Lady Rose's Daughter Part 6

"No, no!" said Sir Wilfrid, stopping short and holding up a deprecating hand. "Too bad! Go on."

"Oh, we were only fooling with baby!" said the d.u.c.h.ess. "It is high time she went to her nurse. Sit here, Sir Wilfrid. Julie, will you take the babe, or shall I ring for Mrs. Robson?"

"I'll take her," said Mademoiselle Le Breton.

She knelt down by the child, who rose with alacrity. Catching her skirts round her, with one eye half laughing, half timorous, turned over her shoulder towards the dog, the baby made a wild spring into Mademoiselle Julie's arms, tucking up her feet instantly, with a shriek of delight, out of the dog's way. Then she nestled her fair head down upon her bearer's shoulder, and, throbbing with joy and mischief, was carried away.

Sir Wilfrid, hat in hand, stood for a moment watching the pair. A bygone marriage uniting the Lackington family with that of the d.u.c.h.ess had just occurred to him in some bewilderment. He sat down beside his hostess, while she made him some tea. But no sooner had the door of the farther drawing-room closed behind Mademoiselle Le Breton, than with a dart of all her lively person she pounced upon him.

"Well, so Aunt Flora has been complaining to you?"

Sir Wilfrid's cup remained suspended in his hand. He glanced first at the speaker and then at Jacob Delafield.

"Oh, Jacob knows all about it!" said the d.u.c.h.ess, eagerly. "This is Julie's headquarters; _we_ are on her staff. _You_ come from the enemy!"

Sir Wilfrid took out his white silk handkerchief and waved it.

"Here is my flag of truce," he said. "Treat me well."

"We are only too anxious to parley with you," said the d.u.c.h.ess, laughing. "Aren't we, Jacob?"

Then she drew closer.

"What has Aunt Flora been saying to you?"

Sir Wilfrid paused. As he sat there, apparently studying his boots, his blond hair, now nearly gray, carefully parted in the middle above his benevolent brow, he might have been reckoned a tame and manageable person. Jacob Delafield, however, knew him of old.

"I don't think that's fair," said Sir Wilfrid, at last, looking up. "I'm the new-comer; I ought to be allowed the questions."

"Go on," said the d.u.c.h.ess, her chin on her hand. "Jacob and I will answer all we know."

Delafield nodded. Sir Wilfrid, looking from one to the other, quickly reminded himself that they had been playmates from the cradle--or might have been.

"Well, in the first place," he said, slowly, "I am lost in admiration at the rapidity with which Mademoiselle Le Breton does business. An hour and a half ago"--he looked at his watch--"I stood by while Lady Henry enumerated commissions it would have taken any ordinary man-mortal half a day to execute."

The d.u.c.h.ess clapped her hands.

"My maid is now executing them," she said, with glee. "In an hour she will be back. Julie will go home with everything done, and I shall have had nearly two hours of her delightful society. What harm is there in that?"

"Where are the dogs?" said Sir Wilfrid, looking round.

"Aunt Flora's dogs? In the housekeeper's room, eating sweet biscuit.

They adore the groom of the chambers."

"Is Lady Henry aware of this--this division of labor?" said Sir Wilfrid, smiling.

"Of course not," said the d.u.c.h.ess, flus.h.i.+ng. "She makes Julie's life such a burden to her that something has to be done. Now what _has_ Aunt Flora been telling you? We were certain she would take you into council--she has dropped various hints of it. I suppose she has been telling you that Julie has been intriguing against her--taking liberties, separating her from her friends, and so on?"

Sir Wilfrid smilingly presented his cup for some more tea.

"I beg to point out," he said, "that I have only been allowed _two_ questions so far. But if things are to be at all fair and equal, I am owed at least six."

The d.u.c.h.ess drew back, checked, and rather annoyed. Jacob Delafield, on the other hand, bent forward.

"We are _anxious_, Sir Wilfrid, to tell you all we know," he replied, with quiet emphasis.

Sir Wilfrid looked at him. The flame in the young man's eyes burned clear and steady--but flame it was. Sir Wilfrid remembered him as a lazy, rather somnolent youth; the man's advance in expression, in significant power, of itself, told much.

"In the first place, can you give me the history of this lady's antecedents?"

He glanced from one to the other.

The d.u.c.h.ess and Jacob Delafield exchanged glances. Then the d.u.c.h.ess spoke--uncertainly.

"Yes, we know. She has confided in us. There is nothing whatever to her discredit."

Sir Wilfrid's expression changed.

"Ah!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess, bending forward. "You know, too?"

"I knew her father and mother," said Sir Wilfrid, simply.

The d.u.c.h.ess gave a little cry of relief. Jacob Delafield rose, took a turn across the room, and came back to Sir Wilfrid.

"Now we can really speak frankly," he said. "The situation has grown very difficult, and we did not know--Evelyn and I--whether we had a right to explain it. But now that Lady Henry--"

"Oh yes," said Sir Wilfrid, "that's all right. The fact of Mademoiselle Le Breton's parentage--"

"Is really what makes Lady Henry so jealous!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess, indignantly. "Oh, she's a tyrant, is Aunt Flora! It is because Julie is of her own world--of _our_ world, by blood, whatever the law may say--that she can't help making a rival out of her, and tormenting her morning, noon, and night. I tell you, Sir Wilfrid, what that poor girl has gone through no one can imagine but we who have watched it. Lady Henry owes her _every_thing this last three years. Where would she have been without Julie? She talks of Julie's separating her from her friends, cutting her out, imposing upon her, and nonsense of that kind!

How would she have kept up that salon alone, I should like to know--a blind old woman who can't write a note for herself or recognize a face?

First of all she throws everything upon Julie, is proud of her cleverness, puts her forward in every way, tells most unnecessary falsehoods about her--Julie has felt _that_ very much--and then when Julie has a great success, when people begin to come to Bruton Street, for her sake as well as Lady Henry's, then Lady Henry turns against her, complains of her to everybody, talks about treachery and disloyalty and Heaven knows what, and begins to treat her like the dirt under her feet!

How can Julie help being clever and agreeable--she _is_ clever and agreeable! As Mr. Montresor said to me yesterday, 'As soon as that woman comes into a room, my spirits go up!' And why? Because she never thinks of herself, she always makes other people show at their best. And then Lady Henry behaves like this!" The d.u.c.h.ess threw out her hands in scornful reprobation. "And the question is, of course, Can it go on?"

"I don't gather," said Sir Wilfrid, hesitating, "that Lady Henry wants immediately to put an end to it."

Delafield gave an angry laugh.

"The point is whether Mademoiselle Julie and Mademoiselle Julie's friends can put up with it much longer."

"You see," said the d.u.c.h.ess, eagerly, "Julie is such a loyal, affectionate creature. She knows Lady Henry was kind to her, to begin with, that she gave her great chances, and that she's getting old and infirm. Julie's awfully sorry for her. She doesn't want to leave her all alone--to the mercy of her servants--"

"I understand the servants, too, are devoted to Mademoiselle Julie?"

said Sir Wilfrid.

"Yes, that's another grievance," said Delafield, contemptuously. "Why shouldn't they be? When the butler had a child very ill, it was Mademoiselle Julie who went to see it in the mews, who took it flowers and grapes--"

"Lady Henry's grapes?" threw in Sir Wilfrid.