroad for
a time on their way home from India. Yet was the girl all the while
pining for England, thinking not of her garden, her horse, her pets, but
only of this slim young soldier who in a few minutes, perhaps, would
knock at Lady Henry's door, in quest of Aileen Moffatt's unknown,
unguessed-of cousin? These thoughts sent wild combative thrills through
Julie's pulses. She turned to one of the old French clocks. How much
longer now--till he came?
"Her ladyship would like to see you, miss."
The voice was Dixon's, and Julie turned hurriedly, recalling all her
self-possession. She climbed some steep stairs, still unmodernized, to
Lady Henry's floor. That lady slept at the back of the house, so as to
be out of noise. Her room was an old-fashioned apartment, furnished
about the year Queen Victoria came to the throne, with furniture,
chintzes, and carpet of the most approved early Victorian pattern. What
had been ugly then was dingy now; and its strong mistress, who had known
so well how to assimilate and guard the fine decorations and noble
pictures of the drawing-rooms, would not have a thing in it touched. "It
suits me," she would say, impatiently, when her stout sister-in-law
pleaded placidly for white paint and bright colors. "If it's ugly, so
am I."
Fierce, certainly, and forbidding she was on this February evening. She
lay high on her pillow, tormented by her chronic bronchitis and by
rheumatic pain, her brows drawn together, her vigorous hands clasped
before her in an evident tension, as though she only restrained herself
with difficulty from defying maid, doctor, and her own sense
of prudence.
"Well, you have dressed?" she said, sharply, as Julie Le Breton entered
her room.
"I did not get your message till I had finished dinner. And I dressed
before dinner."
Lady Henry looked her up and down, like a cat ready to pounce.
"You didn't bring me those letters to sign?"
"No, I thought you were not fit for it."
"I said they were to go to-night. Kindly bring them at once."
Julie brought them. With groans and flinchings that she could not
repress, Lady Henry read and signed them. Then she demanded to be read
to. Julie sat down, trembling. How fast the hands of Lady Henry's clock
were moving on!
Mercifully, Lady Henry was already somewhat sleepy, partly from
weakness, partly from a dose of bromide.
"I hear nothing," she said, putting out an impatient hand. "You should
raise your voice. I didn't mean you to shout, of course. Thank
you--that'll do. Good-night. Tell Hutton to keep the house as quiet as
he can. People must knock and ring, I suppose; but if all the doors are
properly shut it oughtn't to bother me. Are you going to bed?"
"I shall sit up a little to write some letters. But--I sha'n't be
late."
"Why should you be late?" said Lady Henry, tartly, as she turned away.
* * * * *
Julie made her way down-stairs with a beating heart. All the doors were
carefully shut behind her. When she reached the hall it was already
half-past ten o'clock. She hurried to the library, the large panelled
room behind the dining-room. How bright Hutton had made it look! Up shot
her spirits. With a gay and dancing step she went from chair to chair,
arranging everything instinctively as she was accustomed to do in the
drawing-room. She made the flowers less stiff; she put on another light;
she drew one table forward and pushed its fellow back against the wall.
What a charming old room, after all! What a pity Lady Henry so seldom
used it! It was panelled in dark oak, while the drawing-room was white.
But the pictures, of which there were two or three, looked even better
here than up-stairs. That beautiful Lawrence--a "red boy" in gleaming
satin--that pair of Hoppners, fine studies in blue, why, who had ever
seen them before? And another light or two would show them still better.
A loud knock and ring. Julie held her breath. Ah! A distant voice in the
hall. She moved to the fire, and stood quietly reading an evening paper.
"Captain Warkworth would be glad if you would see him for a few minutes,
miss. He would like to ask you himself about her ladyship."
"Please ask him to come in, Hutton."
Hutton effaced himself, and the young man entered, Then Julie raised her
voice.
"Remember, please, Hutton, that I _particularly_ want to see the
Duchess."
Hutton bowed and retired. Warkworth came forward.
"What luck to find you like this!"
He threw her one look--Julie knew it to be a look of scrutiny--and then,
as she held out her hand, he stooped and kissed it.
"He wants to know that my suspicions are gone," she thought. "At any
rate, he should believe it."
"The great thing," she said, with her finger to her lip, "is that Lady
Henry should hear nothing."
She motioned her somewhat puzzled guest to a seat on one side of the
fire, and, herself, fell into another opposite. A wild vivacity was in
her face and manner.
"Isn't this amusing? Isn't the room charming? I think I should receive
very well"--she looked round her--"in my own house."
"You would receive well in a garret--a stable," he said. "But what is
the meaning of this? Explain."
"Lady Henry is ill and is gone to bed. That made her very cross--poor
Lady Henry! She thinks I, too, am in bed. But you see--you forced your
way in--didn't you?--to inquire with greater minuteness after Lady
Henry's health."
She bent towards him, her eyes dancing.
"Of course I did. Will there presently be a swarm on my heels, all
possessed with a similar eagerness, or--?"
He drew his chair, smiling, a little closer to her. She, on the
contrary, withdrew hers.
"There will, no doubt, be six or seven," she said, demurely, "who will
want personal news. But now, before they come"--her tone changed--"is
there anything to tell me?"
"Plenty," he said, drawing a letter out of his pocket. "Your writ, my
dear lady, runs as easily in the City as elsewhere." And he held up
an envelope.
She flushed.
"You have got your allotment? But I knew you would. Lady Froswick
promised."
"And a large allotment, too," he said, joyously. "I am the envy of all
my friends. Some of them have got a few shares, and have already sold
them--grumbling. I keep mine three days more on the best advice--the
price may go higher yet. But, anyway, there"--he shook the
envelope--"there it is--deliverance from debt--peace of mind for the
first time since I was a lad at school--the power of going, properly
fitted out and equipped, to Africa--_if_ I go--and not like a
beggar--all in that bit of paper, and all the work of--some one you and
I know. Fairy godmother! tell me, please, how to say a proper
thank you."
The young soldier dropped his voice. Those blue eyes which had done him
excellent service in many different parts of the globe were fixed with
brilliance on his companion; the lines of a full-lipped mouth quivered
with what seemed a boyish pleasure. The comfort of money relief was
never acknowledged more frankly or more handsomely.
Julie hurriedly repressed him. Did she feel instinctively that there are
thanks which it sometimes humiliates a man to remember, lavishly as he
may have poured them out at the moment--thanks which may easily count in
the long run, not for, but against, the donor? She rather haughtily
asked what she had done but say a chance word to Lady Froswick? The
shares had to be allotted to somebody. She was glad, of course, very
glad, if he were relieved from anxiety....
So did she free herself and him from a burdensome gratitude; and they
passed to discussing the latest chances of the Mokembe appointment. The
Staff-College Colonel was no doubt formidable; the Commander-in-Chief,
who had hitherto allowed himself to be much talked to on the subject of
young Warkworth's claims by several men in high place--General M'Gill
among them--well known in Lady Henry's drawing-room, was perhaps
inclining to the new suggestion, which was strongly supported by
important people in Egypt; he had one or two recent appointments on his
conscience not quite of the highest order, and the Staff-College man, in
addition to a fine military record, was virtue, poverty, and industry
embodied; was nobody's cousin, and would, altogether, produce a
good effect.
Could anything more be done, and fresh threads set in motion?
They bandied names a little, Julie quite as subtly and minutely informed
as the man with regard to all the sources of patronage. New devices,
fresh modes of approach revealed themselves to the woman's quick brain.
Yet she did not chatter about them; still less parade her own resources.
Only, in talking with her, dead walls seemed to give way; vistas of hope
and possibility opened in the very heart of discouragement. She found
the right word, the right jest, the right spur to invention or effort;
while all the time she was caressing and appeasing her companion's
self-love--placing it like a hot-house plant in an atmosphere of
expansion and content--with that art of hers, which, for the ambitious
and irritable man, more conscious of the kicks than of the kisses of
fortune, made conversation with her an active and delightful pleasure.
"I don't know how it is," Warkworth presently declared; "but after I
have been talking to you for ten minutes the whole world seems changed.
The sky was ink, and you have turned it rosy. But suppose it is all
mirage, and you the enchanter?"
He smiled at her--consciously, superabundantly. It was not easy to keep
quite cool with Julie Le Breton; the self-satisfaction she could excite
in the man she wished to please recoiled upon the woman offering the
incense. The flattered one was apt to be foolishly responsive.
"That is my risk," she said, with a little shrug. "If I make you
confident, and nothing comes of it--"
"I hope I shall know how to behave myself," cried Warkworth. "You see,
you hardly understand--forgive me!--your own personal effect. When
people are face to face with you, they want to please you, to say what
will please you, and then they go away, and--"
"Resolve not to be made fools of?" she said, smiling. "But isn't that
the whole art--when you're guessing what will happen--to be able to
strike the balance of half a dozen different attractions?"
"Montresor as the ocean," said Warkworth, musing, "with half a dozen
different forces tugging at him? Well, dear lady, be the moon to these
tides, while this humble mortal looks on--and hopes."
He bent forward, and across the glowing fire their eyes met. She looked
so cool, so handsome, so little yielding at that moment, that, in
addition to gratitude and nattered vanity, Warkworth was suddenly
conscious of a new stir in the blood. It begat, however, instant recoil.
Wariness!--let that be the word, both for her sake and his own. What had
he to reproach himself with so far? Nothing. He had never offered
himself as the lover, as the possible husband. They were both _esprits
faits_--they understood each other. As for little Aileen, well, whatever
had happened, or might happen, that was not his secret to give away. And
a woman in Julie Le Breton's position, and with her intelligence, knows
very well what the difficulties of her case are. Poor Julie! If she had
been Lady Henry, what a career she would have made for herself! He was
very curious as to her birth and antecedents, of which he knew little or
nothing; with him she had always avoided the subject. She was the child,
he understood, of English parents who had lived abroad; Lady Henry had
come across her by chance. But there must be something in her past to
account for this distinction, this ease with which she held her own in
what passes as the best of English society.
Julie soon found herself unwilling to meet the gaze fixed upon her. She
flushed a little and began to talk of other things.
"Everybody, surely, is unusually late. It will be annoying, indeed, if
the Duchess doesn't come."
"The Duchess is a delicious creature, but not for me," said Warkworth,
with a laugh. "She dislikes me. Ah, now then for the fray!"
For the outer bell rang loudly, and there were steps in the hall.
"Oh, Julie"--in swept a white whirlwind with the smallest white satin
shoes twinkling in front of it--"how clever of you--you naughty angel!
Aunt Flora in bed--and you down here! And I who came prepared for such a
dose of humble-pie! What a relief! Oh, how do you do?"
The last words were spoken in quite another tone, as the Duchess, for
the first time perceiving the young officer on the more shaded side of
the fireplace, extended to him a very high wrist and a very stiff hand.
Then she turned again to Julie.
"My dear, there's a small mob in the hall. Mr. Montresor--and General
Somebody--and Jacob--and Dr. Meredith with a Frenchman. Oh, and old Lord
Lackington, and Heaven knows who! Hutton told me I might come in, so I
promised to come first and reconnoitre. But what's Hutton to do? You
really must take a line. The carriages are driving up at a fine rate."
"I'll go and speak to Hutton," said Julie.
And she hurried into the hall.