The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton 69 – Frankau · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton 69Part 16 · Chapter 5
18
Literature · Romance
The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton 69
Part 16 · Chapter 5
FrankauEnglish
That morning, yet another legal brain refused to concentrate on its immediate business.
All through the long hours in the stuffy court-room, Hector Brunton, K.C., was conscious of the Furies. "Cavendish," whispered the Furies, "Cavendish has come back." He tried to dismiss the fellow from his mind, to attack the case in hand. But again and again the witnesses under cross-examination eluded him. Instead of the faces in the witness-box, he saw Cavendish's face--the face of his wife. And when--his cross-examinations concluded--the court adjourned for luncheon, those two faces were still before his eyes, mocking him, mocking him.
"God's curse on them," he thought. "God's curse on both of them. I'll not see Cavendish. Let them lie in the bed they made for themselves. Let the adulterer and the adulteress rot together."
Angrily Brunton disrobed; angrily he left the law courts and made across Fleet Street toward King's Bench Walk. Even David Patterson, dour, heavy-jowled as the K.C. himself; who followed, brief-bag slung over his shoulder, at a respectful distance; was awed at his employer's obvious fury.
The K.C. strode rapidly, his hands behind his back, his head lowered, down Middle Temple Lane, through Elm Court, through Fig Tree Court, into the big graveled square of the Walk, and diagonally across the Walk to his chambers.
Suddenly his head lifted. There, at the steps of his chambers, waiting for him, obviously waiting for him, stood Cavendish. For the fraction of a second Brunton, K.C., hesitated in his stride.
Ronnie, watching, saw that hesitation; saw his man come on again, head low, eyes on the pavement; and knew instinctively that Brunton would pretend not to recognize him, would try to push past him up the stone stairway. Resolutely, he planted himself across the stairway; and in that one second of time before they met face to face, the vision he had seen in the darkness of overnight flashed through his mind. Then he had his enemy in front of him, and was saying quietly:
"I'd like a word with you, Brunton."
The K.C. tried to pass; but Ronnie stood his ground.
"I'm afraid I'm too busy to see you to-day, Cavendish." The voice sounded courteous enough; but a glance, a glance of insane rage, darted snake-like from behind the gray pupils. Brunton's great jowl twitched; the veins on his forehead were steel cords.
"The matter is rather urgent." Ronnie, watching the approach of David Patterson, lowered his tone. "I sha'n't keep you a minute. Unless, of course," the tone rose, "you prefer that our discussion should take place in public."
The fire in his blue eyes beat down the snake in Brunton's gray; and, without another word, Ronnie accompanied his man up the stairway, along the corridor into his chambers.
David Patterson made as if to follow, but Brunton barked over one shoulder, "I sha'n't need you," and the two of them were alone.
"And now," began the K.C., standing foursquare in front of his empty fireplace, "I shall be glad to know the reason of this unwarrantable intrusion."
"You know the reason as well as I do." The red mist still hung before Ronnie's eyes. He had forgotten the "legal position": he wanted to strike Brunton; to strike him across the sneering face. Only the code, the public school code of restraint, held him back.
"I haven't the slightest idea why you should force your way into my chambers. Perhaps you will condescend to explain." Brunton, too, felt the code on him--heavy, like a net hampering his limbs. He wanted to free himself from the net; wanted to lash out at the man who had stolen Aliette, to destroy him.
"I came to ask you," Ronnie's lips hardly moved, "how much longer you intend to delay."
"Delay what?"
"Your petition."
"What petition?"
"Your petition for divorce."
"That's my business." Brunton laughed--a harsh, bitter laugh, low in the throat.
"And mine."
"I fail to see the connection."
Ronnie's fists clenched. "Apparently you take me for a fool."
Brunton laughed again. "No. Only for a thief."
With an effort, Ronnie thrust his hands into his pockets. "I didn't come here to bandy words with you. All I want to know is how soon you intend filing your petition."
"When I choose." Rage mastered Aliette's husband. "And if I don't choose--never."
Now Ronnie laughed--contemptuously. "You may be able to browbeat a woman in the box, but you can't browbeat me. I want an answer to my question. How soon do you intend to file your petition? This isn't only your business. It's mine--mine and----"
"Kindly keep my wife out of this discussion," snarled Brunton. "Your question is a damned insult, and your presence here an infernal outrage. Neither you nor God Almighty can make me file the petition you refer to."
For a full minute the pair faced each other, tense, wordless, self-control fighting against instincts, instincts fighting against self-control. Then Brunton's nerve snapped.
"I hate the very sight of you," he shouted. "Will you get out? Or have I got to throw you out?"
"Don't make a fool of yourself," said Ronnie; and his voice was ice. "If it comes to violence I sha'n't be the one who'll get the worst of it."
He took a step forward, and the K.C. recoiled before him.
"Answer my question, Brunton."
"I'll see you to hell first, Cavendish."
And suddenly the red mist thickened to blood-color before Ronnie's eyes. He wanted to kill Brunton. Killing would be the easiest way to deal with Brunton--far the easiest way. His hands clenched in his trouser-pockets; he itched to take his hands out of his pockets, to dash them in those cold gray eyes, to seize that heavy jowl, to tear the life out of it.
And then, in a flash, his legal mind saw the consequences of that killing. The blood-red mist vanished. Swiftly his mood changed. He began to plead, to plead desperately, not for his own sake, but for Aliette's. He said:
"We're being selfish. It isn't of ourselves we have to think. Think of her position if you don't take action."
"She should have thought of my position before she ran away with you," retorted the other. "I tell you, I'm not going to be hustled; and I'm not going to be bullied. I'll take action when I choose; and not a minute before. Nothing that you, nothing that she, nothing that anybody else can do will persuade me to say one word further on this subject. Now, will you go?"
And Ronnie went, realizing himself powerless. As he passed through the doorway he gave one glance at his adversary. His adversary still stood, like a bull at bay, against the empty grate; but the look in his adversary's eyes--a look which Ronnie could not fathom--was not the brave look of the bull; rather was it compound of fear and obstinacy, of injured pride and of determination for revenge; the look of the weak man who knows himself in the wrong, yet means to persist in his wrongdoing.
Surely as night follows day in the firmament, so surely does reaction follow action in imaginative man. Ronald Cavendish's mind, as he crossed King's Bench Walk after his interview with Hector Brunton, was almost a blank. Reaction wiped out every detail of that interview. He remembered only Brunton's words, "I'll take action when I choose."
Twice--the mad purpose of killing Brunton mastering him once more--he tried to turn back. But his feet carried him on, carried him away from Brunton, across the Walk to his own chambers. There, at least, was sanctuary--sanctuary from crime against the herd.
For the herd, even his dazed mind knew, would not countenance his killing Brunton. Brunton was within his herd-rights, within the law; while they, he and Aliette, having broken the herd-rights, were outlaws. Still weak from reaction, he visioned the consequences of that outlawry; visioned Brunton relentless, Aliette without a friend.
Till gradually, thinking of Aliette, his manhood came back to him. Let Brunton do his damnedest. Let them be outlaws. Even in their outlawry they would possess one another. Soon, Brunton would be brought to reason. Meanwhile, even if he were not soon brought to reason, they, the outlaws, would find people to stand by them; people like his mother. And at that, abruptly, Ronnie remembered the letter Aliette had written to her sister, the promise he had made to Jimmy.
Somehow it needed more courage than he had required in facing Aliette's husband to lift the telephone and make his appointment with Mollie!
