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 _mésalliance_? A successful
soldier was good enough for anybody. Look at the first Lord Clyde, and
scores besides.
The Duchess, 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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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, God "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 class, 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 associated 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!"
"That's the hardest work I've done for many a long day," he said to
himself, with a sigh of relief, as the hansom drove away. "I sha'n't
turn nurse-maid when other trades fail. But they're nice little kids
all the same.
"Now, then, Cox's--and the City"--he ran over the list of his
engagements for the afternoon--"and by five o'clock shall I find my fair
lady--at home--and established? Where on earth is Heribert Street?"
* * * * *
He solved the question, for a few minutes after five he was on Miss Le
Breton's doorstep. A quaint little house--and a strange parlor-maid! For
the door was opened to him by a large-eyed, sickly child, who looked at
him with the bewilderment of one trying to follow out instructions still
strange to her.
[Illustration: "HE ENTERED UPON A MERRY SCENE"]
"Yes, sir, Miss Le Breton is in the drawing-room," she said, in a
sweet, deliberate voice with a foreign accent, and she led the way
through the hall.
Poor little soul--what a twisted back, and what a limp! She looked about
fourteen, but was probably older. Where had Julie discovered her?
Warkworth looked round him at the little hall with its relics of
country-house sports and amusements; his eye travelled through an open
door to the little dining-room and the Russell pastels of Lady Mary's
parents, as children, hanging on the wall. The _character_ of the little
dwelling impressed itself at once. Smiling; he acknowledged its
congruity with Julie. Here was a lady who fell on her feet!
The child, leading him, opened the door to the left.
"Please walk in, sir," she said, shyly, and stood aside.
As the door opened, Warkworth was conscious of a noise of tongues.
So Julie was not alone? He prepared his manner accordingly.
He entered upon a merry scene. Jacob Delafield was standing on a chair,
hanging a picture, while Dr. Meredith and Julie, on either side,
directed or criticised the operation. Meredith carried picture-cord and
scissors; Julie the hammer and nails. Meredith was expressing the
profoundest disbelief in Jacob's practical capacities; Jacob was
defending himself hotly; and Julie laughed at both.
Towards the other end of the room stood the tea-table, between the fire
and an open window. Lord Lackington sat beside it, smiling to himself,
and stroking a Persian kitten. Through the open window the twinkling
buds on the lilacs in the Cureton House garden shone in the still
lingering sun. A recent shower had left behind it odors of earth and
grass. Even in this London air they spoke of the spring--the spring
which already in happier lands was drawing veils of peach and cherry
blossom, over the red Sienese earth or the green terraces of Como. The
fire crackled in the grate. The pretty, old-fashioned room was fragrant
with hyacinth and narcissus; Julie's books lay on the tables; Julie's
hand and taste were already to be felt everywhere. And Lord Lackington
with the kitten, beside the fire, gave the last touch of home and
domesticity.
"So I find you established?" said Warkworth, smiling, to the lady with
the nails, while Delafield nodded to him from the top of the steps and
Meredith ceased to chatter.
"I haven't a hand, I fear," said Julie. "Will you have some tea? Ah,
Léonie, tu vas en faire de nouveau, n'est-ce pas, pour ce monsieur?"
A little woman in black, with a shawl over her shoulders, had just
glided into the room. She had a small, wrinkled face, bright eyes, and a
much-flattened nose.
"Tout de suite, monsieur," she said, quickly, and disappeared with the
teapot. Warkworth guessed, of course, that she was Madame Bornier, the
foster-sister--the "Propriety" of this _ménage_.
"Can't I help?" he said to Julie, with a look at Delafield.
"It's just done," she said, coldly, handing a nail to Delafield. "_Just_
a trifle more to the right. Ecco! Perfection!"
"Oh, you spoil him," said Meredith, "And not one word of praise for
me!"
"What have you done?" she said, laughing. "Tangled the cord--that's
all!"
Warkworth turned away. His face, so radiant as he entered, had settled
into sharp, sudden lines. What was the meaning of this voice, this
manner? He remembered that to his three letters he had received no word
of reply. But he had interpreted that to mean that she was in the throes
of moving and could find no time to write.
As he neared the tea-table, Lord Lackington looked up. He greeted the
new-comer with the absent stateliness he generally put on when his mind
was in a state of confusion as to a person's identity.
"Well, so they're sending you to D----? There'll be a row there before
long. Wish you joy of the missionaries!"
"No, not D----," said Warkworth, smiling. "Nothing so amusing. Mokembe's
my destination."
"Oh, Mokembe!" said Lord Lackington, a little abashed. "That's where
Cecil Ray, Lord R's second son, was killed last year--lion-hunting? No,
it was of fever that he died. By-the-way, a vile climate!"
"In the plains, yes," said Warkworth, seating himself. "As to the
uplands, I understand they are to be the Switzerland of Africa."
Lord Lackington did not appear to listen.
"Are you a homoeopath?" he said, suddenly, rising to his full and
immense stature and looking down with eagerness on Warkworth.
"No. Why?"
"Because it's your only chance, for those parts. If Cecil Ray had had
their medicines with him he'd be alive now. Look here; when do you
start?" The speaker took out his note-book.
"In rather less than a month I start for Denga."
"All right. I'll send you a medicine-case--from Epps. If you're ill,
take 'em."
"You're very good."
"Not at all. It's my hobby--one of the last." A broad, boyish smile
flashed over the handsome old face. "Look at me; I'm seventy-five, and I
can tire out my own grandsons at riding and shooting. That comes of
avoiding all allopathic messes like the devil. But the allopaths are
such mean fellows they filch all our ideas."
The old man was off. Warkworth submitted to five minutes' tirade,
stealing a glance sometimes at the group of Julie, Meredith, and
Delafield in the farther window--at the happy ease and fun that seemed
to prevail in it. He fiercely felt himself shut out and trampled on.
Suddenly, Lord Lackington pulled up, his instinct for declamation
qualified by an equally instinctive dread of boring or being bored.
"What did you think of Montresor's statement?" he said, abruptly,
referring to a batch of army reforms that Montresor the week before had
endeavored to recommend to a sceptical House of Commons.
"All very well, as far as it goes," said Warkworth, with a shrug.
"Precisely! We English want an army and a navy; we don't like it when
those fellows on the Continent swagger in our faces, and yet we won't
pay either for the ships or the men. However, now that they've done away
with purchase--Gad! I could fight them in the streets for the way in
which they've done it!--now that they've turned the army into an
examination-shop, tempered with jobbery, whatever we do, we shall go to
the deuce. So it don't matter."
"You were against the abolition?"
"I was, sir--with Wellington and Raglan and everybody else of any
account. And as for the violence, the disgraceful violence with which it
was carried--"
"Oh no, no," said Warkworth, laughing. "It was the Lords who behaved
abominably, and it'll do a deal of good."
Lord Lackington's eyes flashed.
"I've had a long life," he said, pugnaciously. "I began as a middy in
the American war of 1812, that nobody remembers now. Then I left the sea
for the army. I knocked about the world. I commanded a brigade in
the Crimea--"
"Who doesn't remember that?" said Warkworth, smiling.
The old man acknowledged the homage by a slight inclination of his
handsome head.
"And you may take my word for it that this new system will not give you
men worth _a tenth part_ of those fellows who bought and bribed their
way in under the old. The philosophers may like it, or lump it, but
so it is."
Warkworth dissented strongly. He was a good deal of a politician,
himself a "new man," and on the side of "new men." Lord Lackington
warmed to the fight, and Warkworth, with bitterness in his
heart--because of that group opposite--was nothing loath to meet him.
But presently he found the talk taking a turn that astonished him. He
had entered upon a drawing-room discussion of a subject which had, after
all, been settled, if only by what the Tories were pleased to call the
_coup d'état_ of the Royal Warrant, and no longer excited the passions
of a few years back. What he had really drawn upon himself was a
hand-to-hand wrestle with a man who had no sooner provoked contradiction
than he resented it with all his force, and with a determination to
crush the contradictor.
Warkworth fought well, but with a growing amazement at the tone and
manner of his opponent. The old man's eyes darted war-flames under his
finely arched brows. He regarded the younger with a more and more
hostile, even malicious air; his arguments grew personal, offensive; his
shafts were many and barbed, till at last Warkworth felt his face
burning and his temper giving way.
"What _are_ you talking about?" said Julie Le Breton, at last, rising
and coming towards them.
Lord Lackington broke off suddenly and threw himself into his chair.
Warkworth rose from his.
"We had better have been handing nails," he said, "but you wouldn't give
us any work." Then, as Meredith and Delafield approached, he seized the
opportunity of saying, in a low voice:
"Am I not to have a word?"
She turned with composure, though it seemed to him she was very pale.
"Have you just come back from the Isle of Wight?"
"This morning." He looked her in the eyes. "You got my letters?"
"Yes, but I have had no time for writing. I hope you found your mother
well."
"Very well, thank you. You have been hard at work?"
"Yes, but the Duchess and Mr. Delafield have made it all easy."
And so on, a few more insignificant questions and answers.
"I must go," said Delafield, coming up to them, "unless there is any
more work for me to do. Good-bye, Major, I congratulate you. They have
given you a fine piece of work."
Warkworth made a little bow, half ironical. Confound the fellow's grave
and lordly ways! He did not want his congratulations.
He lingered a little, sorely, full of rage, yet not knowing how to go.
Lord Lackington's eyes ceased to blaze, and the kitten ventured once
more to climb upon his knee. Meredith, too, found a comfortable
arm-chair, and presently tried to beguile the kitten from his neighbor.
Julie sat erect between them, very silent, her thin, white hands on her
lap, her head drooped a little, her eyes carefully restrained from
meeting Warkworth's. He meanwhile leaned against the mantel-piece,
irresolute.
Meredith, it was clear, made himself quite happy and at home in the
little drawing-room. The lame child came in and took a stool beside him.
He stroked her head and talked nonsense to her in the intervals of
holding forth to Julie on the changes necessary in some proofs of his
which he had brought back. Lord Lackington, now quite himself again,
went back to dreams, smiling over them, and quite unaware that the
kitten had been slyly ravished from him. The little woman in black sat
knitting in the background. It was all curiously intimate and domestic,
only Warkworth had no part in it.
"Good-bye, Miss Le Breton," he said, at last, hardly knowing his own
voice. "I am dining out."
She rose and gave him her hand. But it dropped from his like a thing
dead and cold. He went out in a sudden suffocation of rage and pain; and
as he walked in a blind haste to Cureton Street, he still saw her
standing in the old-fashioned, scented room, so coldly graceful, with
those proud, deep eyes.
* * * * *
When he had gone, Julie moved to the window and looked out into the
gathering dusk. It seemed to her as if those in the room must hear the
beating of her miserable heart.
When she rejoined her companions, Dr. Meredith had already risen and was
stuffing various letters and papers into his pockets with a view to
departure.
"Going?" said Lord Lackington. "You shall see the last of me, too,
Mademoiselle Julie."
And he stood up. But she, flushing, looked at him with a wistful smile.
"Won't you stay a few minutes? You promised to advise me about Thérèse's
drawings."
"By all means."
Lord Lackington sat down again. The lame child, it appeared, had some
artistic talent, which Miss Le Breton wished to cultivate. Meredith
suddenly found his coat and hat, and, with a queer look at Julie,
departed in a hurry.
"Thérèse, darling," said Julie, "will you go up-stairs, please, and
fetch me that book from my room that has your little drawings
inside it?"
The child limped away on her errand. In spite of her lameness she moved
with wonderful lightness and swiftness, and she was back again quickly
with a calf-bound book in her hand.
"Léonie!" said Julie, in a low voice, to Madame Bornier.
The little woman looked up startled, nodded, rolled up her knitting in a
moment, and was gone.
"Take the book to his lordship, Thérèse," she said, and then, instead of
moving with the child, she again walked to the window, and, leaning her
head against it, looked out. The hand hanging against her dress trembled
violently.
"What did you want me to look at, my dear?" said Lord Lackington, taking
the book in his hand and putting on his glasses.
But the child was puzzled and did not know. She gazed at him silently
with her sweet, docile look.
"Run away, Thérèse, and find mother," said Julie, from the window.
The child sped away and closed the door behind her.
Lord Lackington adjusted his glasses and opened the book. Two or three
slips of paper with drawings upon them fluttered out and fell on the
table beneath. Suddenly there was a cry. Julie turned round, her
lips parted.
Lord Lackington walked up to her.
"Tell me what this means," he said, peremptorily. "How did you come by
it?"
It was a volume of George Sand. He pointed, trembling, to the name and
date on the fly-leaf--"Rose Delaney, 1842."
"It is mine," she said, softly, dropping her eyes.
"But how--how, in God's name, did you come by it?"
"My mother left it to me, with all her other few books and possessions."
There was a pause. Lord Lackington came closer.
"Who was your mother?" he said, huskily.
The words in answer were hardly audible. Julie stood before him like a
culprit, her beautiful head humbly bowed.
Lord Lackington dropped the book and stood bewildered.
"Rose's child?" he said--"Rose's child?"
Then, approaching her, he placed his hand on her arm.
"Let me look at you," he commanded.
Julie raised her eyes to him, and at the same time dumbly held out to
him a miniature she had been keeping hidden in her hand. It was one of
the miniatures from the locked triptych.
He took it, looked from the pictured to the living face, then, turning
away with a groan, he covered his face with his hands and fell again
into the chair from which he had risen.
Julie hurried to him. Her own eyes were wet with tears. After a moment's
hesitation she knelt down beside him.
"I ought to ask your pardon for not having told you before," she
murmured.
It was some time before Lord Lackington looked up. When at last his
hands dropped, the face they uncovered was very white and old.
"So you," he said, almost in a whisper, "are the child she wrote to me
about before she died?"
Julie made a sign of assent.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-nine."
"_She_ was thirty-two when I saw her last."
There was a silence. Julie lifted one of his hands and kissed it. But he
took no notice.
"You know that I was going to her, that I should have reached her in
time"--the words seemed wrung from him--"but that I was myself
dangerously ill?"
"I know. I remember it all."
"Did she speak of me?"
"Not often. She was very reserved, you remember. But not long before she
died--she seemed half asleep--I heard her say, 'Papa!--Blanche!' and
she smiled."
Lord Lackington's face contracted, and the slow tears of old age stood
in his eyes.
"You are like her in some ways," he said, brusquely, as though to cover
his emotion; "but not very like her."
"She always thought I was like you."
A cloud came over Lord Lackington's face. Julie rose from her knees and
sat beside him. He lost himself a few moments amid the painful ghosts of
memory. Then, turning to her abruptly, he said:
"You have wondered, I dare say, why I was so hard--why, for seventeen
years, I cast her off?"
"Yes, often. You could have come to see us without anybody knowing.
Mother loved you very much."
Her voice was low and sad. Lord Lackington rose, fidgeted restlessly
with some of the small ornaments on the mantel-piece, and at last
turned to her.
"She brought dishonor," he said, in the same stifled voice, "and the
women of our family have always been stainless. But that I could have
forgiven. After a time I should have resumed relations--private
relations--with her. But it was your father who stood in the way. I was
then--I am now--you saw me with that young fellow just now--quarrelsome
and hot-tempered. It is my nature." He drew himself up obstinately. "I
can't help it. I take great pains to inform myself, then I cling to my
opinions tenaciously, and in argument my temper gets the better of me.
Your father, too, was hot-tempered. He came, with my consent, once to
see me--after your mother had left her husband--to try and bring about
some arrangement between us. It was the Chartist time. He was a Radical,
a Socialist of the most extreme views. In the course of our conversation
something was said that excited him. He went off at score. I became
enraged, and met him with equal violence. We had a furious argument,
which ended in each insulting the other past forgiveness. We parted
enemies for life. I never could bring myself to see him afterwards, nor
to run the risk of seeing him. Your mother took his side and espoused
his opinions while he lived. After his death, I suppose, she was too
proud and sore to write to me. I wrote to her once--it was not the
letter it might have been. She did not reply till she felt herself
dying. That is the explanation of what, no doubt, must seem strange
to you."
[Illustration: "'FOR MY ROSE'S CHILD,' HE SAID, GENTLY"]
He turned to her almost pleadingly. A deep flush had replaced the pallor
of his first emotion, as though in the presence of these primal
realities of love, death, and sorrow which she had recalled to him, his
old quarrel, on a political difference, cut but a miserable figure.
"No," she said, sadly, "not very strange. I understood my father--my
dear father," she added, with soft, deliberate tenderness.
Lord Lackington was silent a little, then he threw her a sudden,
penetrating look.
"You have been in London three years. You ought to have told me before."
It was Julie's turn to color.
"Lady Henry bound me to secrecy."
"Lady Henry did wrong," he said, with emphasis. Then he asked,
jealously, with a touch of his natural irascibility, "Who else has been
in the secret?"
"Four people, at most--the Duchess, first of all. I couldn't help it,"
she pleaded. "I was so unhappy with Lady Henry."
"You should have come to me. It was my right."
"But"--she dropped her head--"you had made it a condition that I should
not trouble you."
He was silenced; and once more he leaned against the mantel-piece and
hid his face from her, till, by a secret impulse, both moved. She rose
and approached him; he laid his hands on her arms. With his persistent
instinct for the lovely or romantic he perceived, with sudden pleasure,
the grave, poetic beauty of her face and delicate form. Emotion had
softened away all that was harsh; a quivering charm hovered over the
features. With a strange pride, and a sense of mystery, he recognized
his daughter and his race.
"For my Rose's child," he said, gently, and, stooping, he kissed her on
the brow. She broke out into weeping, leaning against his shoulder,
while the old man comforted and soothed her.