And restraining any further emotion, she laid her arms on the balustrade
and gazed long and calmly into the purple depths and gleaming snows of
the Rhône valley. Her hat oppressed her and she took it off, revealing
the abundance of her delicately golden hair, which, in its lack of
lustre and spring, seemed to share in the physical distress and loss of
the whole personality.
The face was that of a doomed creature, incapable now of making any
successful struggle for the right to live. What had been sensibility had
become melancholy; the slight, chronic frown was deeper, the pale lips
more pinched. Yet intermittently there was still great sweetness, the
last effort of a "beautiful soul" meant for happiness, and withered
before its time.
As Julie stood beside her, while Lady Blanche had gone to fetch a book
from the salon, the poor child put out her hand and grasped that
of Julie.
"It is quite possible I may get the letter to-night," she said, in a
hurried whisper. "My maid went down to Montreux--there is a clever man
at the post-office who tried to make it out for us. He thinks it'll be
to-night."
"Don't be too disappointed if nothing comes," said Julie, caressing the
hand. Its thinness, its icy and lifeless touch, dismayed her. Ah, how
easily might this physical wreck have been her doing!
* * * * *
The bells of Montreux struck half-past six. A restless and agonized
expectation began to show itself in all the movements of the invalid.
She left her chair and began to pace the little terrace on Julie's arm.
Her dragging step, the mournful black of her dress, the struggle between
youth and death in her sharpened face, made her a tragic presence. Julie
could hardly bear it, while all the time she, too, was secretly and
breathlessly waiting for Warkworth's last words.
Lady Blanche returned, and Julie hurried away.
She passed through the hotel and walked down the Montreux road. The post
had already reached the first houses of the village, and the postman,
who knew her, willingly gave her the letters.
Yes, a packet for Aileen, addressed in an unknown hand to a London
address, and forwarded thence. It bore the Denga postmark.
And another for herself, readdressed from London by Madame Bornier. She
tore off the outer envelope; beneath was a letter of which the address
was feebly written in Warkworth's hand: "Mademoiselle Le Breton, 3
Heribert Street, London."
She had the strength to carry her own letter to her room, to call
Aileen's maid and send her with the other packet to Lady Blanche. Then
she locked herself in....
Oh, the poor, crumpled page, and the labored hand-writing!
"Julie, I am dying. They are such good fellows, but they can't save me.
It's horrible.
"I saw the news of your engagement in a paper the day before I left
Denga. You're right. He'll make you happy. Tell him I said so. Oh, my
God, I shall never trouble you again! I bless you for the letter you
wrote me. Here it is.... No, I can't--can't read it. Drowsy. No pain--"
And here the pen had dropped from his hand. Searching for something
more, she drew from the envelope the wild and passionate letter she had
written him at Heribert Street, in the early morning after her return
from Paris, while she was waiting for Delafield to bring her the news of
Lord Lackington's state.
* * * * *
The small _table d'hôte_ of the Hotel Michel was still further
diminished that night. Lady Blanche was with her daughter, and Mrs.
Delafield did not appear.
But the moon was hanging in glory over the lake when Julie, unable to
bear her room and her thoughts any longer, threw a lace scarf about her
head and neck, and went blindly climbing through the upward paths
leading to Les Avants. The roads were silver in the moonlight; so was
the lake, save where the great mountain shadows lay across the eastern
end. And suddenly, white, through pine-trees, "Jaman, delicately tall!"
The air cooled her brow, and from the deep, enveloping night her torn
heart drew balm, and a first soothing of the pulse of pain. Every now
and then, as she sat down to rest, a waking dream overshadowed her. She
seemed to be supporting Warkworth in her arms; his dying head lay upon
her breast, and she murmured courage and love into his ear. But not as
Julie Le Breton. Through all the anguish of what was almost an illusion
of the senses, she still felt herself Delafield's wife. And in that
flood of silent speech she poured out on Warkworth, it was as though she
offered him also Jacob's compassion, Jacob's homage, mingled with
her own.
Once she found herself sitting at the edge of a meadow, environed by the
heavy scents of flowers. Some apple-trees with whitened trunks rose
between her and the lake a thousand feet below. The walls of Chillon,
the houses of Montreux, caught the light; opposite, the deep forests of
Bouveret and St. Gingolphe lay black upon the lake; above them rode the
moon. And to the east the high Alps, their pure lines a little effaced
and withdrawn, as when a light veil hangs over a sanctuary.
Julie looked out upon a vast freedom of space, and by a natural
connection she seemed to be also surveying her own world of life and
feeling, her past and her future. She thought of her childhood and her
parents, of her harsh, combative youth, of the years with Lady Henry, of
Warkworth, of her husband, and the life into which his strong hand had
so suddenly and rashly drawn her. Her thoughts took none of the
religious paths so familiar to his. And yet her reverie was so far
religious that her mind seemed to herself to be quivering under the
onset of affections, emotions, awes, till now unknown, and that, looking
back, she was conscious of a groping sense of significance, of purpose,
in all that had befallen her. Yet to this sense she could put no words.
Only, in the end, through the constant action of her visualizing
imagination, it connected itself with Delafield's face, and with the
memory of many of his recent acts and sayings.
It was one of those hours which determine the history of a man or woman.
And the august Alpine beauty entered in, so that Julie, in this sad and
thrilling act of self-probing, felt herself in the presence of powers
and dominations divine.
Her face, stained with tears, took gradually some of the calm, the
loftiness of the night. Yet the close-shut, brooding mouth would slip
sometimes into a smile exquisitely soft and gentle, as though the heart
remembered something which seemed to the intelligence at once folly and
sweetness.
What was going on within her was, to her own consciousness, a strange
thing. It appeared to her as a kind of simplification, a return to
childhood; or, rather, was it the emergence in the grown mind, tired
with the clamor of its own egotistical or passionate life, of some
instincts, natural to the child, which she, nevertheless, as a child had
never known; instincts of trust, of self-abandonment, steeped, perhaps,
in those tears which are themselves only another happiness?...
But hush! What are our poor words in the presence of these nobler
secrets of the wrestling and mounting spirit!
* * * * *
On the way down she saw another figure emerge from the dark.
"Lady Blanche!"
Lady Blanche stood still.
"The hotel was stifling," she said, in a voice that vainly tried for
steadiness.
Julie perceived that she had been weeping.
"Aileen is asleep?"
"Perhaps. They have given her something to make her sleep."
They walked on towards the hotel.
Julie hesitated.
"She was not disappointed?" she said, at last, in a low voice.
"No!" said the mother, sharply. "But one knew, of course, there must be
letters for her. Thank God, she can feel that his very last thought was
for her! The letters which have reached her are dated the day before the
fatal attack began--giving a complete account of his march--most
interesting--showing how he trusted her already--though she is such a
child. It will tranquillize her to feel how completely she possessed his
heart--poor fellow!"
Julie said nothing, and Lady Blanche, with bitter satisfaction, felt
rather than saw what seemed to her the just humiliation expressed in the
drooping and black-veiled figure beside her.
Next day there was once more a tinge of color on Aileen's cheeks. Her
beautiful hair fell round her once more in a soft life and confusion,
and the roses which her mother had placed beside her on the bed were not
in too pitiful contrast with her frail loveliness.
"Read it, please," she said, as soon as she found herself alone with
Julie, pushing her letter tenderly towards her. "He tells me
everything--everything! All he was doing and hoping--consults me in
everything. Isn't it an honor--when I'm so ignorant and childish? I'll
try to be brave--try to be worthy--"
And while her whole frame was shaken with deep, silent sobs, she
greedily watched Julie read the letter.
"Oughtn't I to try and live," she said, dashing away her tears, as Julie
returned it, "when he loved me so?"
Julie kissed her with a passionate and guilty pity. The letter might
have been written to any friend, to any charming child for whom a much
older man had a kindness. It gave a business-like account of their
march, dilated on one or two points of policy, drew some humorous
sketches of his companions, and concluded with a few affectionate and
playful sentences.
But when the wrestle with death began, Warkworth wrote but one last
letter, uttered but one cry of the heart, and it lay now in
Julie's bosom.
* * * * *
A few days passed. Delafield's letters were short and full of sadness.
Elmira still lived; but any day or hour might see the end. As for the
father--But the subject was too tragic to be written of, even to her.
Not to feel, not to realize; there lay the only chance of keeping one's
own courage, and so of being any help whatever to two of the most
miserable of human beings.
At last, rather more than a week after Delafield's departure, came
two telegrams. One was from Delafield--"Mervyn died this morning.
Duke's condition causes great anxiety." The other from Evelyn
Crowborough--"Elmira died this morning. Going down to Shropshire to
help Jacob."
Julie threw down the telegrams. A rush of proud tears came to her eyes.
She swept to the door of her room, opened it, and called her maid.
The maid came, and when she saw the sparkling looks and strained bearing
of her mistress, wondered what crime she was to be rebuked for. Julie
merely bade her pack at once, as it was her intention to catch the
eight o'clock through train at Lausanne that night for England.
* * * * *
Twenty hours later the train carrying Julie to London entered Victoria
Station. On the platform stood the little Duchess, impatiently
expectant. Julie was clasped in her arms, and had no time to wonder at
the pallor and distraction of her friend before she was hurried into the
brougham waiting beyond the train.
"Oh, Julie!" cried the Duchess, catching the traveller's hands, as they
drove away. "Julie, darling!"
Julie turned to her in amazement. The blue eyes fixed upon her had no
tears, but in them, and in the Duchess's whole aspect, was expressed a
vivid horror and agitation which struck at Julie's heart.
"What is it?" she said, catching her breath. "What is it?"
"Julie, I was going to Faircourt this morning. First your telegram
stopped me. I thought I'd wait and go with you. Then came another, from
Delafield. The Duke! The poor Duke!"
Julie's attitude changed unconsciously--instantly.
"Yes; tell me!"
"It's in all the papers to-night--on the placards--don't look out!" And
the Duchess lifted her hand and drew down the blinds of the brougham.
"He was in a most anxious state yesterday, but they thought him calmer
at night, and he insisted on being left alone. The doctors still kept a
watch, but he managed in some mysterious way to evade them all, and this
morning he was missed. After two hours they found him--in the river
that runs below the house!"
There was a silence.
"And Jacob?" said Julie, hoarsely.
"That's what I'm so anxious about," exclaimed the Duchess. "Oh, I am
thankful you've come! You know how Jacob's always felt about the Duke
and Mervyn--how he's hated the notion of succeeding. And Susan, who went
down yesterday, telegraphed to me last night--before this horror--that
he was 'terribly strained and overwrought.'"
"Succeeding?" said Julie, vaguely. Mechanically she had drawn up the
blind again, and her eyes followed the dingy lines of the Vauxhall
Bridge Road, till suddenly they turned away from the placards outside a
small stationer's shop which announced: "Tragic death of the Duke of
Chudleigh and his son."
The Duchess looked at her curiously without replying. Julie seemed to be
grappling with some idea which escaped her, or, rather, was presently
expelled by one more urgent.
"Is Jacob ill?" she said, abruptly, looking her companion full in the
face.
"I only know what I've told you. Susan says 'strained and overwrought.'
Oh, it'll be all right when he gets you!"
Julie made no reply. She sat motionless, and the Duchess, stealing
another glance at her, must needs, even in this tragic turmoil, allow
herself the reflection that she was a more delicate study in
black-and-white, a more refined and accented personality than ever.
"You won't mind," said Evelyn, timidly, after a pause; "but Lady Henry
is staying with me, and also Sir Wilfrid Bury, who had such a bad cold
in his lodgings that I went down there a week ago, got the doctor's
leave, and carried him off there and then. And Mr. Montresor's coming
in. He particularly wanted, he said, just to press your hand. But they
sha'n't bother you if you're tired. Our train goes at 10.10, and Freddie
has got the express stopped for us at Westonport--about three in
the morning."
The carriage rolled into Grosvenor Square, and presently stopped before
Crowborough House. Julie alighted, looked round her at the July green of
the square, at the brightness of the window-boxes, and then at the groom
of the chambers who was taking her wraps from her--the same man who, in
the old days, used to feed Lady Henry's dogs with sweet biscuit. It
struck her that he was showing her a very particular and eager
attention.
* * * * *
Meanwhile in the Duchess's drawing--room a little knot of people was
gathered--Lady Henry, Sir Wilfrid Bury, and Dr. Meredith. Their demeanor
illustrated both the subduing and the exciting influence of great
events. Lady Henry was more talkative than usual. Sir Wilfrid
more silent.
Lady Henry seemed to have profited by her stay at Torquay. As she sat
upright in a stiff chair, her hands resting on her stick, she presented
her characteristic aspect of English solidity, crossed by a certain free
and foreign animation. She had been already wrangling with Sir Wilfrid,
and giving her opinion freely on the "socialistic" views on rank and
property attributed to Jacob Delafield. "If _he_ can't digest the cake,
that doesn't mean it isn't good," had been her last impatient remark,
when Sir Wilfrid interrupted her.
"Only a few minutes more," he said, looking at his watch. "Now, then,
what line do we take? How much is our friend likely to know?"
"Unless she has lost her eyesight--which Evelyn has not reported--she
will know most of what matters before she has gone a hundred yards from
the station," said Lady Henry, dryly.
"Oh, the streets! Yes; but persons are often curiously dazed by such a
gallop of events."
"Not Julie Le Breton!"
"I should like to be informed as to the part you are about to play,"
said Sir Wilfrid, in a lower voice, "that I may play up to it. Where
are you?"
Both looked at Meredith, who had walked to a distant window and was
standing there looking out upon the square. Lady Henry was well aware
that _he_ had not forgiven her, and, to tell the truth, was rather
anxious that he should. So she, too, dropped her voice.
"I bow to the institutions of my country," she said, a little sparkle in
the strong, gray eye.
"In other words, you forgive a duchess?"
"I acknowledge the head of the family, and the greater carries the
less."
"Suppose Jacob should be unforgiving?"
"He hasn't the spirit."
"And she?"
"Her conscience will be on my side."
"I thought it was your theory that she had none?"
"Jacob, let us hope, will have developed some. He has a good deal to
spare."