1
Ever since the contretemps at Patrick O'Riordan's first-night--although
his sense of family solidarity would have given much to admit his eldest
son entirely in the right--Rear-Admiral Billy's sense of chivalry had
been troubling him. From whatever angle he considered Hector's conduct,
the cruelty of it was apparent. Moreover, he and Aliette had always been
"jolly good pals," and he hated "parting brass-rags with the little
woman" who, all said and done, had been perfectly "aboveboard."
Nor was it only this "aboveboardness" on the part of his daughter-in-law
which worried the admiral, but the knowledge, acquired quite
fortuitously, and therefore relegated to the background of his memory,
of his son's first infidelity to her.
Always a religious man, though never a formal religionist, Rear-Admiral
Billy worshiped a god of his own in his own way. But this god--a
peculiar combination of the laws of cricket, navy discipline, family
feeling, and sheer sentimentalism--found in Julia Cavendish's short,
carefully worded note so insoluble a problem that within half an hour of
its arrival the admiral sent his stable-boy on a bicycle to summon
Adrian.
Adrian mounted his cock-throppled nag and rode over to Moor Park. Said
Adrian, who knew his father better than most sons: "Naturally, sir, you
won't go?"
Whereupon Adrian's father, after damning the episcopalian eyes for
narrow-minded bigotry, dashed off a characteristic scrawl to say that,
he "would take pleasure in calling on Mrs. Cavendish on the following
Monday, December 30, at 3:30 P.M."
2
It was exactly twenty-five years since "the young Mrs. Cavendish," whose
second novel had already laid the foundation-stone of her literary
reputation, danced the old-fashioned waltz with Commander Brunton of her
Majesty's China Squadron, newly returned from foreign service; but the
pleasant bygone meeting came back clearly to Julia's mind as she rose
from her sofa to welcome the bearded figure in the cutaway coat and
sponge-bag trousers.
This present meeting, both felt, was not going to be pleasant. On the
contrary, it was going to be very awkward: its purpose presenting a
social stile over which even their good breeding and the similarity of
their castes must inevitably stumble.
However, after a good deal of finesse on Julia's part, and various
high-falutin compliments from her visitor, the admiral managed to
stumble over it first, with a gallant:
"Mrs. Cavendish, I fancy I've a pretty shrewd idea why you sent for me."
"It's nice of you to come to the point, admiral," said an equally
gallant Julia; and then, taking opportunity by the forelock, "Your son
isn't behaving very well, is he?"
The father in Rear-Admiral Billy bristled. "He's behaving within his
rights. Your son hasn't behaved over-well, either."
"If you think that," the mother in Julia met brusquerie with brusquerie,
"why did you come and see me?"
The sailor in Rear-Admiral Billy cuddled his beard. "Damned if I know
why I came," he ejaculated. "We can't _do_ anything, either of us. Young
people are the very deuce. I don't know what your son's like, but mine's
as obstinate as a mule."
"You've spoken to your son then?" The novelist in Julia could not
restrain a smile at her opponent's incapacity as a diplomat.
"Spoken to him? Of course I've spoken to him. I've done nothing else but
speak to him." The sailor waxed confidential. "But what's the use? Sons
don't care a cuss about their fathers nowadays, nor about their mothers,
either."
"I'm sure mine does."
"Don't you believe it. None of 'em care about their parents. They call
us 'Victorians'--whatever that may mean. Ungrateful young puppies!"
Seeing her man mollified and disposed for confidences, Julia thought it
best to let him "return to his muttons" in his own way.
"Nice little woman, Aliette," he said, apropos of nothing in particular.
"Not like these up-to-date hussies."
"A charming woman, I call her."
"Pity her kicking over the traces like this."
"You're sorry for her, then?"
"Sorry for her? Of course I'm sorry for her. I'm sorry for any woman who
makes a hash of things. But that"--the disciplinarian, finding that the
luxurious room and the pleasant creature on the sofa were both affecting
his judgment, momentarily revolted--"that don't alter facts. Marriage is
marriage; and if your son runs away with my son's wife, you can't expect
me to sympathize with either of 'em."
"But surely," Julia nearly purred, "surely, my dear admiral--sympathy
apart--your son doesn't intend----"
"My dear lady,"--the disciplinarian in Billy subsided--"if I only knew
what my son did intend, I might be able to help you. Whenever I try to
talk to him about this business, he just shuts me up. What has _your_
son got to say?"
And suddenly both of them began to laugh. Old age, the greatest tie in
the world, made them for the moment peculiarly comrades. In the light of
that comradeship, the young, even their own young, seemed less pathetic
than to be envied. "After all," they thought, "it's all very sad; but
it's worse for us than for them. They do get some fun out of these
affairs. We don't. We only get the trouble; and we're too old for
troubles."
"It isn't so much the scandal I mind," broke in the admiral, voicing
their mutual idea; "it's the damned upset of the whole business. I like
a quiet life, you know. And that seems the one thing one simply can't
get nowadays. Not for love nor money."
For fully ten minutes they wandered away from the purpose in hand;
discussing first their own era, then his profession, then her
profession.
"Talking about books," said the admiral, "give me Surtees."
Truth to tell, the pair were rather enjoying themselves. Both belonged
to the conversational school of an earlier day; and the flow of
conversation was so satisfactory that--finally--it needed all Julia's
strength of will, all her love for her son, to interpolate a crisp, "We
don't seem to have come to any decision. You will try and do something,
won't you, admiral?"
The sailor interrupted himself sufficiently to manage a courteous, "But,
my dear lady, what _can_ I do?"
"Couldn't you talk to your son again? Couldn't you tell him that he's
doing himself just as much harm as he's doing his wife?"
"I _have_ told him that. He says he doesn't care."
"And your other son? You have another son, haven't you, a clergyman?"
"Oh, Adrian! Adrian's no good to us. Hector doesn't like him.
Still,"--after all, thought the admiral, one really ought to do
something for a woman who lived in Bruton Street--"I might get him to
talk to Hector. I might even have another talk with Hector myself. But
I'm afraid it'll be quite useless. You see, Mrs. Cavendish, neither of
my sons is a man of the world. That's the whole trouble. Alie isn't a
woman of the world, either. Between men and women of the world, these
situations don't occur. At least, they didn't in our day. Not often."
"I rather agree with you. Still, we have to take life as we find it."
"Exactly, exactly." The old man waved a hairy-backed hand. "Nobody can
say that I'm old-fashioned. Divorce don't mean what it did in my young
days. And besides--I'm devilish fond of little Alie."
"Then I can rely upon your help?" smiled Ronnie's mother.
"Absolutely, dear lady, absolutely."
Ringing the bell for Kate to see her guest out, Julia Cavendish felt
that she had at last found an ally; but the feeling was tinged with
apprehension--reticence, she gathered, not being the admiral's strong
point.
3
The admiral, making his way up Bruton Street, and along Berkeley Street
toward his club, felt not only apprehensive but a trifle foolish. He had
intended to be so very much on his dignity, so very much on his guard.
Instead of which----
"That's a damn clever woman," he said to himself, half in admiration,
half in annoyance. "An infernally clever woman. Wormed everything out of
me, she did, just as if I'd been an innocent snotty. Not that I ever met
an innocent snotty. Confound it, I've let myself in for something this
trip. Have another talk with Hector! Made me promise that, she did."
For frankly, the admiral funked the idea of having another talk with
Hector. One never knew how to tackle Hector. "Hector was such a damned
unreasonable dumb-faced puppy!"
Cruising along Piccadilly, a mid-Victorian figure in the inevitable
top-hat, with the inevitable white spats and the inevitable malacca
cane, the admiral wondered whether he hadn't better get Simeon to tackle
Hector, Adrian to tackle Hector, any one other than himself to tackle
Hector--and so wondering, nearly rammed Hector's wife.
The meeting, completely unexpected, entirely unavoidable, flurried the
parties. But the sailor recovered his wits first; and Aliette, wavering
between the impulse to pass on without bowing and the desire to smile
and fly, knew herself cornered. Automatically she extended a hand, which
her father-in-law squeezed in a firm clasp.
"Hello, my dear, whither away?" he asked in his bluffest, heartiest
manner.
"Nowhere in particular," answered Aliette shyly.
"Then you can walk me as far as the club." He took her arm and steered
her masterfully along the pavement. It flashed across his mind, "Bless
her heart, she didn't want to recognize me. After all, she is a lady.
She is one of us."
"Quaint--our meeting this afternoon," he volunteered aloud.
"Why this afternoon, Billy?"
Billy thought, guiltily, "Perhaps I oughtn't to tell her," but the words
were out of his mouth before thought could restrain them: "Because I've
just come from Bruton Street."
"Bruton Street!" She panicked at that; and tried to release her arm.
"Billy, I'm sure you oughtn't to be seen walking with me."
"Stuff and nonsense, my dear! Stuff and nonsense!" The old man, gripping
her arm all the tighter, lowered his voice in conspiratorial sympathy.
"We ain't either of us criminals. Why shouldn't we be seen walking
together? Besides, you and I've got to have a little chat. Between you
and me and the gatepost, Mrs. Cavendish has been asking my advice about
things. Naturally, I had to tell her that I thought you'd behaved pretty
badly to Hector. Still," he patted her arm blatantly, "that's no reason
why Hector should behave badly to you, is it?"
And for a full five minutes--all the way from Devonshire House to the
door of his club--chivalry had its way with Rear-Admiral Billy Brunton.
He called her his "dear Alie," he assured her that he'd "fix up the
whole business," and that she was to "rely upon him." He even managed to
remember that she would like news of Miracle, and to inquire after
Ponto.
Listening, Aliette's heart warmed. Billy seemed so hopeful, so
sympathetic. And she needed both hope and sympathy that afternoon: for
latterly the tension between her and Ronnie had become almost
unbearable, vitiating every hour, accentuating the loneliness of
outlawry, till outlawry--in comparison with retrogression from their
standard of happiness--appeared only a trivial sorrow.
They arrived at the club. "Tell you what you'd better do," said Billy,
"you'd better come in and drink a dish of tea. We've got a ladies room
at the Jag-and-Bottle these days. Too early for a cocktail, I'm afraid.
That's what you need. You're looking peaky."
"You're a dear, Billy," retorted Aliette, at last disengaging her arm.
"But you mustn't be a silly dear. You know perfectly well that you can't
take _me_ in there"; and, cutting short the old man's protests, she
bolted.
4
As he watched his daughter-in-law's fur-coated figure, the little shoes
thereunder and the little hat a-top, recede from view up Piccadilly,
chivalry still had its way with the sailor's sentimental soul. He had
promised Julia Cavendish that he would tackle Hector--and, by jingo, he
_would_ tackle Hector.
So, navy discipline and the laws of cricket alike allotting him the role
of knight-errant, he drew a fat watch from his fob-pocket, consulted it,
waved the malacca at a crawling taxi-driver, ordered him peremptorily:
"The Temple, Embankment entrance," and stepped aboard.
The admiral anchored his taxi on the Embankment; strode through the
gates, up Middle Temple Lane, and across King's Bench Walk. David
Patterson, rising superciliously from the desk in the outer office of
Brunton's chambers to inquire a stranger's business in vacation-time,
encountered a curt, "Tell my son that his father wants to see him," and
disappeared within.
"What the devil does _he_ want?" Hector Brunton looked up from a letter
he was studying; rose to his big feet, and straddled himself before the
fire as his subdued clerk ushered his father through the doorway.
"This is an unexpected honor, sir," said Hector Brunton, K.C.
The old man took off his top-hat, laid it among the papers on the desk;
retained his malacca; and sat himself down pompously on an imitation
mahogany chair.
"I've come to talk to you about your wife," he began tactlessly; and
without more ado plunged into a recital of his interview with Julia
Cavendish and his chance meeting with Aliette, concluding: "And if you
take my advice, the best thing you can do is to start an action for
divorce."
"As I told you before, sir," broke in the K.C., who had listened with
restrained anger to his father's recital, "I regret I cannot take that
advice." The hands trembled behind his back. "If I may say so, I
consider that you've put me entirely in the wrong by calling on Mrs.
Cavendish."
"Oh, you do, do you?" The old man, already sufficiently excited for one
afternoon by his interview with the two ladies, felt his temper getting
the better of him. "You do, do you? Well, I don't. Mrs. Cavendish is a
very delightful woman. A woman of the world."
"Is that all you came to tell me, sir?" Hector's gray eyes smoldered.
"No, sir." The senior service beard bristled. "I came to have this
matter out once and for all. I came to tell you that you're not behaving
like a gentleman."
"So you said before, sir. And I repeat the answer I gave you then. I see
no reason why I should behave like a gentleman to a wife who hasn't
behaved like a lady."
"Two blacks don't make a white, Hector."
"Possibly." The K.C. gathered up the tails of his morning-coat, and sat
down, as though to terminate the discussion.
But the old man, gloved hands glued on the handle of the malacca, stuck
to his guns. "Black's black and white's white," he rumbled dogmatically.
"You won't whitewash yourself by throwing mud at your wife. I didn't
_want_ to go and see the Cavendish woman. I've always stood by my own
and I always shall, so long as they stand by me. A man's first duty is
to his family."
"Exactly my opinion, sir."
"Then why not act on it?" The admiral fumed. "D'you think this business
is doing _me_ any good? D'you think it's nice for Adrian, or Simeon, or
Simeon's wife, to hear you talked about all over London----"
"A man has his rights and I mean to assert mine. Let London talk if it
likes." Aliette's husband spoke resolutely enough, yet he was conscious
of a tremor in his voice. More and more now the thought of Aliette made
him feel uncertain of himself. "Let London talk!" he repeated. "My
wife's made a fool of me. She and young Cavendish between them have
dragged my name in the dirt. May I remind you, sir, that it's your name,
too----"
"All the more reason, then, to drag it out of the dirt. You won't do
that by continuing to behave"--the sailor's rage got the better of
him--"like a cad."
At that, Hector Brunton forgot himself. His left hand thumped furiously
on the desk. "You tell _me_ I'm behaving like a cad, sir. What about
this bastard Cavendish! What about the man who seduced my wife from her
allegiance? He's the gentleman, I presume. Well--let the gentleman keep
his strumpet----"
"By God, Hector"--the old man's eyes blazed,--"you _are_ a cad."
The K.C. quaked at the red fury in his father's look. Weakly he tried to
take refuge in silence; but the next words--words uttered almost of
their own volition--stung him out of silence.
"Who are you to talk of keeping strumpets?"
"Sir----"
"Be quiet, sir. D'you take me for a fool? D'you think I don't
know--d'you think London doesn't know"--the admiral's gall mastered him
completely--"about the strumpet _you_ kept--kept without your wife's
knowledge--kept in luxury for two years while other men were being
killed----"
"Really, sir, I protest----"
"Protest then, and be damned to you. That's all you lawyers are fit
for--protesting. Christ Almighty, you're worse than parsons. Talk of
your rights, would you? Precious good care you took not to fight for
other people's rights when you had a chance. Why, even Adrian----"
"I fail to see, sir----" Hector Brunton's face whitened, as the face of
a man hit by a bullet whitens, at the taunt.
"You fail to see a good many things, sir." The admiral reached for his
hat. "Allow me to tell you one of them--that the man who permits his
wife to live with somebody else without taking any steps to get rid of
her, is a common or garden _pimp_."
And the senior service, having said considerably more than it intended,
marched out of the door.
5
Left alone, the K.C.'s first feeling was relief. During the last weeks
he had grown more and more resentful of his father's interference. And
now he had finished with his father for good.
Nevertheless, the taunt about his war-service rankled. Rankled, too, the
admiral's last sentence, "Get rid of her." "God, if only I could get her
back," thought Hector; and so thinking, remembered, as born orators will
remember past speeches, his opening in the Ellerson case, his
impassioned defense of woman's right to free citizenship.
Then he remembered Renée. Renée had returned to England. How the devil
had his father found out about Renée? Aliette, of course! Aliette must
have told his father about Renée.
Hector's gorge rose. He took a cigar from the box on his desk, lit it,
and began to stride slowly up and down the book-lined room.
Alternatively he visioned Renée, greedy, compliant, satisfying to
nausea, and Aliette--Aliette the ultra-fastidious, infinitely
unsatisfying. His marriage to a woman of Aliette's temperament had been
a mistake. A mistake! Best cut one's loss--best get rid of her. Best
comply with his father's wishes. And yet--how desirable, how infernally
and eternally desirable was Aliette.
The mood passed, leaving only rage in its wake. Curse Aliette! Curse his
father! Curse the Cavendishes! How they would laugh if he yielded. They
were all persecuting him, trying to break him. And "They sha'n't break
me," he muttered; his teeth biting on the cigar till they met through
the sodden leaf. "They sha'n't break me."
Hector returned to his desk, and tried to absorb himself once more in
study. But his mind refused its office. It seemed to him as though there
were a ghost in the room, the ghost of his wife. "I wonder if she ever
thinks of me. I wonder if she ever sees me--as I see her," he thought.
"As I am seeing her now."
6
That afternoon, however, there was no picture of her legal owner in
Aliette's mind. For months he had been receding further and further into
the background of her thoughts, till now he had become more a menace
than a man. It surprised her, as she walked slowly up Piccadilly after
her meeting with Hector's father, to realize how little Hector had ever
mattered, how much--always--Ronnie. Ronnie would be glad perhaps, to
hear of her meeting with the admiral.
"Dear old Billy!" she thought, "dear old Billy!" And thinking about him,
a rare tinge of selfishness streaked her altruism. Suppose Billy
succeeded! Suppose Hector really did set her free! How wonderful to be
"respectable" again--to be done with the make-believe "Mrs. Cavendish"
of Powolney Mansions, to be really and truly and legally Ronnie's!
Always Ronnie had been splendid, loyalest of lovers; and yet--and
yet--even in the shelter of a lover's arms one was conscious of
outlawry, of the world's ostracism. What if, soon perhaps, the lover's
arms were to be a husband's?
But at that, illusions burst as bubbles in the breeze. Once more the
tension of the past days strung Aliette's mind to misery. She was an
outlaw, a woman apart--a woman ostracized--worse, a woman who had failed
her mate. Memory, killing illusions, cast itself back, remembering and
exaggerating her every little unloving word, her every little unloving
gesture, blaming her for them. "My fault," thought Aliette, "mine and
mine only. I have been selfish to him. Utterly selfish. I've been--like
I used to be with Hector."
Thought threw up its line, horrified at the comparison; and, abruptly
conscious of every-day life, Aliette found herself in Berkeley Square.
Automatically she turned down Bruton Street.
The mere name of the street--newly-painted in black block letters on
gray stone--reminded her again of Billy, of Billy's visit to Julia
Cavendish. At whose instigation, his own or hers, had the admiral
visited Ronnie's mother? Hope rose again; but now, with hope, mingled
despair. Had she so far failed Ronnie as to have forfeited his
confidence?
Still walking automatically, Aliette found herself facing the mahogany
door of Julia's house, and rang the bell.
"Yes," said Kate, "Mrs. Cavendish was at home, and alone. Would Mrs.
Ronnie" (it was an understood thing in the basement of Bruton Street
that Aliette should be referred to as "Mrs. Ronnie") "like some tea?"
"Thank you, Kate. That would be very nice." Aliette, unannounced, went
slowly up the print-hung staircase; tapped on the drawing-room door;
heard a faint "Come in"; and turned the handle.
Ronnie's mother lay on the sofa. She looked white, exhausted; but her
lips framed themselves to a smile.
"I may come in, mayn't I?" Aliette's misery increased at the sight of
her hostess's pallor. "Kate's promised to bring me some tea. I'm not
disturbing you, am I?"
"My dear, you're always welcome. Come and sit here by me." Julia made
place on the sofa, and Aliette sat down.
"I wonder why she came this afternoon," mused the elder woman. "I wonder
if, by any chance, she can have found out. Awkward, if she _has_ found
it. Very awkward." But there was no tremor of guilt in her, "How's
Ronnie?"
"Quite well, thank you."
"And you?"
"Oh, I'm all right. A little worried, that's all."
"Worried? What about?"
"Oh, various things."
Kate, bringing the tea, interrupted their conversation. Watching Aliette
as she drank, Julia saw that the hands, usually so steady, trembled.
"Can't you tell me about the worries?" she said kindly.
"There's nothing--really." Aliette's voice trembled as her hands. "Only
I--I--met Hector's father just now. And somehow--it rather made me
realize--my position."
"Did he tell you," Julia's courage fought with her fatigue, "that he'd
been to see me?"
"He did." Aliette put down her tea-cup on the little mahogany stand.
"May I know--did you send for him?"
"Yes. I sent for him." A smile. "You mustn't be angry with me."
"But why--why wasn't I told about it?"
"Then you are angry?" Another smile.
"Not angry. Only a little hurt."
"Hurt! Why? It was done in your interests." The old eyes looked into the
young. "We thought that, if we consulted you, you mightn't allow it."
"We! Then Ronnie"--the young eyes looked into the old--"Ronnie knew. And
he never told me--he never told me."
"It wasn't Ronnie's fault." Julia laid a hand on Aliette's shoulder.
At the touch, it seemed to the younger woman as though all the misery of
the past days stabbed to one dagger-point of pain. Jealousy wrenched at
her tongue. She wanted to cry out, "Oh, you're cruel, cruel. Why can't
you tell me the truth, the truth?" But the pain stabbed her dumb;
stabbed and stabbed till her mind was one unbearable tension of
self-torture. Ronnie no longer loved her. Ronnie only wanted to do his
duty by her. And it was her own fault, her very own, ownest fault, for
not having loved him enough.
And then, suddenly, the tension snapped--leaving her weak, defenseless.
"You're so good--so much too good to me," faltered Aliette. "So
infinitely better than I deserve. If only--if only I hadn't brought all
this trouble into your life."
"Nonsense, child," said Julia bruskly--for, despite her own weariness,
she recognized hysterics in the other's voice.
"It isn't nonsense. I've brought you only troubles--troubles."
"Don't be foolish. The troubles, as you call them, are nothing. Nothing
at all in comparison with Ronnie's happiness."
"Happiness!" Now hysteria was blatant in the other's every word.
"Happiness! How _can_ I make him happy? I can't--can't even make a home
for him. All I've done is to--to let him keep me--in a--in a
boarding-house."
"You're overtired, child. Overwrought. Otherwise you wouldn't talk like
that." The brusquerie had given place to a quiet understanding
tenderness; the hand tightened on Aliette's shoulder. "I tell you, you
have brought happiness into our lives. Into Ronnie's life and into mine.
Nothing that either of us could ever do----"
"But I'm not worth it. I'm not worth it." Tear-choked, Aliette seized
Julia's hand and pressed it to her lips. "I've been rotten--rotten to
your son. That's why he didn't tell me about Billy."
"Rubbish!" Resolutely the elder woman withdrew her hand. "Utter rubbish!
It was entirely my fault that you weren't told about the admiral."
"Your fault?" A ray of hope illumined the brown eyes.
"Yes. Ronnie wanted you to know. But I overpersuaded him."
Silently the blue eyes held the brown, till--gradually--self-control
came back to Aliette; till--gradually--she realized the tension gone
from her brain.
"I'm sorry," she began. "I don't often make scenes."
"My dear"--exhausted, Julia lay back on the cushions--"you needn't
apologize. No one understands better than I that life isn't altogether
easy for you. But don't lose your pluck. Believe me, it'll all come out
right now that we have the admiral on our side."
"Billy hasn't much influence over Hector." There was no fear, only
certainty in the statement. "Hector's so vain. It's his vanity, only his
vanity that prevents him from giving me my freedom."
"One day he'll be forced to give you your freedom. But," of a sudden,
anxiety crept into Julia's tired voice, "if he doesn't? What if he
doesn't give you your freedom, child?"
"Even if he doesn't,"--proudly, all the misery of the past days
forgotten, Aliette took up the unspoken challenge--"even if he never
does,"--proudly, all her being resuffused with happy courage, she rose
to her feet--"it will make no difference. Whatever happens, I shall
always be your son's--I shall always be Ronnie's."
And bending down, she sealed the promise with a farewell kiss--a kiss
whose memory lingered with Julia long after Aliette had gone, comforting
her against the prescience which had prompted that unspoken challenge,
even against the prescience of death.