Lady Rose’s Daughter

“Hullo! No!⁠—Yes!⁠—upon my soul, it is Jacob! Why, Delafield, my dear fellow, how are you?”

So saying⁠—on a February evening a good many years ago⁠—an elderly gentleman in evening dress flung himself out of his cab, which had just stopped before a house in Bruton Street, and hastily went to meet a young man who was at the same moment stepping out of another hansom a little farther down the pavement.

The pleasure in the older man’s voice rang clear, and the younger met him with an equal cordiality, expressed perhaps through a manner more leisurely and restrained.

“So you are home, Sir Wilfrid? You were announced, I saw. But I thought Paris would have detained you a bit.”

“Paris? Not I! Half the people I ever knew there are dead, and the rest are uncivil. Well, and how are you getting on? Making your fortune, eh?”

And, slipping his arm inside the young man’s, the speaker walked back with him, along a line of carriages, towards a house which showed a group of footmen at its open door. Jacob Delafield smiled.

“The business of a land agent seems to be to spend someone else’s⁠—as far as I’ve yet gone.”

“Land agent! I thought you were at the bar?”

“I was, but the briefs didn’t come in. My cousin offered me the care of his Essex estates. I like the country⁠—always have. So I thought I’d better accept.”

“What⁠—the Duke? Lucky fellow! A regular income, and no anxieties. I expect you’re pretty well paid?”

“He wants something out of the ministry. I remember the man,” was Sir Wilfrid’s unspoken comment.

But they had entered the inner room. Lady Henry looked round. Over her wrinkled face, now parchment-white, there shone a ray of pleasure⁠—sudden, vehement, and unfeigned.

“Sir Wilfrid!”

She made a movement as though to rise from her chair, which was checked by his gesture and her helplessness.

“Well, this is good fortune,” she said, as she put both her hands into both of his. “This morning, as I was dressing, I had a feeling that something agreeable was going to happen at last⁠—and then your note came. Sit down there. You know Dr. Meredith. He’s as quarrelsome as ever. Captain Warkworth⁠—Sir Wilfrid Bury.”

The square-headed, spectacled journalist addressed as Dr. Meredith greeted the newcomer with the quiet cordiality of one for whom the day holds normally so many events that it is impossible to make much of anyone of them. And the man on the farther side of Lady Henry rose and bowed. He was handsome, and slenderly built. The touch of impetuosity in his movement, and the careless ease with which he carried his curly head, somehow surprised Sir Wilfrid. He had expected another sort of person.

“I will give you my chair,” said the Captain, pleasantly. “I have had more than my turn.”

“Shall I bring in the Duchess?” said Mademoiselle Le Breton, in a low tone, as she stooped over the back of Lady Henry’s chair.

That lady turned abruptly to the speaker.

“Hints!” she said, scornfully. “I’m long past hints. I told you last night⁠—and I repeat⁠—that woman has stripped me of all my friends! She has intrigued with them all in turn against me. She has done the same even with my servants. I can trust none of them where she is concerned. I am alone in my own house. My blindness makes me her tool, her plaything. As for my salon, as you call it, it has become hers. I am a mere courtesy-figurehead⁠—her chaperon, in fact. I provide the house, the footmen, the champagne; the guests are hers. And she has done this by constant intrigue and deception⁠—by flattery⁠—by lying!”

The old face had become purple. Lady Henry breathed hard.

“My dear friend,” said Sir Wilfrid, quickly, laying a calming hand on her arm, “don’t let this trouble you so. Dismiss her.”

“And accept solitary confinement for the rest of my days? I haven’t the courage⁠—yet,” said Lady Henry, bitterly. “You don’t know how I have been isolated and betrayed! And I haven’t told you the worst of all. Listen! Do you know whom she has got into her toils?”

She paused, drawing herself rigidly erect. Sir Wilfrid, looking up sharply, remembered the little scene in the Park, and waited.

“Did you have any opportunity last night,” said Lady Henry, slowly, “of observing her and Jacob Delafield?”

She spoke with passionate intensity, her frowning brows meeting above a pair of eyes that struggled to see and could not. But the effect she listened for was not produced. Sir Wilfrid drew back uncertainly.

She looked up, startled, to see Jacob Delafield. His expression⁠—of doubt or discomfort⁠—recalled her at once to the realities of her own situation.

But before she could reply, a sound struck on her ear. She sprang to her feet.

“What was that?” she said.

A voice was heard in the hall.

Julie Le Breton caught the chair behind her, and Delafield saw her turn pale. But before she or he could speak again, the door of the library was thrown open.

“Good Heavens!” said Montresor, springing to his feet. “Lady Henry!”

M. du Bartas lifted astonished eyes. On the threshold of the room stood an old lady, leaning heavily on two sticks. She was deathly pale, and her fierce eyes blazed upon the scene before her. Within the bright, fire-lit room the social comedy was being played at its best; but here surely was Tragedy⁠—or Fate. Who was she? What did it mean?

The Duchess rushed to her, and fell, of course, upon the one thing she should not have said.

“Oh, Aunt Flora, dear Aunt Flora! But we thought you were too ill to come down!”

“So I perceive,” said Lady Henry, putting her aside. “So you, and this lady”⁠—she pointed a shaking finger at Julie⁠—“have held my reception for me. I am enormously obliged. You have also”⁠—she looked at the coffee-cups⁠—“provided my guests with refreshment. I thank you. I trust my servants have given you satisfaction.

“Gentlemen”⁠—she turned to the rest of the company, who stood stupefied⁠—“I fear I cannot ask you to remain with me longer. The hour is late, and I am⁠—as you see⁠—indisposed. But I trust, on some future occasion, I may have the honor⁠—”

Lord Lackington adjusted his glasses and opened the book. Two or three slips of paper with drawings upon them fluttered out and fell on the table beneath. Suddenly there was a cry. Julie turned round, her lips parted.

Lord Lackington walked up to her.

“Tell me what this means,” he said, peremptorily. “How did you come by it?”

It was a volume of George Sand. He pointed, trembling, to the name and date on the flyleaf⁠—“Rose Delaney, 1842.”

“It is mine,” she said, softly, dropping her eyes.

“But how⁠—how, in God’s name, did you come by it?”

“My mother left it to me, with all her other few books and possessions.”

There was a pause. Lord Lackington came closer.

“Who was your mother?” he said, huskily.

The words in answer were hardly audible. Julie stood before him like a culprit, her beautiful head humbly bowed.

Lord Lackington dropped the book and stood bewildered.

“Rose’s child?” he said⁠—“Rose’s child?”

Then, approaching her, he placed his hand on her arm.

“Let me look at you,” he commanded.

Julie raised her eyes to him, and at the same time dumbly held out to him a miniature she had been keeping hidden in her hand. It was one of the miniatures from the locked triptych.

He took it, looked from the pictured to the living face, then, turning away with a groan, he covered his face with his hands and fell again into the chair from which he had risen.