Chapter 22

"Not there! Oh, mademoiselle!"

The child's voice was pitiful.

"I shall join you there. But I find I must go to Paris first. I--I have some business there."

"But maman said--"

"Yes, I have only just made up my mind. I shall tell maman to-morrow morning,"

"You go alone, mademoiselle?"

"Why not, dear goose?"

"Vous êtes fatiguée. I would like to come with you, and carry your cloak and the umbrellas."

"You, indeed!" said Julie. "It would end, wouldn't it, in my carrying you--besides the cloak and the umbrellas?"

Then she knelt down beside the child and took her in her arms.

"Do you love me, Thérèse?"

The child drew a long breath. With her little, twisted hands she stroked the beautiful hair so close to her.

"Do you, Thérèse?"

A kiss fell on Julie's cheek.

"Ce soir, j'ai beaucoup prié la Sainte Vierge pour vous!" she said, in a timid and hurried whisper.

Julie made no immediate reply. She rose from her knees, her hand still clasped in that of the crippled girl.

"Did you put those pictures on my mantel-piece, Thérèse?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The child hesitated.

"It does one good to look at them--n'est-ce pas?--when one is sad?"

"Why do you suppose I am sad?"

Thérèse was silent a moment; then she flung her little skeleton arms round Julie, and Julie felt her crying.

"Well, I won't be sad any more," said Julie, comforting her. "When we're all in Bruges together, you'll see."

And smiling at the child, she tucked her into her white bed and left her.

Then from this exquisite and innocent affection she passed back into the tumult of her own thoughts and plans. Through the restless night her parents were often in her mind. She was the child of revolt, and as she thought of the meeting before her she seemed to be but entering upon a heritage inevitable from the beginning. A sense of enfranchisement, of passionate enlargement, upheld her, as of a life coming to its fruit.

* * * * *

"Creil!"

A flashing vision of a station and its lights, and the Paris train rushed on through cold showers of sleet and driving wind, a return of winter in the heart of spring.

On they sped through the half-hour which still divided them from the Gare du Nord. Julie, in her thick veil, sat motionless in her corner. She was not conscious of any particular agitation. Her mind was strained not to forget any of Warkworth's directions. She was to drive across immediately to the Gare de Sceaux, in the Place Denfert-Rochereau, where he would meet her. They were to dine at an obscure inn near the station, and go down by the last train to the little town in the wooded valley of the Bièvre, where they were to stay.

She had her luggage with her in the carriage. There would be no custom-house delays.

Ah, the lights of Paris beginning! She peered into the rain, conscious of a sort of home-coming joy. She loved the French world and the French sights and sounds--these tall, dingy houses of the _banlieue_, the dregs of a great architecture; the advertisements; the look of the streets.

The train slackened into the Nord Station. The blue-frocked porters crowded into the carriages.

"C'est tout, madame? Vous n'avez pas de grands bagages?"

"No, nothing. Find me a cab at once."

There was a great crowd outside. She hurried on as quickly as she could, revolving what was to be said if any acquaintance were to accost her. By great good luck, and by travelling second class both in the train and on the boat, she had avoided meeting anybody she knew. But the Nord Station was crowded with English people, and she pushed her way through in a nervous terror.

"Miss Le Breton!"

She turned abruptly. In the white glare of the electric lights she did not at first recognize the man who had spoken to her. Then she drew back. Her heart beat wildly. For she had distinguished the face of Jacob Delafield.

He came forward to meet her as she passed the barrier at the end of the platform, his aspect full of what seemed to her an extraordinary animation, significance, as though she were expected.

"Miss Le Breton! What an astonishing, what a fortunate meeting! I have a message for you from Evelyn."

"From Evelyn?" She echoed the words mechanically as she shook hands.

"Wait a moment," he said, leading her aside towards the waiting-room, while the crowd that was going to the _douane_ passed them by. Then he turned to Julie's porter.

"Attendez un instant."

The man sulkily shook his head, dropped Julie's bag at their feet, and hurried off in search of a more lucrative job.

"I am going back to-night," added Delafield, hurriedly. "How strange that I should have met you, for I have very sad news for you! Lord Lackington had an attack this morning, from which he cannot recover. The doctors give him perhaps forty-eight hours. He has asked for you--urgently. The Duchess tells me so in a long telegram I had from her to-day. But she supposed you to be in Bruges. She has wired there. You will go back, will you not?"

"Go back?" said Julie, staring at him helplessly. "Go back to-night?"

"The evening train starts in little more than an hour. You would be just in time, I think, to see the old man alive."

She still looked at him in bewilderment, at the blue eyes under the heavily moulded brows, and the mouth with its imperative, and yet eager--or tremulous?--expression. She perceived that he hung upon her answer.

She drew her hand piteously across her eyes as though to shut out the crowds, the station, and the urgency of this personality beside her. Despair was in her heart. How to consent? How to refuse?

"But my friends," she stammered--"the friends with whom I was going to stay--they will be alarmed."

"Could you not telegraph to them? They would understand, surely. The office is close by."

She let herself be hurried along, not knowing what to do. Delafield walked beside her. If she had been able to observe him, she must have been struck afresh by the pale intensity, the controlled agitation of his face.

"Is it really so serious?" she asked, pausing a moment, as though in resistance.

"It is the end. Of that there can be no question. You have touched his heart very deeply. He longs to see her, Evelyn says. And his daughter and granddaughter are still abroad--Miss Moffatt, indeed, is ill at Florence with a touch of diphtheria. He is alone with his two sons. You will go?"

Even in her confusion, the strangeness of it all was borne in upon her--his insistence, the extraordinary chance of their meeting, his grave, commanding manner.

"How could you know I was here?" she said, in bewilderment.

"I didn't know," he said, slowly. "But, thank God, I have met you. I dread to think of your fatigue, but you will be glad just to see him again--just to give him his last wish--won't you?" he said, pleadingly. "Here is the telegraph-office. Shall I do it for you?"

"No, thank you. I--I must think how to word it. Please wait."

She went in alone. As she took the pencil into her hands a low groan burst from her lips. The man writing in the next compartment turned round in astonishment. She controlled herself and began to write. There was no escape. She must submit; and all was over.

She telegraphed to Warkworth, care of the Chef de Gare, at the Sceaux Station, and also to the country inn.

"Have met Mr. Delafield by chance at Nord Station. Lord Lackington dying. Must return to-night. Where shall I write? Good-bye."

When it was done she could hardly totter out of the office. Delafield made her take his arm.

"You must have some food. Then I will go and get a sleeping-car for you to Calais. There will be no crowd to-night. At Calais I will look after you if you will allow me."

"You are crossing to-night?" she said, vaguely. Her lips framed the words with difficulty.

"Yes. I came over with my cousins yesterday."

She asked nothing more. It did not occur to her to notice that he had no luggage, no bag, no rug, none of the paraphernalia of travel. In her despairing fatigue and misery she let him guide her as he would.

He made her take some soup, then some coffee, all that she could make herself swallow. There was a dismal period of waiting, during which she was hardly conscious of where she was or of what was going on round her.

Then she found herself in the sleeping-car, in a reserved compartment, alone. Once more the train moved through the night. The miles flew by--the miles that forever parted her from Warkworth.

XIX

The train was speeding through the forest country of Chantilly. A pale moon had risen, and beneath its light the straight forest roads, interminably long, stretched into the distance; the vaporous masses of young and budding trees hurried past the eye of the traveller; so, also, the white hamlets, already dark and silent; the stations with their lights and figures; the great wood-piles beside the line.

Delafield, in his second-class carriage, sat sleepless and erect. The night was bitterly cold. He wore the light overcoat in which he had left the Hôtel du Rhin that afternoon for a stroll before dinner, and had no other wrap or covering. But he felt nothing, was conscious of nothing but the rushing current of his own thoughts.

The events of the two preceding days, the meaning of them, the significance of his own action and its consequences--it was with these materials that his mind dealt perpetually, combining, interpreting, deducing, now in one way, now in another. His mood contained both excitement and dread. But with a main temper of calmness, courage, invincible determination, these elements did not at all interfere.

The day before, he had left London with his cousins, the Duke of Chudleigh, and young Lord Elmira, the invalid boy. They were bound to Paris to consult a new doctor, and Jacob had offered to convey them there. In spite of all the apparatus of servants and couriers with which they were surrounded, they always seemed to him, on their journeys, a singularly lonely and hapless pair, and he knew that they leaned upon him and prized his company.

On the way to Paris, at the Calais buffet, he had noticed Henry Warkworth, and had given him a passing nod. It had been understood the night before in Heribert Street that they would both be crossing on the morrow.

On the following day--the day of Julie's journey--Delafield, who was anxiously awaiting the return of his two companions from their interview with the great physician they were consulting, was strolling up the Rue de la Paix, just before luncheon, when, outside the Hôtel Mirabeau, he ran into a man whom he immediately perceived to be Warkworth.

Politeness involved the exchange of a few sentences, although a secret antagonism between the two men had revealed itself from the first day of their meeting in Lady Henry's drawing-room. Each word of their short conversation rang clearly through Delafield's memory.

"You are at the 'Rhin'?" said Warkworth.

"Yes, for a couple more days. Shall we meet at the Embassy to-morrow?"

"No. I dined there last night. My business here is done. I start for Rome to-night."

"Lucky man. They have put on a new fast train, haven't they?"

"Yes. You leave the Gare de Lyon at 7.15, and you are at Rome the second morning, in good time."

"Magnificent! Why don't we all rush south? Well, good-bye again, and good luck."

They touched hands perfunctorily and parted.

This happened about mid-day. While Delafield and his cousins were lunching, a telegram from the Duchess of Crowborough was handed to Jacob. He had wired to her early in the morning to ask for the address in Paris of an old friend of his, who was also a cousin of hers. The telegram contained:

"Thirty-six Avenue Friedland. Lord Lackington heart-attack this morning. Dying. Has asked urgently for Julie. Blanche Moffatt detained Florence by daughter's illness. All circumstances most sad. Woman Heribert Street gave me Bruges address. Have wired Julie there."

The message set vibrating in Delafield's mind the tender memory which already existed there of his last talk with Julie, of her strange dependence and gentleness, her haunting and pleading personality. He hoped with all his heart she might reach the old man in time, that his two sons, Uredale and William, would treat her kindly, and that it would be found when the end came that he had made due provision for her as his granddaughter.

But he had small leisure to give to thoughts of this kind. The physician's report in the morning had not been encouraging, and his two travelling companions demanded all the sympathy and support he could give them. He went out with them in the afternoon to the Hôtel de la Terrasse at St. Germain. The Duke, a nervous hypochondriac, could not sleep in the noise of Paris, and was accustomed to a certain apartment in this well-known hotel, which was often reserved for him. Jacob left them about six o'clock to return to Paris. He was to meet one of the Embassy attachés--an old Oxford friend--at the Café Gaillard for dinner. He dressed at the "Rhin," put on an overcoat, and set out to walk to the Rue Gaillard about half-past seven. As he approached the "Mirabeau," he saw a cab with luggage standing at the door. A man came out with the hotel _concierge_. To his astonishment, Delafield recognized Warkworth.

The young officer seemed in a hurry and out of temper. At any rate, he jumped into the cab without taking any notice of the two _sommeliers_ and the _concierge_ who stood round expectant of francs, and when the _concierge_ in his stiffest manner asked where the man was to drive, Warkworth put his head out of the window and said, hastily, to the _cocher_:

"D'abord, à la Gare de Sceaux! Puis, je vous dirai. Mais dépêchez-vous!"

The cab rolled away, and Delafield walked on.

Half-past seven, striking from all the Paris towers! And Warkworth's intention in the morning was to leave the Gare de Lyon at 7.15. But it seemed he was now bound, at 7.30, for the Gare de Sceaux, from which point of departure it was clear that no reasonable man would think of starting for the Eternal City.

"_D'abord,_ à la Gare de Sceaux!"

Then he was not catching a train?--at any rate, immediately. He had some other business first, and was perhaps going to the station to deposit his luggage?

Suddenly a thought, a suspicion, flashed through Delafield's mind, which set his heart thumping in his breast. In after days he was often puzzled to account for its origin, still more for the extraordinary force with which it at once took possession of all his energies. In his more mystical moments of later life he rose to the secret belief that God had spoken to him.

At any rate, he at once hailed a cab, and, thinking no more of his dinner engagement, he drove post-haste to the Nord Station. In those days the Calais train arrived at eight. He reached the station a few minutes before it appeared. When at last it drew up, amid the crowd on the platform it took him only a few seconds to distinguish the dark and elegant head of Julie Le Breton.

A pang shot through him that pierced to the very centre of life. He was conscious of a prayer for help and a clear mind. But on his way to the station he had rapidly thought out a plan on which to act should this mad notion in his brain turn out to have any support in reality.

It had so much support that Julie Le Breton was there--in Paris--and not at Bruges, as she had led the Duchess to suppose. And when she turned her startled face upon him, his wild fancy became, for himself, a certainty.

* * * * *

"Amiens! Cinq minutes d'arrêt."

Delafield got out and walked up and down the platform. He passed the closed and darkened windows of the sleeping-car; and it seemed to his abnormally quickened sense that he was beside her, bending over her, and that he said to her:

"Courage! You are saved! Let us thank God!"

A boy from the refreshment-room came along, wheeling a barrow on which were tea and coffee.

Delafield eagerly drank a cup of tea and put his hand into his pocket to pay for it. He found there three francs and his ticket. After paying for the tea he examined his purse. That contained an English half-crown.

So he had had with him just enough to get his own second-class ticket, her first-class, and a sleeping-car. That was good fortune, seeing that the bulk of his money, with his return ticket, was reposing in his dressing-case at the Hôtel du Rhin.

"En voiture! En voiture, s'il vous plaît!"

He settled himself once more in his corner, and the train rushed on. This time it was the strange hour at the Gare du Nord which he lived through again, her white face opposite to him in the refreshment-room, the bewilderment and misery she had been so little able to conceal, her spasmodic attempts at conversation, a few vague words about Lord Lackington or the Duchess, and then pauses, when her great eyes, haggard and weary, stared into vacancy, and he knew well enough that her thoughts were with Warkworth, and that she was in fierce rebellion against his presence there, and this action into which he had forced her.

As for him, he perfectly understood the dilemma in which she stood. Either she must accept the duty of returning to the death-bed of the old man, her mother's father, or she must confess her appointment with Warkworth.

Yet--suppose he had been mistaken? Well, the telegram from the Duchess covered his whole action. Lord Lackington _was_ dying; and apart from all question of feeling, Julie Le Breton's friends must naturally desire that he should see her, acknowledge her before his two sons, and, with their consent, provide for her before his death.

But, ah, he had not been mistaken! He remembered her hurried refusal when he had asked her if he should telegraph for her to her Paris "friends"--how, in a sudden shame, he had turned away that he might not see the beloved false face as she spoke, might not seem to watch or suspect her.

He had just had time to send off a messenger, first to his friend at the Café Gaillard, and then to the Hôtel du Rhin, before escorting her to the sleeping-car.

Ah, how piteous had been that dull bewilderment with which she had turned to him!

"But--my ticket?"

"Here they are. Oh, never mind--we will settle in town. Try to sleep. You must be very tired."

And then it seemed to him that her lips trembled, like those of a miserable child; and surely, surely, she must hear that mad beating of his pulse!

Boulogne was gone in a flash. Here was the Somme, stretched in a pale silver flood beneath the moon--a land of dunes and stunted pines, of wide sea-marshes, over which came the roar of the Channel. Then again the sea was left behind, and the rich Picard country rolled away to right and left. Lights here and there, in cottage or villa--the lights, perhaps, of birth or death--companions of hope or despair.

Calais!

The train moved slowly up to the boat-side. Delafield jumped out. The sleeping-car was yielding up its passengers. He soon made out the small black hat and veil, the slender form in the dark travelling-dress.

Was she fainting? For she seemed to him to waver as he approached her, and the porter who had taken her rugs and bag was looking at her in astonishment. In an instant he had drawn her arm within his, and was supporting her as he best could,

"The car was very hot, and I am so tired. I only want some air."

They reached the deck.

"You will go down-stairs?"

"No, no--some air!" she murmured, and he saw that she could hardly keep her feet.

But in a few moments they had reached the shelter on the upper deck usually so well filled with chairs and passengers on a day crossing. Now it was entirely deserted. The boat was not full, the night was cold and stormy, and the stream of passengers had poured down into the shelter of the lower deck.

Julie sank into a chair. Delafield hurriedly loosened the shawl she carried with her from its attendant bag and umbrella, and wrapped it round her.

"It will be a rough crossing," he said, in her ear. "Can you stand it on deck?"

"I am a good sailor. Let me stay here."

Her eyes closed. He stooped over her in an anguish. One of the boat officials approached him.

"Madame ferait mieux de descendre, monsieur. La traversée ne sera pas bonne."

Delafield explained that the lady must have air, and was a good sailor. Then he pressed into the man's hand his three francs, and sent him for brandy and an extra covering of some kind. The man went unwillingly.

During the whole bustle of departure, Delafield saw nothing but Julie's helpless and motionless form; he heard nothing but the faint words by which, once or twice, she tried to convey to him that she was not unconscious.

The brandy came. The man who brought it again objected to Julie's presence on deck. Delafield took no heed. He was absorbed in making Julie swallow some of the brandy.

At last they were off. The vessel glided slowly out of the old harbor, and they were immediately in rough water.

Delafield was roused by a peremptory voice at his elbow.

"This lady ought not to stay here, sir. There is plenty of room in the ladies' cabin."

Delafield looked up and recognized the captain of the boat, the same man who, thirty-six hours before, had shown special civilities to the Duke of Chudleigh and his party.

"Ah, you are Captain Whittaker," he said.

The shrewd, stout man who had accosted him raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

Delafield drew him aside a moment. After a short conversation the captain lifted his cap and departed, with a few words to the subordinate officer who had drawn his attention to the matter. Henceforward they were unmolested, and presently the officer brought a pillow and striped blanket, saying they might be useful to the lady. Julie was soon comfortably placed, lying down on the seat under the wooden shelter. Delicacy seemed to suggest that her companion should leave her to herself.

Jacob walked up and down briskly, trying to shake off the cold which benumbed him. Every now and then he paused to look at the lights on the receding French coast, at its gray phantom line sweeping southward under the stormy moon, or disappearing to the north in clouds of rain. There was a roar of waves and a dashing of spray. The boat, not a large one, was pitching heavily, and the few male passengers who had at first haunted the deck soon disappeared.

Delafield hung over the surging water in a strange exaltation, half physical, half moral. The wild salt strength and savor of the sea breathed something akin to that passionate force of will which had impelled him to the enterprise in which he stood. No mere man of the world could have dared it; most men of the world, as he was well aware, would have condemned or ridiculed it. But for one who saw life and conduct _sub specie æternitatis_ it had seemed natural enough.

The wind blew fierce and cold. He made his way back to Julie's side. To his surprise, she had raised herself and was sitting propped up against the corner of the seat, her veil thrown back.

"You are better?" he said, stooping to her, so as to be heard against the boom of the waves. "This rough weather does not affect you?"

She made a negative sign. He drew his camp-stool beside her. Suddenly she asked him what time it was. The haggard nobleness of her pale face amid the folds of black veil, the absent passion of the eye, thrilled to his heart. Where were her thoughts?

"Nearly four o'clock." He drew out his watch. "You see it is beginning to lighten,"

And he pointed to the sky, in which that indefinable lifting of the darkness which precedes the dawn was taking place, and to the far distances of sea, where a sort of livid clarity was beginning to absorb and vanquish that stormy play of alternate dark and moonlight which had prevailed when they left the French shore.

He had hardly spoken, when he felt that her eyes were fixed upon him.