Lady Rose's Daughter Part 25

"Oh!" cried Julie, as though she had been struck, and hid her eyes with her hand.

Slowly, laboriously, Lady Henry dragged herself from step to step. As she turned the corner of the staircase, and could therefore be no longer seen from below, some one softly opened the door of the dining-room and entered the hall.

Julie looked round her, startled. She saw Jacob Delafield, who put his finger to his lip.

Moved by a sudden impulse, she bowed her head on the banister of the stairs against which she was leaning and broke into stifled sobs.

Jacob Delafield came up to her and took her hand. She felt his own tremble, and yet its grasp was firm and supporting.

"Courage!" he said, bending over her. "Try not to give way. You will want all your fort.i.tude."

"Listen!" She gasped, trying vainly to control herself, and they both listened to the sounds above them in the dark house--the labored breath, the slow, painful step.

"Oh, she wouldn't let me help her. She said she would rather die.

Perhaps I have killed her. And I could--I could--yes, I _could_ have loved her."

She was in an anguish of feeling--of sharp and penetrating remorse.

Jacob Delafield held her hand close in his, and when at last the sounds had died in the distance he lifted it to his lips.

"You know that I am your friend and servant," he said, in a queer, m.u.f.fled voice. "You promised I should be."

She tried to withdraw her hand, but only feebly. Neither physically nor mentally had she the strength to repulse him. If he had taken her in his arms, she could hardly have resisted. But he did not attempt to conquer more than her hand. He stood beside her, letting her feel the whole mute, impetuous offer of his manhood--thrown at her feet to do what she would with.

Presently, when once more she moved away, he said to her, in a whisper:

"Go to the d.u.c.h.ess to-morrow morning, as soon as you can get away. She told me to say that--Hutton gave me a little note from her. Your home must be with her till we can all settle what is best. You know very well you have devoted friends. But now good-night. Try to sleep. Evelyn and I will do all we can with Lady Henry."

Julie drew herself out of his hold. "Tell Evelyn I will come to see her, at any rate, as soon as I can put my things together. Good-night."

And she, too, dragged herself up-stairs sobbing, starting at every shadow. All her nerve and daring were gone. The thought that she must spend yet another night under the roof of this old woman who hated her filled her with terror. When she reached her room she locked her door and wept for hours in a forlorn and aching misery.

X

The d.u.c.h.ess was in her morning-room. On the rug, in marked and, as it seemed to her plaintive eyes, brutal contrast with the endless photographs of her babies and women friends which crowded her mantel-piece, stood the Duke, much out of temper. He was a powerfully built man, some twenty years older than his wife, with a dark complexion, enlivened by ruddy cheeks and prominent, red lips. His eyes were of a cold, clear gray; his hair very black, thick, and wiry. An extremely vigorous person, more than adequately aware of his own importance, tanned and seasoned by the life of his cla.s.s, by the yachting, hunting, and shooting in which his own existence was largely spent, slow in perception, and of a sulky temper--so one might have read him at first sight. But these impressions only took you a certain way in judging the character of the d.u.c.h.ess's husband.

As to the sulkiness, there could be no question on this particular morning--though, indeed, his ill-humor deserved a more positive and energetic name.

"You have got yourself and me," he was declaring, "into a most disagreeable and unnecessary sc.r.a.pe. This letter of Lady Henry's"--he held it up--"is one of the most annoying that I have received for many a day. Lady Henry seems to me perfectly justified. You _have_ been behaving in a quite unwarrantable way. And now you tell me that this woman, who is the cause of it all, of whose conduct I thoroughly and entirely disapprove, is coming to stay here, in my house, whether I like it or not, and you expect me to be civil to her. If you persist, I shall go down to Brackmoor till she is pleased to depart. I won't countenance the thing at all, and, whatever you may do, _I_ shall apologize to Lady Henry."

"There's nothing to apologize for," cried the drooping d.u.c.h.ess, plucking up a little spirit. "n.o.body meant any harm. Why shouldn't the old friends go in to ask after her? Hutton--that old butler that has been with Aunt Flora for twenty years--_asked_ us to come in."

"Then he did what he had no business to do, and he deserves to be dismissed at a day's notice. Why, Lady Henry tells me that it was a regular party--that the room was all arranged for it by that most audacious young woman--that the servants were ordered about--that it lasted till nearly midnight, and that the noise you all made positively woke Lady Henry out of her sleep. Really, Evelyn, that you should have been mixed up in such an affair is more unpalatable to me than I can find words to describe." And he paced, fuming, up and down before her.

"Anybody else than Aunt Flora would have laughed," said the d.u.c.h.ess, defiantly. "And I declare, Freddie, I won't be scolded in such a tone.

Besides, if you only knew--"

She threw back her head and looked at him, her cheeks flushed, her lips quivering with a secret that, once out, would perhaps silence him at once--would, at any rate, as children do when they give a shake to their spillikins, open up a number of new chances in the game.

"If I only knew what?"

The d.u.c.h.ess pulled at the hair of the little spitz on her lap without replying.

"What is there to know that I don't know?" insisted the Duke. "Something that makes the matter still worse, I suppose?"

"Well, that depends," said the d.u.c.h.ess, reflectively. A gleam of mischief had slipped into her face, though for a moment the tears had not been far off.

The Duke looked at his watch.

"Don't keep me here guessing riddles longer than you can help," he said, impatiently. "I have an appointment in the City at twelve, and I want to discuss with you the letter that must be written to Lady Henry."

"That's your affair," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "I haven't made up my mind yet whether I mean to write at all. And as for the riddle, Freddie, you've seen Miss Le Breton?"

"Once. I thought her a very pretentious person," said the Duke, stiffly.

"I know--you didn't get on. But, Freddie, didn't she remind you of somebody?"

The d.u.c.h.ess was growing excited. Suddenly she jumped up; the little spitz rolled off her lap; she ran to her husband and took him by the fronts of his coat.

"Freddie, you'll be very much astonished." And suddenly releasing him, she began to search among the photographs on the mantel-piece. "Freddie, you know who that is?" She held up a picture.

"Of course I know. What on earth has that got to do with the subject we have been discussing?"

"Well, it has a good deal to do with it," said the d.u.c.h.ess, slowly.

"That's my uncle, George Chantrey, isn't it, Lord Lackington's second son, who married mamma's sister? Well--oh, you won't like it, Freddie, but you've got to know--that's--Julie's uncle, too!"

"What in the name of fortune do you mean?" said the Duke, staring at her.

His wife again caught him by the coat, and, so imprisoning him, she poured out her story very fast, very incoherently, and with a very evident uncertainty as to what its effect might be.

And indeed the effect was by no means easy to determine. The Duke was first incredulous, then bewildered by the very mixed facts which she poured out upon him. He tried to cross-examine her _en route_, but he gained little by that; she only shook him a little, insisting the more vehemently on telling the story her own way. At last their two impatiences had nearly come to a dead-lock. But the Duke managed to free himself physically, and so regained a little freedom of mind.

"Well, upon my word," he said, as he resumed his march up and down--"upon my word!" Then, as he stood still before her, "You say she is Marriott Dalrymple's daughter?"

"And Lord Lackington's granddaughter." said the d.u.c.h.ess, panting a little from her exertions. "And, oh, what a blind bat you were not to see it at once--from the likeness!"

"As if one had any right to infer such a thing from a likeness!" said the Duke, angrily. "Really, Evelyn, your talk is most--most unbecoming.

It seems to me that Mademoiselle Le Breton has already done you harm.

All that you have told me, supposing it to be true--oh, of course, I know you believe it to be true--only makes me"--he stiffened his back--"the more determined to break off the connection between her and you. A woman of such antecedents is not a fit companion for my wife, independently of the fact that she seems to be, in herself, an intriguing and dangerous character."

"How could she help her antecedents?" cried the d.u.c.h.ess.

"I didn't say she could help them. But if they are what you say, she ought--well, she ought to be all the more careful to live in a modest and retired way, instead of, as I understand, making herself the rival of Lady Henry. I never heard anything so preposterous--so--so indecent!

She shows no proper sense, and, as for you, I deeply regret you should have been brought into any contact with such a disgraceful story."

"Freddie!" The d.u.c.h.ess went into a helpless, half-hysterical fit of laughter.