1
on a gray afternoon of october, julia cavendish sat alone in her drawing-room at bruton street.
she was often alone now. that curious "london" which an eclectic woman of means can gather about herself by the time she reaches sixty had begun to desert. brunton had done nothing; but already scandal, "the scandal of julia cavendish's son and hector brunton's wife," was spreading: and although people were "very sorry for mrs. cavendish," still, "one had to be careful where one went," "one couldn't exactly countenance that sort of thing." so the clergymen and the politicians, the schoolmasters with their wives and the young soldiers with their fiancées came but sparingly, the embassy folk not at all. only the "ritz crowd," who thought the whole affair rather amusing; real society, which could afford to ignore what it did not actually know; and, of course, the literary folk still visited.
julia cavendish treated the disaffections of her circle--scanty as yet, for the holidays scattered the scandalmongers--with contempt. in the months since her visit to chilworth, much of her outlook on life had altered. the victorian and the traditionalist in her were dead, the formally religious woman convert to a kindlier creed. even literature slumbered. literature, the sort of literature she had hitherto written, the stereotyped social romances of her earlier books, seemed so puny in comparison with the great tragedy of her son!
seated there in the old familiar drawing-room, her embroidery-frame at her elbow, a clean fire at her feet, the light from the standard-lamp glowing on her worn features, julia tried, as she was always trying now, to find some happy ending to the tragedy--peace for her son, reward for aliette's courage.
for aliette had been courageous--divinely courageous as it appeared to julia--that afternoon at chilworth cove when ronnie broke his bad news. her own heart had failed a little; but not aliette's. aliette said--julia could still remember the look in her eyes when she spoke: "you're not to worry for my sake, either of you. i shall be perfectly happy so long as you and ronnie don't fret. if only ronnie's career doesn't suffer----"
she, ronnie's mother, had wanted to fight; had wanted the lovers to return to bruton street with her, to defy brunton openly. after that one little failure of courage, her whole temperament cried out for combat. fighting, she felt, was now the only course. but aliette had counseled delay. aliette had persuaded her to leave them at chilworth, to go back alone to bruton street. and at bruton street she had stayed all summer.
it had been foolish to stay all summer at bruton street; she perceived that now. she ought to have taken her usual holiday. she ought to have listened to the advice of her "medicine-man," who, still maintaining the need for rest, was vague, unsatisfactory, disturbing.
the parlormaid, entering to make up the fire, startled her mistress.
"i wish you'd come in more quietly, kate," said julia irritably.
"i'm sorry, madam. shall i bring your tea?"
"no, not yet."
julia resumed her reverie. was there no way by which the man whose obstinacy stood between her son and his happiness might be brought to bay? apparently none. sir peter wilberforce could only suggest that "the lady might pledge her husband's credit to such an extent that he had to take action"--and that aliette refused to do.
dot fancourt, whom she had also consulted, finding him incredibly stupid, incredibly weak, was all for "letting sleeping dogs lie." he seemed to have no spirit; and she would have been grateful to him for spirit. she felt old; terribly old and weak; prescient, every now and then, of death.
this occasional prescience frightened her. the formal religion to which she had so long clung provided only a personal and a selfish consolation for death. she wanted an impersonal, an unselfish consolation; realizing that she would never be happy to leave this world unless she could leave ronnie happy in it. materially, of course, she had already provided for him: all her fortune would be his. but that did not suffice. before death claimed her she must find some sword to sever his gordian knot.
so julia, alone in her quiet house; julia, the literature all gone out of her, her mind busied with the actual happenings of life; while brunton, lost in the holiday mists of the long vacation, gave never a sign; and rumor, spider-like, wove its intangible filaments to close and closer mesh.
2
that very afternoon--october 11 it was, the day before the autumn session of the law courts began--aliette and her lover walked in kensington gardens. even as julia's, much of their attitude toward life had altered in the past months. the first grandly onrushing wave of the grand passion, the wave which swept them both from safe moorings into outlawry, had spent itself. they were still lovers; but now, with love, comradeship mingled. a comradeship of mutual suffering--knit closer as the days went by.
for, in love's despite, since training and inherited traditions alike unfitted them for the r?le they played, both suffered.
to aliette, lonely no longer, ronnie's comradeship compensated for so much that, as yet, the social disadvantages of their position hardly mattered. only every now and then, in lonely-waking night-hours when full perception of the thing she had done shimmered black for a moment through the rosy veils of affection, did her heart grow faint at the thought of perpetual ostracism from her kind. at other times, her sufferings, her self-torturings were all for ronnie.
ronnie, she knew, chafed at his defeat. ronnie had grown to hate brunton. ronnie--for her sake--wanted social position, success. ronnie loathed the illegal fact that they had had to register as "mr. and mrs. cavendish and maid" at the quiet kensington hotel, whither moses moffatt's shibboleth of "bachelor chambers" drove them on their return from chilworth.
but ronnie had other frets--money-frets--on that october afternoon when they strolled under the browning trees.
they strolled lover-like, arm in arm; and ponto the dane, incongruous appanage of their elopement, followed leisurely. aliette was all in furs, soft furs that cloaked her from the cream of her chin to the slimness of her ankles. above the furs her face showed happy, glowing with a new youth, a new softness.
"man," she said suddenly, "do you realize that we are two thoroughly unpractical people?"
"are we?" he pressed her arm. "does it matter very much?"
"of course it matters." she paused, and went on shyly: "don't you understand that i've been living with you for three months, and that so far i haven't contributed a single penny to the--to the establishment?"
"how absurd you are!" he tried to brush the matter aside; but that she refused to allow.
"i ought to contribute something, you know. i'm not quite penniless."
"you're not going to pay my hotel bill," he parried: a little stubbornly, she thought.
"why not? what's mine is yours."
they walked on in silence for a minute or two. then ronnie said:
"i'm afraid i can't quite see things that way, alie. i suppose i'm a bit old-fashioned in my ideas. but it does seem to me that the man's responsible----" he bit off the sentence.
"i hate you to talk like that." there was a little of the old temper in aliette's voice. "we must be sensible about money."
"oh, don't let's bother this afternoon," he coaxed.
"but we must bother. ronnie, be frank with me. what are we living on?"
"oh, all sorts of things. the jermyn street rent; my earnings, such as they are; a bit of money i'd got saved up."
"and," she added, "the allowance your mother makes you. i wonder if we ought to take that."
"i don't see why we shouldn't. she always has made me an allowance. but of course i shouldn't like to ask her for more."
"naturally." aliette's brow creased. "let's think. i've got about three hundred and fifty a year of my own. your allowance is four. that makes seven hundred and fifty. how much is that a week?"
"fifteen pounds," laughed ronnie, remembering a phrase of his mother's, "no woman's financial mind covers more than seven days."
"and our hotel bill last week was twenty."
at that, the man began to feel thoroughly uncomfortable. his mind shied away from the topic. but the woman pursued it resolutely.
"we'll have to find a cheaper hotel."
"it seems rotten luck on you; the present one is uncomfortable enough. besides," he brightened visibly, "there ought to be briefs coming in now."
"man, you're a great optimist." there was an undercurrent of criticism in aliette's voice, of a criticism which ronnie felt he could not fairly resent; because already he had begun to divine the professional consequences of brunton's enmity. only the day before, james wilberforce had dropped a hint--the barest hint, but sufficient to indicate which way the financial wind might blow.
"i suppose i am rather an optimist," he admitted; and for the moment they dropped the subject, reverting, as they nearly always did in their walks together, to the main problem.
"h. b. ought to be back any day now," said ronnie, "and when he does come back, he'll simply have to file his petition."
but to-day she would have none of the problem.
"don't let us discuss that. after all, nothing that h. does or doesn't do can really hurt us." she looked up into his eyes. "we've got each other."
"i don't mind for myself, alie. it's you i'm thinking of. of course we won't talk about him if you don't want to."
by now they were through kensington gardens, and passing the herbaceous border at victoria gate. they stopped to inspect the flowers. two gardeners were at work, clearing away the wreckage of summer. the climbing roses and the clematis had withered, but dahlias still flaunted scarlet and crimson against the high dark of the shrubbery.
they walked on, silent, the dog pottering at heel; and inclined half-right across hyde park.
"do you remember----" began aliette.
"what, dear?" he prompted.
"oh, nothing. only i was just thinking. mollie and i came this way, that morning we met at church parade. it seems such a long time ago."
"am i as dull as all that?" he chaffed her. "are you getting bored with me?"
"bored with you!" her voice thrilled. "oh, man, man, you don't understand a bit. you're everything in the world to me. the only thing that ever makes me really frightened is the thought of forfeiting your love. that's because i'm happy--happy. you don't know, no man ever does know, what happiness means to a woman; how utterly miserable she can be. i was miserable with h.--miserable. luxuries don't help--when one's unhappy. when i look back on my life before i met you, i wonder i didn't"--she hesitated--"i didn't do something desperate. i suppose i didn't know how miserable i really was. i don't suppose any woman in my position ever does know, till some man teaches her----"
"and now?" he broke in.
"now, i'm absolutely happy. honestly, i don't care a bit about the legal position--as you call it. what does it matter whether we're legally married or not? what does it matter whether people want to know us or whether they don't? i don't care," she ended almost defiantly; "i don't care a bit so long as i've got you; so long as we're right with our own consciences."
and really, when aliette looks back on those unsettled days, it astonishes her how little she did care for the rest of the world. even her parents' attitude seemed of no importance.
3
for outwardly the fullerfords had taken up a very determined attitude.
at clyst fullerford aliette's name was scarcely mentioned. the people who had known aliette since cradle-days, the pleasant devonshire people busied with their pleasant trivial country round, still called neighborly as of yore; but they no longer inquired of andrew fullerford, nor of andrew's wife, after the health of mrs. brunton. somehow rumor, unconfirmed yet accurate in the main, had penetrated to every corner of the county; and though the pleasant people pretended to ignore rumor, at least until such time as rumor's story should be substantiated by the london papers, still they thought it "safer" not to mention aliette when they visited the long, low house of the mullioned windows.
ever since the death of the fullerford boys in france, the house with the mullioned windows had been sad. but now it seemed more than sad--a home of utter tragedy, despite its tended gardens and its deft servants. the stags' heads and the foxes' masks on its walls only enhanced its gloom. its empty stables typified empty hearts; hearts of a man and a woman whose sons might not inherit.
mollie, in that long august and longer september, found the place unbearable. yet she was afraid to leave it; afraid to leave andrew and marie alone. her father aged hourly; his gray-lashed mouth used to quiver with pain whenever he looked across the dinner-table at his wife. to the girl, who did not understand that aliette's abandonment of her husband had evoked between these two the old specter of religious differences, both parents appeared incredibly unforgiving, incredibly out of their century.
yet, had it not been for that specter, it is more than possible that the puisne judge would have relented toward his "erring daughter." under certain circumstances he might even have helped her to secure her freedom. for although aliette had outraged both his legal sense and his sense of propriety; although she had admittedly broken the oath sworn at a protestant altar; yet the lapse of the years had so softened andrew's protestantism, left it so broadly tolerant, so much more of an ideal than a religion, that he considered, as many latter-day protestants do consider, almost every tenet of his church open to the argument of the individual case.
the judge, moreover, was instinctively aware that aliette's relations to hector might furnish exactly that individual case necessary for her justification. but in view of his wife's obvious misery, andrew felt himself incapable of forgiveness.
to marie fullerford--and this her husband realized--from that very first moment when she opened aliette's letter of confession, it had seemed as though the roman catholic church, the church from whose rigid discipline she had revolted to marry andrew, were taking its revenge for the long-ago apostasy.
after one heartbroken conversation with her husband, she withdrew into contemplation. hour after hour she used to sit in her own little room, remembering and regretting the faith of her childhood. marie could no more go back to that faith! the church, the surely-disciplined authoritative church of rome, would have none of her. and she would have given so much in her present distress for the comfort of rome!
the spiritual uncertainty of protestantism frightened her with its easy-going tolerance. she saw the doctrine of the english church as a broad-pathed quagmire, through which one trod with individual and uncertain steps toward an individual and uncertain heaven; while roman catholicism, knowing neither tolerance nor uncertainty, indicated the only road, the safe and the narrow road to constitutional bliss.
constantly marie fullerford tried to recall her old courage, the individual fortitude which had broken her loose from roman catholicism. but the old fortitude would not return. she yearned in her weakness for the guidance of the priest, for the infallible laws, for the infallible dogmas of an infallible hierarchy.
her spiritual knees ached, and the hard hassock of protestantism could not rest them. stumbling, she desired to cast the heavy pack of her doubts at the feet of a father-confessor--of a father-confessor who would give one orders, definite commands: "let your daughter sin no more. let her return to her husband, expiate her offenses." no doubting there! no leaving of the individual case to individual judgment!
and yet--and yet aliette's mother could not bring herself to answer aliette's confession in the spirit of rome. she herself had been so long free, so long undisciplined, that she wanted, desperately, to find the solution of this problem by the aid of that very love in which she had given herself to andrew.
at last, in her uncertainty, she consulted with her eldest daughter.
eva, without the slightest hesitation, forbade any answer at all. the colonel's lady, always adverse to her juniors, sided from the first definitely with hector. aliette, opined eva, had brought disgrace upon the entire family. no fact that mollie, no argument that her husband could adduce in the culprit's favor, availed to bend mrs. harold martin's domestic rigidity; a rigidity socketed home on the two unshifting rocks of personal dislike and personal rectitude.
4
meanwhile moor park, though spiritually less troubled than clyst fullerford, failed egregiously in presenting a united front to its domestic troubles. hector, returning thither from a lonely holiday in scotland, found rear-admiral billy in quarter-deck mood, and the rev. adrian--invited for obvious reasons to dine without his margery--uncomfortably silent through an interminable meal.
purposely the admiral had staved off discussion of the matter at heart until the mastodontic dining-table should be cleared of its food. now--the port decanter being in its third circulation--he drew back his chair from the board, screwed a cigar firmly between his bearded lips, and began:
"well, hector, you've had a couple of months to make up your mind. what are you going to do about alie?"
the k.c. looked straight into his father's unjovial eyes and retorted:
"as i told you before i left, sir"--"sir" between the admiral and his sons always betokened trouble,--"i'm not going to do anything."
"dog-in-the-manger, eh?" rumbled the old man to his beard.
"you can take it that way if you like, sir."
"pretty rough on your wife, ain't it? adrian thinks----"
"adrian is not his brother's keeper."
there intervened a considerable silence, during which the parson scrutinized the lawyer. "hector's nature," pondered the rev. adrian, "has not altered much since he was a boy. he's a reticent fellow, is hector. sullen, too. resents any one interfering in his affairs--even if it's for his own good."
but the parson could see that, in outward appearance, hector had altered. he looked less corpulent, less certain of himself, more inclined to bluster. his sandy hair had thinned nearly to baldness.
"i haven't the slightest wish to interfere"--adrian, except in his episcopalian wife's presence, was a very human being,--"but really it does seem to me that your duty is either to use every means in your power to get your wife back, or else to set her free. you can't play the matrimonial micawber."
"i tell you," the k.c. fidgeted in his chair, "i don't want your advice. this is my own affair and nobody else's."
"that be sugared for a tale." the admiral unscrewed his cigar from his mouth, and waved it fiercely before his eldest son's eyes. "that be sugared for a tale, hector. a man's marriage concerns his whole family. i was talking to simeon only the other day, and he said it was perfectly impossible for any one in your position----"
"i've heard that argument before," said aliette's legal owner, "and i can't say that it appeals to me. i fail to see why uncle simeon or his wife should presume to pass judgment on what i choose or don't choose to do." he made a movement to break off the discussion, refrained, and continued. "since you have reopened the subject, sir, i think it would be as well if i explained my views once and for all. my views are that i fail to see any reason why i should take my wife back, or any obligation to set her free to marry her lover. what he and she did, they did with their eyes open. let them abide by the consequences."
"but, blast it all!" broke in the admiral, "a fellow must behave like a gentleman."
"i refuse to admit that a man must behave like a gentleman to a wife who forgets to behave herself like a lady." the lawyer reached for the cigar-box, and kindled a weed.
"come, come, hector." the parson, who had seen life, put his professional prejudices on one side. "it really isn't as bad as that. mind you, i'm not making any excuses for aliette. but, even admitting that she's behaved badly to you, does that furnish you with any justification for behaving badly to her?"
"and mind you, my boy," the father elaborated his younger son's argument, "people aren't like they used to be about this sort of thing. there's deuced little prejudice against divorce these days. we must go with the times. we must go with the times. god knows i'm an intolerant old devil; but, thank god, i can still take a broad-minded view where the sex is concerned."
"it's easy enough for you to be broad-minded, sir," interpolated the k.c.; "she's not your wife."
"fond of her still, eh?" rambled the old man shrewdly. hector brunton kept silence, but his eyes showed that the shot had gone home.
"you've asked her to return to you, i suppose?" said the rev. adrian, pouncing on this new hare like a religious beagle.
"certainly not." the coincidence of the two ideas exasperated hector. for two months he had been hardening himself to meet this very ordeal; and already, curse it! he felt himself growing soft. dimly the voice of conscience told him that his father and brother were in the right. socially he recognized that he was taking up an impossible position. nevertheless, as an individual, he intended sticking to that position. all the obstinacy, all the weakness in him combined to reject the obvious solution. why the devil should he divorce aliette? he still wanted aliette--wanted her physically--craved for her with a desire so overpowering that, at times, it drove him almost mad.
"quite apart from your wife's reputation, you know," the admiral returned to his oratorial quarter-deck, "you've got to consider your own. people don't look too kindly on a man who allows his missus to live openly with some one else. and then, both you and he being in the same profession! take it from me, my boy, it won't do you any good."
"it won't do him any good," said hector viciously. "if i've any influence with the benchers, i'll get the fellow disbarred before the year's out; and if i can't get him disbarred at least i'll take"--he snarled--"other steps."
at the snarl, adrian lost his temper.
"i've been trying to talk to you like a brother, hector," he rapped out, "not like a parson. if you came to me as a parson, i should be bound to tell you that your attitude isn't christian at all. it's--damn it!--it's hebraic. an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."
the elder brother turned on his junior.
"christianity," he sneered. "is that your christianity? free love!"
the junior fidgeted with his white collar.
"we'll leave my christianity out of the discussion, if you please."
the admiral, also a little hot under the shirt, intervened again.
"christianity or no christianity, i maintain that you're putting yourself in the wrong. alie's a decent enough little woman. she's always played the game with you. even when she ran away with this fellow, she told you about it before she went. she did tell you, didn't she?"
"yes."
"what did you say?"
"i told her she could go if she wanted to."
"you didn't try to restrain her?"
"no. i didn't."
"why not? if you felt so strongly about her going off as you pretend to now, why didn't you lock her up in her bedroom? why didn't you go and see this man cavendish--knock his head off?"
infuriated, hector rose to his feet.
"i have no wish to be disrespectful, sir," he said to his father, "but my decision is final. i refuse to discuss this matter a minute longer." and to his brother, "as for you, adrian, i'll thank you not to interfere." then he moved from the table, swung open the door, and clumped heavily upstairs to his bedroom.
left alone, the rear-admiral turned to his younger son.
"how's the new baby, adrian?"
"getting on splendidly, father."
"good." the bearded lips chewed at their cigar for a full minute. "a pity hector's wife didn't have any kids."
"a great pity, father."
