Chapter 16

Certainly he was more affectionate and thoughtful than before. He would have liked to give her money, of which he seemed to have an unusual store; but she bade him keep what he had for his own needs. Her own little bit of money, saved from the wreck of their fortunes, was enough for her. Then he went into Ryde and brought her back a Shetland shawl and a new table-cloth for her little sitting-room, which she accepted with a warmer kiss than she had given him for years.

He left her on a bright, windy morning which flecked the blue Solent with foam and sent the clouds racing to westward. She walked back along the sands, thinking anxiously of the African climate and the desert hard-ships he was going to face. And she wondered what significance there might be in the fact that he had written twice during his stay with her to a Miss Le Breton, whose name, nevertheless, he had not mentioned in their conversations. Well, he would marry soon, she supposed, and marry well, in circles out of her ken. With the common prejudice of the English middle class, she hoped that if this Miss Le Breton were his choice, she might be only French in name and not in blood.

Meanwhile, Warkworth sped up to London in high spirits, enjoying the comforts of a good conscience.

He drove first to his club, where a pile of letters awaited him--some letters of congratulation, others concerned with the business of his mission. He enjoyed the first, noticing jealously who had and who had not written to him; then he applied himself to the second. His mind worked vigorously and well; he wrote his replies in a manner that satisfied him. Then throwing himself into a chair, with a cigar, he gave himself up to the close and shrewd planning of the preparations necessary for his five weeks' march, or to the consideration of two or three alternative lines of action which would open before him as soon as he should find himself within the boundaries of Mokembe. Some five years before, the government of the day had sent a small expedition to this Debatable Land, which had failed disastrously, both from the diplomatic and the military points of view. He went backward and forward to the shelves of the fine "Service" library which surrounded him, taking down the books and reports which concerned this expedition. He buried himself in them for an hour, then threw them aside with contempt. What blunders and short-sight everywhere! The general public might well talk of the stupidity of English officers. And blunders so easily avoided, too! It was sickening. He felt within himself a fulness of energy and intelligence, a perspicacity of brain which judged mistakes of this kind unpardonable.

As he was replacing some of the books he had been using in the shelves, the club began to fill up with men coming in to lunch. A great many congratulated him; and a certain number who of old had hardly professed to know him greeted him with cordiality. He found himself caught in a series of short but flattering conversations, in which he bore himself well--neither over-discreet nor too elate. "I declare that fellow's improved," said one man, who might certainly have counted as Warkworth's enemy the week before, to his companion at table. "The government's been beastly remiss so far. Hope he'll pull it off. Ripping chance, anyway. Though what they gave it to him for, goodness knows! There were a dozen fellows, at least, did as well as he in the Mahsud business. And the Staff-College man had a thousand times more claim."

Nevertheless, Warkworth felt the general opinion friendly, a little surprised, no doubt, but showing that readiness to believe in the man coming to the front, which belongs much more to the generous than to the calculating side of the English character. Insensibly his mental and moral stature rose. He exchanged a few words on his way out with one of the most distinguished members of the club, a man of European reputation, whom he had seen the week before in the Commander-in-Chief's room at the War Office. The great man spoke to him with marked friendliness, and Warkworth walked on air as he went his way. Potentially he felt himself the great man's equal; the gates of life seemed to be opening before him.

And with the rise of fortune came a rush of magnanimous resolution. No more shady episodes; no more mean devices; no more gambling, and no more debt. _Major_ Warkworth's sheet was clean, and it should remain so. A man of his prospects must run straight.

He felt himself at peace with all the world. By-the-way, just time to jump into a cab and get to Park Crescent in time for his sister's luncheon. His last interview with his brother-in-law had not been agreeable. But now--he felt for the check-book in his pocket--he was in a position to repay at least half the last sum of money which Bella had lent him. He would go and give it her now, and report news of the mother. And if the two chicks were there--why, he had a free hour and he would take them to the Zoo--he vowed he would!--give them something pleasant to remember their uncle by.

And a couple of hours later a handsome, soldierly man might have been seen in the lion-house at the Zoo, leading a plump little girl by either hand. Rose and Katie Mullins enjoyed a golden time, and started a wholly new adoration for the uncle who had so far taken small notice of them, and was associated in their shrewd, childish minds rather with tempests at home than buns abroad. But this time buns, biscuits, hansom-drives and elephant-rides were showered upon them by an uncle who seemed to make no account of money, while his gracious and captivating airs set their little hearts beating in a common devotion.

"Now go home--go home, little beggars!" said that golden gentleman, as he packed them into a hansom and stood on the step to accept a wet kiss on his mustache from each pink mouth. "Tell your mother all about it, and don't forget your uncle Harry. There's a shilling for each of you. Don't you spend it on sweets. You're quite fat enough already. Good-bye!"

"That's the hardest work I've done for many a long day," he said to himself, with a sigh of relief, as the hansom drove away. "I sha'n't turn nurse-maid when other trades fail. But they're nice little kids all the same.

"Now, then, Cox's--and the City"--he ran over the list of his engagements for the afternoon--"and by five o'clock shall I find my fair lady--at home--and established? Where on earth is Heribert Street?"

* * * * *

He solved the question, for a few minutes after five he was on Miss Le Breton's doorstep. A quaint little house--and a strange parlor-maid! For the door was opened to him by a large-eyed, sickly child, who looked at him with the bewilderment of one trying to follow out instructions still strange to her.

"Yes, sir, Miss Le Breton is in the drawing-room," she said, in a sweet, deliberate voice with a foreign accent, and she led the way through the hall.

Poor little soul--what a twisted back, and what a limp! She looked about fourteen, but was probably older. Where had Julie discovered her?

Warkworth looked round him at the little hall with its relics of country-house sports and amusements; his eye travelled through an open door to the little dining-room and the Russell pastels of Lady Mary's parents, as children, hanging on the wall. The _character_ of the little dwelling impressed itself at once. Smiling; he acknowledged its congruity with Julie. Here was a lady who fell on her feet!

The child, leading him, opened the door to the left.

"Please walk in, sir," she said, shyly, and stood aside.

As the door opened, Warkworth was conscious of a noise of tongues.

So Julie was not alone? He prepared his manner accordingly.

He entered upon a merry scene. Jacob Delafield was standing on a chair, hanging a picture, while Dr. Meredith and Julie, on either side, directed or criticised the operation. Meredith carried picture-cord and scissors; Julie the hammer and nails. Meredith was expressing the profoundest disbelief in Jacob's practical capacities; Jacob was defending himself hotly; and Julie laughed at both.

Towards the other end of the room stood the tea-table, between the fire and an open window. Lord Lackington sat beside it, smiling to himself, and stroking a Persian kitten. Through the open window the twinkling buds on the lilacs in the Cureton House garden shone in the still lingering sun. A recent shower had left behind it odors of earth and grass. Even in this London air they spoke of the spring--the spring which already in happier lands was drawing veils of peach and cherry blossom, over the red Sienese earth or the green terraces of Como. The fire crackled in the grate. The pretty, old-fashioned room was fragrant with hyacinth and narcissus; Julie's books lay on the tables; Julie's hand and taste were already to be felt everywhere. And Lord Lackington with the kitten, beside the fire, gave the last touch of home and domesticity.

"So I find you established?" said Warkworth, smiling, to the lady with the nails, while Delafield nodded to him from the top of the steps and Meredith ceased to chatter.

"I haven't a hand, I fear," said Julie. "Will you have some tea? Ah, Léonie, tu vas en faire de nouveau, n'est-ce pas, pour ce monsieur?"

A little woman in black, with a shawl over her shoulders, had just glided into the room. She had a small, wrinkled face, bright eyes, and a much-flattened nose.

"Tout de suite, monsieur," she said, quickly, and disappeared with the teapot. Warkworth guessed, of course, that she was Madame Bornier, the foster-sister--the "Propriety" of this _ménage_.

"Can't I help?" he said to Julie, with a look at Delafield.

"It's just done," she said, coldly, handing a nail to Delafield. "_Just_ a trifle more to the right. Ecco! Perfection!"

"Oh, you spoil him," said Meredith, "And not one word of praise for me!"

"What have you done?" she said, laughing. "Tangled the cord--that's all!"

Warkworth turned away. His face, so radiant as he entered, had settled into sharp, sudden lines. What was the meaning of this voice, this manner? He remembered that to his three letters he had received no word of reply. But he had interpreted that to mean that she was in the throes of moving and could find no time to write.

As he neared the tea-table, Lord Lackington looked up. He greeted the new-comer with the absent stateliness he generally put on when his mind was in a state of confusion as to a person's identity.

"Well, so they're sending you to D----? There'll be a row there before long. Wish you joy of the missionaries!"

"No, not D----," said Warkworth, smiling. "Nothing so amusing. Mokembe's my destination."

"Oh, Mokembe!" said Lord Lackington, a little abashed. "That's where Cecil Ray, Lord R's second son, was killed last year--lion-hunting? No, it was of fever that he died. By-the-way, a vile climate!"

"In the plains, yes," said Warkworth, seating himself. "As to the uplands, I understand they are to be the Switzerland of Africa."

Lord Lackington did not appear to listen.

"Are you a homoeopath?" he said, suddenly, rising to his full and immense stature and looking down with eagerness on Warkworth.

"No. Why?"

"Because it's your only chance, for those parts. If Cecil Ray had had their medicines with him he'd be alive now. Look here; when do you start?" The speaker took out his note-book.

"In rather less than a month I start for Denga."

"All right. I'll send you a medicine-case--from Epps. If you're ill, take 'em."

"You're very good."

"Not at all. It's my hobby--one of the last." A broad, boyish smile flashed over the handsome old face. "Look at me; I'm seventy-five, and I can tire out my own grandsons at riding and shooting. That comes of avoiding all allopathic messes like the devil. But the allopaths are such mean fellows they filch all our ideas."

The old man was off. Warkworth submitted to five minutes' tirade, stealing a glance sometimes at the group of Julie, Meredith, and Delafield in the farther window--at the happy ease and fun that seemed to prevail in it. He fiercely felt himself shut out and trampled on.

Suddenly, Lord Lackington pulled up, his instinct for declamation qualified by an equally instinctive dread of boring or being bored. "What did you think of Montresor's statement?" he said, abruptly, referring to a batch of army reforms that Montresor the week before had endeavored to recommend to a sceptical House of Commons.

"All very well, as far as it goes," said Warkworth, with a shrug.

"Precisely! We English want an army and a navy; we don't like it when those fellows on the Continent swagger in our faces, and yet we won't pay either for the ships or the men. However, now that they've done away with purchase--Gad! I could fight them in the streets for the way in which they've done it!--now that they've turned the army into an examination-shop, tempered with jobbery, whatever we do, we shall go to the deuce. So it don't matter."

"You were against the abolition?"

"I was, sir--with Wellington and Raglan and everybody else of any account. And as for the violence, the disgraceful violence with which it was carried--"

"Oh no, no," said Warkworth, laughing. "It was the Lords who behaved abominably, and it'll do a deal of good."

Lord Lackington's eyes flashed.

"I've had a long life," he said, pugnaciously. "I began as a middy in the American war of 1812, that nobody remembers now. Then I left the sea for the army. I knocked about the world. I commanded a brigade in the Crimea--"

"Who doesn't remember that?" said Warkworth, smiling.

The old man acknowledged the homage by a slight inclination of his handsome head.

"And you may take my word for it that this new system will not give you men worth _a tenth part_ of those fellows who bought and bribed their way in under the old. The philosophers may like it, or lump it, but so it is."

Warkworth dissented strongly. He was a good deal of a politician, himself a "new man," and on the side of "new men." Lord Lackington warmed to the fight, and Warkworth, with bitterness in his heart--because of that group opposite--was nothing loath to meet him. But presently he found the talk taking a turn that astonished him. He had entered upon a drawing-room discussion of a subject which had, after all, been settled, if only by what the Tories were pleased to call the _coup d'état_ of the Royal Warrant, and no longer excited the passions of a few years back. What he had really drawn upon himself was a hand-to-hand wrestle with a man who had no sooner provoked contradiction than he resented it with all his force, and with a determination to crush the contradictor.

Warkworth fought well, but with a growing amazement at the tone and manner of his opponent. The old man's eyes darted war-flames under his finely arched brows. He regarded the younger with a more and more hostile, even malicious air; his arguments grew personal, offensive; his shafts were many and barbed, till at last Warkworth felt his face burning and his temper giving way.

"What _are_ you talking about?" said Julie Le Breton, at last, rising and coming towards them.

Lord Lackington broke off suddenly and threw himself into his chair.

Warkworth rose from his.

"We had better have been handing nails," he said, "but you wouldn't give us any work." Then, as Meredith and Delafield approached, he seized the opportunity of saying, in a low voice:

"Am I not to have a word?"

She turned with composure, though it seemed to him she was very pale.

"Have you just come back from the Isle of Wight?"

"This morning." He looked her in the eyes. "You got my letters?"

"Yes, but I have had no time for writing. I hope you found your mother well."

"Very well, thank you. You have been hard at work?"

"Yes, but the Duchess and Mr. Delafield have made it all easy."

And so on, a few more insignificant questions and answers.

"I must go," said Delafield, coming up to them, "unless there is any more work for me to do. Good-bye, Major, I congratulate you. They have given you a fine piece of work."

Warkworth made a little bow, half ironical. Confound the fellow's grave and lordly ways! He did not want his congratulations.

He lingered a little, sorely, full of rage, yet not knowing how to go.

Lord Lackington's eyes ceased to blaze, and the kitten ventured once more to climb upon his knee. Meredith, too, found a comfortable arm-chair, and presently tried to beguile the kitten from his neighbor. Julie sat erect between them, very silent, her thin, white hands on her lap, her head drooped a little, her eyes carefully restrained from meeting Warkworth's. He meanwhile leaned against the mantel-piece, irresolute.

Meredith, it was clear, made himself quite happy and at home in the little drawing-room. The lame child came in and took a stool beside him. He stroked her head and talked nonsense to her in the intervals of holding forth to Julie on the changes necessary in some proofs of his which he had brought back. Lord Lackington, now quite himself again, went back to dreams, smiling over them, and quite unaware that the kitten had been slyly ravished from him. The little woman in black sat knitting in the background. It was all curiously intimate and domestic, only Warkworth had no part in it.

"Good-bye, Miss Le Breton," he said, at last, hardly knowing his own voice. "I am dining out."

She rose and gave him her hand. But it dropped from his like a thing dead and cold. He went out in a sudden suffocation of rage and pain; and as he walked in a blind haste to Cureton Street, he still saw her standing in the old-fashioned, scented room, so coldly graceful, with those proud, deep eyes.

* * * * *

When he had gone, Julie moved to the window and looked out into the gathering dusk. It seemed to her as if those in the room must hear the beating of her miserable heart.

When she rejoined her companions, Dr. Meredith had already risen and was stuffing various letters and papers into his pockets with a view to departure.

"Going?" said Lord Lackington. "You shall see the last of me, too, Mademoiselle Julie."

And he stood up. But she, flushing, looked at him with a wistful smile.

"Won't you stay a few minutes? You promised to advise me about Thérèse's drawings."

"By all means."

Lord Lackington sat down again. The lame child, it appeared, had some artistic talent, which Miss Le Breton wished to cultivate. Meredith suddenly found his coat and hat, and, with a queer look at Julie, departed in a hurry.

"Thérèse, darling," said Julie, "will you go up-stairs, please, and fetch me that book from my room that has your little drawings inside it?"

The child limped away on her errand. In spite of her lameness she moved with wonderful lightness and swiftness, and she was back again quickly with a calf-bound book in her hand.

"Léonie!" said Julie, in a low voice, to Madame Bornier.

The little woman looked up startled, nodded, rolled up her knitting in a moment, and was gone.

"Take the book to his lordship, Thérèse," she said, and then, instead of moving with the child, she again walked to the window, and, leaning her head against it, looked out. The hand hanging against her dress trembled violently.

"What did you want me to look at, my dear?" said Lord Lackington, taking the book in his hand and putting on his glasses.

But the child was puzzled and did not know. She gazed at him silently with her sweet, docile look.

"Run away, Thérèse, and find mother," said Julie, from the window.

The child sped away and closed the door behind her.

Lord Lackington adjusted his glasses and opened the book. Two or three slips of paper with drawings upon them fluttered out and fell on the table beneath. Suddenly there was a cry. Julie turned round, her lips parted.

Lord Lackington walked up to her.

"Tell me what this means," he said, peremptorily. "How did you come by it?"

It was a volume of George Sand. He pointed, trembling, to the name and date on the fly-leaf--"Rose Delaney, 1842."

"It is mine," she said, softly, dropping her eyes.

"But how--how, in God's name, did you come by it?"

"My mother left it to me, with all her other few books and possessions."

There was a pause. Lord Lackington came closer.

"Who was your mother?" he said, huskily.

The words in answer were hardly audible. Julie stood before him like a culprit, her beautiful head humbly bowed.

Lord Lackington dropped the book and stood bewildered.

"Rose's child?" he said--"Rose's child?"

Then, approaching her, he placed his hand on her arm.

"Let me look at you," he commanded.

Julie raised her eyes to him, and at the same time dumbly held out to him a miniature she had been keeping hidden in her hand. It was one of the miniatures from the locked triptych.

He took it, looked from the pictured to the living face, then, turning away with a groan, he covered his face with his hands and fell again into the chair from which he had risen.

Julie hurried to him. Her own eyes were wet with tears. After a moment's hesitation she knelt down beside him.

"I ought to ask your pardon for not having told you before," she murmured.

It was some time before Lord Lackington looked up. When at last his hands dropped, the face they uncovered was very white and old.

"So you," he said, almost in a whisper, "are the child she wrote to me about before she died?"

Julie made a sign of assent.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-nine."

"_She_ was thirty-two when I saw her last."

There was a silence. Julie lifted one of his hands and kissed it. But he took no notice.

"You know that I was going to her, that I should have reached her in time"--the words seemed wrung from him--"but that I was myself dangerously ill?"

"I know. I remember it all."

"Did she speak of me?"

"Not often. She was very reserved, you remember. But not long before she died--she seemed half asleep--I heard her say, 'Papa!--Blanche!' and she smiled."

Lord Lackington's face contracted, and the slow tears of old age stood in his eyes.

"You are like her in some ways," he said, brusquely, as though to cover his emotion; "but not very like her."

"She always thought I was like you."

A cloud came over Lord Lackington's face. Julie rose from her knees and sat beside him. He lost himself a few moments amid the painful ghosts of memory. Then, turning to her abruptly, he said:

"You have wondered, I dare say, why I was so hard--why, for seventeen years, I cast her off?"

"Yes, often. You could have come to see us without anybody knowing. Mother loved you very much."

Her voice was low and sad. Lord Lackington rose, fidgeted restlessly with some of the small ornaments on the mantel-piece, and at last turned to her.