In the first week of May, Julie Le Breton married Jacob Delafield in the
English Church at Florence. The Duchess was there. So was the Duke--a
sulky and ill-resigned spectator of something which he believed to be
the peculiar and mischievous achievement of his wife.
At the church door Julie and Delafield left for Camaldoli.
"Well, if you imagine that I intend to congratulate you or anybody else
upon that performance you are very much mistaken," said the Duke, as he
and his wife drove back to the "Grand Bretagne" together.
"I don't deny it's--risky," said the Duchess, her hands on her lap, her
eyes dreamily following the streets.
"Risky!" repeated the Duke, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, I don't want
to speak harshly of your friends, Evelyn, but Miss Le Breton--"
"Mrs. Delafield," said the Duchess.
"Mrs. Delafield, then"--the name was evidently a difficult
mouthful--"seems to me a most undisciplined and unmanageable woman. Why
does she look like a tragedy queen at her marriage? Jacob is twice too
good for her, and she'll lead him a life. And how you can reconcile it
to your conscience to have misled me so completely as you have in this
matter, I really can't imagine."
"Misled you?" said Evelyn.
Her innocence was really a little hard to bear, and not even the beauty
of her blue eyes, now happily restored to him, could appease the mentor
at her side.
"You led me plainly to believe," he repeated, with emphasis, "that if I
helped her through the crisis of leaving Lady Henry she would relinquish
her designs on Delafield."
"Did I?" said the Duchess. And putting her hands over her face she
laughed rather hysterically. "But that wasn't why you lent her the
house, Freddie."
"You coaxed me into it, of course," said the Duke.
"No, it was Julie herself got the better of you," said Evelyn,
triumphantly. "You felt her spell, just as we all do, and wanted to do
something for her."
"Nothing of the sort," said the Duke, determined to admit no
recollection to his disadvantage. "It was your doing entirely."
The Duchess thought it discreet to let him at least have the triumph of
her silence, smiling, and a little sarcastic though it were.
"And of all the undeserved good fortune!" he resumed, feeling in his
irritable disapproval that the moral order of the universe had been
somehow trifled with. "In the first place, she is the daughter of people
who flagrantly misconducted themselves--_that_ apparently does her no
harm. Then she enters the service of Lady Henry in a confidential
position, and uses it to work havoc in Lady Henry's social relations.
That, I am glad to say, _has_ done her a little harm, although not
nearly as much as she deserves. And finally she has a most discreditable
flirtation with a man already engaged--to her own cousin, please
observe!--and pulls wires for him all over the place in the most
objectionable and unwomanly manner."
"As if everybody didn't do that!" cried the Duchess. "You know, Freddie,
that your own mother always used to boast that she had made six bishops
and saved the Establishment."
The Duke took no notice.
"And yet there she is! Lord Lackington has left her a fortune--a
competence, anyway. She marries Jacob Delafield--rather a fool, I
consider, but all the same one of the best fellows in the world. And at
any time, to judge from what one hears of the health both of Chudleigh
and his boy, she may find herself Duchess of Chudleigh."
The Duke threw himself back in the carriage with the air of one who
waits for Providence to reply.
"Oh, well, you see, you can't make the world into a moral tale to please
you," said the Duchess, absently.
Then, after a pause, she asked, "Are you still going to let them have
the house, Freddie?"
"I imagine that if Jacob Delafield applies to me to let it to _him_,
that I shall not refuse him," said the Duke, stiffly.
The Duchess smiled behind her fan. Yet her tender heart was not in
reality very happy about her Julie. She knew well enough that it was a
strange marriage of which they had just been witnesses--a marriage
containing the seeds of many untoward things only too likely to develop
unless fate were kinder than rash mortals have any right to expect.
"I wish to goodness Delafield weren't so religious," murmured the
Duchess, fervently, pursuing her own thoughts.
"Evelyn!"
"Well, you see, Julie isn't, at all," she added, hastily.
"You need not have troubled yourself to tell me that," was the Duke's
indignant reply.
* * * * *
After a fortnight at Camaldoli and Vallombrosa the Delafields turned
towards Switzerland. Julie, who was a lover of Rousseau and Obermann,
had been also busy with the letters of Byron. She wished to see with her
own eyes St. Gingolphe and Chillon, Bevay and Glion.
So one day at the end of May they found themselves at Montreux. But
Montreux was already hot and crowded, and Julie's eyes turned in longing
to the heights. They found an old inn at Charnex, whereof the garden
commanded the whole head of the lake, and there they settled themselves
for a fortnight, till business, in fact, should recall Delafield to
England. The Duke of Chudleigh had shown all possible kindness and
cordiality with regard to the marriage, and the letter in which he
welcomed his cousin's new wife had both touched Julie's feelings and
satisfied her pride. "You are marrying one of the best of men," wrote
this melancholy father of a dying son. "My boy and I owe him more than
can be written. I can only tell you that for those he loves he grudges
nothing--no labor, no sacrifice of himself. There are no half-measures
in his affections. He has spent himself too long on sick and sorry
creatures like ourselves. It is time he had a little happiness on his
own account. You will give it him, and Mervyn and I will be most
grateful to you. If joy and health can never be ours, I am not yet so
vile as to grudge them to others. God bless you! Jacob will tell you
that my house is not a gay one; but if you and he will sometimes visit
it, you will do something to lighten its gloom."
Julie wondered, as she wrote her very graceful reply, how much the Duke
might know about herself. Jacob had told his cousin, as she knew, the
story of her parentage and of Lord Lackington's recognition of his
granddaughter. But as soon as the marriage was announced it was not
likely that Lady Henry had been able to hold her tongue.
A good many interesting tales of his cousin's bride had, indeed, reached
the melancholy Duke. Lady Henry had done all that she conceived it her
duty to do, filling many pages of note-paper with what the Duke regarded
as most unnecessary information.
At any rate, he had brushed it all aside with the impatience of one for
whom nothing on earth had now any savor or value beyond one or two
indispensable affections. "What's good enough for Jacob is good for me,"
he wrote to Lady Henry, "and if I may offer you some advice, it is that
you should not quarrel with Jacob about a matter so vital as his
marriage. Into the rights and wrongs of the story you tell me, I really
cannot enter; but rather than break with Jacob I would welcome _anybody_
he chose to present to me. And in this case I understand the lady is
very clever, distinguished, and of good blood on both sides. Have you
had no trouble in your life, my dear Flora, that you can make quarrels
with a light heart? If so, I envy you; but I have neither the energy nor
the good spirits wherewith to imitate you."
Julie, of course, knew nothing of this correspondence, though from the
Duke's letters to Jacob she divined that something of the kind had taken
place. But it was made quite plain to her that she was to be spared all
the friction and all the difficulty which may often attend the entrance
of a person like herself within the circle of a rich and important
family like the Delafields. With Lady Henry, indeed, the fight had still
to be fought. But Jacob's mother, influenced on one side by her son and
on the other by the head of the family, accepted her daughter-in-law
with the facile kindliness and good temper that were natural to her;
while his sister, the fair-haired and admirable Susan, owed her brother
too much and loved him too well to be other than friendly to his wife.
No; on the worldly side all was smooth. The marriage had been carried
through with ease and quietness The Duke, in spite of Jacob's
remonstrances, had largely increased his cousin's salary, and Julie was
already enjoying the income left her by Lord Lackington. She had only to
reappear in London as Jacob's wife to resume far more than her old
social ascendency. The winning cards had all passed into her hands, and
if now there was to be a struggle with Lady Henry, Lady Henry would
be worsted.
All this was or should have been agreeable to the sensitive nerves of a
woman who knew the worth of social advantages. It had no effect,
however, on the mortal depression which was constantly Julie's portion
during the early weeks of her marriage.
As for Delafield, he had entered upon this determining experiment of his
life--a marriage, which was merely a legalized comradeship, with the
woman he adored--in the mind of one resolved to pay the price of what he
had done. This graceful and stately woman, with her high intelligence
and her social gifts, was now his own property. She was to be the
companion of his days and the mistress of his house. But although he
knew well that he had a certain strong hold upon her, she did not love
him, and none of the fusion of true marriage had taken place or could
take place. So be it. He set himself to build up a relation between them
which should justify the violence offered to natural and spiritual law.
His own delicacy of feeling and perception combined with the strength of
his passion to make every action of their common day a symbol and
sacrament. That her heart regretted Warkworth, that bitterness and
longing, an unspent and baffled love, must be constantly overshadowing
her--these things he not only knew, he was forever reminding himself of
them, driving them, as it were, into consciousness, as the ascetic
drives the spikes into his flesh. His task was to comfort her, to make
her forget, to bring her back to common peace and cheerfulness of mind.
To this end he began with appealing as much as possible to her
intelligence. He warmly encouraged her work for Meredith. From the first
days of their marriage he became her listener, scholar, and critic.
Himself interested mainly in social, economical, or religious
discussion, he humbly put himself to school in matters of
_belles-lettres_. His object was to enrich Julie's daily life with new
ambitions and new pleasures, which might replace the broodings of her
illness and convalescence, and then, to make her feel that she had at
hand, in the companion of that life, one who felt a natural interest in
all her efforts, a natural pride in all her successes.
Alack! the calculation was too simple--and too visible. It took too
little account of the complexities of Julie's nature, of the ravages and
the shock of passion. Julie herself might be ready enough to return to
the things of the mind, but they were no sooner offered to her, as it
were, in exchange for the perilous delights of love, than she grew
dumbly restive. She felt herself, also, too much observed, too much
thought over, made too often, if the truth were known, the subject of
religious or mystical emotion.
More and more, also, was she conscious of strangeness and eccentricity
in the man she had married. It often seemed to that keen and practical
sense which in her mingled so oddly with the capacity for passion that,
as they grew older, and her mind recovered tone and balance, she would
probably love the world disastrously more and he disastrously less. And
if so, the gulf between them, instead of closing, could but widen.
One day--a showery day in early June--she was left alone for an hour,
while Delafield went down to Montreux to change some circular notes.
Julie took a book from the table and strolled out along the lovely road
that slopes gently downward from Charnex to the old field-embowered
village of Brent.
The rain was just over. It had been a cold rain, and the snow had crept
downward on the heights, and had even powdered the pines of the Cubly.
The clouds were sweeping low in the west. Towards Geneva the lake was
mere wide and featureless space--a cold and misty water, melting into
the fringes of the rain-clouds. But to the east, above the Rhône
valley, the sky was lifting; and as Julie sat down upon a midway seat
and turned herself eastward, she was met by the full and unveiled glory
of the higher Alps--the Rochers de Naye, the Velan, the Dent du Midi. On
the jagged peaks of the latter a bright shaft of sun was playing, and
the great white or rock-ribbed mass raised itself above the mists of the
lower world, once more unstained and triumphant.
But the cold _bise_ was still blowing, and Julie, shivering, drew her
wrap closer round her. Her heart pined for Como and the south; perhaps
for the little Duchess, who spoiled and petted her in the common,
womanish ways.
The spring--a second spring--was all about her; but in this chilly
northern form it spoke to her with none of the ravishment of Italy. In
the steep fields above her the narcissuses were bent and bowed with
rain; the red-browns of the walnuts glistened in the wet gleams of sun;
the fading apple-blossom beside her wore a melancholy beauty; only in
the rich, pushing grass, with its wealth of flowers and its branching
cow-parsley, was there the stubborn life and prophecy of summer.
Suddenly Julie caught up the book that lay beside her and opened it with
a hasty hand. It was one of that set of Saint-Simon which had belonged
to her mother, and had already played a part in her own destiny.
She turned to the famous "character" of the Dauphin, of that model
prince, in whose death Saint-Simon, and Fénelon, and France herself, saw
the eclipse of all great hopes.
"A prince, affable, gentle, humane, patient, modest, full of
compunctions, and, as much as his position allowed--sometimes beyond
it--humble, and severe towards himself."
Was it not to the life? "_Affable, doux, humain--patient,
modeste--humble et austère pour soi_"--beyond what was expected, beyond,
almost, what was becoming?
She read on to the mention of the Dauphine, terrified, in her human
weakness, of so perfect a husband, and trying to beguile or tempt him
from the heights; to the picture of Louis Quatorze, the grandfather,
shamed in his worldly old age by the presence beside him of this saintly
and high-minded youth; of the Court, looking forward with dismay to the
time when it should find itself under the rule of a man who despised and
condemned both its follies and its passions, until she reached that
final rapture, where, in a mingled anguish and adoration, Saint-Simon
bids eternal farewell to a character and a heart of which France was
not worthy.
The lines passed before her, and she was conscious, guiltily conscious,
of reading them with a double mind.
Then she closed the book, held by the thought of her husband--in a
somewhat melancholy reverie.
There is a Catholic word with which in her convent youth she had been
very familiar--the word _recueilli_--"recollected." At no time
had it sounded kindly in her ears; for it implied fetters and
self--suppressions--of the voluntary and spiritual sort--wholly
unwelcome to and unvalued by her own temperament. But who that knew him
well could avoid applying it to Delafield? A man of "recollection"
living in the eye of the Eternal; keeping a guard over himself in the
smallest matters of thought and action; mystically possessed by the
passion of a spiritual ideal; in love with charity, purity,
simplicity of life.
She bowed her head upon her hands in dreariness of spirit. Ultimately,
what could such a man want with her? What had she to give him? In what
way could she ever be _necessary_ to him? And a woman, even in
friendship, must feel herself that to be happy.
Already this daily state in which she found herself--of owing everything
and giving nothing--produced in her a secret irritation and repulsion;
how would it be in the years to come?
"He never saw me as I am," she thought to herself, looking fretfully
back to their past acquaintance. "I am neither as weak as he thinks
me--nor as clever. And how strange it is--this _tension_ in which
he lives!"
And as she sat there idly plucking at the wet grass, her mind was
overrun with a motley host of memories--some absurd, some sweet, some of
an austerity that chilled her to the core. She thought of the difficulty
she had in persuading Delafield to allow himself even necessary comforts
and conveniences; a laugh, involuntary, and not without tenderness,
crossed her face as she recalled a tale he had told her at Camaldoli, of
the contempt excited in a young footman of a smart house by the
mediocrity and exiguity of his garments and personal appointments
generally. "I felt I possessed nothing that he would have taken as a
gift," said Delafield, with a grin. "It was chastening."
Yet though he laughed, he held to it; and Julie was already so much of
the wife as to be planning how to coax him presently out of a
portmanteau and a top-hat that were in truth a disgrace to
their species.
And all the time _she_ must have the best of everything--a maid,
luxurious travelling, dainty food. They had had one or two wrestles on
the subject already. "Why are you to have all the high thinking and
plain living to yourself?" she had asked him, angrily, only to be met by
the plea, "Dear, get strong first--then you shall do what you like."
But it was at La Verna, the mountain height overshadowed by the memories
of St. Francis, that she seemed to have come nearest to the ascetic and
mystical tendency in Delafield. He went about the mountain-paths a
transformed being, like one long spiritually athirst who has found the
springs and sources of life. Julie felt a secret terror. Her impression
was much the same as Meredith's--as of "something wearing through" to
the light of day. Looking back she saw that this temperament, now so
plain to view, had been always there; but in the young and capable agent
of the Chudleigh property, in the Duchess's cousin, or Lady Henry's
nephew, it had passed for the most part unsuspected. How remarkably it
had developed!--whither would it carry them both in the future? When
thinking about it, she was apt to find herself seized with a sudden
craving for Mayfair, "little dinners," and good talk.
"What a pity you weren't born a Catholic!--you might have been a
religious," she said to him one night at La Verna, when he had been
reading her some of the _Fioretti_ with occasional comments of his own.
But he had shaken his head with a smile.
"You see, I have no creed--or next to none."
The answer startled her. And in the depths of his blue eyes there seemed
to her to be hovering a swarm of thoughts that would not let themselves
loose in her presence, but were none the less the true companions of his
mind. She saw herself a moment as Elsa, and her husband as a modern
Lohengrin, coming spiritually she knew not whence, bound on some quest
mysterious and unthinkable.
"What will you do," she said, suddenly, "when the dukedom comes to you?"
Delafield's aspect darkened in an instant. If he could have shown anger
to her, anger there would have been.
"That is a subject I never think of or discuss, if I can help it," he
said, abruptly; and, rising to his feet, he pointed out that the sun was
declining fast towards the plain of the Casentino, and they were far
from their hotel.
"Inhuman!--unreasonable!" was the cry of the critical sense in her as
she followed him in silence.
* * * * *
Innumerable memories of this kind beat on Julie's mind as she sat
dreamily on her bench among the Swiss meadows. How natural that in the
end they should sweep her by reaction into imaginations wholly
indifferent--of a drum-and-trumpet history, in the actual
fighting world.
... Far, far in the African desert she followed the march of Warkworth's
little troop.
Ah, the blinding light--the African scrub and sand--the long, single
line--the native porters with their loads--the handful of English
officers with that slender figure at their head--the endless, waterless
path with its palms and mangoes and mimosas--the scene rushed upon the
inward eye and held it. She felt the heat, the thirst, the weariness of
bone and brain--all the spell and mystery of the unmapped,
unconquered land.
Did he think of her sometimes, at night, under the stars, or in the
blaze and mirage of noon? Yes, yes; he thought of her. Each to the other
their thoughts must travel while they lived.
In Delafield's eyes, she knew, his love for her had been mere outrage
and offence.
Ah, well, _he_, at least, had needed her. He had desired only very
simple, earthy things--money, position, success--things it was possible
for a woman to give him, or get for him; and at the last, though it were
only as a traitor to his word and his _fiancée_, he had asked for
love--asked commonly, hungrily, recklessly, because he could not help
it--and then for pardon! And those are things the memory of which lies
deep, deep in the pulsing, throbbing heart.
At this point she hurriedly checked and scourged herself, as she did a
hundred times a day.
No, no, _no_! It was all over, and she and Jacob would still make a fine
thing of their life together. Why not?
And all the time there were burning hot tears in her eyes; and as the
leaves of Saint-Simon passed idly through her fingers, the tears blotted
out the meadows and the flowers, and blurred the figure of a young girl
who was slowly mounting the long slope of road that led from the village
of Brent towards the seat on which Julie was sitting.
* * * * *
Gradually the figure approached. The mist cleared from Julie's eyes.
Suddenly she found herself giving a close and passionate attention to
the girl upon the road.
Her form was slight and small; under her shady hat there was a gleam of
fair hair arranged in smooth, shining masses about her neck and temples.
As she approached Julie she raised her eyes absently, and Julie saw a
face of singular and delicate beauty, marred, however, by the suggestion
of physical fragility, even sickliness, which is carried with it. One
might have thought it a face blanched by a tropical climate, and for the
moment touched into faint color by the keen Alpine air. The eyes,
indeed, were full of life; they were no sooner seen but they defined and
enforced a personality. Eager, intent, a little fretful, they expressed
a nervous energy out of all proportion to their owner's slender
physique. In this, other bodily signs concurred. As she perceived Julie
on the bench, for instance, the girl's slight, habitual frown sharply
deepened; she looked at the stranger with keen observation, both glance
and gesture betraying a quick and restless sensibility.
As for Julie, she half rose as the girl neared her. Her cheeks were
flushed, her lips parted; she had the air of one about to speak. The
girl looked at her in a little surprise and passed on.
She carried a book under her arm, into which were thrust a few
just-opened letters. She had scarcely passed the bench when an envelope
fell out of the book and lay unnoticed on the road.
Julie drew a long breath. She picked up the envelope. It lay in her
hand, and the name she had expected to see was written upon it.
For a moment she hesitated. Then she ran after the owner of the letter.
"You dropped this on the road."
The girl turned hastily.
"Thank you very much. I am sorry to have given you the trouble--"
Then she paused, arrested evidently by the manner in which Julie stood
regarding her.
"Did--did you wish to speak to me?" she said, uncertainly.
"You are Miss Moffatt?"
"Yes. That is my name. But, excuse me. I am afraid I don't remember
you." The words were spoken with a charming sweetness and timidity.
"I am Mrs. Delafield."
The girl started violently.
"Are you? I--I beg your pardon!"
She stood in a flushed bewilderment, staring at the lady who had
addressed her, a troubled consciousness possessing itself of her face
and manner more and more plainly with every moment.
Julie asked herself, hurriedly: "How much does she know? What has she
heard?" But aloud she gently said: "I thought you must have heard of me.
Lord Uredale told me he had written--his father wished it--to Lady
Blanche. Your mother and mine were sisters."
The girl shyly withdrew her eyes.
"Yes, mother told me."
There was a moment's silence. The mingled fear and recklessness which
had accompanied Julie's action disappeared from her mind. In the girl's
manner there was neither jealousy nor hatred, only a young shrinking
and reserve.
"May I walk with you a little?"
"Please do. Are you staying at Montreux?"
"No; we are at Charnex--and you?"
"We came up two days ago to a little _pension_ at Brent. I wanted to be
among the fields, now the narcissuses are out. If it were warm weather
we should stay, but mother is afraid of the cold for me. I have
been ill."
"I heard that," said Julie, in a voice gravely kind and winning. "That
was why your mother could not come home."
The girl's eyes suddenly filled with tears.
"No; poor mother! I wanted her to go--we had a good nurse--but she would
not leave me, though she was devoted to my grandfather. She--"
"She is always anxious about you?"
"Yes. My health has been a trouble lately, and since father died--"
"She has only you."
They walked on a few paces in silence. Then the girl looked up eagerly.
"You saw grandfather at the last? Do tell me about it, please. My uncles
write so little."
Julie obeyed with difficulty. She had not realized how hard it would be
for her to talk of Lord Lackington. But she described the old man's
gallant dying as best she could; while Aileen Moffatt listened with that
manner at once timid and rich in feeling which seemed to be her
characteristic.
As they neared the top of the hill where the road begins to incline
towards Charnex, Julie noticed signs of fatigue in her companion.
"You have been an invalid," she said. "You ought not to go farther. May
I take you home? Would your mother dislike to see me?"