The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton 28 – Frankau · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton 28Part 5 · Chapter 5
18
Literature · Romance
The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton 28
Part 5 · Chapter 5
FrankauEnglish
The craftswoman in Julia Cavendish, the literary memory and sense of "copy" which make her books such exact social pictures, functioned quite independently from the rest of her personality. No one, watching her as she talked international politics with her host, would have guessed that, behind the calm, dignified face, the novelist's brain was busy. Kodak-like, that brain registered its impressions, rolling them away for development at leisure.
First impression: an oblong room--paneled--Venetian bracket-lights--brocaded French windows either end--low scarlet flowers on a long gold-decked table, narrowing as you looked down it--many faces either side, two faces at each end--hum of subdued conversation--servants' white-gloved hands and dark-coated arms proffering bottles, plates, dishes.
The camera in the brain clicks, rolls away the picture.
Second impression: Sir Simeon, sixty-eight, a little man, white-haired, blue-eyed, mustache floppy, charming, not very efficient, presumably the weaker matrimonial vessel--his wife ought never to wear pink--Sir Simeon's three daughters, obviously by his first marriage, two with wedding-rings, thirty-eight, thirty-six, nonentities--their partners ditto--an ugly one, younger, rather interesting.
"My sympathies are entirely with the Jugo-Slavs, Sir Simeon. Italy is not entitled to a yard of territory more than we guaranteed her by the Treaty of London," says Julia Cavendish, society-woman.
The camera continues its work.
Third impression: the secretary of the Spanish embassy would look exactly like a bull-fighter if he wore the national costume instead of civilized evening-dress--General Fellowes has aged since the War Office inquiry--a fine type--the big woman he has taken in to dinner would look like a cantaloup melon if you cut her in two--the pretty girl flirting with the young soldier (Guards?) must be her daughter.
"Aren't you rather hard on our allies, Mrs. Cavendish?" chips in Hector Brunton.
"I have no patience with d'Annunzio."
"But at least you will admit that he is a patriot," protests Sir Simeon.
"No bombastic person is really patriotic. Patriotism is a dumb virtue."
"But is patriotism a virtue?" asks the K.C.
"Almost the greatest."
Julia's mental camera snaps again.
Impression of Hector Brunton: a would-be cave-man--not as strong as he imagines himself--putty in the hands of a sexful woman--rather a difficult problem for a fastidious wife--obstinate--capable of cruelty.
At which precise moment, the mother ousted the craftswoman from Julia's brain. She began to wonder if Ronnie were enjoying himself. If only he weren't so shy with women! Women made men's careers. He had taken down that charming Mrs. Brunton. She looked down the table and caught his eyes across the scarlet flowers. He smiled at her. He must be enjoying himself. She had done right, then, to make him accept the invitation.
"I gather you prefer patriotism to the League of Nations," remarked her host.
"Your League of Nations," answered Julia, "is merely the sentimental impulse translated into terms of international diplomacy. Every one wants it to work--every one realizes it unworkable."
Answering, she thought that she had rarely seen Ronnie look so happy.
But not even the mother in Julia Cavendish knew the cause of Ronnie's happiness; she was as blind to her son's infatuation as Hector Brunton to his wife's. She could not divine that the pair of them had passed beyond mere happiness into a little illusive world of their own making.
For the moment, Aliette and Ronnie dwelt in a rose-bubble of enchantment. A frail bubble! Yet it cut them off, as surely as though it had been opaque crystal, from their fellow-guests. Physical passion found no place in that rose-bubble. Their bodies, the bodies which made pretense of eating and drinking, which uttered the most absurdly conventional sentiments, dwelt outside of its magic; while within, their minds, their natures, their very souls, held secret commune--as two friends so set in friendship that words have become unnecessary. Yet actually, magic apart, they were merely a man and a woman, each lonely, each too healthy for that loneliness which is the prerogative of the sick and the abnormal.
They had been lonely; now they were no longer lonely. They had been obsessed with visions of each other; now they no longer saw visions. They saw each other; and their souls were satisfied.
But of all that their souls knew, their lips spoke no word.
"I've often thought about that run we had," said the man. "One doesn't get a gallop like that every day of one's life. Did you have many other good days?"
"I didn't go out again last season," said the woman.
"Really? How was that?"
"Oh, I went down to Devonshire with my sister."
"You didn't take Miracle?"
"No." It pleased her that he remembered Miracle's name. "By the way, I'm quite angry with you, Mr. Cavendish. Mr. Wilberforce told us on Sunday that you preferred golf to our society."
"Jimmy's a mischief-maker. Why isn't your sister here to-night, Mrs. Brunton?" Man-like, he wondered--now--why he had refused to call on her.
"Mollie's at a dance. I believe Mr. Wilberforce will be there too."
"Jimmy's a great dancer." Did she know, he speculated, about Jimmy and her sister? Probably. Women--according to Ronnie--always told one another that sort of thing.
"And you?" she asked.
"Oh, I'm like the Tenth. I don't dance."
Aliette dimpled to laughter at the old jest. It mattered so little what he said to her with his lips. His eyes gave her the answer to the one question; the only question she had ever asked herself in vain. His eyes said: "Yes. This is Love. This is the Real Thing." She wondered if his brain knew the message of his eyes. She marveled at herself for not having sooner known the message of her heart. "I'm in love with him," she thought. "I've been in love with him ever since that Sunday at Key Hatch." All the gray unease of the past months, of the past years, diffused to amber sunshine.
The Spanish secretary, sitting on her right, chimed in to their conversation. "You do not dance, Cavendish. That is strange. I thought all English people danced."
The rose-bubble of enchantment was broken. Talk grew general. Dinner drew to its end.
