MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_01D4B407.ECEEC9F0" This document is a Single File Web Page, also known as a Web Archive file. If you are seeing this message, your browser or editor doesn't support Web Archive files. Please download a browser that supports Web Archive, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer. ------=_NextPart_01D4B407.ECEEC9F0 Content-Location: file:///C:/978BDDE5/TheShuttle.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
<= o:p>
The Shuttle
By
Francis Hodgson Burnett
Contents
CHAPTER I - THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE
CHAPTER
II - A LACK OF PERCEPTION
CHAPTER
III - YOUNG LADY ANSTRUTHERS
CHAPTER
IV - A MISTAKE OF THE POSTBOY'S
CHAPTER
V - ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC.
CHAPTER
VI - AN UNFAIR ENDOWMENT
CHAPTER
VII - ON BOARD THE "MERIDIANA".
CHAPTER
VIII - THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER.
CHAPTER
X - "IS LADY ANSTRUTHERS AT HOME?".
CHAPTER
XI - "I THOUGHT YOU HAD ALL FORGOTTEN.".
CHAPTER
XIII - ONE OF THE NEW YORK DRESSES.
CHAPTER
XVI - THE PARTICULAR INCIDENT
CHAPTER
XVII - TOWNLINSON & SHEPPARD..
CHAPTER
XVIII - THE FIFTEENTH EARL OF MOUNT DUNSTAN..
CHAPTER
XIX - SPRING IN BOND STREET
CHAPTER
XX - THINGS OCCUR IN STORNHAM VILLAGE.
CHAPTER
XXII - ONE OF MR. VANDERPOEL'S LETTERS.
CHAPTER
XXIII - INTRODUCING G. SELDEN
CHAPTER
XXIV- THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF STORNHAM..
CHAPTER
XXV - "WE BEGAN TO MARRY THEM, MY GOOD FELLOW!"
CHAPTER
XXVI - "WHAT IT MUST BE TO YOU--JUST YOU!".
CHAPTER
XXVIII - SETTING THEM THINKING
CHAPTER
XXIX - THE THREAD OF G. SELDEN
CHAPTER
XXXI - NO, SHE WOULD NOT
CHAPTER
XXXIII - FOR LADY JANE
CHAPTER
XXXVI - BY THE ROADSIDE EVERYWHERE.
CHAPTER
XXXVII - CLOSED CORRIDORS
CHAPTER
XXXIX - ON THE MARSHES
CHAPTER
LX - "DON'T GO ON WITH THIS".
CHAPTER
XLI - SHE WOULD DO SOMETHING
CHAPTER
XLII - IN THE BALLROOM
CHAPTER
XLV - THE PASSING BELL
CHAPTER
XLVII - "I HAVE NO WORD OR LOOK TO REMEMBER".
CHAPTER
XLIX - AT STORNHAM AND AT BROADMORLANDS.
CHAPTER
L - THE PRIMEVAL THING
THE SHUTTLE
CHAPTER I - THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE
No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow
and heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held and guided by the g=
reat
hand of Fate. Fate alone saw the meaning of the web it wove, the might of i=
t,
and its place in the making of a world's history. Men thought but little of
either web or weaving, calling them by other names and lighter ones, for the
time unconscious of the strength of the thread thrown across thousands of m=
iles
of leaping, heaving, grey or blue ocean.
Fate and Life planned the weaving, and it
seemed mere circumstance which guided the Shuttle to and fro between two wo=
rlds
divided by a gulf broader and deeper than the thousands of miles of salt,
fierce sea--the gulf of a bitter quarrel deepened by hatred and the sheddin=
g of
brothers' blood. Between the two worlds of East and West there was no will =
to
draw nearer. Each held apart. Those who had rebelled against that which the=
ir
souls called tyranny, having struggled madly and shed blood in tearing
themselves free, turned stern backs upon their unconquered enemies, broke a=
ll
cords that bound them to the past, flinging off ties of name, kinship and r=
ank,
beginning with fierce disdain a new life.
Those who, being rebelled against, found t=
he
rebels too passionate in their determination and too desperate in their def=
ence
of their strongholds to be less than unconquerable, sailed back haughtily to
the world which seemed so far the greater power. Plunging into new battles,=
they
added new conquests and splendour to their land, looking back with somethin=
g of
contempt to the half-savage West left to build its own civilisation without
other aid than the strength of its own strong right hand and strong uncultu=
red
brain.
But while the two worlds held apart, the
Shuttle, weaving slowly in the great hand of Fate, drew them closer and held
them firm, each of them all unknowing for many a year, that what had at fir=
st
been mere threads of gossamer, was forming a web whose strength in time none
could compute, whose severance could be accomplished but by tragedy and con=
vulsion.
The weaving was but in its early and
slow-moving years when this story opens. Steamers crossed and recrossed the=
The journey being likely to be made once i=
n a
lifetime, the traveller's intention was to see as much as possible, to visi=
t as
many cities cathedrals, ruins, galleries, as his time and purse would allow.
People who could speak with any degree of familiarity of Hyde Park, the
It was in comparatively early days that the
first thread we follow was woven into the web. Many such have been woven si=
nce
and have added greater strength than any others, twining the cord of sex an=
d home-building
and race-founding. But this was a slight and weak one, being only the threa=
d of
the life of one of Reuben Vanderpoel's daughters--the pretty little simple =
one
whose name was Rosalie.
They were--the Vanderpoels--of the America=
ns
whose fortunes were a portion of the history of their country. The building=
of
these fortunes had been a part of, or had created epochs and crises. Their
millions could scarcely be regarded as private property. Newspapers bandied
them about, so to speak, employing them as factors in argument, using them =
as
figures of speech, incorporating them into methods of calculation. Literatu=
re
touched upon them, moral systems considered them, stories for the young tre=
ated
them gravely as illustrative.
The first Reuben Vanderpoel, who in early =
days
of danger had traded with savages for the pelts of wild animals, was the la=
uded
hero of stories of thrift and enterprise. Throughout his hard-working life =
he
had been irresistibly impelled to action by an absolute genius of commerce,=
expressing
itself at the outset by the exhibition of courage in mere exchange and bart=
er.
An alert power to perceive the potential value of things and the possible
malleability of men and circumstances, had stood him in marvellous good ste=
ad.
He had bought at low prices things which in the eyes of the less discerning
were worthless, but, having obtained possession of such things, the less
discerning had almost invariably awakened to the fact that, in his hands,
values increased, and methods of remunerative disposition, being sought, we=
re
found. Nothing remained unutilisable. The practical, sordid, uneducated lit=
tle
man developed the power to create demand for his own supplies. If he was
betrayed into an error, he quickly retrieved it. He could live upon nothing=
and
consequently could travel anywhere in search of such things as he desired. =
He
could barely read and write, and could not spell, but he was daring and ast=
ute.
His untaught brain was that of a financier, his blood burned with the fever=
of
but one desire--the desire to accumulate. Money expressed to his nature, not
expenditure, but investment in such small or large properties as could be
resold at profit in the near or far future. The future held fascinations for
him. He bought nothing for his own pleasure or comfort, nothing which could=
not
be sold or bartered again. He married a woman who was a trader's daughter a=
nd
shared his passion for gain. She was of North of England blood, her father
having been a hard-fisted small tradesman in an unimportant town, who had b=
een daring
enough to emigrate when emigration meant the facing of unknown dangers in a
half-savage land. She had excited Reuben Vanderpoel's admiration by taking =
off
her petticoat one bitter winter's day to sell it to a squaw in exchange for=
an
ornament for which she chanced to know another squaw would pay with a skin =
of
value. The first Mrs. Vanderpoel was as wonderful as her husband. They were
both wonderful. They were the founders of the fortune which a century and a
half later was the delight--in fact the piece de resistance--of
The first Reuben Vanderpoel transmitted to=
his
son his accumulations and his fever for gain. He had but one child. The sec=
ond
Reuben built upon the foundations this afforded him, a fortune as much larg=
er
than the first as the rapid growth and increasing capabilities of the count=
ry gave
him enlarging opportunities to acquire. It was no longer necessary to deal =
with
savages: his powers were called upon to cope with those of white men who ca=
me
to a new country to struggle for livelihood and fortune. Some were shrewd, =
some
were desperate, some were dishonest. But shrewdness never outwitted,
desperation never overcame, dishonesty never deceived the second Reuben
Vanderpoel. Each characteristic ended by adapting itself to his own purposes
and qualities, and as a result of each it was he who in any business
transaction was the gainer. It was the common saying that the Vanderpoels w=
ere
possessed of a money-making spell. Their spell lay in their entire mental a=
nd
physical absorption in one idea. Their peculiarity was not so much that they
wished to be rich as that Nature itself impelled them to collect wealth as =
the
load-stone draws towards it iron. Having possessed nothing, they became ric=
h, having
become rich they became richer, having founded their fortunes on small sche=
mes,
they increased them by enormous ones. In time they attained that omnipotenc=
e of
wealth which it would seem no circumstance can control or limit. The first
Reuben Vanderpoel could not spell, the second could, the third was as well
educated as a man could be whose sole profession is money-making. His child=
ren
were taught all that expensive teachers and expensive opportunities could t=
each
them. After the second generation the meagre and mercantile physical type of
the Vanderpoels improved upon itself. Feminine good looks appeared and were=
made
the most of. The Vanderpoel element invested even good looks to an advantag=
e.
The fourth Reuben Vanderpoel had no son and two daughters. They were brough=
t up
in a brown-stone mansion built upon a fashionable New York
Rosalie Vanderpoel married an Englishman of
title, and part of the story of her married life forms my prologue. Hers wa=
s of
the early international marriages, and the republican mind had not yet adju=
sted
itself to all that such alliances might imply. It was yet ingenuous, imagin=
ative
and confiding in such matters. A baronetcy and a manor house reigning over =
an
old English village and over villagers in possible smock frocks, presented
elements of picturesque dignity to people whose intimacy with such allureme=
nts
had been limited by the novels of Mrs. Oliphant and other writers. The most
ordinary little anecdotes in which vicarages, gamekeepers, and dowagers
figured, were exciting in these early days. "Sir Nigel Anstruthers,&qu=
ot;
when engraved upon a visiting card, wore an air of distinction almost
startling. Sir Nigel himself was not as picturesque as his name, though he =
was
not entirely without attraction, when for reasons of his own he chose to ai=
m at
agreeableness of bearing. He was a man with a good figure and a good voice,=
and
but for a heaviness of feature the result of objectionable living, might ha=
ve
given the impression of being better looking than he really was.
"If you invite him to dinner," t=
he
wording said, "or if you die, or marry, or meet with an accident, his
notes of condolence or congratulation are prompt and civil, but the actual
truth is that he cares nothing whatever about you or your relations, and if=
you
don't please him he does not hesitate to sulk or be astonishingly rude, whi=
ch last
an American does not allow himself to be, as a rule."
By many people Sir Nigel was not analysed,=
but
accepted. He was of the early English who came to New York
He on his side was naturally not quick to =
rise
to the humour of a "big deal" or a big blunder made on Wall
Street--or to the wit of jokes concerning them. Upon the whole he would have
been glad to have understood such matters more clearly. His circumstances w=
ere
such as had at last forced him to contemplate the world of money-makers wit=
h something
of an annoyed respect. "These fellows" who had neither titles nor
estates to keep up could make money. He, as he acknowledged disgustedly to
himself, was much worse than a beggar. There was Stornham Court
At first younger sons, who "gave
trouble" to their families, were sent out. Their names, their backgrou=
nds
of castles or manors, relatives of distinction,
"I do not know what you are going cha=
sing
off to
It was not, however, her sentiments which =
were
particularly revolting to him. If she had expressed them in a manner more
flattering to himself he would have felt that there was a good deal to be s=
aid
for them. In fact, he had put the same thing to himself some time previousl=
y,
and, in summing up the American matter, had reached certain thrifty decisio=
ns. The
impulse to knock her down surged within him solely because he had a brutally
bad temper when his vanity was insulted, and he was furious at her impudenc=
e in
speaking to him as if he were a villager out of work whom she was at libert=
y to
bully and lecture.
"For a woman who is supposed to have =
been
born of gentle people," he said to his mother afterwards, "Aunt M=
arian
is the most vulgar old beast I have ever beheld. She has the taste of a fem=
ale
costermonger." Which was entirely true, but it might be added that his=
own
was no better and his points of view and morals wholly coincided with his
taste.
Naturally Rosalie Vanderpoel knew nothing =
of
this side of the matter. She had been a petted, butterfly child, who had be=
en
pretty and admired and indulged from her infancy; she had grown up into a
petted, butterfly girl, pretty and admired and surrounded by inordinate lux=
ury.
Her world had been made up of good-natured, lavish friends and relations, w=
ho enjoyed
themselves and felt a delight in her girlish toilettes and triumphs. She had
spent her one season of belledom in being whirled from festivity to festivi=
ty,
in dancing in rooms festooned with thousands of dollars' worth of flowers, =
in
lunching or dining at tables loaded with roses and violets and orchids, from
which ballrooms or feasts she had borne away wonderful "favours" =
and
gifts, whose prices, being recorded in the newspapers, caused a thrill of
delight or envy to pass over the land. She was a slim little creature, with
quantities of light feathery hair like a French doll's. She had small hands=
and
small feet and a small waist--a small brain also, it must be admitted, but =
she
was an innocent, sweet-tempered girl with a childlike simpleness of mind. In
fine, she was exactly the girl to find Sir Nigel's domineering temperament =
at
once imposing and attractive, so long as it was cloaked by the ceremonies of
external good breeding.
Her sister Bettina, who was still a child,=
was
of a stronger and less susceptible nature. Betty--at eight--had long legs a=
nd a
square but delicate small face. Her well-opened steel-blue eyes were notice=
able
for rather extravagant ink-black lashes and a straight young stare which se=
emed
to accuse if not to condemn. She was being educated at a ruinously expensive
school with a number of other inordinately rich little girls, who were all =
too
wonderfully dressed and too lavishly supplied with pocket money. The school
considered itself especially refined and select, but was in fact interestin=
gly
vulgar.
The inordinately rich little girls, who had
most of them pretty and spiritual or pretty and piquant faces, ate a great =
many
bon bons and chattered a great deal in high unmodulated voices about the
parties their sisters and other relatives went to and the dresses they wore=
. Some
of them were nice little souls, who in the future would emerge from their
chrysalis state enchanting women, but they used colloquialisms freely, and =
had
an ingenuous habit of referring to the prices of things. Bettina Vanderpoel,
who was the richest and cleverest and most promisingly handsome among them,=
was
colloquial to slanginess, but she had a deep, mellow, child voice and an
amazing carriage.
She could not endure Sir Nigel Anstruthers,
and, being an American child, did not hesitate to express herself with forc=
e,
if with some crudeness. "He's a hateful thing," she said, "I
loathe him. He's stuck up and he thinks you are afraid of him and he likes
it."
Sir Nigel had known only English children, little girls who lived in that discreet corner of their parents' town or country houses known as "the schoolroom," apparently emerging only for daily walks with governesses; girls with long hair and boys in little h= igh hats and with faces which seemed curiously made to match them. Both boys and girls were decently kept out of the way and not in the least dwelt on excep= t when brought out for inspection during the holidays and taken to the pantomime.<= o:p>
Sir Nigel had not realised that an American
child was an absolute factor to be counted with, and a "youngster"
who entered the drawing-room when she chose and joined fearlessly in adult
conversation was an element he considered annoying. It was quite true that
Bettina talked too much and too readily at times, but it had not been expla=
ined
to her that the opinions of eight years are not always of absorbing interes=
t to
the mature. It was also true that Sir Nigel was a great fool for interferin=
g with
what was clearly no affair of his in such a manner as would have made him an
enemy even had not the child's instinct arrayed her against him at the outs=
et.
"You American youngsters are too
cheeky," he said on one of the occasions when Betty had talked too muc=
h.
"If you were my sister and lived at
"Well, I'm not your sister Emily,&quo=
t;
retorted Betty, "and I guess I'm glad of it."
It was rather impudent of her, but it must=
be
confessed that she was not infrequently rather impudent in a rude little-gi=
rl
way, but she was serenely unconscious of the fact.
Sir Nigel flushed darkly and laughed a sho=
rt,
unpleasant laugh. If she had been his sister Emily she would have fared ill=
at
the moment, for his villainous temper would have got the better of him.
"I 'guess' that I may be congratulated
too," he sneered.
"If I was going to be anybody's sister
Emily," said Betty, excited a little by the sense of the fray, "I
shouldn't want to be yours."
"Now Betty, don't be hateful,"
interposed Rosalie, laughing, and her laugh was nervous. "There's Mina
Thalberg coming up the front steps. Go and meet her."
Rosalie, poor girl, always found herself
nervous when Sir Nigel and Betty were in the room together. She instinctive=
ly
recognised their antagonism and was afraid Betty would do something an Engl=
ish
baronet would think vulgar. Her simple brain could not have explained to he=
r why
it was that she knew Sir Nigel often thought New Yorkers vulgar. She was,
however, quite aware of this but imperfectly concealed fact, and felt a tim=
id
desire to be explanatory.
When Bettina marched out of the room with =
her
extraordinary carriage finely manifest, Rosy's little laugh was propitiator=
y.
"You mustn't mind her," she said.
"She's a real splendid little thing, but she's got a quick temper. It's
all over in a minute."
"They wouldn't stand that sort of thi=
ng
in
He detested the child. He disliked all
children, but this one awakened in him more than mere dislike. The fact was
that though Betty herself was wholly unconscious of the subtle truth, the as
yet undeveloped intellect which later made her a brilliant and captivating
personality, vaguely saw him as he was, an unscrupulous, sordid brute, as
remorseless an adventurer and swindler in his special line, as if he had be=
en engaged
in drawing false cheques and arranging huge jewel robberies, instead of
planning to entrap into a disadvantageous marriage a girl whose gentleness =
and
fortune could be used by a blackguard of reputable name. The man was
cold-blooded enough to see that her gentle weakness was of value because it
could be bullied, her money was to be counted on because it could be spent =
on
himself and his degenerate vices and on his racked and ruined name and esta=
te,
which must be rebuilt and restocked at an early date by someone or other, l=
est
they tumbled into ignominious collapse which could not be concealed. Bettin=
a of
the accusing eyes did not know that in the depth of her yet crude young bei=
ng,
instinct was summing up for her the potentialities of an unusually fine
specimen of the British blackguard, but this was nevertheless the interesti=
ng
truth. When later she was told that her sister had become engaged to Sir Ni=
gel
Anstruthers, a flame of colour flashed over her face, she stared silently a
moment, then bit her lip and burst into tears.
"Well, Bett," exclaimed Rosalie,
"you are the queerest thing I ever saw."
Bettina's tears were an outburst, not a fl=
ow.
She swept them away passionately with her small handkerchief.
"He'll do something awful to you,&quo=
t;
she said. "He'll nearly kill you. I know he will. I'd rather be dead m=
yself."
She dashed out of the room, and could neve=
r be
induced to say a word further about the matter. She would indeed have found=
it
impossible to express her intense antipathy and sense of impending calamity.
She had not the phrases to make herself clear even to herself, and after al=
l what
controlling effort can one produce when one is only eight years old?
CHAPTER II - A LACK OF PERCEPTION=
span>
Mercantile as Americans were proclaimed to=
be,
the opinion of Sir Nigel Anstruthers was that they were, on some points,
singularly unbusinesslike. In the perfectly obvious and simple matter of th=
e settlement
of his daughter's fortune, he had felt that Reuben Vanderpoel was obtuse to=
the
point of idiocy. He seemed to have none of the ordinary points of view.
Naturally there was to Anstruthers' mind but one point of view to take. A m=
an
of birth and rank, he argued, does not career across the Atlantic to marry =
a
But Sir Nigel had not in the least desired=
to
saddle himself with a domestic encumbrance, in fact nothing would have indu=
ced
him to consider the step if he had not been driven hard by circumstances. H=
is
fortunes had reached a stage where money must be forthcoming somehow--from =
somewhere.
He and his mother had been living from hand to mouth, so to speak, for year=
s,
and they had also been obliged to keep up appearances, which is sometimes
embittering even to persons of amiable tempers. Lady Anstruthers, it is tru=
e,
had lived in the country in as niggardly a manner as possible. She had narr=
owed
her existence to absolute privation, presenting at the same time a stern, b=
old
front to the persons who saw her, to the insufficient staff of servants, to=
the
village to the vicar and his wife, and the few far-distant neighbours who
perhaps once a year drove miles to call or leave a card. She was an old wom=
an
sufficiently unattractive to find no difficulty in the way of limiting her =
acquaintances.
The unprepossessing wardrobe she had gathered in the passing years was rema=
de
again and again by the village dressmaker. She wore dingy old silk gowns and
appalling bonnets, and mantles dripping with rusty fringes and bugle beads,=
but
these mitigated not in the least the unflinching arrogance of her bearing, =
or
the simple, intolerant rudeness which she considered proper and becoming in
persons like herself. She did not of course allow that there existed many
persons like herself.
That society rejoiced in this fact was but=
the
stamp of its inferiority and folly. While she pinched herself and harried h=
er
few hirelings at Stornham it was necessary for Sir Nigel to show himself in
town and present as decent an appearance as possible. His vanity was far to=
o arrogant
to allow of his permitting himself to drop out of the world to which he cou=
ld
not afford to belong. That he should have been forgotten or ignored would h=
ave
been intolerable to him. For a few years he was invited to dine at good hou=
ses,
and got shooting and hunting as part of the hospitality of his acquaintance=
s.
But a man who cannot afford to return hospitalities will find that he need =
not
expect to avail himself of those of his acquaintances to the end of his car=
eer
unless he is an extremely engaging person. Sir Nigel Anstruthers was not an
engaging person. He never gave a thought to the comfort or interest of any
other human being than himself. He was also dominated by the kind of nasty =
temper
which so reveals itself when let loose that its owner cannot control it even
when it would be distinctly to his advantage to do so.
Finding that he had nothing to give in ret=
urn
for what he took as if it were his right, society gradually began to cease =
to
retain any lively recollection of his existence. The tradespeople he had bo=
rne
himself loftily towards awakened to the fact that he was the kind of man it=
was
at once safe and wise to dun, and therefore proceeded to make his life a bu=
rden
to him. At his clubs he had never been a member surrounded and rejoiced over
when he made his appearance. The time came when he began to fancy that he w=
as
rather edged away from, and he endeavoured to sustain his dignity by being
sulky and making caustic speeches when he was approached. Driven occasional=
ly
down to Stornham by actual pressure of circumstances, he found the outlook
there more embittering still.
Lady Anstruthers laid the bareness of the =
land
before him without any effort to palliate unpleasantness. If he chose to st=
alk
about and look glum, she could sit still and call his attention to revolting
truths which he could not deny. She could point out to him that he had no m=
oney,
and that tenants would not stay in houses which were tumbling to pieces, and
work land which had been starved. She could tell him just how long a time h=
ad
elapsed since wages had been paid and accounts cleared off. And she had an
engaging, unbiassed way of seeming to drive these maddening details home by=
the
mere manner of her statement.
"You make the whole thing as damned
disagreeable as you can," Nigel would snarl.
"I merely state facts," she would
reply with acrid serenity.
A man who cannot keep up his estate, pay h=
is
tailor or the rent of his lodgings in town, is in a strait which may drive =
him
to desperation. Sir Nigel Anstruthers borrowed some money, went to
But the whole thing was unexpectedly
disappointing and surrounded by irritating circumstances. He found himself =
face
to face with a state of affairs such as he had not contemplated. In
His most illuminating experience had been =
the
hearing of some men, hard-headed, rich stockbrokers with a vulgar sense of
humour, enjoying themselves quite uproariously one night at a club, over a
story one of them was relating of an unsatisfactory German son-in-law who h=
ad demanded
an income. He was a man of small title, who had married the narrator's
daughter, and after some months spent in his father-in-law's house, had fel=
t it
but proper that his financial position should be put on a practical footing=
.
"He brought her back after the bridal
tour to make us a visit," said the storyteller, a sharp-featured man w=
ith
a quaint wry mouth, which seemed to express a perpetual, repressed apprecia=
tion
of passing events. "I had nothing to say against that, because we were=
all
glad to see her home and her mother had been missing her. But weeks passed =
and
months passed and there was no mention made of them going over to settle in=
the
Slosh we'd heard so much of, and in time it came out that the Slosh thing&q=
uot;--Anstruthers
realised with gall in his soul that the "brute," as he called him,
meant "Schloss," and that his mispronunciation was at once a matt=
er
of humour and derision--"wasn't his at all. It was his elder brother's.
The whole lot of them were counts and not one of them seemed to own a dime.=
The
Slosh count hadn't more than twenty-five cents and he wasn't the kind to de=
al
any of it out to his family. So Lily's count would have to go clerking in a=
dry
goods store, if he promised to support himself. But he didn't propose to do=
it.
He thought he'd got on to a soft thing. Of course we're an easy-going lot a=
nd
we should have stood him if he'd been a nice fellow. But he wasn't. Lily's
mother used to find her crying in her bedroom and it came out by degrees th=
at
it was because Adolf had been quarrelling with her and saying sneering thin=
gs about
her family. When her mother talked to him he was insulting. Then bills bega=
n to
come in and Lily was expected to get me to pay them. And they were not the =
kind
of bills a decent fellow calls on another man to pay. But I did it five or =
six
times to make it easy for her. I didn't tell her that they gave an older ch=
ap
than himself sidelights on the situation. But that didn't work well. He tho=
ught
I did it because I had to, and he began to feel free and easy about it, and
didn't try to cover up his tracks so much when he sent in a new lot. He was
always working Lily. He began to consider himself master of the house. He
intimated that a private carriage ought to be kept for them. He said it was=
beggarly
that he should have to consider the rest of the family when he wanted to go
out. When I got on to the situation, I began to enjoy it. I let him spread
himself for a while just to see what he would do. Good Lord! I couldn't have
believed that any fellow could have thought any other fellow could be such a
fool as he thought I was. He went perfectly crazy after a month or so and
ordered me about and patronised me as if I was a bootblack he meant to teach
something to. So at last I had a talk with Lily and told her I was going to=
put
an end to it. Of course she cried and was half frightened to death, but by =
that
time he had ill-used her so that she only wanted to get rid of him. So I se=
nt
for him and had a talk with him in my office. I led him on to saying all he=
had
on his mind. He explained to me what a condescension it was for a man like =
himself
to marry a girl like Lily. He made a dignified, touching picture of all the
disadvantages of such an alliance and all the advantages they ought to brin=
g in
exchange to the man who bore up under them. I rubbed my head and looked wor=
ried
every now and then and cleared my throat apologetically just to warm him up=
. I
can tell you that fellow felt happy, downright happy when he saw how humbly=
I
listened to him. He positively swelled up with hope and comfort. He thought=
I
was going to turn out well, real well. I was going to pay up just as a vulg=
ar
Sir Nigel was disgusted to see the narrator
twist his mouth into a sweet, shrewd, repressed grin even as he expectorated
into the nearest receptacle. The grin was greeted by a shout of laughter fr=
om
his companions.
"What did he say, Stebbins?" som=
eone
cried.
"He said," explained Mr. Stebbins
deliberately, "he said that an allowance was the proper thing. He said
that a man of his rank must have resources, and that it wasn't dignified fo=
r him
to have to ask his wife or his wife's father for money when he wanted it. He
said an allowance was what he felt he had a right to expect. And then he
twisted his moustache and said, 'what proposition' did I make--what would I
allow him?"
The storyteller's hearers evidently knew h=
im
well. Their laughter was louder than before.
"Let's hear the rest, Joe! Let's hear
it!"
"Well," replied Mr. Stebbins alm=
ost
thoughtfully, "I just got up and said, 'Well, it won't take long for m=
e to
answer that. I've always been fond of my children, and Lily is rather my pe=
t.
She's always had everything she wanted, and she always shall. She's a good =
girl
and she deserves it. I'll allow you----" The significant deliberation =
of
his drawl could scarcely be described. "I'll allow you just five minut=
es
to get out of this room, before I kick you out, and if I kick you out of the
room, I'll kick you down the stairs, and if I kick you down the stairs, I s=
hall
have got my blood comfortably warmed up and I'll kick you down the street a=
nd
round the block and down to Hoboken, because you're going to take the steam=
er
there and go back to the place you came from, to the Slosh thing or whatever
you call it. We haven't a damned bit of use for you here.' And believe it or
not, gentlemen----" looking round with the wry-mouthed smile, "he
took that passage and back he went. And Lily's living with her mother and I
mean to hold on to her."
Sir Nigel got up and left the club when the
story was finished. He took a long walk down Broadway, gnawing his lip and
holding his head in the air. He used blasphemous language at intervals in a=
low
voice. Some of it was addressed to his fate and some of it to the vulgar
mercantile coarseness and obtuseness of other people.
"They don't know what they are talkin=
g of,"
he said. "It is unheard of. What do they expect? I never thought of th=
is.
Damn it! I'm like a rat in a trap."
It was plain enough that he could not arra=
nge
his fortune as he had anticipated when he decided to begin to make love to
little pink and white, doll-faced Rosy Vanderpoel. If he began to demand
monetary advantages in his dealing with his future wife's people in their s=
ettlement
of her fortune, he might arouse suspicion and inquiry. He did not want inqu=
iry
either in connection with his own means or his past manner of living. People
who hated him would be sure to crop up with stories of things better left
alone. There were always meddling fools ready to interfere.
His walk was long and full of savage think=
ing.
Once or twice as he realised what the disinterestedness of his sentiments w=
as
supposed to be, a short laugh broke from him which was rather like the snor=
t of
the Bishopess.
"I am supposed to be moonstruck over a
simpering American chit--moonstruck! Damn!" But when he returned to his
hotel he had made up his mind and was beginning to look over the situation =
in
evil cold blood. Matters must be settled without delay and he was shrewd en=
ough
to realise that with his temper and its varied resources a timid girl would=
not
be difficult to manage. He had seen at an early stage of their acquaintance
that Rosy was greatly impressed by the superiority of his bearing, that he
could make her blush with embarrassment when he conveyed to her that she had
made a mistake, that he could chill her miserably when he chose to assume a
lofty stiffness. A man's domestic armoury was filled with weapons if he cou=
ld
make a woman feel gauche, inexperienced, in the wrong. When he was safely
married, he could pave the way to what he felt was the only practical and
feasible end.
If he had been marrying a woman with more
brains, she would be more difficult to subdue, but with Rosalie Vanderpoel,
processes were not necessary. If you shocked, bewildered or frightened her =
with
accusations, sulks, or sneers, her light, innocent head was set in such a w=
hirl
that the rest was easy. It was possible, upon the whole, that the thing mig=
ht
not turn out so infernally ill after all. Supposing that it had been Bettina
who had been the marriageable one! Appreciating to the full the many reasons
for rejoicing that she had not been, he walked in gloomy reflection home.
CHAPTER III - YOUNG LADY ANSTRUTHERS
When the marriage took place the event was
accompanied by an ingenuously elate flourish of trumpets. Miss Vanderpoel's
frocks were multitudinous and wonderful, as also her jewels purchased at
Tiffany's. She carried a thousand trunks--more or less--across the
Sir Nigel's mental attitude was not a
sympathetic or admiring one as he stood by his bride's side looking back. If
Rosy's half happy, half tearful excitement had left her the leisure to refl=
ect
on his expression, she would not have felt it encouraging.
"What a deuce of a row Americans
make," he said even before they were out of hearing of the voices.
"It will be a positive rest to be in a country where the women do not
cackle and shriek with laughter."
He said it with that simple rudeness which=
at
times professed to be almost impersonal, and which Rosalie had usually trie=
d to
believe was the outcome of a kind of cool British humour. But this time she
started a little at his words.
"I suppose we do make more noise than
English people," she admitted a second or so later. "I wonder
why?" And without waiting for an answer--somewhat as if she had not
expected or quite wanted one--she leaned a little farther over the side to =
look
back, waving her small, fluttering handkerchief to the many still in tumult=
on
the wharf. She was not perceptive or quick enough to take offence, to reali=
se
that the remark was significant and that Sir Nigel had already begun as he
meant to go on. It was far from being his intention to play the part of an =
American
husband, who was plainly a creature in whom no authority vested itself.
Americans let their women say and do anything, and were capable of fetching=
and
carrying for them. He had seen a man run upstairs for his wife's wrap,
cheerfully, without the least apparent sense that the service was the part =
of a
footman if there was one in the house, a parlour maid if there was not. Sir
Nigel had been brought up in the good Early Victorian days when "a nice
little woman to fetch your slippers for you" figured in certain circle=
s as
domestic bliss. Girls were educated to fetch slippers as retrievers were
trained to go into the water after sticks, and terriers to bring back balls
thrown for them.
The new Lady Anstruthers had, it supervene=
d,
several opportunities to obtain a new view of her bridegroom's character be=
fore
their voyage across the
Her first awakening was to an anxious
wonderment concerning certain moods of gloom, or what seemed to be gloom, to
which he seemed prone. As she lay in her steamer chair he would at times ma=
rch
stiffly up and down the deck, apparently aware of no other existence than h=
is
own, his features expressing a certain clouded resentment of whose very une=
xplainableness
she secretly stood in awe. She was not astute enough, poor girl, to leave h=
im
alone, and when with innocent questionings she endeavoured to discover his
trouble, the greatest mystification she encountered was that he had the pow=
er
to make her feel that she was in some way taking a liberty, and showing her
lack of tact and perspicuity.
"Is anything the matter, Nigel?"=
she
asked at first, wondering if she were guilty of silliness in trying to slip=
her
hand into his. She was sure she had been when he answered her.
"No," he said chillingly.
"I don't believe you are happy,"=
she
returned. "Somehow you seem so--so different."
"I have reasons for being
depressed," he replied, and it was with a stiff finality which struck a
note of warning to her, signifying that it would be better taste in her to =
put
an end to her simple efforts.
She vaguely felt herself put in the wrong,=
and
he preferred that it should be so. It was the best form of preparation for =
any
mood he might see that it might pay him to show her in the future. He was, =
in
fact, confronting disdainfully his position. He had her on his hands and he=
was
returning to his relations with no definite advantage to exhibit as the res=
ult
of having married her. She had been supplied with an income but he had no
control over it. It would not have been so if he had not been in such strai=
ts
that he had been afraid to risk his chance by making a stand. To have a wife
with money, a silly, sweet temper and no will of her own, was of course bet=
ter
than to be penniless, head over heels in debt and hemmed in by difficulties=
on
every side. He had seen women trained to give in to anything rather than be
bullied in public, to accede in the end to any demand rather than endure the
shame of a certain kind of scene made before servants, and a certain kind o=
f insolence
used to relatives and guests. The quality he found most maddeningly irritat=
ing
in Rosalie was her obviously absolute unconsciousness of the fact that it w=
as
entirely natural and proper that her resources should be in her husband's
hands. He had, indeed, even in these early days, made a tentative effort or=
so
in the form of a suggestive speech; he had given her openings to give him an
opening to put things on a practical basis, but she had never had the intel=
ligence
to see what he was aiming at, and he had found himself almost floundering
ungracefully in his remarks, while she had looked at him without a sign of
comprehension in her simple, anxious blue eyes. The creature was actually
trying to understand him and could not. That was the worst of it, the blank
wall of her unconsciousness, her childlike belief that he was far too grand=
a
personage to require anything. These were the things he was thinking over w=
hen
he walked up and down the deck in unamiable solitariness. Rosy awakened to =
the
amazed consciousness of the fact that, instead of being pleased with the lu=
xury
and prettiness of her wardrobe and appointments, he seemed to dislike and
disdain them.
"You American women change your cloth=
es
too much and think too much of them," was one of his first amiable
criticisms. "You spend more than well-bred women should spend on mere
dresses and bonnets. In
"Oh, Nigel!" cried Rosy woefully.
She could not think of anything more to say than, "Oh, Nigel!"
"I am sorry to say it is true," =
he
replied loftily. That she was an American and a New Yorker was being impres=
sed
upon poor little Lady Anstruthers in a new way--somehow as if the mere cold
statement of the fact put a fine edge of sarcasm to any remark. She was of =
too
innocent a loyalty to wish that she was neither the one nor the other, but =
she
did wish that Nigel was not so prejudiced against the places and people she=
cared
for so much.
She was sitting in her stateroom enfolded =
in a
dressing gown covered with cascades of lace, tied with knots of embroidered
ribbon, and her maid, Hannah, who admired her greatly, was brushing her fair
long hair with a gold-backed brush, ornamented with a monogram of jewels.
If she had been a French duchess of a piqu=
ant
type, or an English one with an aquiline nose, she would have been beyond
criticism; if she had been a plump, over-fed woman, or an ugly, ill-natured,
gross one, she would have looked vulgar, but she was a little, thin, fair N=
ew Yorker,
and though she was not beyond criticism--if one demanded high distinction--=
she
was pretty and nice to look at. But Nigel Anstruthers would not allow this =
to
her. His own tailors' bills being far in arrears and his pocket disgustingly
empty, the sight of her ingenuous sumptuousness and the gay, accustomed
simpleness of outlook with which she accepted it as her natural right,
irritated him and roused his venom. Bills would remain unpaid if she was
permitted to spend her money on this sort of thing without any consideration
for the requirements of other people.
He inhaled the air and made a gesture of
distaste.
"This sachet business is rather
overpowering," he said. "It is the sort of thing a woman should be
particularly discreet about."
"Oh, Nigel!" cried the poor girl
agitatedly. "Hannah, do go and call the steward to open the windows. I=
s it
really strong?" she implored as Hannah went out. "How dreadful. I=
t's
only orris and I didn't know Hannah had put it in the trunks."
"My dear Rosalie," with a wave of
the hand taking in both herself and her dressing case, "it is all too
strong."
"All--wh--what?" gaspingly.
"The whole thing. All that lace and l=
ove
knot arrangement, the gold-backed brushes and scent bottles with diamonds a=
nd
rubies sticking in them."
"They--they were wedding presents. Th=
ey
came from Tiffany's. Everyone thought them lovely."
"They look as if they belonged to the
dressing table of a French woman of the demi-monde. I feel as if I had actu=
ally
walked into the apartment of some notorious Parisian soubrette."
Rosalie Vanderpoel was a clean-minded litt=
le
person, her people were of the clean-minded type, therefore she did not
understand all that this ironic speech implied, but she gathered enough of =
its
significance to cause her to turn first red and then pale and then to burst
into tears. She was crying and trying to conceal the fact when Hannah retur=
ned.
She bent her head and touched her eyes furtively while her toilette was com=
pleted.
Sir Nigel had retired from the scene, but =
he
had done so feeling that he had planted a seed and bestowed a practical les=
son.
He had, it is true, bestowed one, but again she had not understood its
significance and was only left bewildered and unhappy. She began to be nerv=
ous
and uncertain about herself and about his moods and points of view. She had
never been made to feel so at home. Everyone had been kind to her and lenie=
nt
to her lack of brilliancy. No one had expected her to be brilliant, and she=
had
been quite sweet-temperedly resigned to the fact that she was not the kind =
of
girl who shone either in society or elsewhere. She did not resent the fact =
that
she knew people said of her, "She isn't in the least bit bright, Rosy
Vanderpoel, but she's a nice, sweet little thing." She had tried to be
nice and sweet and had aspired to nothing higher.
But now that seemed so much less than enou=
gh.
Perhaps Nigel ought to have married one of the clever ones, someone who wou=
ld
have known how to understand him and who would have been more entertaining =
than
she could be. Perhaps she was beginning to bore him, perhaps he was finding=
her
out and beginning to get tired. At this point the always too ready tears wo=
uld
rise to her eyes and she would be overwhelmed by a sense of homesickness. O=
ften
she cried herself silently to sleep, longing for her mother--her nice,
comfortable, ordinary mother, whom she had several times felt Nigel had some
difficulty in being unreservedly polite to--though he had been polite on the
surface.
By the time they landed she had been living
under so much strain in her effort to seem quite unchanged, that she had lo=
st
her nerve. She did not feel well and was sometimes afraid that she might do
something silly and hysterical in spite of herself, begin to cry for instan=
ce
when there was really no explanation for her doing it. But when she reached=
Before going to Stornham Court
By each post Sir Nigel received numerous
bills. Sometimes letters accompanied them, and once or twice respectful but
firm male persons brought them by hand and demanded interviews which irrita=
ted
Sir Nigel extremely. Given time to arrange matters with Rosalie, to train h=
er
to some sense of her duty, he believed that the "acct. rendered"
could be wiped off, but he saw he must have time. She was such a little foo=
l. Again
and again he was furious at the fate which had forced him to take her.
The truth was that Rosalie knew nothing
whatever about unpaid bills. Reuben Vanderpoel's daughters had never
encountered an indignant tradesman in their lives. When they went into
"stores" they were received with unfeigned rapture. Everything was
dragged forth to be displayed to them, attendants waited to leap forth to
supply their smallest behest. They knew no other phase of existence than the
one in which one could buy anything one wanted and pay any price demanded f=
or it.
Consequently Rosalie did not recognise sig=
ns
which would have been obviously recognisable by the initiated. If Sir Nigel
Anstruthers had been a nice young fellow who had loved her, and he had been
honest enough to make a clean breast of his difficulties, she would have th=
rown
herself into his arms and implored him effusively to make use of all her
available funds, and if the supply had been insufficient, would have immedi=
ately
written to her father for further donations, knowing that her appeal would =
be
responded to at once. But Sir Nigel Anstruthers cherished no sentiment for =
any
other individual than himself, and he had no intention of explaining that h=
is
mere vanity had caused him to mislead her, that his rank and estate counted=
for
nothing and that he was in fact a pauper loaded with dishonest debts. He wa=
nted
money, but he wanted it to be given to him as if he conferred a favour by
receiving it. It must be transferred to him as though it were his by right.
What did a man marry for? Therefore his wife's unconsciousness that she was=
inflicting
outrage upon him by her mere mental attitude filled his being with slowly
rising gall.
Poor Rosalie went joyfully forth shopping
after the manner of all newly arrived Americans. She bought new toilettes a=
nd
gewgaws and presents for her friends and relations in
That the little blockhead should be allowe=
d to
do what she liked with her money and that he should not be able to forbid h=
er!
This he said to himself at intervals of five minutes through the day--which=
led
to another small episode.
"You are spending a great deal of
money," he said one morning in his condemnatory manner. Rosalie looked=
up
from the lace flounce which had just been delivered and gave the little ner=
vous
laugh, which was becoming entirely uncertain of propitiating.
"Am I?" she answered. "They=
say
all Americans spend a good deal."
"Your money ought to be in proper han=
ds
and properly managed," he went on with cold precision. "If you we=
re
an English woman, your husband would control it."
"Would he?" The simple,
sweet-tempered obtuseness of her tone was an infuriating thing to him. There
was the usual shade of troubled surprise in her eyes as they met his. "=
;I
don't think men in
"Wanted to help him." Sir Nigel
selected the phrase and quoted it between puffs of the cigar he held in his
fine, rather cruel-looking hands, and his voice expressed a not too subtle
sneer. "A woman is not 'helping' her husband when she gives him contro=
l of
her fortune. She is only doing her duty and accepting her proper position w=
ith
regard to him. The law used to settle the thing definitely."
"Did-did it?" Rosy faltered weak=
ly.
She knew he was offended again and that she was once more somehow in the wr=
ong.
So many things about her seemed to displease him, and when he was displease=
d he
always reminded her that she was stupidly, objectionably guilty of not bein=
g an
English woman.
Whatsoever it happened to be, the fault she
had committed out of her depth of ignorance, he did not forget it. It was no
habit of his to endeavour to dismiss offences. He preferred to hold them in
possession as if they were treasures and to turn them over and over, in the
mental seclusion which nourishes the growth of injuries, since within its b=
arriers
there is no chance of their being palliated by the apologies or explanation=
s of
the offender.
During their journey to Stornham Court
She thought the green-clothed country love=
ly
as the train sped through it, and a lump rose in her small throat because s=
he
knew she might have been so happy if she had not been so frightened and
miserable. The thing which had been dawning upon her took clearer, more awf=
ul
form. Incidents she had tried to explain and excuse to herself, upon all so=
rts
of futile, simple grounds, began to loom up before her in something like th=
eir
actual proportions. She had heard of men who had changed their manner towar=
ds
girls after they had married them, but she did not know they had begun to
change so soon. This was so early in the honeymoon to be sitting in a railw=
ay
carriage, in a corner remote from that occupied by a bridegroom, who read h=
is
paper in what was obviously intentional, resentful solitude. Emily Soame's
father, she remembered it against her will, had been obliged to get a divor=
ce
for Emily after her two years of wretched married life. But Alfred Soames h=
ad
been quite nice for six months at least. It seemed as if all this must be a
dream, one of those nightmare things, in which you suddenly find yourself
married to someone you cannot bear, and you don't know how it happened, bec=
ause
you yourself have had nothing to do with the matter. She felt that presentl=
y she
must waken with a start and find herself breathing fast, and panting out, h=
alf
laughing, half crying, "Oh, I am so glad it's not true! I am so glad i=
t's
not true!"
But this was true, and there was Nigel. And
she was in a new, unexplored world. Her little trembling hands clutched each
other. The happy, light girlish days full of ease and friendliness and dece=
ncy
seemed gone forever. It was not Rosalie Vanderpoel who pressed her colourle=
ss
face against the glass of the window, looking out at the flying trees; it w=
as the
wife of Nigel Anstruthers, and suddenly, by some hideous magic, she had been
snatched from the world to which she belonged and was being dragged by a ga=
oler
to a prison from which she did not know how to escape. Already Nigel had
managed to convey to her that in
The vivid realisation of the situation sei=
zed
upon her like a possession as she glanced sideways at her bridegroom and
hurriedly glanced away again with a little hysterical shudder.
This inward struggle was a bad preparation=
for
any added misery, and when their railroad journey terminated at Stornham
Station she was met by new bewilderment.
The station itself was a rustic place where
wild roses climbed down a bank to meet the very train itself. The station
master's cottage had roses and clusters of lilies waving in its tiny garden.
The station master, a good-natured, red-faced man, came forward, baring his
head, to open the railroad carriage door with his own hand. Rosy thought hi=
m delightful
and bowed and smiled sweet-temperedly to him and to his wife and little gir=
ls,
who were curtseying at the garden gate. She was sufficiently homesick to be
actually grateful to them for their air of welcoming her. But as she smiled=
she
glanced furtively at Nigel to see if she was doing exactly the right thing.=
He himself was not smiling and did not unb=
end
even when the station master, who had known him from his boyhood, felt at
liberty to offer a deferential welcome.
"Happy to see you home with her ladys=
hip,
Sir Nigel," he said; "very happy, if I may say so."
Sir Nigel responded to the respectful
amiability with a half-military lifting of his right hand, accompanied by a
grunt.
"D'ye do, Wells," he said, and
strode past him to speak to the footman who had come from
The new and nervous little Lady Anstruther=
s,
who was left to trot after her husband, smiled again at the ruddy, kind-loo=
king
fellow, this time in conscious deprecation. In the simplicity of her republ=
ican
sympathy with a well-meaning fellow creature who might feel himself snubbed=
, she
could have shaken him by the hand. She had even parted her lips to venture a
word of civility when she was startled by hearing Sir Nigel's voice raised =
in
angry rating.
"Damned bad management not to bring
something else," she heard. "Kind of thing you fellows are always
doing."
She made her way to the carriage, flurried
again by not knowing whether she was doing right or wrong. Sir Nigel had gi=
ven
her no instructions and she had not yet learned that when he was in a certa=
in
humour there was equal fault in obeying or disobeying such orders as he gav=
e.
The carriage from the Court--not in the le=
ast
a new or smart equipage--was drawn up before the entrance of the station and
Sir Nigel was in a rage because the vehicle brought for the luggage was too
small to carry it all.
"Very sorry, Sir Nigel," said the
coachman, touching his hat two or three times in his agitation. "Very
sorry. The omnibus was a little out of order--the springs, Sir Nigel--and I
thought----"
"You thought!" was the heated in=
terruption.
"What right had you to think, damn it! You are not paid to think, you =
are
paid to do your work properly. Here are a lot of damned boxes which ought t=
o go
with us and--where's your maid?" wheeling round upon his wife.
Rosalie turned towards the woman, who was
approaching from the waiting room.
"Hannah," she said timorously.
"Drop those confounded bundles,"
ordered Sir Nigel, "and show James the boxes her ladyship is obliged to
have this evening. Be quick about it and don't pick out half a dozen. The c=
art
can't take them."
Hannah looked frightened. This sort of thi=
ng
was new to her, too. She shuffled her packages on to a seat and followed the
footman to the luggage. Sir Nigel continued rating the coachman. Any form of
violent self-assertion was welcome to him at any time, and when he was
irritated he found it a distinct luxury to kick a dog or throw a boot at a =
cat.
The springs of the omnibus, he argued, had no right to be broken when it was
known that he was coming home. His anger was only added to by the coachman's
halting endeavours in his excuses to veil a fact he knew his master was awa=
re
of, that everything at Stornham was more or less out of order, and that
dilapidations were the inevitable result of there being no money to pay for
repairs. The man leaned forward on his box and spoke at last in a low tone.=
"The bus has been broken some time,&q=
uot;
he said. "It's--it's an expensive job, Sir Nigel. Her ladyship thought=
it
better to----" Sir Nigel turned white about the mouth.
"Hold your tongue," he commanded,
and the coachman got red in the face, saluted, biting his lips, and sat very
stiff and upright on his box.
The station master edged away uneasily and
tried to look as if he were not listening. But Rosalie could see that he co=
uld
not help hearing, nor could the country people who had been passengers by t=
he
train and who were collecting their belongings and getting into their traps=
.
Lady Anstruthers was ignored and remained
standing while the scene went on. She could not help recalling the manner in
which she had been invariably received in
"Oh, never mind, Nigel dear," she
said at last, with innocent indiscretion. "It doesn't really matter, y=
ou
know."
Sir Nigel turned upon her a blaze of haugh=
ty
indignation.
"If you'll pardon my saying so, it do=
es
matter," he said. "It matters confoundedly. Be good enough to take
your place in the carriage."
He moved to the carriage door, and not too
civilly put her in. She gasped a little for breath as she sat down. He had
spoken to her as if she had been an impertinent servant who had taken a
liberty. The poor girl was bewildered to the verge of panic. When he had en=
ded
his tirade and took his place beside her he wore his most haughtily intoler=
ant
air.
"May I request that in future you wil=
l be
good enough not to interfere when I am reproving my servants," he
remarked.
"I didn't mean to interfere," she
apologised tremulously.
"I don't know what you meant. I only =
know
what you did," was his response. "You American women are too fond=
of
cutting in. An Englishman can think for himself without his wife's
assistance."
The tears rose to her eyes. The introducti=
on
of the international question overpowered her as always.
"Don't begin to be hysterical," =
was
the ameliorating tenderness with which he observed the two hot salt drops w=
hich
fell despite her. "I should scarcely wish to present you to my mother
bathed in tears."
She wiped the salt drops hastily away and =
sat
for a moment silent in the corner of the carriage. Being wholly primitive a=
nd
unanalytical, she was ashamed and began to blame herself. He was right. She
must not be silly because she was unused to things. She ought not to be
disturbed by trifles. She must try to be nice and look cheerful. She made an
effort and did no speak for a few minutes. When she had recovered herself s=
he tried
again.
"English country is so pretty," =
she
said, when she thought she was quite sure that her voice would not tremble.
"I do so like the hedges and the darling little red-roofed cottages.&q=
uot;
It was an innocent tentative at saying
something agreeable which might propitiate him. She was beginning to realise
that she was continually making efforts to propitiate him. But one of the f=
orms
of unpleasantness most enjoyable to him was the snubbing of any gentle effo=
rt
at palliating his mood. He condescended in this case no response whatever, =
but
merely continued staring contemptuously before him.
"It is so picturesque, and so unlike =
He turned his head slowly towards her, as =
if
she had taken a new liberty in disturbing his meditations.
"Wha--at?" he drawled.
It was almost too much for her to sustain
herself under. Her courage collapsed.
"I was only saying how pretty the
cottages were," she faltered. "And that there's nothing like this=
in
"You ended your remark by adding, 'ai=
n't
it,'" her husband condescended. "There is nothing like that in
"I didn't know I said it," Rosy
answered feebly.
"That is the difficulty," was his
response. "You never know, but educated people do."
There was nothing more to be said, at least
for a girl who had never known what it was to be bullied. This one felt lik=
e a
beggar or a scullery maid, who, being rated by her master, had not the refu=
ge
of being able to "give warning." She could never give warning. The
Atlantic Ocean was between her and those who had loved and protected her al=
l her
short life, and the carriage was bearing her onwards to the home in which s=
he
was to live alone as this man's companion to the end of her existence.
She made no further propitiatory efforts, =
but
sat and stared in simple blankness at the country, which seemed to increase=
in
loveliness at each new point of view. Sometimes she saw sweet wooded, rolli=
ng
lands made lovelier by the homely farmhouses and cottages enclosed and
sheltered by thick hedges and trees; once or twice they drove past a park
enfolding a great house guarded by its huge sentinel oaks and beeches; once=
the
carriage passed through an adorable little village, where children played on
the green and a square-towered grey church seemed to watch over the
steep-roofed cottages and creeper-covered vicarage. If she had been a happy
American tourist travelling in company with impressionable friends, she wou=
ld
have broken into ecstatic little exclamations of admiration every five minu=
tes,
but it had been driven home to her that to her present companion, to whom
nothing was new, her rapture would merely represent the crudeness which had
existed in contentment in a brown-stone house on a noisy thoroughfare, thro=
ugh
a life which had been passed tramping up and down numbered streets and aven=
ues.
They approached at last a second village w=
ith
a green, a grass-grown street and the irregular red-tiled cottages, which to
the unaccustomed eye seemed rather to represent studies for sketches than
absolute realities. The bells in the church tower broke forth into a chime =
and people
appeared at the doors of the cottages. The men touched their foreheads as t=
he
carriage passed, and the children made bobbing curtsies. Sir Nigel condesce=
nded
to straighten himself a trifle in his seat, and recognised the greetings wi=
th
the stiff, half-military salute. The poor girl at his side felt that he put=
as
little feeling as possible into the movement, and that if she herself had b=
een
a bowing villager she would almost have preferred to be wholly ignored. She
looked at him questioningly.
"Are they--must I?" she began.
"Make some civil recognition,"
answered Sir Nigel, as if he were instructing an ignorant child. "It is
customary."
So she bowed and tried to smile, and the
joyous clamour of the bells brought the awful lump into her throat again. It
reminded her of the ringing of the chimes at the
The park at
As she descended from the carriage the girl
was tremulous and uncertain of herself and much overpowered by the unbending
air of the man-servant who received her as if she were a parcel in which it=
was
no part of his duty to take the smallest interest. As she mounted the stone
steps she caught a glimpse of broad gloom within the threshold, a big, squa=
re, dingy
hall where some other servants were drawn up in a row. She had read of
something of the sort in English novels, and she was suddenly embarrassed
afresh by her realisation of the fact that she did not know what to do and =
that
if she made a mistake Nigel would never forgive her.
An elderly woman came out of a room opening
into the hall. She was an ugly woman of a rigid carriage, which, with the
obvious intention of being severely majestic, was only antagonistic. She ha=
d a
flaccid chin, and was curiously like Nigel. She had also his expression whe=
n he
intended to be disagreeable. She was the Dowager Lady Anstruthers, and bein=
g an
entirely revolting old person at her best, she objected extremely to the
transatlantic bride who had made her a dowager, though she was determinedly
prepared to profit by any practical benefit likely to accrue.
"Well, Nigel," she said in a deep
voice. "Here you are at last."
This was of course a statement not to be
refuted. She held out a leathern cheek, and as Sir Nigel also presented his,
their caress of greeting was a singular and not effusive one.
"Is this your wife?" she asked,
giving Rosalie a bony hand. And as he did not indignantly deny this to be t=
he
fact, she added, "How do you do?"
Rosalie murmured a reply and tried to cont=
rol
herself by making another effort to swallow the lump in her throat. But she
could not swallow it. She had been keeping a desperate hold on herself too
long. The bewildered misery of her awakening, the awkwardness of the public=
row
at the station, the sulks which had filled the carriage to repletion through
all the long drive, and finally the jangling bells which had so recalled th=
at
last joyous day at home--at home--had brought her to a point where this mee=
ting
between mother and son--these two stony, unpleasant creatures exchanging a
reluctant rub of uninviting cheeks--as two savages might have rubbed
noses--proved the finishing impetus to hysteria. They were so hideous, these
two, and so ghastly comic and fantastic in their unresponsive glumness, that
the poor girl lost all hold upon herself and broke into a trembling shriek =
of
laughter.
"Oh!" she gasped in terror at wh=
at
she felt to be her indecent madness. "Oh! how--how----" And then
seeing Nigel's furious start, his mother's glare and all the servants' alar=
med
stare at her, she rushed staggering to the only creature she felt she knew-=
-her
maid Hannah, clutched her and broke down into wild sobbing.
"Oh, take me away!" she cried.
"Oh, do! Oh, do! Oh, Hannah! Oh, mother--mother!"
"Take your mistress to her room,"
commanded Sir Nigel. "Go downstairs," he called out to the servan=
ts.
"Take her upstairs at once and throw water in her face," to the
excited Hannah.
And as the new Lady Anstruthers was half l=
ed,
half dragged, in humiliated hysteric disorder up the staircase, he took his
mother by the elbow, marched her into the nearest room and shut the door. T=
here
they stood and stared at each other, breathing quick, enraged breaths and l=
ooking
particularly alike with their heavy-featured, thick-skinned, infuriated fac=
es.
It was the Dowager who spoke first, and her
whole voice and manner expressed all she intended that they should, all the
derision, dislike and scathing resignment to a grotesque fate.
"Well," said her ladyship. "=
;So
THIS is what you have brought home from
CHAPTER IV - A MISTAKE OF THE POSTBOY'S
As the weeks passed at
But at Stornham the rain seemed to young L=
ady
Anstruthers to descend ceaselessly. The season was a wet one, and when she =
rose
in the morning and looked out over the huge stretch of trees and sward she
thought she always saw the rain falling either in hopeless sheets or more
hopeless drizzle. The occasions upon which this was a dreary truth blotted =
out
or blurred the exceptions, when in liquid ultramarine deeps of sky, floated=
islands
and mountains of snow-white fleece, of a beauty of which she had before had=
no
conception.
In the English novels she had read, places
such as
As the weeks dragged by a few heavy carria=
ges
deposited at the Court a few callers. Some of the visitors bore imposing
titles, which made Rosalie very nervous and caused her hastily to array her=
self
to receive them in toilettes much too pretty and delicate for the occasion.=
Her
innocent idea was that she must do her husband credit by appearing as "=
;stylish"
as possible.
As a result she was stared at, either with
open disfavour, or with well-bred, furtive criticism, and was described
afterwards as being either "very American" or "very
over-dressed." When she had lived in huge rooms in Fifth Avenue, Rosal=
ie
had changed her attire as many times a day as she had changed her fancy; ev=
ery
hour had been filled with engagements and amusements; the Vanderpoel carria=
ges
had driven up to the door and driven away again and again through the morni=
ngs
and afternoons and until midnight and later. Someone was always going out o=
r coming
in. There had been in the big handsome house not much more of an air of rep=
ose
than one might expect to find at a railway station; but the flurry, the com=
ing
and going, the calling and chatting had all been cheery, amiable. At Stornh=
am,
Rosalie sat at breakfast before unchanging boiled eggs, unfailing toast and
unalterable broiled bacon, morning after morning. Sir Nigel sat and munched
over the newspapers, his mother, with an air of relentless disapproval from=
a
lofty height of both her food and companions, disposed of her eggs and her
rasher at Rosalie's right hand. She had transferred to her daughter-in-law =
her previously
occupied seat at the head of the table. This had been done with a carefully
prepared scene of intense though correct disagreeableness, in which she had
managed to convey all the rancour of her dethroned spirit and her disapprov=
al
and disdain of international alliances.
"It is of course proper that you shou=
ld
sit at the head of your husband's table," she had said, among other
agreeable things. "A woman having devoted her life to her son must
relinquish her position to the person he chooses to marry. If you should ha=
ve a
son you will give up your position to his wife. Since Nigel has married you=
, he
has, of course, a right to expect that you will at least make an effort to
learn something of what is required of women of your position."
"Sit down, Rosalie," said Nigel.
"Of course you take the head of the table, and naturally you must learn
what is expected of my wife, but don't talk confounded rubbish, mother, abo=
ut
devoting your life to your son. We have seen about as little of each other =
as
we could help. We never agreed." They were both bullies and each made
occasional efforts at bullying the other without any particular result. But
each could at least bully the other into intensified unpleasantness.
The vicar's wife having made her call of
ceremony upon the new Lady Anstruthers, followed up the acquaintance, and f=
ound
her quite exotically unlike her mother-in-law, whose charities one may be s=
ure
had neither been lavish nor dispensed by any hand less impressive than her =
own.
The younger woman was of wholly malleable material. Her sympathies were eas=
ily
awakened and her purse was well filled and readily opened. Small families or
large ones, newly born infants or newly buried ones, old women with "b=
ad
legs" and old men who needed comforts, equally touched her heart. She
innocently bestowed sovereigns where an Englishwoman would have known that
half-crowns would have been sufficient. As the vicaress was her almoner that
lady felt her importance rapidly on the increase. When she left a cottage
saying, "I'll speak to young Lady Anstruthers about you," the good
woman of the house curtsied low and her husband touched his forehead
respectfully.
But this did not advance the fortunes of S=
ir
Nigel, who personally required of her very different things. Two weeks after
her arrival at Stornham, Rosalie began to see that somehow she was regarded=
as
a person almost impudently in the wrong. It appeared that if she had been a=
n English
girl she would have been quite different, that she would have been an advan=
tage
instead of a detriment. As an American she was a detriment. That seemed to =
go
without saying. She tried to do everything she was told, and learn something
from each cold insinuation. She did not know that her very amenability and
timidity were her undoing. Sir Nigel and his mother thoroughly enjoyed
themselves at her expense. They knew they could say anything they chose, and
that at the most she would only break down into crying and afterwards apolo=
gise
for being so badly behaved. If some practical, strong-minded person had been
near to defend her she might have been rescued promptly and her tyrants rou=
ted.
But she was a young girl, tender of heart and weak of nature. She used to c=
ry a
great deal when she was alone, and when she wrote to her mother she was too
frightened to tell the truth concerning her unhappiness.
"Oh, if I could just see some of
them!" she would wail to herself. "If I could just see mother or
father or anybody from
His conjugal condescensions made her feel
vaguely--without knowing why--as if she were some lower order of little ani=
mal.
American women, he said, had no conception=
of
wifely duties and affection. He had a great deal to say on the subject of
wifely duty. It was part of her duty as a wife to be entirely satisfied with
his society, and to be completely happy in the pleasure it afforded her. It=
was
her wifely duty not to talk about her own family and palpitatingly expect
letters by every American mail. He objected intensely to this letter writing
and receiving, and his mother shared his prejudices.
"You have married an Englishman,"
her ladyship said. "You have put it out of his power to marry an
Englishwoman, and the least consideration you can show is to let
The Dowager Lady Anstruthers was very fine=
in
her picture of her mental condition, when she realised, as she seemed perio=
dically
to do, that it was no longer possible for her son to make a respectable
marriage with a woman of his own nation. The unadorned fact was that both s=
he
and Sir Nigel were infuriated by the simplicity which made Rosalie slow in =
comprehending
that it was proper that the money her father allowed her should be placed in
her husband's hands, and left there with no indelicate questioning. If she =
had
been an English girl matters would have been made plain to her from the fir=
st
and arranged satisfactorily before her marriage. Sir Nigel's mother conside=
red
that he had played the fool, and would not believe that
They wasted no time, however, in coming to=
the
point, and in a measure it was the vicaress who aided them. Not she entirel=
y,
however.
Since her mother-in-law's first mention of=
a
possible son whose wife would eventually thrust her from her seat at the he=
ad
of the table, Rosalie had several times heard this son referred to. It stru=
ck
her that in
"When you have a son," her
mother-in-law had remarked severely, "I suppose something will be done=
for
Nigel and the estate."
This had been said before she had been ten
days in the house, and had set her not-too-quick brain working. She had alr=
eady
begun to see that life at
"I suppose in
Rosalie could not at the moment recall any
withered and shrivelled old women of twenty, but she blushed and stammered =
as
usual.
"It is never cold enough for fires in
July," she answered, "but we--we never think fires extravagant wh=
en
we are not comfortable without them."
"Coal must be cheaper than it is in <=
st1:country-region
w:st=3D"on">
This was the first time Rosalie had heard =
of
her daughter, and she was not ready enough to reply. She naturally went into
her room and cried again, wondering what her father and mother would say if
they knew that bedroom fires were considered vulgarly extravagant by an
impressive member of the British aristocracy.
She was not at all strong at the time and =
was
given to feeling chilly and miserable on wet, windy days. She used to cry m=
ore
than ever and was so desolate that there were days when she used to go to t=
he
vicarage for companionship. On such days the vicar's wife would entertain h=
er
with stories of the villagers' catastrophes, and she would empty her purse =
upon
the tea table and feel a little consoled because she was the means of conso=
ling
someone else.
"I suppose it gratifies your vanity to
play the Lady Bountiful," Sir Nigel sneered one evening, having heard =
in
the village what she was doing.
"I--never thought of such a thing,&qu=
ot;
she stammered feebly. "Mrs. Brent said they were so poor."
"You throw your money about as if you
were a child," said her mother-in-law. "It is a pity it is not pu=
t in
the hands of some person with discretion."
It had begun to dawn upon Rosalie that her
ladyship was deeply convinced that either herself or her son would be admir=
ably
discreet custodians of the money referred to. And even the dawning of this =
idea
had frightened the girl. She was so inexperienced and ignorant that she fel=
t it
might be possible that in
"I just feel as if she was beginning =
not
to care about us at all, Betty," she said. "I couldn't have belie=
ved
it of Rosy. She was always such an affectionate girl."
"I don't believe it now," replied
Betty sharply. "Rosy couldn't grow hateful and stuck up. It's that nas=
ty
Nigel I know it is."
Sir Nigel's intention was that there shoul=
d be
as little intercourse between
"I don't see why they never seem to t=
hink
of coming over," she said plaintively one day. "They used to talk=
so
much about it."
"They?" ejaculated the Dowager L=
ady
Anstruthers. "Whom may you mean?"
"Mother and father and Betty and some=
of
the others."
Her mother-in-law put up her eye-glasses to
stare at her.
"The whole family?" she inquired=
.
"There are not so many of them,"
Rosalie answered.
"A family is always too many to desce=
nd
upon a young woman when she is married," observed her ladyship unmoved=
ly.
Nigel glanced over the top of his Times.
"I may as well tell you that it would=
not
do at all," he put in.
"Why--why not?" exclaimed Rosali=
e,
aghast.
"Americans don't do in English
society," slightingly.
"But they are coming over so much. Th=
ey
like
"Do they?" with a drawl which ma=
de
Rosalie blush until the tears started to her eyes. "I am afraid the
sentiment is scarcely mutual."
Rosalie turned and fled from the room. She
turned and fled because she realised that she should burst out crying if she
waited to hear another word, and she realised that of late she seemed alway=
s to
be bursting out crying before one or the other of those two. She could not =
help
it. They always seemed to be implying something slighting or scathing. They
were always putting her in the wrong and hurting her feelings.
The day was damp and chill, but she put on=
her
hat and ran out into the park. She went down the avenue and turned into a
coppice. There, among the wet bracken, she sank down on the mossy trunk of a
fallen tree and huddled herself in a small heap, her head on her arms, actu=
ally
wailing.
"Oh, mother! Oh, mother!" she cr=
ied
hysterically. "Oh, I do wish you would come. I'm so cold, mother; I'm =
so
ill! I can't bear it! It seems as if you'd forgotten all about me! You're a=
ll
so happy in
It was a month later that through the vica=
r's
wife she reached a discovery and a climax. She had heard one morning from t=
his
lady of a misfortune which had befallen a small farmer. It was a misfortune
which was an actual catastrophe to a man in his position. His house had cau=
ght fire
during a gale of wind and the fire had spread to the outbuildings and ricky=
ard
and swept away all his belongings, his house, his furniture, his hayricks, =
and
stored grain, and even his few cows and horses. He had been a poor,
hard-working fellow, and his small insurance had lapsed the day before the
fire. He was absolutely ruined, and with his wife and six children stood fa=
ce
to face with beggary and starvation.
Rosalie Anstruthers entered the vicarage to
find the poor woman who was his companion in calamity sobbing in the hall. A
child of a few weeks was in her arms, and two small creatures clung crying =
to
her skirts.
"We've worked hard," she wept;
"we have, ma'am. Father, he's always been steady, an' up early an' lat=
e.
P'r'aps it's the Lord's 'and, as you say, ma'am, but we've been decent peop=
le
an' never missed church when we could 'elp it--father didn't deserve it--th=
at
he didn't."
She was heartbroken in her downtrodden
hopelessness. Rosalie literally quaked with sympathy. She poured forth her =
pity
in such words as the poor woman had never heard spoken by a great lady to a
humble creature like herself. The villagers found the new Lady Anstruthers'
interviews with them curiously simple and suggestive of an equality they co=
uld not
understand. Stornham was a conservative old village, where the distinction
between the gentry and the peasants was clearly marked. The cottagers were
puzzled by Sir Nigel's wife, but they decided that she was kind, if unusual=
.
As Rosalie talked to the farmer's wife she
longed for her father's presence. She had remembered a time when a man in h=
is
employ had lost his all by fire, the small house he had just made his last
payment upon having been burned to the ground. He had lost one of his child=
ren
in the fire, and the details had been heartrending. The entire Vanderpoel h=
ousehold
had wept on hearing them, and Mr. Vanderpoel had drawn a cheque which had
seemed like a fortune to the sufferer. A new house had been bought, and Mrs=
. Vanderpoel
and her daughters and friends had bestowed furniture and clothing enough to
make the family comfortable to the verge of luxury.
"See, you poor thing," said Rosa=
lie,
glowing with memories of this incident, her homesick young soul comforted by
the mere likeness in the two calamities. "I brought my cheque book wit=
h me
because I meant to help you. A man worked for my father had his house burne=
d,
just as yours was, and my father made everything all right for him again. I=
'll
make it all right for you; I'll make you a cheque for a hundred pounds now,=
and
then when your husband begins to build I'll give him some more."
The woman gasped for breath and turned pal=
e.
She was frightened. It really seemed as if her ladyship must have lost her =
wits
a little. She could not mean this. The vicaress turned pale also.
"Lady Anstruthers," she said,
"Lady Anstruthers, it--it is too much. Sir Nigel----"
"Too much!" exclaimed Rosalie.
"They have lost everything, you know; their hayricks and cattle as wel=
l as
their house; I guess it won't be half enough."
Mrs. Brent dragged her into the vicar's st=
udy
and talked to her. She tried to explain that in English villages such things
were not done in a manner so casual, as if they were the mere result of
unconsidered feeling, as if they were quite natural things, such as any hum=
an
person might do. When Rosalie cried: "But why not--why not? They ought=
to
be." Mrs. Brent could not seem to make herself quite clear. Rosalie on=
ly gathered
in a bewildered way that there ought to be more ceremony, more deliberation,
more holding off, before a person of rank indulged in such munificence. The
recipient ought to be made to feel it more, to understand fully what a great
thing was being done.
"They will think you will do anything=
for
them."
"So I will," said young Lady
Anstruthers, "if I have the money when they are in such awful trouble.
Suppose we lost everything in the world and there were people who could eas=
ily
help us and wouldn't?"
"You and Sir Nigel--that is quite
different," said Mrs. Brent. "I am afraid that if you do not disc=
uss
the matter and ask advice from your husband and mother-in-law they will be =
very
much offended."
"If I were doing it with their money =
they
would have the right to be," replied Rosalie, with entire ingenuousnes=
s.
"I wouldn't presume to do such a thing as that. That wouldn't be right=
, of
course."
"They will be angry with me," sa=
id
the vicaress awkwardly. This queer, silly girl, who seemed to see nothing in
the right light, frequently made her feel awkward. Mrs. Brent told her husb=
and
that she appeared to have no sense of dignity or proper appreciation of her
position.
The wife of the farmer, John Wilson, carri=
ed
away the cheque, quite stunned. She was breathless with amazement and turned
rather faint with excitement, bewilderment and her sense of relief. She had=
to
sit down in the vicarage kitchen for a few minutes and drink a glass of the
thin vicarage beer.
Rosalie promised that she would discuss the
matter and ask advice when she returned to the Court. Just as she left the
house Mrs. Brent suddenly remembered something she had forgotten.
"The
When she saw the letter Rosalie uttered an
exclamation. It was addressed in her father's handwriting.
"Oh!" she cried. "It's from
father! And the postmark is Havre. What does it mean?"
She was so excited that she almost forgot =
to
express her thanks. Her heart leaped up in her throat. Could they have come
over from
She walked along the road choked with
ecstatic, laughing sobs. Her hand shook so that she could scarcely tear open
the envelope; she tore a corner of the letter, and when the sheet was spread
open her eyes were full of wild, delighted tears, which made it impossible =
for
her to see for the moment. But she swept the tears away and read this:
DEAR
DAUGHTER:
It seems as if we had had pretty bad luck =
in
not seeing you. We had counted on it very much, and your mother feels it all
the more because she is weak after her illness. We don't quite understand w=
hy
you did not seem to know about her having had diphtheria in
Your affectionate father,
REUBEN L. VANDERPOEL.
Rosalie
found herself running breathlessly up the avenue. She was clutching the let=
ter
still in her hand, and staggering from side to side. Now and then she utter=
ed
horrible little short cries, like an animal's. She ran and ran, seeing noth=
ing,
and now and then with the clenched hand in which the letter was crushed
striking a sharp blow at her breast.
She stumbled up the big stone steps she had
mounted on the day she was brought home as a bride. Her dress caught her fe=
et
and she fell on her knees and scrambled up again, gasping; she dashed across
the huge dark hall, and, hurling herself against the door of the morning ro=
om, appeared,
dishevelled, haggard-eyed, and with scarlet patches on her wild, white face,
before the Dowager, who started angrily to her feet:
"Where is Nigel? Where is Nigel?"
she cried out frenziedly.
"What in heaven's name do you mean by
such manners?" demanded her ladyship. "Apologise at once!"
"Where is Nigel? Nigel! Nigel!" =
the
girl raved. "I will see him--I will--I will see him!"
She who had been the mildest of sweet-temp=
ered
creatures all her life had suddenly gone almost insane with heartbroken,
hysteric grief and rage. She did not know what she was saying and doing; she
only realised in an agony of despair that she was a thing caught in a trap;
that these people had her in their power, and that they had tricked and lie=
d to
her and kept her apart from what her girl's heart so cried out to and longe=
d for.
Her father, her mother, her little sister; they had been near her and had b=
een
lied to and sent away.
"You are quite mad, you violent,
uncontrolled creature!" cried the Dowager furiously. "You ought t=
o be
put in a straitjacket and drenched with cold water."
Then the door opened again and Nigel strode
in. He was in riding dress and was breathless and livid with anger. He was =
in a
nice mood to confront a wife on the verge of screaming hysterics. After a b=
ad
half hour with his steward, who had been talking of impending disasters, he=
had
heard by chance of
"Here is your wife raving mad,"
cried out his mother.
Rosalie staggered across the room to him. =
She
held up her hand clenching the letter and shook it at him.
"My mother and father have been
here," she shrieked. My mother has been ill. They wanted to come to see
me. You knew and you kept it from me. You told my father lies--lies--hideous
lies! You said I was away in
He looked at her with glaring eyes. If a m=
an
born a gentleman is ever in the mood to kick his wife to death, as
costermongers do, he was in that mood. He had lost control over himself as
completely as she had, and while she was only a desperate, hysteric girl, he
was a violent man.
"I did it because I did not mean to h=
ave
them here," he said. "I did it because I won't have them here.&qu=
ot;
"They shall come," she quavered
shrilly in her wildness. "They shall come to see me. They are my own
father and mother, and I will have them."
He caught her arm in such a grip that she =
must
have thought he would break it, if she could have thought or felt anything.=
"No, you will not have them," he
ground forth between his teeth. "You will do as I order you and learn =
to
behave yourself as a decent married woman should. You will learn to obey yo=
ur
husband and respect his wishes and control your devilish American temper.&q=
uot;
"They have gone--gone!" wailed
Rosalie. "You sent them away! My father, my mother, my sister!"
"Stop your indecent ravings!"
ordered Sir Nigel, shaking her. "I will not submit to be disgraced bef=
ore
the servants."
"Put your hand over her mouth,
Nigel," cried his mother. "The very scullery maids will hear.&quo=
t;
She was as infuriated as her son. And, ind=
eed,
to behold civilised human beings in the state of uncontrolled violence these
three had reached was a sight to shudder at.
"I won't stop," cried the girl.
"Why did you take me away from everything--I was quite happy. Everybody
was kind to me. I loved people, I had everything. No one ever--ever--ever
ill-used anyone----"
Sir Nigel clutched her arm more brutally s=
till
and shook her with absolute violence. Her hair broke loose and fell about h=
er
awful little distorted, sobbing face.
"I did not take you to give you an
opportunity to display your vulgar ostentation by throwing away hundred-pou=
nd
cheques to villagers," he said. "I didn't take you to give you the
position of a lady and be made a fool of by you."
"You have ruined him," burst for=
th
his mother. "You have put it out of his power to marry an Englishwoman=
who
would have known it was her duty to give something in return for his name a=
nd
protection."
Her ladyship had begun to rave also, and as
mother and son were of equal violence when they had ceased to control
themselves, Rosalie began to find herself enlightened unsparingly. She and =
her
people were vulgar sharpers. They had trapped a gentleman into a low Americ=
an
marriage and had not the decency to pay for what they had got. If she had b=
een
an Englishwoman, well born, and of decent breeding, all her fortune would h=
ave
been properly transferred to her husband and he would have had the dispensi=
ng
of it. Her husband would have been in the position to control her expenditu=
re
and see that she did not make a fool of herself. As it was she was the deri=
sion
of all decent people, of all people who had been properly brought up and kn=
ew
what was in good taste and of good morality.
First it was the Dowager who poured forth,=
and
then it was Sir Nigel. They broke in on each other, they interrupted one
another with exclamations and interpolations. They had so far lost themselv=
es
that they did not know they became grotesque in the violence of their fury.=
Rosalie's
brain whirled. Her hysteria mounted and mounted. She stared first at one and
then at the other, gasping and sobbing by turns; she swayed on her feet and
clutched at a chair.
"I did not know," she broke fort=
h at
last, trying to make her voice heard in the storm. "I never understood=
. I
knew something made you hate me, but I didn't know you were angry about
money." She laughed tremulously and wildly. "I would have given i=
t to
you--father would have given you some--if you had been good to me." The
laugh became hysterical beyond her management. Peal after peal broke from h=
er,
she shook all over with her ghastly merriment, sobbing at one and the same
time.
"Oh! oh! oh!" she shrieked.
"You see, I thought you were so aristocratic. I wouldn't have dared to
think of such a thing. I thought an English gentleman--an English
gentleman--oh! oh! to think it was all because I did not give you money--ju=
st
common dollars and cents that--that I daren't offer to a decent American who
could work for himself."
Sir Nigel sprang at her. He struck her with
his open hand upon the cheek, and as she reeled she held up her small,
feverish, shaking hand, laughing more wildly than before.
"You ought not to strike me," she
cried. "You oughtn't! You don't know how valuable I am. Perhaps----&qu=
ot;
with a little, crazy scream--"perhaps I might have a son."
She fell in a shuddering heap, and as she
dropped she struck heavily against the protruding end of an oak chest and l=
ay
upon the floor, her arms flung out and limp, as if she were a dead thing.
CHAPTER V - ON BOTH SIDES OF THE =
span>
In the course of twelve years the Shuttle =
had
woven steadily and--its movements lubricated by time and custom--with
increasing rapidity. Threads of commerce it caught up and shot to and fro, =
with
threads of literature and art, threads of life drawn from one shore to the
other and back again, until they were bound in the fabric of its weaving. C=
oldness
there had been between both lands, broad divergence of taste and thought,
argument across seas, sometimes resentment, but the web in Fate's hands
broadened and strengthened and held fast. Coldness faintly warmed despite
itself, taste and thought drawn into nearer contact, reflecting upon their
divergences, grew into tolerance and the knowledge that the diverging, seen
more clearly, was not so broad; argument coming within speaking distance
reasoned itself to logical and practical conclusions. Problems which had
stirred anger began to find solutions. Books, in the first place, did perha=
ps
more than all else. Cheap, pirated editions of English works, much quarrell=
ed
over by authors and publishers, being scattered over the land, brought befo=
re
American eyes soft, home-like pictures of places which were, after all was =
said
and done, the homes of those who read of them, at least in the sense of hav=
ing
been the birthplaces of fathers or grandfathers. Some subtle, far-reaching
power of nature caused a stirring of the blood, a vague, unexpressed yearni=
ng
and lingering over pages which depicted sweet, green lanes, broad acres rich
with centuries of nourishment and care; grey church towers, red roofs, and
village children playing before cottage doors. None of these things were ne=
w to
those who pondered over them, kinsmen had dwelt on memories of them in their
fireside talk, and their children had seen them in fancy and in dreams. Old
grievances having had time to fade away and take on less poignant colour, t=
he stirring
of the blood stirred also imaginations, and wakened something akin to
homesickness, though no man called the feeling by its name. And this, perha=
ps,
was the strongest cord the Shuttle wove and was the true meaning of its pow=
er.
Being drawn by it, Americans in increasing numbers turned their faces towar=
ds
the older land. Gradually it was discovered that it was the simplest affair=
in
the world to drive down to the wharves and take a steamer which landed one,
after a more or less interesting voyage, in
In the course of twelve years, a length of
time which will transform a little girl wearing a short frock into a young
woman wearing a long one, the pace of life and the ordering of society may
become so altered as to appear amazing when one finds time to reflect on the
subject. But one does not often find time. Changes occur so gradually that =
one
scarcely observes them, or so swiftly that they take the form of a kind of
amazed shock which one gets over as quickly as one experiences it and reali=
ses that
its cause is already a fixed fact.
In the
International marriages ceased to be a
novelty. As Bettina Vanderpoel grew up, she grew up, so to speak, in the mi=
dst
of them. She saw her country, its people, its newspapers, its literature,
innocently rejoiced by the alliances its charming young women contracted wi=
th
foreign rank. She saw it affectionately, gleefully, rubbing its hands over =
its duchesses,
its countesses, its miladies. The American Eagle spread its wings and flapp=
ed
them sometimes a trifle, over this new but so natural and inevitable triump=
h of
its virgins. It was of course only "American" that such things sh=
ould
happen.
She was, however, of an unusually observing
mind, even as a child, and the time came when she realised that the national
bird spread its wings less proudly when the subject of international matches
was touched upon, and even at such times showed signs of restlessness. Now =
and
then things had not turned out as they appeared to promise; two or three
seemingly brilliant unions had resulted in disaster. She had not understood=
all
the details the newspapers cheerfully provided, but it was clear to her that
more than one previously envied young woman had had practical reasons for
discovering that she had made an astonishingly bad bargain. This being the
case, she used frequently to ponder over the case of Rosy--Rosy! who had be=
en
swept away from them and swallowed up, as it seemed, by that other and older
world. She was in certain ways a silent child, and no one but herself knew =
how
little she had forgotten Rosy, how often she pondered over her, how sometim=
es
she had lain awake in the night and puzzled out lines of argument concernin=
g her
and things which might be true.
The one grief of poor Mrs. Vanderpoel's li=
fe
had been the apparent estrangement of her eldest child. After her first six
months in
"If she had been living in
Betty had frowned a good deal and thought
intensely in secret. She did not believe that Rosy was ashamed of her
relations. She remembered, however, it is true, that Clara Newell (who had =
been
a schoolmate) had become very super-fine and indifferent to her family after
her marriage to an aristocratic and learned German. Hers had been one of th=
e successful
alliances, and after living a few years in
"But Clara always was a conceited
girl," thought Betty. "She was always patronising people, and Rosy
was only pretty and sweet. She always said herself that she had no brains. =
But
she had a heart."
After the lapse of a few years there had b=
een
no further discussion of plans for visiting Stornham. Rosalie had become so
remote as to appear almost unreachable. She had been presented at Court, she
had had three children, the Dowager Lady Anstruthers had died. Once she had
written to her father to ask for a large sum of money, which he had sent to=
her,
because she seemed to want it very much. She required it to pay off certain
debts on the estate and spoke touchingly of her boy who would inherit.
"He is a delicate boy, father," =
she
wrote, "and I don't want the estate to come to him burdened."
When she received the money she wrote
gratefully of the generosity shown her, but she spoke very vaguely of the
prospect of their seeing each other in the future. It was as if she felt her
own remoteness even more than they felt it themselves.
In the meantime Bettina had been taken to =
Betty Vanderpoel knew nothing which was not
American, and only vaguely a few things which were not of
But hers was a mentality by no means ordin=
ary.
Inheritance in her nature had combined with circumstances, as it has a habi=
t of
doing in all human beings. But in her case the combinations were unusual and
produced a result somewhat remarkable. The quality of brains which, in the
first Reuben Vanderpoel had expressed itself in the marvellously successful=
planning
and carrying to their ends of commercial and financial schemes, the absolute
genius of penetration and calculation of the sordid and uneducated little
trader in skins and barterer of goods, having filtered through two generati=
ons
of gradual education and refinement of existence, which was no longer that =
of
the mere trader, had been transformed in the great-granddaughter into keen,
clear sight, level-headed perceptiveness and a logical sense of values. As =
the
first Reuben had known by instinct the values of pelts and lands, Bettina k=
new
by instinct the values of qualities, of brains, of hearts, of circumstances,
and the incidents which affect them. She was as unaware of the significance=
of
her great possession as were those around her. Nevertheless it was an unerr=
ing
thing. As a mere child, unformed and uneducated by life, she had not been o=
ne
of the small creatures to be deceived or flattered.
"She's an awfully smart little thing,
that Betty," her
As has been already intimated, the child w=
as
crude enough and not particularly well bred, but her small brain had always
been at work, and each day of her life recorded for her valuable impression=
s.
The page of her young mind had ceased to be a blank much earlier than is us=
ual.
The comparing of these impressions with su=
ch
as she received when her life in the French school was new afforded her act=
ive
mental exercise.
She began with natural, secret indignation=
and
rebellion. There was no other American pupil in the establishment besides
herself. But for the fact that the name of Vanderpoel represented wealth so
enormous as to amount to a sort of rank in itself, Bettina would not have b=
een received.
The proprietress of the institution had gravely disquieting doubts of the
propriety of
If she had not so loved it, if she had ever
dreamed of the existence of any other place as being absolutely necessary, =
she
would not have felt the thing so bitterly. But it seemed to her that all th=
ese
amiable diatribes in exquisite French were directed at her
Among her fellow pensionnaires she met with
discomforting illuminations, which were fine discipline also, though if she
herself had been a less intellectual creature they might have been embitter=
ing.
Without doubt Betty, even at twelve years, was intellectual. Hers was the
practical working intellect which begins duty at birth and does not lay down
its tools because the sun sets. The little and big girls who wrote their ex=
ercises
at her side did not deliberately enlighten her, but she learned from them in
vague ways that it was not New York which was the centre of the earth, but
Paris, or Berlin, Madrid, London, or Rome.
She felt so scornfully, so disgustedly
indignant at their benighted ignorance, that she knew she behaved very well=
in
saying so little in reply. She could have said so much, but whatsoever she =
had
said would have conveyed nothing to them, so she thought it all out alone. =
She went
over the whole ground and little realised how much she was teaching herself=
as
she turned and tossed in her narrow, spotlessly white bed at night, arguing,
comparing, drawing deductions from what she knew and did not know of the two
continents. Her childish anger, combining itself with the practical, alert
brain of Reuben Vanderpoel the first, developed in her a logical reasoning
power which led her to arrive at many an excellent and curiously mature
conclusion. The result was finely educational. All the more so that in her
fevered desire for justification of the things she loved, she began to read
books such as little girls do not usually take interest in. She found some
difficulty in obtaining them at first, but a letter or two written to her
father obtained for her permission to read what she chose. The third Reuben=
Vanderpoel
was deeply fond of his younger daughter, and felt in secret a profound
admiration for her, which was saved from becoming too obvious by the ever
present American sense of humour.
"Betty seems to be going in for polit=
ics,"
he said after reading the letter containing her request and her first list =
of
books. "She's about as mad as she can be at the ignorance of the French
girls about
It was no doubt her understanding of the p=
ower
of facts which led her to learn everything well and to develop in many
directions. She began to dip into political and historical volumes because =
she
was furious, and wished to be able to refute idiocy, but she found herself
continuing to read because she was interested in a way she had not expected.
She began to see things. Once she made a remark which was prophetic. She ma=
de it
in answer to a guileless observation concerning the gold mines with which <=
st1:City
w:st=3D"on">
"You don't know anything about
"Do you think it will become the fash=
ion
to travel in
"Perhaps," said Betty. "But=
--it
isn't so much that you will go to
She laughed as she ended, and so did the o=
ther
girls. But in ten years' time, when they were young women, some of them
married, some of them court beauties, one of them recalled this speech to
another, whom she encountered in an important house in St. Petersburg, the =
wife
of the celebrated diplomat who was its owner being an American woman.
Bettina Vanderpoel's education was a rather
fine thing. She herself had more to do with it than girls usually have to do
with their own training. In a few months' time those in authority in the Fr=
ench
school found that it was not necessary to supervise and expurgate her. She =
learned
with an interested rapacity which was at once unusual and amazing. And she
evidently did not learn from books alone. Her voice, as an organ, had been
musical and full from babyhood. It began to modulate itself and to express
things most voices are incapable of expressing. She had been so built by na=
ture
that the carriage of her head and limbs was good to behold. She acquired a
harmony of movement which caused her to lose no shade of grace and spirit. =
Her
eyes were full of thought, of speculation, and intentness.
"She thinks a great deal for one so
young," was said of her frequently by one or the other of her teachers.
One finally went further and added, "She has genius."
This was true. She had genius, but it was =
not
specialised. It was not genius which expressed itself through any one art. =
It
was a genius for life, for living herself, for aiding others to live, for
vivifying mere existence. She herself was, however, aware only of an eagern=
ess of
temperament, a passion for seeing, doing, and gaining knowledge. Everything
interested her, everybody was suggestive and more or less enlightening.
Her relatives thought her original in her
fancies. They called them fancies because she was so young. Fortunately for
her, there was no reason why she should not be gratified. Most girls prefer=
red
to spend their holidays on the Continent. She elected to return to
"It makes me like both places more,&q=
uot;
she said to her father when she was thirteen. "It makes me see
things."
Her father discovered that she saw everyth=
ing.
She was the pleasure of his life. He was attracted greatly by the interest =
she
exhibited in all orders of things. He saw her make bold, ingenuous plunges =
into
all waters, without any apparent consciousness that the scraps of knowledge=
she
brought to the surface were unusual possessions for a schoolgirl. She had y=
oung
views on the politics and commerce of different countries, as she had views=
on
their literature. When Reuben Vanderpoel swooped across the American contin=
ent
on journeys of thousands of miles, taking her as a companion, he discovered
that he actually placed a sort of confidence in her summing up of men and
schemes. He took her to see mines and railroads and those who worked them, =
and
he talked them over with her afterward, half with a sense of humour, half w=
ith
a sense of finding comfort in her intelligent comprehension of all he said.=
She enjoyed herself immensely and gained a
strong picturesqueness of character. After an American holiday she used to
return to
"I am gradually changing into a French
girl," she wrote to her father. "One morning I found I was thinki=
ng
it would be nice to go into a convent, and another day I almost entirely ag=
reed
with one of the girls who was declaiming against her brother who had fallen=
in
love with a Californian. You had better take me away and send me to
Reuben Vanderpoel laughed. He understood B=
etty
much better than most of her relations did. He knew when seriousness underl=
ay
her jests and his respect for her seriousness was great. He sent her to sch=
ool
in
"I wonder if you ever saw my cousin G=
aston,"
a French girl once asked her as they sat at their desks. "He became ve=
ry
poor through ill living. He was quite without money and he went to
"To
"I am not sure. The town is called
"That is not in the
She dragged her atlas towards her and found
the place.
"See," she said. "It is
thousands of miles from
"Yes, they are at a great distance fr=
om
one another," she admitted, "but they are both in
"But not both in the
"Yes," said the slow girl with
deliberation. "We do make odd mistakes sometimes." To which she a=
dded
with entire innocence of any ironic intention. "But you Americans, you
seem to feel the
Betty started a little and flushed. During=
a
few minutes of rapid reflection she sat bolt upright at her desk and looked
straight before her. Her mentality was of the order which is capable of mak=
ing discoveries
concerning itself as well as concerning others. She had never thought of th=
is
view of the matter before, but it was quite true. To passionate young patri=
ots
such as herself at least, that portion of the map covered by the
Because she thought so often of Rosalie, h=
er
attention was, during the passing years, naturally attracted by the many th=
ings
she heard of such marriages as were made by Americans with men of other
countries than their own. She discovered that notwithstanding certain
commercial views of matrimony, all foreigners who united themselves with
American heiresses were not the entire brutes primitive prejudice might lea=
d one
to imagine. There were rather one-sided alliances which proved themselves f=
ar
from happy. The Cousin Gaston, for instance, brought home a bride whose for=
tune
rebuilt and refurnished his dilapidated chateau and who ended by making of =
him
a well-behaved and cheery country gentleman not at all to be despised in his
amiable, if light-minded good nature and good spirits. His wife, fortunatel=
y,
was not a young woman who yearned for sentiment. She was a nice-tempered,
practical American girl, who adored French country life and knew how to amu=
se
and manage her husband. It was a genial sort of menage and yet though this =
was
an undeniable fact, Bettina observed that when the union was spoken of it w=
as
always referred to with a certain tone which conveyed that though one did n=
ot
exactly complain of its having been undesirable, it was not quite what Gast=
on
might have expected. His wife had money and was good-natured, but there were
limitations to one's appreciation of a marriage in which husband and wife w=
ere not
on the same plane.
"She is an excellent person, and it h=
as
been good for Gaston," said Bettina's friend. "We like her, but s=
he
is not--she is not----" She paused there, evidently seeing that the re=
mark
was unlucky. Bettina, who was still in short frocks, took her up.
"What is she not?" she asked.
"Ah!--it is difficult to explain--to
Americans. It is really not exactly a fault. But she is not of his world.&q=
uot;
"But if he does not like that," =
said
Bettina coolly, "why did he let her buy him and pay for him?"
It was young and brutal, but there were ti=
mes
when the business perspicuity of the first Reuben Vanderpoel, combining with
the fiery, wounded spirit of his young descendant, rendered Bettina brutal.=
She
saw certain unadorned facts with unsparing young eyes and wanted to state t=
hem.
After her frocks were lengthened, she learned how to state them with more
fineness of phrase, but even then she was sometimes still rather unsparing.=
In this case her companion, who was not fi=
ery
of temperament, only coloured slightly.
"It was not quite that," she
answered. "Gaston really is fond of her. She amuses him, and he says s=
he
is far cleverer than he is."
But there were unions less satisfactory, a=
nd
Bettina had opportunities to reflect upon these also. The English and
Continental papers did not give enthusiastic, detailed descriptions of the
marriages
"It was time Ludlow
Bettina told the story to her father when =
they
next met. She had grown into a tall young creature by this time. Her low, f=
ull
voice was like a bell and was capable of ringing forth some fine, mellow to=
nes
of irony.
"And in
"No, Betty," said her father, and
his reflective deliberation had meaning. "There are a lot of us who do=
n't
plume ourselves particularly in these days. We are not as innocent as we we=
re
when this sort of thing began. We are not as innocent as we were when Rosy =
was
married." And he sighed and rubbed his forehead with the handle of his
pen. "Not as innocent as we were when Rosy was married," he repea=
ted.
Bettina went to him and slid her fine young
arm round his neck. It was a long, slim, round arm with a wonderful power to
caress in its curves. She kissed Vanderpoel's lined cheek.
"Have you had time to think much about
Rosy?" she said.
"I've not had time, but I've done
it," he answered. "Anything that hurts your mother hurts me.
Sometimes she begins to cry in her sleep, and when I wake her she tells me =
she
has been dreaming that she has seen Rosy."
"I have had time to think of her,&quo=
t;
said Bettina. "I have heard so much of these things. I was at school i=
n
She laughed a little, and for a moment her
laugh did not sound like a girl's.
"Well, it's turned out badly
enough," her father commented. "The papers had plenty to say abou=
t it
later. There wasn't much he was too good to do to his wife, apparently.&quo=
t;
"There was nothing too bad for him to=
do
before he had a wife," said Bettina. "He was black. It was an
insolence that he should have dared to speak to Annie Butterfield. Somebody
ought to have beaten him."
"He beat her instead."
"Yes, and I think his family thought =
it
quite natural. They said that she was so vulgar and American that she
exasperated
There was interested curiosity in Vanderpo=
el's
steady look at her. There were times when he felt that Betty's summing up of
things was well worth listening to. He saw that now she was in one of her m=
oods
when it would pay one to hear her out. She held her chin up a little, and h=
er
face took on a fine stillness at once sweet and unrelenting. She was very g=
ood
to look at in such moments.
"Yes," he answered, "you ha=
ve a
particularly level head for a girl."
"Well," she went on. "What I
see is that these things are not business, and they ought to be. If a man c=
omes
to a rich American girl and says, 'I and my title are for sale. Will you buy
us?' If the girl is--is that kind of a girl and wants that kind of man, she=
can
look them both over and say, 'Yes, I will buy you,' and it can be arranged.=
He
will not return the money if he is unsatisfactory, but she cannot complain =
that
she has been deceived. She can only complain of that when he pretends that =
he
asks her to marry him because he wants her for his wife, because he would w=
ant
her for his wife if she were as poor as himself. Let it be understood that =
he
is property for sale, let her make sure that he is the kind of property she
wants to buy. Then, if, when they are married, he is brutal or impudent, or=
his
people are brutal or impudent, she can say, 'I will forfeit the purchase mo=
ney,
but I will not forfeit myself. I will not stay with you.'"
"They would not like to hear you say
that, Betty," said her father, rubbing his chin reflectively.
"No," she answered. "Neither
the girl nor the man would like it, and it is their business, not mine. But=
it
is practical and would prevent silly mistakes. It would prevent the girls b=
eing
laughed at. It is when they are flattered by the choice made of them that t=
hey
are laughed at. No one can sneer at a man or woman for buying what they thi=
nk
they want, and throwing it aside if it turns out a bad bargain."
She had seated herself near her father. She
rested her elbow slightly on the table and her chin in the hollow of her ha=
nd.
She was a beautiful young creature. She had a soft curving mouth, and a soft
curving cheek which was warm rose. Taken in conjunction with those young
charms, her next words had an air of incongruity.
"You think I am hard," she said.
"When I think of these things I am hard--as hard as nails. That is an
Americanism, but it is a good expression. I am angry for
She did not smile, nor did her father. Mr.
Vanderpoel, on the contrary, sighed. He had a dreary suspicion that Rosy, at
least, had not received what she had paid for, and he knew she had not been=
in
the least aware that she had paid or that she was expected to do so. Several
times during the last few years he had thought that if he had not been so h=
ard worked,
if he had had time, he would have seriously investigated the case of Rosy. =
But who
is not aware that the profession of multimillionaire does not allow of any
swerving from duty or of any interests requiring leisure?
"I wonder, Betty," he said quite
deliberately, "if you know how handsome you are?"
"Yes," answered Bettina. "I
think so. And I am tall. It is the fashion to be tall now. It was Early
Victorian to be little. The Queen brought in the 'dear little woman,' and n=
ow
the type has gone out."
"They will come to look at you pretty
soon," said Vanderpoel. "What shall you say then?"
"I?" said Bettina, and her voice
sounded particularly low and mellow. "I have a little monomania, fathe=
r.
Some people have a monomania for one thing and some for another. Mine is for
NOT taking a bargain from the ducal remnant counter."
CHAPTER VI - AN UNFAIR ENDOWMENT
To Bettina Vanderpoel had been given, to an
extraordinary extent, the extraordinary thing which is called beauty--which=
is
a thing entirely set apart from mere good looks or prettiness. This thing is
extraordinary because, if statistics were taken, the result would probably =
be
the discovery that not three human beings in a million really possess it. T=
hat
it should be bestowed at all--since it is so rare--seems as unfair a thing =
as
appears to the mere mortal mind the bestowal of unbounded wealth, since it
quite as inevitably places the life of its owner upon an abnormal plane. Th=
ere
are millions of pretty women, and billions of personable men, but the man or
woman of entire physical beauty may cross one's pathway only once in a
lifetime--or not at all. In the latter case it is natural to doubt the abso=
lute
truth of the rumours that the thing exists. The abnormal creature seems a m=
ere freak
of nature and may chance to be angel, criminal, total insipidity, virago or
enchanter, but let such an one enter a room or appear in the street, and he=
ads
must turn, eyes light and follow, souls yearn or envy, or sink under the
discouragement of comparison. With the complete harmony and perfect balance=
of
the singular thing, it would be folly for the rest of the world to compete.=
A
human being who had lived in poverty for half a lifetime, might, if suddenly
endowed with limitless fortune, retain, to a certain extent, balance of min=
d;
but the same creature having lived the same number of years a wholly unlove=
ly
thing, suddenly awakening to the possession of entire physical beauty, might
find the strain upon pure sanity greater and the balance less easy to prese=
rve.
The relief from the conscious or unconscious tension bred by the sense of
imperfection, the calm surety of the fearlessness of meeting in any eye a l=
ook
not lighted by pleasure, would be less normal than the knowledge that no wi=
sh
need remain unfulfilled, no fancy ungratified. Even at sixteen Betty was a
long-limbed young nymph whose small head, set high on a fine slim column of
throat, might well have been crowned with the garland of some goddess of he=
alth
and the joy of life. She was light and swift, and being a creature of long
lines and tender curves, there was pleasure in the mere seeing her move. The
cut of her spirited lip, and delicate nostril, made for a profile at which =
one
turned to look more than once, despite one's self. Her hair was soft and bl=
ack
and repeated its colour in the extravagant lashes of her childhood, which m=
ade
mysterious the changeful dense blue of her eyes. They were eyes with laught=
er
in them and pride, and a suggestion of many deep things yet unstirred. She =
was
rather unusually tall, and her body had the suppleness of a young bamboo. T=
he
deep corners of her red mouth curled generously, and the chin, melting into=
the
fine line of the lovely throat, was at once strong and soft and lovely. She=
was
a creature of harmony, warm richness of colour, and brilliantly alluring li=
fe.
When her school days were over she returne=
d to
"I wonder what Rosy looks like now,&q=
uot;
the poor woman said involuntarily one day. Bettina was not a fairy. When her
mother uttered her exclamation Bettina was on the point of going out, and as
she stood near her, wrapped in splendid furs, she had the air of a Russian
princess.
"She could not have worn the things y=
ou
do, Betty," said the affectionate maternal creature. "She was suc=
h a
little, slight thing. But she was very pretty. I wonder if twelve years have
changed her much?"
Betty turned towards her rather suddenly.<= o:p>
"Mother," she said, "someti=
me,
before very long, I am going to see."
"To see!" exclaimed Mrs. Vanderp=
oel.
"To see Rosy!"
"Yes," Betty answered. "I h=
ave
a plan. I have never told you of it, but I have been thinking over it ever
since I was fifteen years old."
She went to her mother and kissed her. She
wore a becoming but resolute expression.
"We will not talk about it now,"=
she
said. "There are some things I must find out."
When she had left the room, which she did
almost immediately, Mrs. Vanderpoel sat down and cried. She nearly always s=
hed
a few tears when anyone touched upon the subject of Rosy. On her desk were =
some
photographs. One was of Rosy as a little girl with long hair, one was of La=
dy
Anstruthers in her wedding dress, and one was of Sir Nigel.
"I never felt as if I quite liked
him," she said, looking at this last, "but I suppose she does, or=
she
would not be so happy that she could forget her mother and sister."
There was another picture she looked at.
Rosalie had sent it with the letter she wrote to her father after he had
forwarded the money she asked for. It was a little study in water colours of
the head of her boy. It was nothing but a head, the shoulders being fancifu=
lly
draped, but the face was a peculiar one. It was over-mature, and unlovely, =
but for
a mouth at once pathetic and sweet.
"He is not a pretty child," sigh=
ed
Mrs. Vanderpoel. "I should have thought Rosy would have had pretty bab=
ies.
Ughtred is more like his father than his mother."
She spoke to her husband later, of what Be=
tty
had said.
"What do you think she has in her min=
d,
Reuben?" she asked.
"What Betty has in her mind is usually
good sense," was his response. "She will begin to talk to me abou=
t it
presently. I shall not ask questions yet. She is probably thinking: things
over."
She was, in truth, thinking things over, as
she had been doing for some time. She had asked questions on several occasi=
ons
of English people she had met abroad. But a schoolgirl cannot ask many
questions, and though she had once met someone who knew Sir Nigel Anstruthe=
rs,
it was a person who did not know him well, for the reason that she had not
desired to increase her slight acquaintance. This lady was the aunt of one =
of
Bettina's fellow pupils, and she was not aware of the girl's relationship to
Sir Nigel. What Betty gathered was that her brother-in-law was regarded as a
decidedly bad lot, that since his marriage to some American girl he had see=
med
to have money which he spent in riotous living, and that the wife, who was =
said
to be a silly creature, was kept in the country, either because her husband=
did
not want her in London, or because she preferred to stay at Stornham. About=
the
wife no one appeared to know anything, in fact.
"She is rather a fool, I believe, and=
Sir
Nigel Anstruthers is the kind of man a simpleton would be obliged to submit
to," Bettina had heard the lady say.
Her own reflections upon these comments had
led her through various paths of thought. She could recall Rosalie's girlho=
od,
and what she herself, as an unconsciously observing child, had known of her=
character.
She remembered the simple impressionability of her mind. She had been the m=
ost
amenable little creature in the world. Her yielding amiability could always=
be
counted upon as a factor by the calculating; sweet-tempered to weakness, she
could be beguiled or distressed into any course the desires of others dicta=
ted.
An ill-tempered or self-pitying person could alter any line of conduct she
herself wished to pursue.
"She was neither clever nor
strong-minded," Betty said to herself. "A man like Sir Nigel
Anstruthers could make what he chose of her. I wonder what he has done to
her?"
Of one thing she thought she was sure. This was that Rosalie's aloofness from her family was the result of his design.<= o:p>
She comprehended, in her maturer years, the
dislike of her childhood. She remembered a certain look in his face which s=
he
had detested. She had not known then that it was the look of a rather clever
brute, who was malignant, but she knew now.
"He used to hate us all," she sa=
id
to herself. "He did not mean to know us when he had taken Rosalie away,
and he did not intend that she should know us."
She had heard rumours of cases somewhat
parallel, cases in which girls' lives had become swamped in those of their
husbands, and their husbands' families. And she had also heard unpleasant
details of the means employed to reach the desired results. Annie Butterfie=
ld's
husband had forbidden her to correspond with her American relatives. He had
argued that such correspondence was disturbing to her mind, and to the dome=
stic
duties which should be every decent woman's religion. One of the occasions =
of
his beating her had been in consequence of his finding her writing to her
mother a letter blotted with tears. Husbands frequently objected to their
wives' relatives, but there was a special order of European husband who opp=
osed
violently any intimacy with American relations on the practical ground that
their views of a wife's position, with regard to her husband, were of a
revolutionary nature.
Mrs. Vanderpoel had in her possession every
letter Rosalie or her husband had ever written. Bettina asked to be allowed=
to
read them, and one morning seated herself in her own room before a blazing
fire, with the collection on a table at her side. She read them in order.
Nigel's began as they went on. They were all in one tone, formal, uninteres=
ting,
and requiring no answers. There was not a suggestion of human feeling in on=
e of
them.
"He wrote them," said Betty,
"so that we could not say that he had never written."
Rosalie's first epistles were affectionate,
but timid. At the outset she was evidently trying to conceal the fact that =
she
was homesick. Gradually she became briefer and more constrained. In one she
said pathetically, "I am such a bad letter writer. I always feel as if=
I
want to tear up what I have written, because I never say half that is in my=
heart."
Mrs. Vanderpoel had kissed that letter many a time. She was sure that a mar=
k on
the paper near this particular sentence was where a tear had fallen. Bettina
was sure of this, too, and sat and looked at the fire for some time.
That night she went to a ball, and when she
returned home, she persuaded her mother to go to bed.
"I want to have a talk with father,&q=
uot;
she exclaimed. "I am going to ask him something."
She went to the great man's private room,
where he sat at work, even after the hours when less seriously engaged peop=
le
come home from balls. The room he sat in was one of the apartments newspape=
rs
had with much detail described. It was luxuriously comfortable, and its eff=
ect
was sober and rich and fine.
When Bettina came in, Vanderpoel, looking =
up
to smile at her in welcome, was struck by the fact that as a background to =
an
entering figure of tall, splendid girlhood in a ball dress it was admirable,
throwing up all its whiteness and grace and sweep of line. He was always gl=
ad
to see Betty. The rich strength of the life radiating from her, the reality=
and
glow of her were good for him and had the power of detaching him from work =
of
which he was tired.
She smiled back at him, and, coming forward
took her place in a big armchair close to him, her lace-frilled cloak slipp=
ing
from her shoulders with a soft rustling sound which seemed to convey her in=
tention
to stay.
"Are you too busy to be
interrupted?" she asked, her mellow voice caressing him. "I want =
to
talk to you about something I am going to do." She put out her hand and
laid it on his with a clinging firmness which meant strong feeling. "At
least, I am going to do it if you will help me," she ended.
"What is it, Betty?" he inquired,
his usual interest in her accentuated by her manner.
She laid her other hand on his and he clas=
ped
both with his own.
"When the Worthingtons sail for
Mr. Vanderpoel moved slightly in his chair.
Then their eyes met comprehendingly. He saw what hers held.
"From there you are going to
"To see Rosy," she answered, lea=
ning
a little forward. "To SEE her.
"You believe that what has happened h=
as
not been her fault?" he said. There was a look in her face which warmed
his blood.
"I have always been sure that Nigel
Anstruthers arranged it."
"Do you think he has been unkind to
her?"
"I am going to see," she answere=
d.
"Betty," he said, "tell me =
all
about it."
He knew that this was no suddenly-formed p=
lan,
and he knew it would be well worth while to hear the details of its growth.=
It
was so interestingly like her to have remained silent through the process o=
f thinking
a thing out, evolving her final idea without having disturbed him by bringi=
ng
to him any chaotic uncertainties.
"It's a sort of confession," she
answered. "Father, I have been thinking about it for years. I said not=
hing
because for so long I knew I was only a child, and a child's judgment might=
be
worth so little. But through all those years I was learning things and
gathering evidence. When I was at school, first in one country and then
another, I used to tell myself that I was growing up and preparing myself t=
o do
a particular thing--to go to rescue Rosy."
"I used to guess you thought of her i=
n a
way of your own," Vanderpoel said, "but I did not guess you were
thinking that much. You were always a solid, loyal little thing, and there =
was
business capacity in your keeping your scheme to yourself. Let us look the
matter in the face. Suppose she does not need rescuing. Suppose, after all,=
she
is a comfortable, fine lady and adores her husband. What then?"
"If I should find that to be true, I =
will
behave myself very well--as if we had expected nothing else. I will make he=
r a
short visit and come away. Lady Cecilia Orme, whom I knew in
Mr. Vanderpoel thought the matter over dur=
ing
a few moments of silence.
"You do not wish your mother to go wi=
th
you?" he said presently.
"I believe it will be better that she
should not," she answered. "If there are difficulties or
disappointments she would be too unhappy."
"Yes," he said slowly, "and=
she
could not control her feelings. She would give the whole thing away, poor
girl."
He had been looking at the carpet
reflectively, and now he looked at Bettina.
"What are you expecting to find, at t=
he
worst?" he asked her. "The kind of thing which will need manageme=
nt
while it is being looked into?"
"I do not know what I am expecting to
find," was her reply. "We know absolutely nothing; but that Rosy =
was
fond of us, and that her marriage has seemed to make her cease to care. She=
was
not like that; she was not like that! Was she, father?"
"No, she wasn't," he exclaimed. =
The
memory of her in her short-frocked and early girlish days, a pretty, smilin=
g,
effusive thing, given to lavish caresses and affectionate little surprises =
for
them all, came back to him vividly. "She was the most affectionate gir=
l I
ever knew," he said. "She was more affectionate than you,
Betty," with a smile.
Bettina smiled in return and bent her head=
to
put a kiss on his hand, a warm, lovely, comprehending kiss.
"If she had been different I should n=
ot
have thought so much of the change," she said. "I believe that pe=
ople
are always more or less LIKE themselves as long as they live. What has seem=
ed
to happen has been so unlike Rosy that there must be some reason for it.&qu=
ot;
"You think that she has been prevented
from seeing us?"
"I think it so possible that I am not
going to announce my visit beforehand."
"You have a good head, Betty," h=
er
father said.
"If Sir Nigel has put obstacles in our
way before, he will do it again. I shall try to find out, when I reach
The deep blue of her eyes shone under the
shadow of the extravagant lashes as she laughed.
"Are you willing that I should go,
father?" she said next.
"Yes," he answered. "I am
willing to trust you, Betty, to do things I would not trust other girls to =
try
at. If you were not my girl at all, if you were a man on Wall Street, I sho=
uld
know you would be pretty safe to come out a little more than even in any
venture you made. You know how to keep cool."
Bettina picked up her fallen cloak and lai=
d it
over her arm. It was made of billowy frills of
"There are a good many girls who can =
be
trusted to do things in these days," she said. "Women have found =
out
so much. Perhaps it is because the heroines of novels have informed them.
Heroines and heroes always bring in the new fashions in character. I believ=
e it
is years since a heroine 'burst into a flood of tears.' It has been discove=
red,
really, that nothing is to be gained by it. Whatsoever I find at
CHAPTER VII - ON BOARD THE
"MERIDIANA"
A large transatlantic steamer lying at the
wharf on a brilliant, sunny morning just before its departure is an interes=
ting
and suggestive object to those who are fond of following suggestion to its =
end.
One sometimes wonders if it is possible that the excitement in the dock atm=
osphere
could ever become a thing to which one was sufficiently accustomed to be ab=
le
to regard it as among things commonplace. The rumbling and rattling of wagg=
ons
and carts, the loading and unloading of boxes and bales, the people who are
late, and the people who are early, the faces which are excited, and the fa=
ces
which are sad, the trunks and bales, and cranes which creak and groan, the
shouts and cries, the hurry and confusion of movement, notwithstanding that
every day has seen them all for years, have a sort of perennial interest to=
the
looker-on.
This is, perhaps, more especially the case
when the looker-on is to be a passenger on the outgoing ship; and the
exhilaration of his point of view may greatly depend upon the reason for his
voyage and the class by which he travels. Gaiety and youth usually appear u=
pon
the promenade deck, having taken saloon passage. Dulness, commerce, and eld
mingling with them, it is true, but with a discretion which does not seem t=
o dominate.
Second-class passengers wear a more practical aspect, and youth among them =
is
rarer and more grave. People who must travel second and third class make
voyages for utilitarian reasons. Their object is usually to better themselv=
es
in one way or another. When they are going from Liverpool to
On the brilliant spring morning when the h=
uge
liner Meridiana was to sail for
His air was detached because he had other
things in his mind than those merely passing before him, and he was not buo=
yant
because they were not cheerful or encouraging subjects for reflection. He w=
as a
big young man, well hung together, and carrying himself well; his face was
square-jawed and rugged, and he had dark red hair restrained by its close c=
ut
from waving strongly on his forehead. His eyes were red brown, and a few da=
rk freckles
marked his clear skin. He was of the order of man one looks at twice, having
looked at him once, though one does not in the least know why, unless one
finally reaches some degree of intimacy.
He watched the vehicles, heavy and light, =
roll
into the big shed-like building and deposit their freight; he heard the voi=
ces
and caught the sentences of instruction and comment; he saw boxes and bales
hauled from the dock side to the deck and swung below with the rattling of
machinery and chains. But these formed merely a noisy background to his moo=
d, which
was self-centred and gloomy. He was one of those who go back to their native
land knowing themselves conquered. He had left England two years before,
feeling obstinately determined to accomplish a certain difficult thing, but
forces of nature combining with the circumstances of previous education and
living had beaten him. He had lost two years and all the money he had ventu=
red.
He was going back to the place he had come from, and he was carrying with h=
im a
sense of having been used hardly by fortune, and in a way he had not deserv=
ed.
He had gone out to the West with the inten=
tion
of working hard and using his hands as well as his brains; he had not been
squeamish; he had, in fact, laboured like a ploughman; and to be obliged to
give in had been galling and bitter. There are human beings into whose
consciousness of themselves the possibility of being beaten does not enter.
This man was one of them.
The ship was of the huge and
luxuriously-fitted class by which the rich and fortunate are transported fr=
om
one continent to another. Passengers could indulge themselves in suites of
rooms and live sumptuously. As the man leaning on the rail looked on, he saw
messengers bearing baskets and boxes of fruit and flowers with cards and no=
tes
attached, hurrying up the gangway to deliver them to waiting stewards. These
were the farewell offerings to be placed in staterooms, or to await their
owners on the saloon tables. Salter--the second-class passenger's name was
Salter--had seen a few such offerings before on the first crossing. But the=
re
had not been such lavishness at
Two stewards talking near him, earlier in =
the
morning, had been exulting over the probable largesse such a list would res=
ult
in at the end of the passage.
"The Worthingtons and the Hirams and =
the
John William Spayters," said one. "They travel all right. They kn=
ow
what they want and they want a good deal, and they're willing to pay for
it."
"Yes. They're not school teachers goi=
ng
over to improve their minds and contriving to cross in a big ship by
economising in everything else. Miss Vanderpoel's sailing with the
Worthingtons. She's got the best suite all to herself. She'll bring back a =
duke
or one of those prince fellows. How many millions has Vanderpoel?"
"How many millions. How many hundred
millions!" said his companion, gloating cheerfully over the vastness of
unknown possibilities. "I've crossed with Miss Vanderpoel often, two or
three times when she was in short frocks. She's the kind of girl you read
about. And she's got money enough to buy in half a dozen princes."
"There are New Yorkers who won't like=
it
if she does," returned the other. "There's been too much money go=
ing
out of the country. Her suite is crammed full of Jack roses, now, and there=
are
boxes waiting outside."
Salter moved away and heard no more. He mo=
ved
away, in fact, because he was conscious that to a man in his case, this
dwelling upon millions, this plethora of wealth, was a little revolting. He=
had
walked down Broadway and seen the price of Jacqueminot roses, and he was not
soothed or allured at this particular moment by the picture of a girl whose=
half-dozen
cabins were crowded with them.
"Oh, the devil!" he said. "=
It
sounds vulgar." And he walked up and down fast, squaring his shoulders,
with his hands in the pockets of his rough, well-worn coat. He had seen in =
"Sheer American business perspicacity,
that," said Salter, as he marched up and down, thinking of a particular
case of this order. "There's something admirable in the practical way =
they
make for what they want. They want to amalgamate with English people, not f=
or
their own sake, but because their women like it, and so they offer the men
thousands of acres full of things to kill. They can get them by paying for
them, and they know how to pay." He laughed a little, lifting his squa=
re shoulders.
"Balthamor's six thousand acres of grouse moor and Elsty's salmon fish=
ing
are rented by the
It must be confessed that Salter was of the
English who were not pleased with the American Invasion. In some of his vie=
ws
of the matter he was a little prehistoric and savage, but the modern side of
his character was too intelligent to lack reason. He was by no means entire=
ly
modern, however; a large part of his nature belonged to the age in which me=
n had
fought fiercely for what they wanted to get or keep, and when the amenities=
of
commerce had not become powerful factors in existence.
"They're not a bad lot," he was
thinking at this moment. "They are rather fine in a way. They are clev=
er
and powerful and interesting--more so than they know themselves. But it is =
all
commerce. They don't come and fight with us and get possession of us by for=
ce.
They come and buy us. They buy our land and our homes, and our landowners, =
for
that matter--when they don't buy them, they send their women to marry them,=
confound
it!"
He took half a dozen more strides and lift=
ed
his shoulders again.
"Beggarly lot as I am," he said,
"unlikely as it seems that I can marry at all, I'm hanged if I don't m=
arry
an Englishwoman, if I give my life to a woman at all."
But, in fact, he was of the opinion that he
should never give his life to any woman, and this was because he was, at th=
is
period, also of the opinion that there was small prospect of its ever being
worth the giving or taking. It had been one of those lives which begin
untowardly and are ruled by unfair circumstances.
He had a particularly well-cut and express=
ive
mouth, and, as he went back to the ship's side and leaned on his folded arm=
s on
the rail again, its curves concealed a good deal of strong feeling.
The wharf was busier than before. In less =
than
half an hour the ship was to sail. The bustle and confusion had increased.
There were people hurrying about looking for friends, and there were people
scribbling off excited farewell messages at the telegraph office. The situa=
tion
was working up to its climax. An observing looker-on might catch glimpses o=
f emotional
scenes. Many of the passengers were already on board, parties of them
accompanied by their friends were making their way up the gangplank.
Salter had just been watching a luxuriously
cared-for little invalid woman being carried on deck in a reclining chair, =
when
his attention was attracted by the sound of trampling hoofs and rolling whe=
els.
Two noticeably big and smart carriages had driven up to the stopping-place =
for
vehicles. They were gorgeously of the latest mode, and their tall, satin-sk=
inned
horses jangled silver chains and stepped up to their noses.
"Here come the Worthingtons, whosoever
they may be," thought Salter. "The fine up-standing young woman i=
s,
no doubt, the multi-millionairess."
The fine, up-standing young woman WAS the
multi-millionairess. Bettina walked up the gangway in the sunshine, and the
passengers upon the upper deck craned their necks to look at her. Her carri=
age
of her head and shoulders invariably made people turn to look.
"My, ain't she fine-looking!"
exclaimed an excited lady beholder above. "I guess that must be Miss
Vanderpoel, the multi-millionaire's daughter. Jane told me she'd heard she =
was
crossing this trip."
Bettina heard her. She sometimes wondered =
if
she was ever pointed out, if her name was ever mentioned without the additi=
on
of the explanatory statement that she was the multi-millionaire's daughter.=
As
a child she had thought it ridiculous and tiresome, as she had grown older =
she
had felt that only a remarkable individuality could surmount a fact so ever=
present.
It was like a tremendous quality which
overshadowed everything else.
"It wounds my vanity, I have no
doubt," she had said to her father. "Nobody ever sees me, they on=
ly
see you and your millions and millions of dollars."
Salter watched her pass up the gangway. The
phase through which he was living was not of the order which leads a man to
dwell upon the beautiful and inspiriting as expressed by the female image.
Success and the hopefulness which engender warmth of soul and quickness of
heart are required for the development of such allurements. He thought of t=
he Vanderpoel
millions as the lady on the deck had thought of them, and in his mind someh=
ow
the girl herself appeared to express them. The rich up-springing sweep of h=
er
abundant hair, her height, her colouring, the remarkable shade and length of
her lashes, the full curve of her mouth, all, he told himself, looked
expensive, as if even nature herself had been given carte blanche, and the =
best
possible articles procured for the money.
"She moves," he thought
sardonically, "as if she were perfectly aware that she could pay for
anything. An unlimited income, no doubt, establishes in the owner the
equivalent to a sense of rank."
He changed his position for one in which he
could command a view of the promenade deck where the arriving passengers we=
re
gradually appearing. He did this from the idle and careless curiosity which,
though it is not a matter of absolute interest, does not object to being
entertained by passing objects. He saw the
"She knows how to do herself well,&qu=
ot;
Salter commented, "and she realises that forethought is a practical
factor. Millions have been productive of composure. It is not unnatural,
either."
It was but a short time later that the war=
ning
bell was rung. Stewards passed through the crowds calling out, "All
ashore, if you please--all ashore." Final embraces were in order on all
sides. People shook hands with fervour and laughed a little nervously. Women
kissed each other and poured forth hurried messages to be delivered on the
other side of the
Salter stood on deck and watched the crowd
dispersing. Some of the people were laughing and some had red eyes. Groups =
collected
on the wharf and tried to say still more last words to their friends crowdi=
ng against
the rail.
The Worthingtons kept their places and were
still looking out, by this time disappointedly. It seemed that the friend or
friends they expected were not coming. Salter saw that Miss Vanderpoel look=
ed
more disappointed than the rest. She leaned forward and strained her eyes t=
o see.
Just at the last moment there was the sound of trampling horses and rolling
wheels again. From the arriving carriage descended hastily an elderly woman,
who lifted out a little boy excited almost to tears. He was a dear, chubby
little person in flapping sailor trousers, and he carried a
splendidly-caparisoned toy donkey in his arms. Salter could not help feeling
slightly excited himself as they rushed forward. He wondered if they were
passengers who would be left behind.
They were not passengers, but the arrivals
Miss Vanderpoel had been expecting so ardently. They had come to say good-b=
ye
to her and were too late for that, at least, as the gangway was just about =
to
be withdrawn.
Miss Vanderpoel leaned forward with an
amazingly fervid expression on her face.
"Tommy! Tommy!" she cried to the
little boy. "Here I am, Tommy. We can say good-bye from here."
The little boy, looking up, broke into a w=
ail
of despair.
"Betty! Betty! Betty!" he cried.
"I wanted to kiss you, Betty."
Betty held out her arms. She did it with
entire forgetfulness of the existence of any lookers-on, and with such
outreaching love on her face that it seemed as if the child must feel her
touch. She made a beautiful, warm, consoling bud of her mouth.
"We'll kiss each other from here,
Tommy," she said. "See, we can. Kiss me, and I will kiss you.&quo=
t;
Tommy held out his arms and the magnificent
donkey. "Betty," he cried, "I brought you my donkey. I wante=
d to
give it to you for a present, because you liked it."
Miss Vanderpoel bent further forward and
addressed the elderly woman.
"Matilda," she said, "please
pack Master Tommy's present and send it to me! I want it very much."
Tender smiles irradiated the small face. T=
he
gangway was withdrawn, and, amid the familiar sounds of a big craft's first
struggle, the ship began to move. Miss Vanderpoel still bent forward and he=
ld
out her arms.
"I will soon come back, Tommy," =
she
cried, "and we are always friends."
The child held out his short blue serge ar=
ms
also, and Salter watching him could not but be touched for all his gloom of
mind.
"I wanted to kiss you, Betty," he
heard in farewell. "I did so want to kiss you."
And so they steamed away upon the blue.
CHAPTER VIII - THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER<=
/span>
Up to a certain point the voyage was like =
all
other voyages. During the first two days there were passengers who did not
appear on deck, but as the weather was fair for the season of the year, the=
re
were fewer absentees than is usual. Indeed, on the third day the deck chairs
were all filled, people who were given to tramping during their voyages had=
begun
to walk their customary quota of carefully-measured miles the day. There we=
re a
few pale faces dozing here and there, but the general aspect of things had
begun to be sprightly. Shuffleboard players and quoit enthusiasts began to
bestir themselves, the deck steward appeared regularly with light repasts of
beef tea and biscuits, and the brilliant hues of red, blue, or yellow novels
made frequent spots of colour upon the promenade. Persons of some initiative
went to the length of making tentative observations to their next-chair
neighbours. The second-cabin passengers were cheerful, and the steerage
passengers, having tumbled up, formed friendly groups and began to joke with
each other.
The Worthingtons had plainly the good fort=
une
to be respectable sailors. They reappeared on the second day and established
regular habits, after the manner of accustomed travellers. Miss Vanderpoel's
habits were regular from the first, and when Salter saw her he was impressed
even more at the outset with her air of being at home instead of on board s=
hip.
Her practically well-chosen corner was an agreeable place to look at. Her c=
hair
was built for ease of angle and width, her cushions were of dark rich colou=
rs,
her travelling rugs were of black fox fur, and she owned an adjustable table
for books and accompaniments. She appeared early in the morning and walked
until the sea air crimsoned her cheeks, she sat and read with evident
enjoyment, she talked to her companions and plainly entertained them.
Salter, being bored and in bad spirits, fo=
und
himself watching her rather often, but he knew that but for the small, comic
episode of Tommy, he would have definitely disliked her. The dislike would =
not
have been fair, but it would have existed in spite of himself. It would not
have been fair because it would have been founded simply upon the ignoble
resentment of envy, upon the poor truth that he was not in the state of min=
d to
avoid resenting the injustice of fate in bestowing multi-millions upon one
person and his offspring. He resented his own resentment, but was obliged to
acknowledge its existence in his humour. He himself, especially and peculia=
rly,
had always known the bitterness of poverty, the humiliation of seeing where
money could be well used, indeed, ought to be used, and at the same time ha=
ving
ground into him the fact that there was no money to lay one's hand on. He h=
ad
hated it even as a boy, because in his case, and that of his people, the wh=
ole thing
was undignified and unbecoming. It was humiliating to him now to bring home=
to
himself the fact that the thing for which he was inclined to dislike this t=
all,
up-standing girl was her unconscious (he realised the unconsciousness of it)
air of having always lived in the atmosphere of millions, of never having k=
nown
a reason why she should not have anything she had a desire for. Perhaps, up=
on
the whole, he said to himself, it was his own ill luck and sense of defeat
which made her corner, with its cushions and comforts, her properly attenti=
ve
maid, and her cold weather sables expressive of a fortune too colossal to b=
e decent.
The episode of the plump, despairing Tommy=
he
had liked, however. There had been a fine naturalness about it and a fine
practicalness in her prompt order to the elderly nurse that the
richly-caparisoned donkey should be sent to her. This had at once made it c=
lear
to the donor that his gift was too valuable to be left behind.
"She did not care twopence for the lo=
t of
us," was his summing up. "She might have been nothing but the nic=
est
possible warm-hearted nursemaid or a cottage woman who loved the child.&quo=
t;
He was quite aware that though he had found
himself more than once observing her, she herself had probably not recognis=
ed
the trivial fact of his existing upon that other side of the barrier which
separated the higher grade of passenger from the lower. There was, indeed, =
no
reason why she should have singled him out for observation, and she was, in=
fact,
too frequently absorbed in her own reflections to be in the frame of mind to
remark her fellow passengers to the extent which was generally customary wi=
th
her. During her crossings of the
There were many things to be considered, a=
nd
one of the first was the perfectly sane suggestion her father had made.
"Suppose she does not want to be resc= ued? Suppose you find her a comfortable fine lady who adores her husband."<= o:p>
Such a thing was possible, though Bettina =
did
not think it probable. She intended, however, to prepare herself even for t=
his.
If she found Lady Anstruthers plump and roseate, pleased with herself and h=
er
position, she was quite equal to making her visit appear a casual and
conventional affair.
"I ought to wish it to be so," s=
he
thought, "and, yet, how disappointingly I should feel she had changed.
Still, even ethical reasons would not excuse one for wishing her to be
miserable." She was a creature with a number of passionate ideals which
warred frequently with the practical side of her mentality. Often she used =
to
walk up and down the deck or lean upon the ship's side, her eyes stormy with
emotions.
"I do not want to find Rosy a heartle=
ss
woman, and I do not want to find her wretched. What do I want? Only the usu=
al
thing--that what cannot be undone had never been done. People are always
wishing that."
She was standing near the second-cabin bar=
rier
thinking this, the first time she saw the passenger with the red hair. She =
had
paused by mere chance, and while her eyes were stormy with her thought, she
suddenly became conscious that she was looking directly into other eyes as =
darkling
as her own. They were those of a man on the wrong side of the barrier. He h=
ad a
troubled, brooding face, and, as their gaze met, each of them started sligh=
tly
and turned away with the sense of having unconsciously intruded and having =
been
intruded upon.
"That rough-looking man," she
commented to herself, "is as anxious and disturbed as I am."
Salter did look rough, it was true. His
well-worn clothes had suffered somewhat from the restrictions of a second-c=
lass
cabin shared with two other men. But the aspect which had presented itself =
to
her brief glance had been not so much roughness of clothing as of mood
expressing itself in his countenance. He was thinking harshly and angrily of
the life ahead of him.
These looks of theirs which had so
inadvertently encountered each other were of that order which sometimes
startles one when in passing a stranger one finds one's eyes entangled for a
second in his or hers, as the case may be. At such times it seems for that
instant difficult to disentangle one's gaze. But neither of these two thoug=
ht
of the other much, after hurrying away. Each was too fully mastered by pers=
onal
mood.
There would, indeed, have been no reason f=
or
their encountering each other further but for "the accident," as =
it
was called when spoken of afterwards, the accident which might so easily ha=
ve
been a catastrophe. It occurred that night. This was two nights before they
were to land.
Everybody had begun to come under the
influence of that cheerfulness of humour, the sense of relief bordering on =
gaiety,
which generally elates people when a voyage is drawing to a close. If one h=
as
been dull, one begins to gather one's self together, rejoiced that the bore=
dom
is over. In any case, there are plans to be made, thought of, or discussed.=
"You wish to go to Stornham at
once?" Mrs. Worthington said to Bettina. "How pleased Lady
Anstruthers and Sir Nigel must be at the idea of seeing you with them after=
so
long."
"I can scarcely tell you how I am loo=
king
forward to it," Betty answered.
She sat in her corner among her cushions
looking at the dark water which seemed to sweep past the ship, and listenin=
g to
the throb of the engines. She was not gay. She was wondering how far the pl=
ans
she had made would prove feasible. Mrs. Worthington was not aware that her
visit to
As the waves swished past her, Bettina was
saying to herself, "What will Rosy say when she sees me! What shall I =
say
when I see Rosy? We are drawing nearer to each other with every wave that
passes."
A fog which swept up suddenly sent them all
below rather early. The Worthingtons laughed and talked a little in their
staterooms, but presently became quiet and had evidently gone to bed. Betti=
na
was restless and moved about her room alone after she had sent away her mai=
d.
She at last sat down and finished a letter she had been writing to her fath=
er.
"As I near the land," she wrote,
"I feel a sort of excitement. Several times to-day I have recalled so
distinctly the picture of Rosy as I saw her last, when we all stood crowded
upon the wharf at
She stopped writing and sat a few moments,=
her
chin upon her hand, thinking. Suddenly she sprang to her feet in alarm. The
stillness of the night was broken by wild shouts, a running of feet outside=
, a
tumult of mingled sounds and motion, a dash and rush of surging water, a
strange thumping and straining of engines, and a moment later she was hurle=
d from
one side of her stateroom to the other by a crashing shock which seemed to
heave the ship out of the sea, shuddering as if the end of all things had c=
ome.
It was so sudden and horrible a thing that,
though she had only been flung upon a pile of rugs and cushions and was unh=
urt,
she felt as if she had been struck on the head and plunged into wild deliri=
um.
Above the sound of the dashing and rocking waves, the straining and roaring=
of hacking
engines and the pandemonium of voices rose from one end of the ship to the
other, one wild, despairing, long-drawn shriek of women and children. Betti=
na
turned sick at the mad terror in it--the insensate, awful horror.
"Something
has run into us!" she gasped, getting up with her heart leaping in her
throat.
She could hear the Worthingtons' tempest o=
f terrified
confusion through the partitions between them, and she remembered afterwards
that in the space of two or three seconds, and in the midst of their clamou=
r, a
hundred incongruous thoughts leaped through her brain. Perhaps they were th=
is
moment going down. Now she knew what it was like! This thing she had read o=
f in
newspapers! Now she was going down in mid-ocean, she, Betty Vanderpoel! And=
, as
she sprang to clutch her fur coat, there flashed before her mental vision a
gruesome picture of the headlines in the newspapers and the inevitable
reference to the millions she represented.
"I must keep calm," she heard
herself say, as she fastened the long coat, clenching her teeth to keep them
from chattering. "Poor Daddy--poor Daddy!"
Maddening new sounds were all about her,
sounds of water dashing and churning, sounds of voices bellowing out comman=
ds,
straining and leaping sounds of the engines. What was it--what was it? She =
must
at least find out. Everybody was going mad in the staterooms, the stewards =
were
rushing about, trying to quiet people, their own voices shaking and breaking
into cracked notes. If the worst had happened, everyone would be fighting f=
or
life in a few minutes. Out on deck she must get and find out for herself wh=
at
the worst was.
She was the first woman outside, though the
wails and shrieks swelled below, and half-dressed, ghastly creatures tumbled
gasping up the companion-way.
"What is it?" she heard. "My
God! what's happened? Where's the Captain! Are we going down! The boats! Th=
e boats!"
It was useless to speak to the seamen rush=
ing
by. They did not see, much less hear! She caught sight of a man who could n=
ot
be a sailor, since he was standing still. She made her way to him, thankful
that she had managed to stop her teeth chattering.
"What has happened to us?" she s=
aid.
He turned and looked at her straitly. He w=
as
the second-cabin passenger with the red hair.
"A tramp steamer has run into us in t=
he
fog," he answered.
"How much harm is done?"
"They are trying to find out. I am st=
anding
here on the chance of hearing something. It is madness to ask any man
questions."
They spoke to each other in short, sharp
sentences, knowing there was no time to lose.
"Are you horribly frightened?" he
asked.
She stamped her foot.
"I hate it--I hate it!" she said,
flinging out her hand towards the black, heaving water. "The plunge--t=
he
choking! No one could hate it more. But I want to DO something!"
She was turning away when he caught her ha=
nd
and held her.
"Wait a second," he said. "I
hate it as much as you do, but I believe we two can keep our heads. Those w=
ho
can do that may help, perhaps. Let us try to quiet the people. As soon as I
find out anything I will come to your friends' stateroom. You are near the
boats there. Then I shall go back to the second cabin. You work on your side
and I'll work on mine. That's all."
"Thank you. Tell the Worthingtons. I'm
going to the saloon deck." She was off as she spoke.
Upon the stairway she found herself in the
midst of a struggling panic-stricken mob, tripping over each other on the
steps, and clutching at any garment nearest, to drag themselves up as they
fell, or were on the point of falling. Everyone was crying out in question =
and
appeal.
Bettina stood still, a firm, tall obstacle,
and clutched at the hysteric woman who was hurled against her.
"I've been on deck," she said.
"A tramp steamer has run into us. No one has time to answer questions.=
The
first thing to do is to put on warm clothes and secure the life belts in ca=
se
you need them."
At once everyone turned upon her as if she=
was
an authority. She replied with almost fierce determination to the torrent of
words poured forth.
"I know nothing further--only that if=
one
is not a fool one must make sure of clothes and belts."
"Quite right, Miss Vanderpoel," =
said
one young man, touching his cap in nervous propitiation.
"Stop screaming," Betty said
mercilessly to the woman. "It's idiotic--the more noise you make the l=
ess
chance you have. How can men keep their wits among a mob of shrieking, mad =
women?"
That the remote Miss Vanderpoel should have
emerged from her luxurious corner to frankly bully the lot of them was an
excellent shock for the crowd. Men, who had been in danger of losing their
heads and becoming as uncontrolled as the women, suddenly realised the fact=
and
pulled themselves together. Bettina made her way at once to the Worthington=
s' staterooms.
There she found frenzy reigning. Blanche a=
nd
Marie Worthington were darting to and fro, dragging about first one thing a=
nd
then another. They were silly with fright, and dashed at, and dropped
alternately, life belts, shoes, jewel cases, and wraps, while they sobbed a=
nd
cried out hysterically. "Oh, what shall we do with mother! What shall =
we
do!"
The manners of Betty Vanderpoel's sharp sc=
hoolgirl
days returned to her in full force. She seized Blanche by the shoulder and
shook her.
"What a donkey you are!" she sai=
d.
"Put on your clothes. There they are," pushing her to the place w=
here
they hung. "Marie--dress yourself this moment. We may be in no real da=
nger
at all."
"Do you think not! Oh, Betty!" t=
hey
wailed in concert. "Oh, what shall we do with mother!"
"Where is your mother?"
"She fainted--Louise----"
Betty was in Mrs. Worthington's cabin befo=
re
they had finished speaking. The poor woman had fainted, and struck her cheek
against a chair. She lay on the floor in her nightgown, with blood trickling
from a cut on her face. Her maid, Louise, was wringing her hands, and doing
nothing whatever.
"If you don't bring the brandy this
minute," said the beautiful Miss Vanderpoel, "I'll box your ears.
Believe me, my girl." She looked so capable of doing it that the woman=
was
startled and actually offended into a return of her senses. Miss Vanderpoel=
had
usually the best possible manners in dealing with her inferiors.
Betty poured brandy down Mrs. Worthington's
throat and applied strong smelling salts until she gasped back to
consciousness. She had just burst into frightened sobs, when Betty heard
confusion and exclamations in the adjoining room. Blanche and Marie had cri=
ed
out, and a man's voice was speaking. Betty went to them. They were in vario=
us
stages of undress, and the red-haired second-cabin passenger was standing at
the door.
"I promised Miss Vanderpoel----"=
he
was saying, when Betty came forward. He turned to her promptly.
"I come to tell you that it seems
absolutely to be relied on that there is no immediate danger. The tramp is =
more
injured than we are."
"Oh, are you sure? Are you sure?"
panted Blanche, catching at his sleeve.
"Yes," he answered. "Can I =
do
anything for you?" he said to Bettina, who was on the point of speakin=
g.
"Will you be good enough to help me to
assist Mrs. Worthington into her berth, and then try to find the doctor.&qu=
ot;
He went into the next room without speakin=
g.
To Mrs. Worthington he spoke briefly a few words of reassurance. He was a
powerful man, and laid her on her berth without dragging her about
uncomfortably, or making her feel that her weight was greater than even in =
her
most desponding moments she had suspected. Even her helplessly hysteric moo=
d was
illuminated by a ray of grateful appreciation.
"Oh, thank you--thank you," she
murmured. "And you are quite sure there is no actual danger,
Mr.----?"
"Salter," he terminated for her.
"You may feel safe. The damage is really only slight, after all."=
"It is so good of you to come and tell
us," said the poor lady, still tremulous. "The shock was awful. O=
ur
introduction has been an alarming one. I--I don't think we have met during =
the
voyage."
"No," replied Salter. "I am=
in
the second cabin."
"Oh! thank you. It's so good of
you," she faltered amiably, for want of inspiration. As he went out of=
the
stateroom, Salter spoke to Bettina.
"I will send the doctor, if I can find
him," he said. "I think, perhaps, you had better take some brandy
yourself. I shall."
"It's queer how little one seems to
realise even that there are second-cabin passengers," commented Mrs.
Worthington feebly. "That was a nice man, and perfectly respectable. He
even had a kind of--of manner."
CHAPTER IX - LADY JANE GREY<=
/a>
It seemed upon the whole even absurd that
after a shock so awful and a panic wild enough to cause people to expose th=
eir
very souls--for there were, of course, endless anecdotes to be related
afterwards, illustrative of grotesque terror, cowardice, and utter abandonm=
ent of
all shadows of convention--that all should end in an anticlimax of trifling
danger, upon which, in a day or two, jokes might be made. Even the tramp
steamer had not been seriously injured, though its injuries were likely to =
be
less easy of repair than those of the Meridiana.
"Still," as a passenger remarked,
when she steamed into the dock at Liverpool, "we might all be at the
bottom of the
"I was very rude to Louise, when I fo=
und
her wringing her hands over you, and I was rude to Blanche," Bettina s=
aid
to Mrs. Worthington. "In fact I believe I was rude to a number of peop=
le
that night. I am rather ashamed."
"You called me a donkey," said
Blanche, "but it was the best thing you could have done. You frightene=
d me
into putting on my shoes, instead of trying to comb my hair with them. It w=
as
startling to see you march into the stateroom, the only person who had not =
been
turned into a gibbering idiot. I know I was gibbering, and I know Marie
was."
"We both gibbered at the red-haired m=
an
when he came in," said Marie. "We clutched at him and gibbered
together. Where is the red-haired man, Betty? Perhaps we made him ill. I've=
not
seen him since that moment."
"He is in the second cabin, I
suppose," Bettina answered, "but I have not seen him, either.&quo=
t;
"We ought to get up a testimonial and
give it to him, because he did not gibber," said Blanche. "He was=
as
rude and as sensible as you were, Betty."
They did not see him again, in fact, at th=
at
time. He had reasons of his own for preferring to remain unseen. The truth =
was
that the nearer his approach to his native shores, the nastier, he was
perfectly conscious, his temper became, and he did not wish to expose himse=
lf
by any incident which might cause him stupidly and obviously to lose it.
The maid, Louise, however, recognised him
among her companions in the third-class carriage in which she travelled to
town. To her mind, whose opinions were regulated by neatly arranged standar=
ds,
he looked morose and shabbily dressed. Some of the other second-cabin
passengers had made themselves quite smart in various, not too distinguished
ways. He had not changed his dress at all, and the large valise upon the
luggage rack was worn and battered as if with long and rough usage. The wom=
an wondered
a little if he would address her, and inquire after the health of her mistr=
ess.
But, being an astute creature, she only wondered this for an instant, the n=
ext
she realised that, for one reason or another, it was clear that he was not =
of
the tribe of second-rate persons who pursue an accidental acquaintance with
their superiors in fortune, through sociable interchange with their footmen=
or
maids.
When the train slackened its speed at the
platform of the station, he got up, reaching down his valise and leaving the
carriage, strode to the nearest hansom cab, waving the porter aside.
"
. . . . .
During the years which had passed since
Rosalie Vanderpoel first came to
The Worthingtons took possession of such a
suite in such a hotel. Bettina Vanderpoel's apartments faced the Embankment.
From her windows she could look out at the broad splendid, muddy Thames, sl=
owly
rolling in its grave, stately way beneath its bridges, bearing with it heav=
y lumbering
barges, excited tooting little penny steamers and craft of various shapes a=
nd
sizes, the errand or burden of each meaning a different story.
It had been to Bettina one of her pleasure=
s of
the finest epicurean flavour to reflect that she had never had any brief and
superficial knowledge of England, as she had never been to the country at a=
ll
in those earlier years, when her knowledge of places must necessarily have =
been
always the incomplete one of either a schoolgirl traveller or a schoolgirl
resident, whose views were limited by the walls of restriction built around
her.
If relations of the usual ease and
friendliness had existed between Lady Anstruthers and her family, Bettina
would, doubtless, have known her sister's adopted country well. It would ha=
ve
been a thing so natural as to be almost inevitable, that she would have cro=
ssed
the Channel to spend her holidays at Stornham. As matters had stood, howeve=
r,
the child herself, in the days when she had been a child, had had most defi=
nite
private views on the subject of visits to
"It is
Mrs. Worthington came in during the course=
of
the morning to find her standing before her window looking out at the
"I am delighted," she said. &quo=
t;I
could scarcely tell you how much. The impression is all new and I am excite=
d a
little by everything. I am so intensely glad that I have saved it so long a=
nd
that I have known it only as part of literature. I am even charmed that it
rains, and that the cabmen's mackintoshes are shining and wet." She dr=
ew
forward a chair, and Mrs. Worthington sat down, looking at her with involun=
tary
admiration.
"You look as if you were delighted,&q=
uot;
she said. "Your eyes--you have amazing eyes, Betty! I am trying to pic=
ture
to myself what Lady Anstruthers will feel when she sees you. What were you =
like
when she married?"
Bettina sat down, smiling and looking, ind=
eed,
quite incredibly lovely. She was capable of a warmth and a sweetness which =
were
as embracing as other qualities she possessed were powerful.
"I was eight years old," she sai=
d.
"I was a rude little girl, with long legs and a high, determined voice=
. I
know I was rude. I remember answering back."
"I seem to have heard that you did not like your brother-in-law, and that you were opposed to the marriage."<= o:p>
"Imagine the undisciplined audacity o=
f a
child of eight 'opposing' the marriage of her grown-up sister. I was quite
capable of it. You see in those days we had not been trained at all (one had
only been allowed tremendous liberty), and interfered conversationally with
one's elders and betters at any moment. I was an American little girl, and
American little girls were really--they really were!" with a laugh, wh=
ose
musical sound was after all wholly non-committal.
"You did not treat Sir Nigel Anstruth=
ers
as one of your betters."
"He was one of my elders, at all even=
ts,
and becomingness of bearing should have taught me to hold my little tongue.=
I
am giving some thought now to the kind of thing I must invent as a suitable
apology when I find him a really delightful person, full of virtues and
accomplishments. Perhaps he has a horror of me."
"I should like to be present at your
first meeting," Mrs. Worthington reflected. "You are going down to
Stornham to-morrow?"
"That is my plan. When I write to you=
on
my arrival, I will tell you if I encountered the horror." Then, with a
swift change of subject and a lifting of her slender, velvet line of eyebro=
w,
"I am only deploring that I have not time to visit the Tower."
Mrs. Worthington was betrayed into a momen=
tary
glance of uncertainty, almost verging in its significance on a gasp.
"The Tower? Of
Bettina's laugh was mellow with revelation=
.
"Ah!" she said. "You don't =
know
my point of view; it's plain enough. You see, when I delight in these thing=
s, I
think I delight most in my delight in them. It means that I am almost having
the kind of feeling the fresh American souls had who landed here thirty yea=
rs
ago and revelled in the resemblance to Dickens's characters they met with i=
n the
streets, and were historically thrilled by the places where people's heads =
were
chopped off. Imagine their reflections on Charles I., when they stood in
"You don't mean to say----" Mrs.
Worthington was vaguely awakening to the situation.
"That the charm of my visit, to mysel=
f,
is that I realise that I am rather like that. I have positively preserved s=
omething
because I have kept away. You have been here so often and know things so we=
ll,
and you were even so sophisticated when you began, that you have never real=
ly had
the flavours and emotions. I am sophisticated, too, sophisticated enough to
have cherished my flavours as a gourmet tries to save the bouquet of old wi=
ne.
You think that the Tower is the pleasure of housemaids on a Bank Holiday. B=
ut
it quite makes me quiver to think of it," laughing again. "That I
laugh, is the sign that I am not as beautifully, freshly capable of enjoyme=
nt
as those genuine first Americans were, and in a way I am sorry for it."=
;
Mrs. Worthington laughed also, and with an
enjoyment.
"You are very clever, Betty," she
said.
"No, no," answered Bettina,
"or, if I am, almost everybody is clever in these days. We are nearly =
all
of us comparatively intelligent."
"You are very interesting at all even=
ts,
and the Anstruthers will exult in you. If they are dull in the country, you
will save them."
"I am very interested, at all events,=
"
said Bettina, "and interest like mine is quite passe. A clever American
who lives in
"Truly, Betty?" said Mrs.
Worthington, regarding her with curiosity, arising from a faint doubt of her
entire seriousness, mingled with a fainter doubt of her entire levity.
Betty flung out her hands in a slight, but
very involuntary-looking, gesture, and shook her head.
"Ah!" she said, "it was all
TRUE, you know. They were all horribly real--the things that were shuddered
over and sentimentalised about. Sophistication, combined with imagination,
makes them materialise again, to me, at least, now I am here. The gulf betw=
een
a historical figure and a man or woman who could bleed and cry out in human
words was broad when one was at school. Lady Jane Grey, for instance, how
nebulous she was and how little one cared. She seemed invented merely to ad=
d a
detail to one's lesson in English history. But, as we drove across
"Oh, Betty, dear!" Mrs. Worthing=
ton
expostulated.
Bettina sprang to her and took her hand in
pretty appeal.
"I beg pardon! I beg pardon, I really
do," she exclaimed. "I did not intend deliberately to be painful.=
But
that--beneath the sophistication--is something of what I bring to
CHAPTER X - "IS LADY ANSTRUTHERS AT
HOME?"
All that she had brought with her to
What the people in the station saw, the gu=
ards
and porters, the men in the book stalls, the travellers hurrying past, was a
striking-looking girl, whose colouring and carriage made one turn to glance
after her, and who, having bought some periodicals and papers, took her pla=
ce
in a first-class compartment and watched the passersby interestedly through=
the
open window. Having been looked at and remarked on during her whole life,
Bettina did not find it disturbing that more than one corduroy-clothed port=
er
and fresh-coloured, elderly gentleman, or freshly attired young one, having
caught a glimpse of her through her window, made it convenient to saunter p=
ast
or hover round. She looked at them much more frankly than they looked at he=
r.
To her they were all specimens of the types she was at present interested i=
n.
For practical reasons she was summing up English character with more delibe=
rate
intention than she had felt in the years when she had gradually learned to =
know
Continental types and differentiate such peculiarities as were significant =
of
their ranks and nations. As the first Reuben Vanderpoel had studied the
countenances and indicative methods of the inhabitants of the new parts of =
the
country in which it was his intention to do business, so the modernity of h=
is
descendant applied itself to observation for reasons parallel in nature tho=
ugh
not in actual kind. As he had brought beads and firewater to bear as agents
upon savages who would barter for them skins and products which might be tu=
rned
into money, so she brought her nineteenth-century beauty, steadfastness of =
purpose
and alertness of brain to bear upon the matter the practical dealing with w=
hich
was the end she held in view. To bear herself in this matter with as practi=
cal
a control of situations as that with which her great-grandfather would have
borne himself in making a trade with a previously unknown tribe of Indians =
was
quite her intention, though it had not occurred to her to put it to herself=
in
any such form. Still, whether she was aware of the fact or not, her point of
view was exactly what the first Reuben Vanderpoel's had been on many very
different occasions. She had before her the task of dealing with facts and
factors of which at present she knew but little. Astuteness of perception, =
self-command,
and adaptability were her chief resources. She was ready, either for calm, =
bold
approach, or equally calm and wholly non-committal retreat.
The perceptions she had brought with her
filled her journey into
Yes, it was
"That is American," she said,
"the habit of comparing every stick and stone and breathing thing to s=
ome
literary parallel. We almost invariably say that things remind us of pictur=
es
or books--most usually books. It seems a little crude, but perhaps it means
that we are an intensely literary and artistic people."
She continued to find comparisons revealin=
g to
her their appositeness, until her journey had ended by the train's slackeni=
ng
speed and coming to a standstill before the rural-looking little station wh=
ich
had presented its quaint aspect to Lady Anstruthers on her home-coming of y=
ears
before.
It had not, during the years which certain=
ly
had given time for change, altered in the least. The station master had gro=
wn
stouter and more rosy, and came forward with his respectful, hospitable air=
, to
attend to the unusual-looking young lady, who was the only first-class
passenger. He thought she must be a visitor expected at some country house,=
but
none of the carriages, whose coachmen were his familiar acquaintances, were=
in
waiting. That such a fine young lady should be paying a visit at any house
whose owners did not send an equipage to attend her coming, struck him as
unusual. The brougham from the "Crown," though a decent country t=
own
vehicle, seemed inadequate. Yet, there it stood drawn up outside the statio=
n,
and she went to it with the manner of a young lady who had ordered its
attendance and knew it would be there.
Wells felt a good deal of interest. Among =
the
many young ladies who descended from the first-class compartments and passed
through the little waiting-room on their way to the carriages of the gentry
they were going to visit, he did not know when a young lady had "caught
his eye," so to speak, as this one did. She was not exactly the kind o=
f young
lady one would immediately class mentally as "a foreigner," but t=
he
blue of her eyes was so deep, and her hair and eyelashes so dark, that these
things, combining themselves with a certain "way" she had, made h=
im
feel her to be of a type unfamiliar to the region, at least.
He was struck, also, by the fact that the
young lady had no maid with her. The truth was that Bettina had purposely l=
eft
her maid in town. If awkward things occurred, the presence of an attendant
would be a sort of complication. It was better, on the first approach, to be
wholly unencumbered.
"How far are we from
"Five miles, my lady," he answer=
ed,
touching his cap. She expressed something which to the rural and ingenuous,
whose standards were defined, demanded a recognition of probable rank.
"I'd like to know," was his comm=
ent
to his wife when he went home to dinner, "who has gone to
"Perhaps she was one of HIS fine
ladies?" suggestively.
"That she wasn't, either. And, as for
that, I wonder what he'd have to say to such as she is."
There was complexity of element enough in =
the
thing she was on her way to do, Bettina was thinking, as she was driven over
the white ribbon of country road that unrolled over rise and hollow, between
the sheep-dotted greenness of fields and the scented hedges. The soft beaut=
y enclosing
her was a little shut out from her by her mental attitude. She brought forw=
ard
for her own decisions upon suitable action a number of possible situations =
she
might find herself called upon to confront. The one thing necessary was that
she should be prepared for anything whatever, even for Rosy's not being ple=
ased
to see her, or for finding Sir Nigel a thoroughly reformed and amiable
character.
"It is the thing which seemingly CANN=
OT
happen which one is most likely to find one's self face to face with. It wi=
ll
be a little awkward to arrange, if he has developed every domestic virtue, =
and
is delighted to see me."
Under such rather confusing conditions her
plan would be to present to them, as an affectionate surprise, the unherald=
ed
visit, which might appear a trifle uncalled for. She felt happily sure of
herself under any circumstances not partaking of the nature of collisions at
sea. Yet she had not behaved absolutely ill at the time of the threatened
catastrophe in the Meridiana. Her remembrance, an oddly sudden one, of the
definite manner of the red-haired second-class passenger, assured her of th=
at.
He had certainly had all his senses about him, and he had spoken to her as a
person to be counted on.
Her pulse beat a little more hurriedly as =
the
brougham entered Stornham village. It was picturesque, but struck her as
looking neglected. Many of the cottages had an air of dilapidation. There w=
ere
many broken windows and unmended garden palings. A suggested lack of whitew=
ash
in several cases was not cheerful.
"I know nothing of the duties of Engl=
ish
landlords," she said, looking through her carriage window, "but I
should do it myself, if I were Rosy."
She saw, as she was taken through the park
gateway, that that structure was out of order, and that damaged diamond pan=
es
peered out from under the thickness of the ivy massing itself over the lodg=
e.
"Ah!" was her thought, "it =
does
not promise as it should. Happy people do not let things fall to pieces.&qu=
ot;
Even winding avenue, and spreading sward, =
and
gorse, and broom, and bracken, enfolding all the earth beneath huge trees, =
were
not fair enough to remove a sudden remote fear which arose in her rapidly r=
easoning
mind. It suggested to her a point of view so new that, while she was amazed=
at
herself for not having contemplated it before, she found herself wishing th=
at
the coachman would drive rather more slowly, actually that she might have m=
ore
time to reflect.
They were nearing a dip in the park, where
there was a lonely looking pool. The bracken was thick and high there, and =
the
sun, which had just broken through a cloud, had pierced the trees with a go=
lden
gleam.
A little withdrawn from this shaft of brig=
htness
stood two figures, a dowdy little woman and a hunchbacked boy. The woman he=
ld
some ferns in her hand, and the boy was sitting down and resting his chin on
his hands, which were folded on the top of a stick.
"Stop here for a moment," Bettina
said to the coachman. "I want to ask that woman a question."
She had thought that she might discover if=
her
sister was at the Court. She realised that to know would be a point of
advantage. She leaned forward and spoke.
"I beg your pardon," she said,
"I wonder if you can tell me----"
The woman came forward a little. She had a
listless step and a faded, listless face.
"What did you ask?" she said.
Betty leaned still further forward.
"Can you tell me----" she began =
and
stopped. A sense of stricture in the throat stopped her, as her eyes took in
the washed-out colour of the thin face, the washed-out colour of the thin
hair--thin drab hair, dragged in straight, hard unbecomingness from the
forehead and cheeks.
Was it true that her heart was thumping, as
she had heard it said that agitation made hearts thump?
She began again.
"Can you--tell me if--Lady Anstruther=
s is
at home?" she inquired. As she said it she felt the blood surge up from
the furious heart, and the hand she had laid on the handle of the door of t=
he
brougham clutched it involuntarily.
The dowdy little woman answered her
indifferently, staring at her a little.
"I am Lady Anstruthers," she sai=
d.
Bettina opened the carriage door and stood
upon the ground.
"Go on to the house," she gave o=
rder
to the coachman, and, with a somewhat startled look, he drove away.
"Rosy!" Bettina's voice was a
hushed, almost awed, thing. "YOU are Rosy?"
The faded little wreck of a creature began=
to
look frightened.
"Rosy!" she repeated, with a sma=
ll,
wry, painful smile.
She was the next moment held in the foldin=
g of
strong, young arms, against a quickly beating heart. She was being wildly
kissed, and the very air seemed rich with warmth and life.
"I am Betty," she heard. "L=
ook
at me, Rosy! I am Betty. Look at me and remember!"
Lady Anstruthers gasped, and broke into a
faint, hysteric laugh. She suddenly clutched at Bettina's arm. For a minute=
her
gaze was wild as she looked up.
"Betty," she cried out. "No!
No! No! I can't believe it! I can't! I can't!"
That just this thing could have taken plac=
e in
her, Bettina had never thought. As she had reflected on her way from the
station, the impossible is what one finds one's self face to face with. Twe=
lve
years should not have changed a pretty blonde thing of nineteen to a worn, =
unintelligent-looking
dowdy of the order of dowdiness which seems to have lived beyond age and se=
x.
She looked even stupid, or at least stupefied. At this moment she was a sil=
ly,
middle-aged woman, who did not know what to do. For a few seconds Bettina
wondered if she was glad to see her, or only felt awkward and unequal to the
situation.
"I can't believe you," she cried=
out
again, and began to shiver. "Betty! Little Betty? No! No! it isn't!&qu=
ot;
She turned to the boy, who had lifted his =
chin
from his stick, and was staring.
"Ughtred! Ughtred!" she called to
him. "Come! She says--she says----"
She sat down upon a clump of heather and b=
egan
to cry. She hid her face in her spare hands and broke into sobbing.
"Oh, Betty! No!" she gasped.
"It's so long ago--it's so far away. You never came--no one--no
one--came!"
The hunchbacked boy drew near. He had limp=
ed
up on his stick. He spoke like an elderly, affectionate gnome, not like a
child.
"Don't do that, mother," he said.
"Don't let it upset you so, whatever it is."
"It's so long ago; it's so far
away!" she wept, with catches in her breath and voice. "You never
came!"
Betty knelt down and enfolded her again. H=
er
bell-like voice was firm and clear.
"I have come now," she said.
"And it is not far away. A cable will reach father in two hours."=
Pursuing a certain vivid thought in her mi=
nd,
she looked at her watch.
"If you spoke to mother by cable this
moment," she added, with accustomed coolness, and she felt her sister
actually start as she spoke, "she could answer you by five o'clock.&qu=
ot;
Lady Anstruther's start ended in a laugh a=
nd
gasp more hysteric than her first. There was even a kind of wan awakening in
her face, as she lifted it to look at the wonderful newcomer. She caught her
hand and held it, trembling, as she weakly laughed.
"It must be Betty," she cried.
"That little stern way! It is so like her. Betty--Betty--dear!" S=
he
fell into a sobbing, shaken heap upon the heather. The harrowing thought pa=
ssed
through Betty's mind that she looked almost like a limp bundle of shabby
clothes. She was so helpless in her pathetic, apologetic hysteria.
"I shall--be better," she gasped.
"It's nothing. Ughtred, tell her."
"She's very weak, really," said =
the
boy Ughtred, in his mature way. "She can't help it sometimes. I'll get
some water from the pool."
"Let me go," said Betty, and she
darted down to the water. She was back in a moment. The boy was rubbing and
patting his mother's hands tenderly.
"At any rate," he remarked, as o=
ne
consoled by a reflection, "father is not at home."
CHAPTER XI - "I THOUGHT YOU HAD ALL
FORGOTTEN."
As, after a singular half hour spent among=
the
bracken under the trees, they began their return to the house, Bettina felt
that her sense of adventure had altered its character. She was still in the
midst of a remarkable sort of exploit, which might end anywhere or in anyth=
ing,
but it had become at once more prosaic in detail and more intense in its si=
gnificance.
What its significance might prove likely to be when she faced it, she had n=
ot
known, it is true. But this was different from--from anything. As they walk=
ed
up the sun-dappled avenue she kept glancing aside at Rosy, and endeavouring=
to
draw useful conclusions. The poor girl's air of being a plain, insignificant
frump, long past youth, struck an extraordinary and, for the time,
unexplainable note. Her ill-cut, out-of-date dress, the cheap suit of the
hunchbacked boy, who limped patiently along, helped by his crutch, suggested
possible explanations which were without doubt connected with the thought w=
hich
had risen in Bettina's mind, as she had been driven through the broken-hing=
ed
entrance gate. What extraordinary disposal was being made of Rosy's money? =
But
her each glance at her sister also suggested complication upon complication=
.
The singular half hour under the trees by =
the
pool, spent, after the first hysteric moments were over, in vague exclaimin=
gs
and questions, which seemed half frightened and all at sea, had gradually s=
hown
her that she was talking to a creature wholly other than the Rosalie who ha=
d so
well known and loved them all, and whom they had so well loved and known. T=
hey
did not know this one, and she did not know them, she was even a little afr=
aid
of the stir and movement of their life and being. The Rosy they had known
seemed to be imprisoned within the wall the years of her separated life had
built about her. At each breath she drew Bettina saw how long the years had
been to her, and how far her home had seemed to lie away, so far that it co=
uld
not touch her, and was only a sort of dream, the recalling of which made her
suddenly begin to cry again every few minutes. To Bettina's sensitively ale=
rt
mind it was plain that it would not do in the least to drag her suddenly ou=
t of
her prison, or cloister, whichsoever it might be. To do so would be like fo=
rcing
a creature accustomed only to darkness, to stare at the blazing sun. To have
burst upon her with the old impetuous, candid fondness would have been to
frighten and shock her as if with something bordering on indecency. She cou=
ld
not have stood it; perhaps such fondness was so remote from her in these da=
ys
that she had even ceased to be able to understand it.
"Where are your little girls?"
Bettina asked, remembering that there had been notice given of the advent of
two girl babies.
"They died," Lady Anstruthers
answered unemotionally. "They both died before they were a year old. T=
here
is only Ughtred."
Betty glanced at the boy and saw a small f=
lame
of red creep up on his cheek. Instinctively she knew what it meant, and she=
put
out her hand and lightly touched his shoulder.
"I hope you'll like me, Ughtred,"
she said.
He almost started at the sound of her voic=
e,
but when he turned his face towards her he only grew redder, and looked awk=
ward
without answering. His manner was that of a boy who was unused to the ameni=
ties
of polite society, and who was only made shy by them.
Without warning, a moment or so later, Bet=
tina
stopped in the middle of the avenue, and looked up at the arching giant
branches of the trees which had reached out from one side to the other, as =
if
to clasp hands or encompass an interlacing embrace. As far as the eye reach=
ed,
they did this, and the beholder stood as in a high stately pergola, with br=
eaks
of deep azure sky between. Several mellow, cawing rooks were floating solem=
nly
beneath or above the branches, now wand then settling in some highest one or
disappearing in the thick greenness.
Lady Anstruthers stopped when her sister d=
id
so, and glanced at her in vague inquiry. It was plain that she had outlived
even her sense of the beauty surrounding her.
"What are you looking at, Betty?"
she asked.
"At all of it," Betty answered.
"It is so wonderful."
"She likes it," said Ughtred, and
then rather slunk a step behind his mother, as if he were ashamed of himsel=
f.
"The house is just beyond those
trees," said Lady Anstruthers.
They came in full view of it three minutes
later. When she saw it, Betty uttered an exclamation and stopped again to e=
njoy
effects.
"She likes that, too," said Ught=
red,
and, although he said it sheepishly, there was imperfectly concealed beneath
the awkwardness a pleasure in the fact.
"Do you?" asked Rosalie, with her
small, painful smile.
Betty laughed.
"It is too picturesque, in its special
way, to be quite credible," she said.
"I thought that when I first saw
it," said Rosy.
"Don't you think so, now?"
"Well," was the rather uncertain
reply, "as Nigel says, there's not much good in a place that is fallin=
g to
pieces."
"Why let it fall to pieces?" Bet=
ty
put it to her with impartial promptness.
"We haven't money enough to hold it
together," resignedly.
As they climbed the low, broad,
lichen-blotched steps, whose broken stone balustrades were almost hidden in
clutching, untrimmed ivy, Betty felt them to be almost incredible, too. The
uneven stones of the terrace the steps mounted to were lichen-blotched and
broken also. Tufts of green growths had forced themselves between the flags,
and added an untidy beauty. The ivy tossed in branches over the red roof and
walls of the house. It had been left unclipped, until it was rather an
endlessly clambering tree than a creeper. The hall they entered had the bea=
uty of
spacious form and good, old oaken panelling. There were deep window seats a=
nd
an ancient high-backed settle or so, and a massive table by the fireless
hearth. But there were no pictures in places where pictures had evidently o=
nce
hung, and the only coverings on the stone floor were the faded remnants of a
central rug and a worn tiger skin, the head almost bald and a glass eye kno=
cked
out.
Bettina took in the unpromising details
without a quiver of the extravagant lashes. These, indeed, and the eyes
pertaining to them, seemed rather to sweep the fine roof, and a certain
minstrel's gallery and staircase, than which nothing could have been much
finer, with the look of an appreciative admirer of architectural features a=
nd
old oak. She had not journeyed to
"It is the first old English house I =
have
seen," she said, with a sigh of pleasure. "I am so glad, Rosy--I =
am
so glad that it is yours."
She put a hand on each of Rosy's thin
shoulders--she felt sharply defined bones as she did so--and bent to kiss h=
er.
It was the natural affectionate expression of her feeling, but tears starte=
d to
Rosy's eyes, and the boy Ughtred, who had sat down in a window seat, turned=
red
again, and shifted in his place.
"Oh, Betty!" was Rosy's faint
nervous exclamation, "you seem so beautiful and--so--so strange--that =
you
frighten me."
Betty laughed with the softest possible
cheerfulness, shaking her a little.
"I shall not seem strange long,"=
she
said, "after I have stayed with you a few weeks, if you will let me st=
ay
with you."
"Let you! Let you!" in a sort of
gasp.
Poor little Lady Anstruthers sank on to a settle and began to cry again. It was plain that she always cried when thin= gs occurred. Ughtred's speech from his window seat testified at once to that.<= o:p>
"Don't cry, mother," he said.
"You know how we've talked that over together. It's her nerves," =
he
explained to Bettina. "We know it only makes things worse, but she can=
't
stop it."
Bettina sat on the settle, too. She herself
was not then aware of the wonderful feeling the poor little spare figure
experienced, as her softly strong young arms curved about it. She was only
aware that she herself felt that this was a heart-breaking thing, and that =
she
must not--MUST not let it be seen how much she recognised its woefulness. T=
his
was pretty, fair Rosy, who had never done a harm in her happy life--this
forlorn thing was her Rosy.
"Never mind," she said, half
laughing again. "I rather want to cry myself, and I am stronger than s=
he
is. I am immensely strong."
"Yes! Yes!" said Lady Anstruther=
s,
wiping her eyes, and making a tremendous effort at self-respecting composur=
e.
"You are strong. I have grown so weak in--well, in every way. Betty, I=
'm
afraid this is a poor welcome. You see--I'm afraid you'll find it all so
different from--from
"I wanted to find it different,"
said Betty.
"But--but--I mean--you know----"
Lady Anstruthers turned helplessly to the boy. Bettina was struck with the
painful truth that she looked even silly as she turned to him.
"Ughtred--tell her," she ended, and hung her head.
Ughtred had got down at once from his seat=
and
limped forward. His unprepossessing face looked as if he pulled his childis=
hness
together with an unchildish effort.
"She means," he said, in his awk=
ward
way, "that she doesn't know how to make you comfortable. The rooms are=
all
so shabby--everything is so shabby. Perhaps you won't stay when you see.&qu=
ot;
Bettina perceptibly increased the firmness=
of
her hold on her sister's body. It was as if she drew it nearer to her side =
in a
kind of taking possession. She knew that the moment had come when she might=
go
this far, at least, without expressing alarming things.
"You cannot show me anything that will
frighten me," was the answer she made. "I have come to stay, Rosy=
. We
can make things right if they require it. Why not?"
Lady Anstruthers started a little, and sta=
red
at her. She knew ten thousand reasons why things had not been made right, a=
nd
the casual inference that such reasons could be lightly swept away as if by=
the
mere wave of a hand, implied a power appertaining to a time seeming so lost
forever that it was too much for her.
"Oh, Betty, Betty!" she cried,
"you talk as if--you are so----!"
The fact, so simple to the members of the
abnormal class to which she of a truth belonged, the class which heaped up =
its
millions, the absolute knowledge that there was a great deal of money in the
world and that she was of those who were among its chief owners, had ceased=
to
seem a fact, and had vanished into the region of fairy stories.
That she could not believe it a reality
revealed itself to Bettina, as by a flash, which was also a revelation of m=
any
things. There would be unpleasing truths to be learned, and she had not made
her pilgrimage for nothing. But--in any event--there were advantages without
doubt in the circumstance which subjected one to being perpetually pointed =
out
as a daughter of a multi-millionaire. As this argued itself out for her wit=
h rapid
lucidity, she bent and kissed Rosy once more. She even tried to do it light=
ly,
and not to allow the rush of love and pity in her soul to betray her.
"I talk as if--as if I were Betty,&qu=
ot;
she said. "You have forgotten. I have not. I have been looking forward=
to
this for years. I have been planning to come to you since I was eleven years
old. And here we sit."
"You didn't forget? You didn't?"
faltered the poor wreck of Rosy. "Oh! Oh! I thought you had all forgot=
ten
me--quite--quite!"
And her face went down in her spare, small
hands, and she began to cry again.
Bettina stood alone in her bedroom a coupl=
e of
hours later. Lady Anstruthers had taken her to it, preparing her for its
limitations by explaining that she would find it quite different from her r=
oom
in
The room was large and square and low. It =
was
panelled in small squares of white wood. The panels were old enough to be
cracked here and there, and the paint was stained and yellow with time, whe=
re
it was not knocked or worn off. There was a small paned, leaded window which
filled a large part of one side of the room, and its deep seat was an agree=
able
feature. Sitting in it, one looked out over several red-walled gardens, and
through breaks in the trees of the park to a fair beyond. Bettina stood bef=
ore
this window for a few moments, and then took a seat in the embrasure, that =
she
might gaze out and reflect at leisure.
Her genius, as has before been mentioned, =
was
the genius for living, for being vital. Many people merely exist, are kept
alive by others, or continue to vegetate because the persistent action of
normal functions will allow of their doing no less. Bettina Vanderpoel had
lived vividly, and in the midst of a self-created atmosphere of action from=
her
first hour. It was not possible for her to be one of the horde of mere spec=
tators.
Wheresoever she moved there was some occult stirring of the mental, and even
physical, air. Her pulses beat too strongly, her blood ran too fast to allo=
w of
inaction of mind or body. When, in passing through the village, she had seen
the broken windows and the hanging palings of the cottages, it had been
inevitable that, at once, she should, in thought, repair them, set them
straight. Disorder filled her with a sort of impatience which was akin to p=
hysical
distress. If she had been born a poor woman she would have worked hard for =
her
living, and found an interest, almost an exhilaration, in her labour. Such
gifts as she had would have been applied to the tasks she undertook. It had=
frequently
given her pleasure to imagine herself earning her livelihood as a seamstres=
s, a
housemaid, a nurse. She knew what she could have put into her service, and =
how
she could have found it absorbing. Imagination and initiative could make any
service absorbing. The actual truth was that if she had been a housemaid, t=
he
room she set in order would have taken a character under her touch; if she =
had
been a seamstress, her work would have been swiftly done, her imagination w=
ould
have invented for her combinations of form and colour; if she had been a
nursemaid, the children under her care would never have been sufficiently b=
ored
to become tiresome or intractable, and they also would have gained characte=
r to
which would have been added an undeniable vividness of outlook. She could n=
ot
have left them alone, so to speak. In obeying the mere laws of her being, s=
he
would have stimulated them. Unconsciously she had stimulated her fellow pup=
ils
at school; when she was his companion, her father had always felt himself
stirred to interest and enterprise.
"You ought to have been a man,
Betty," he used to say to her sometimes.
But Betty had not agreed with him.
"You say that," she once replied=
to
him, "because you see I am inclined to do things, to change them, if t=
hey
need changing. Well, one is either born like that, or one is not. Sometimes=
I
think that perhaps the people who must ACT are of a distinct race. A kind of
vigorous restlessness drives them. I remember that when I was a child I cou=
ld
not see a pin lying upon the ground without picking it up, or pass a drawer
which needed closing, without giving it a push. But there has always been a=
s much
for women to do as for men."
There was much to be done here of one sort=
of
thing and another. That was certain. As she gazed through the small panes of
her large windows, she found herself overlooking part of a wilderness of
garden, which revealed itself through an arch in an overgrown laurel hedge.=
She
had glimpses of unkempt grass paths and unclipped topiary work which had lo=
st
its original form. Among a tangle of weeds rose the heads of clumps of
daffodils, stirred by a passing wind of spring. In the park beyond a cuckoo=
was
calling.
She was conscious both of the forlorn beau=
ty
and significance of the neglected garden, and of the clear quaintness of the
cuckoo call, as she thought of other things.
"Her spirit and her health are
broken," was her summing up. "Her prettiness has faded to a rag. =
She
is as nervous as an ill-treated child. She has lost her wits. I do not know
where to begin with her. I must let her tell me things as gradually as she
chooses. Until I see Nigel I shall not know what his method with her has be=
en.
She looks as if she had ceased to care for things, even for herself. What s=
hall
I write to mother?"
She knew what she should write to her fath=
er.
With him she could be explicit. She could record what she had found and wha=
t it
suggested to her. She could also make clear her reason for hesitance and de=
liberation.
His discretion and affection would comprehend the thing which she herself f=
elt
and which affection not combined with discretion might not take in. He would
understand, when she told him that one of the first things which had struck
her, had been that Rosy herself, her helplessness and timidity, might, for a
period at least, form obstacles in their path of action. He not only loved
Rosy, but realised how slight a sweet thing she had always been, and he wou=
ld
know how far a slight creature's gentleness might be overpowered and beaten
down.
There was so much that her mother must be
spared, there was indeed so little that it would be wise to tell her, that
Bettina sat gently rubbing her forehead as she thought of it. The truth was
that she must tell her nothing, until all was over, accomplished, decided.
Whatsoever there was to be "over," whatsoever the action finally
taken, must be a matter lying as far as possible between her father and
herself. Mrs. Vanderpoel's trouble would be too keen, her anxiety too great=
to
keep to herself, even if she were not overwhelmed by them. She must be told=
of the
beauties and dimensions of Stornham, all relatable details of Rosy's life m=
ust
be generously dwelt on. Above all Rosy must be made to write letters, and w=
ith
an air of freedom however specious.
A knock on the door broke the thread of her
reflection. It was a low-sounding knock, and she answered the summons herse=
lf,
because she thought it might be Rosy's.
It was not Lady Anstruthers who stood outs=
ide,
but Ughtred, who balanced himself on his crutches, and lifted his small, to=
o mature,
face.
"May I come in?" he asked.
Here was the unexpected again, but she did=
not
allow him to see her surprise.
"Yes," she said. "Certainly=
you
may."
He swung in and then turned to speak to he=
r.
"Please shut the door and lock it,&qu=
ot;
he said.
There was sudden illumination in this, but=
of
an order almost whimsical. That modern people in modern days should feel bo=
lts
and bars a necessity of ordinary intercourse was suggestive. She was plainly
about to receive enlightenment. She turned the key and followed the halting
figure across the room.
"What are you afraid of?" she as=
ked.
"When mother and I talk things
over," he said, "we always do it where no one can see or hear. It=
's
the only way to be safe."
"Safe from what?"
His eyes fixed themselves on her as he
answered her almost sullenly.
"Safe from people who might listen an=
d go
and tell that we had been talking."
In his thwarted-looking, odd child-face th=
ere
was a shade of appeal not wholly hidden by his evident wish not to be boyli=
ke.
Betty felt a desire to kneel down suddenly and embrace him, but she knew he=
was
not prepared for such a demonstration. He looked like a creature who had li=
ved continually
at bay, and had learned to adjust himself to any situation with caution and
restraint.
"Sit down, Ughtred," she said, a=
nd
when he did so she herself sat down, but not too near him.
Resting his chin on the handle of a crutch=
, he
gazed at her almost protestingly.
"I always have to do these things,&qu=
ot;
he said, "and I am not clever enough, or old enough. I am only
eleven."
The mention of the number of his years was
plainly not apologetic, but was a mere statement of his limitations. There =
the
fact was, and he must make the best of it he could.
"What things do you mean?"
"Trying to make things easier--explai=
ning
things when she cannot think of excuses. To-day it is telling you what she =
is
too frightened to tell you herself. I said to her that you must be told. It
made her nervous and miserable, but I knew you must."
"Yes, I must," Betty answered.
"I am glad she has you to depend on, Ughtred."
His crutch grated on the floor and his boy
eyes forbade her to believe that their sudden lustre was in any way connect=
ed
with restrained emotion.
"I know I seem queer and like a little
old man," he said. "Mother cries about it sometimes. But it can't=
be
helped. It is because she has never had anyone but me to help her. When I w=
as
very little, I found out how frightened and miserable she was. After his
rages," he used no name, "she used to run into my nursery and sna=
tch
me up in her arms and hide her face in my pinafore. Sometimes she stuffed it
into her mouth and bit it to keep herself from screaming. Once--before I was
seven--I ran into their room and shouted out, and tried to fight for her. He
was going out, and had his riding whip in his hand, and he caught hold of me
and struck me with it--until he was tired."
Betty stood upright.
"What! What! What!" she cried ou=
t.
He merely nodded his head shortly. She saw
what the thing had been by the way his face lost colour.
"Of course he said it was because I w=
as
impudent, and needed punishment," he said. "He said she had
encouraged me in American impudence. It was worse for her than for me. She
kneeled down and screamed out as if she was crazy, that she would give him =
what
he wanted if he would stop."
"Wait," said Betty, drawing in h=
er
breath sharply. "'He,' is Sir Nigel? And he wanted something."
He nodded again
"Tell me," she demanded, "h=
as
he ever struck her?"
"Once," he answered slowly,
"before I was born--he struck her and she fell against something. That=
is
why I am like this." And he touched his shoulder.
The feeling which surged through Betty
Vanderpoel's being forced her to go and stand with her face turned towards =
the
windows, her hands holding each other tightly behind her back.
"I must keep still," she said.
"I must make myself keep still."
She spoke unconsciously half aloud, and
Ughtred heard her and replied hurriedly.
"Yes," he said, "you must m=
ake
yourself keep still. That is what we have to do whatever happens. That is o=
ne
of the things mother wanted you to know. She is afraid. She daren't let
you----"
She turned from the window, standing at her
full height and looking very tall for a girl.
"She is afraid? She daren't? See--that
will come to an end now. There are things which can be done."
He flushed nervously.
"That is what she was afraid you would
say," he spoke fast and his hands trembled. "She is nearly wild a=
bout
it, because she knows he will try to do something that will make you feel a=
s if
she does not want you."
"She is afraid of that?" Betty
exclaimed.
"He'd do it! He'd do it--if you did n=
ot
know beforehand."
"Oh!" said Betty, with unflinchi=
ng
clearness. "He is a liar, is he?"
The helpless rage in the unchildish eyes, =
the
shaking voice, as he cried out in answer, were a shock. It was as if he wil=
dly
rejoiced that she had spoken the word.
"Yes, he's a liar--a liar!" he
shrilled. "He's a liar and a bully and a coward. He'd--he'd be a murde=
rer
if he dared--but he daren't." And his face dropped on his arms folded =
on
his crutch, and he broke into a passion of crying. Then Betty knew she migh=
t go
to him. She went and knelt down and put her arm round him.
"Ughtred," she said, "cry, =
if
you like, I should do it, if I were you. But I tell you it can all be
altered--and it shall be."
He seemed quite like a little boy when he =
put
out his hand to hers and spoke sobbingly:
"She--she says--that because you have
only just come from
"Aunt Betty! Aunt Betty--whatever
happens--whatever he makes her seem like--you are to know that it is not tr=
ue.
Now you have come--now she has seen you it would KILL her if you were driven
away and thought she wanted you to go."
"I shall not think that," she
answered, slowly, because she realised that it was well that she had been
warned in time. "Ughtred, are you trying to tell me that above all thi=
ngs
I must not let him think that I came here to help you, because if he is ang=
ry
he will make us all suffer--and your mother most of all?"
"He'll find a way. We always know he
will. He would either be so rude that you would not stay here--or he would =
make
mother seem rude--or he would write lies to grandfather. Aunt Betty, she
scarcely believes you are real yet. If she won't tell you things at first,
please don't mind." He looked quite like a child again in his appeal to
her, to try to understand a state of affairs so complicated. "Could
you--could you wait until you have let her get--get used to you?"
"Used to thinking that there may be
someone in the world to help her?" slowly. "Yes, I will. Has anyo=
ne
ever tried to help her?"
"Once or twice people found out and w=
ere
sorry at first, but it only made it worse, because he made them believe
things."
"I shall not TRY, Ughtred," said
Betty, a remote spark kindling in the deeps of the pupils of her steel-blue
eyes. "I shall not TRY. Now I am going to ask you some questions."=
;
Before he left her she had asked many
questions which were pertinent and searching, and she had learned things she
realised she could have learned in no other way and from no other person. B=
ut
for his uncanny sense of the responsibility he clearly had assumed in the d=
ays
when he wore pinafores, and which had brought him to her room to prepare he=
r mind
for what she would find herself confronted with in the way of apparently
unexplainable obstacles, there was a strong likelihood that at the outset s=
he
might have found herself more than once dangerously at a loss. Yes, she wou=
ld
have been at a loss, puzzled, perhaps greatly discouraged. She was face to =
face
with a complication so extraordinary.
That one man, through mere persistent
steadiness in evil temper and domestic tyranny, should have so broken the
creatures of his household into abject submission and hopelessness, seemed =
too
incredible. Such a power appeared as remote from civilised existence in
"When he is angry," was one of t=
he
first questions she put to Ughtred, "what does he give as his reason? =
He
must profess to have a reason."
"When he gets in a rage he says it is
because mother is silly and common, and I am badly brought up. But we always
know he wants money, and it makes him furious. He could kill us with
rage."
"Oh!" said Betty. "I see.&q=
uot;
"It began that time when he struck he=
r. He
said then that it was not decent that a woman who was married should keep h=
er
own money. He made her give him almost everything she had, but she wants to
keep some for me. He tries to make her get more from grandfather, but she w=
ill
not write begging letters, and she won't give him what she is saving for me=
."
It was a simple and sordid enough explanat=
ion
in one sense, and it was one of which Bettina had known, not one parallel, =
but
several. Having married to ensure himself power over unquestioned resources,
the man had felt himself disgustingly taken in, and avenged himself
accordingly. In him had been born the makings of a domestic tyrant who, even
had he been favoured by fortune, would have wreaked his humours upon the
defenceless things made his property by ties of blood and marriage, and who,
being unfavoured, would do worse. Betty could see what the years had held f=
or Rosy,
and how her weakness and timidity had been considered as positive assets. A
woman who will cry when she is bullied, may be counted upon to submit after=
she
has cried. Rosy had submitted up to a certain point and then, with the
stubbornness of a weak creature, had stood at timid bay for her young.
What Betty gathered was that, after the lo=
ng
and terrible illness which had followed Ughtred's birth, she had risen from
what had been so nearly her deathbed, prostrated in both mind and body. Ugh=
tred
did not know all that he revealed when he touched upon the time which he sa=
id
his mother could not quite remember--when she had sat for months staring
vacantly out of her window, trying to recall something terrible which had h=
appened,
and which she wanted to tell her mother, if the day ever came when she could
write to her again. She had never remembered clearly the details of the thi=
ng
she had wanted to tell, and Nigel had insisted that her fancy was part of h=
er
past delirium. He had said that at the beginning of her delirium she had
attacked and insulted his mother and himself but they had excused her becau=
se
they realised afterwards what the cause of her excitement had been. For a l=
ong
time she had been too brokenly weak to question or disbelieve, but, later s=
he
had vaguely known that he had been lying to her, though she could not refute
what he said. She recalled, in course of time, a horrible scene in which al=
l three
of them had raved at each other, and she herself had shrieked and laughed a=
nd
hurled wild words at Nigel, and he had struck her. That she knew and never
forgot. She had been ill a year, her hair had fallen out, her skin had faded
and she had begun to feel like a nervous, tired old woman instead of a girl.
Girlhood, with all the past, had become unreal and too far away to be more =
than
a dream. Nothing had remained real but Stornham and Nigel and the little
hunchbacked baby. She was glad when the Dowager died and when Nigel spent h=
is
time in
"She thought, somehow, that grandfath=
er
and grandmother did not care for her any more--that they had forgotten her =
and
only cared for you," Ughtred explained. "She used to talk to me a=
bout
you. She said you must be so clever and so handsome that no one could remem=
ber
her. Sometimes she cried and said she did not want any of you to see her ag=
ain,
because she was only a hideous, little, thin, yellow old woman. When I was =
very
little she told me stories about
Betty patted his shoulder and looked away =
for
a moment when he said this. In her remote and helpless loneliness, to Rosy's
homesick, yearning soul, noisy, rattling New York, Fifth Avenue with its
traffic and people, its brown-stone houses and ricketty stages, had seemed =
like
THAT--so splendid and bright and heart-filling, that she had painted them in
colours which could belong only to fairyland. It said so much.
The thing she had suspected as she had tal=
ked
to her sister was, before the interview ended, made curiously clear. The fi=
rst
obstacle in her pathway would be the shrinking of a creature who had been so
long under dominion that the mere thought of seeing any steps taken towards=
her
rescue filled her with alarm. One might be prepared for her almost praying =
to
be let alone, because she felt that the process of her salvation would bring
about such shocks and torments as she could not endure the facing of.
"She will have to get used to you,&qu=
ot;
Ughtred kept saying. "She will have to get used to thinking things.&qu=
ot;
"I will be careful," Bettina
answered. "She shall not be troubled. I did not come to trouble her.&q=
uot;
CHAPTER XIII - ONE OF THE =
a>
As she went down the staircase later, on h=
er
way to dinner, Miss Vanderpoel saw on all sides signs of the extent of the
nakedness of the land. She was in a fine old house, stripped of most of its
saleable belongings, uncared for, deteriorating year by year, gradually goi=
ng
to ruin. One need not possess particular keenness of sight to observe this,=
and
she had chanced to see old houses in like condition in other countries than=
The large drawing-room presented but anoth=
er
aspect of the bareness of the rest of the house. In times probably long pas=
t,
possibly in the Dowager Lady Anstruthers' early years of marriage, the walls
had been hung with white and gold paper of a pattern which dominated the sc=
ene,
and had been furnished with gilded chairs, tables, and ottomans. Some of th=
ese
last had evidently been removed as they became too much out of repair for u=
se
or ornament. Such as remained, tarnished as to gilding and worn in the matt=
er
of upholstery, stood sparsely scattered on a desert of carpet, whose huge,
flowered medallions had faded almost from view.
Lady Anstruthers, looking shy and awkward =
as
she fingered an ornament on a small table, seemed singularly a part of her
background. Her evening dress, slipping off her thin shoulders, was as faded
and out of date as her carpet. It had once been delicately blue and gauzy, =
but
its gauziness hung in crushed folds and its blue was almost grey. It was al=
so
the dress of a girl, not that of a colourless, worn woman, and her consciou=
sness
of its unfitness showed in her small-featured face as she came forward.
"Do you--recognise it, Betty?" s=
he
asked hesitatingly. "It was one of my
"Because you wanted to remind me,&quo=
t;
Betty said. If she felt it easier to begin with an excuse she should be
provided with one.
Perhaps but for this readiness to fall into
any tone she chose to adopt Rosy might have endeavoured to carry her poor f=
arce
on, but as it was she suddenly gave it up.
"I put it on because I have no
other," she said. "We never have visitors and I haven't dressed f=
or
dinner for so long that I seem to have nothing left that is fit to wear. I =
dragged
this out because it was better than anything else. It was pretty once----&q=
uot;
she gave a little laugh, "twelve years ago. How long years seem! Was
I--was I pretty, Betty--twelve years ago?"
"Twelve years is not such a long
time." Betty took her hand and drew her to a sofa. "Let us sit do=
wn
and talk about it."
"There is nothing much to talk about.
This is it----" taking in the room with a wave of her hand. "I am=
it.
Ughtred is it."
"Then let us talk about
A red spot grew on each of Lady Anstruther=
s'
cheek bones and made her faded eyes look intense.
"Let us talk about
"It is still there," Betty answe=
red
with one of the adorable smiles which showed a deep dimple near her lip.
"But it is much nearer
"Nearer!" The hand tightened as =
Rosy
caught her breath.
Betty bent rather suddenly and kissed her.=
It
was the easiest way of hiding the look she knew had risen to her eyes. She
began to talk gaily, half laughingly.
"It is quite near," she said.
"Don't you realise it? Americans swoop over here by thousands every ye=
ar.
They come for business, they come for pleasure, they come for rest. They ca=
nnot
keep away. They come to buy and sell--pictures and books and luxuries and
lands. They come to give and take. They are building a bridge from shore to
shore of their work, and their thoughts, and their plannings, out of the li=
ves
and souls of them. It will be a great bridge and great things will pass over
it." She kissed the faded cheek again. She wanted to sweep Rosy away f=
rom
the dreariness of "it." Lady Anstruthers looked at her with faint=
ly
smiling eyes. She did not follow all this quite readily, but she felt pleas=
ed and
vaguely comforted.
"I know how they come here and
marry," she said. "The new Duchess of Downes is an American. She =
had
a fortune of two million pounds."
"If she chooses to rebuild a great ho=
use
and a great name," said Betty, lifting her shoulders lightly, "why
not--if it is an honest bargain? I suppose it is part of the building of the
bridge."
Little Lady Anstruthers, trying to pull up=
the
sleeves of the gauzy bodice slipping off her small, sharp bones, stared at =
her
half in wondering adoration, half in alarm.
"Betty--you--you are so handsome--and=
so
clever and strange," she fluttered. "Oh, Betty, stand up so that I
can see how tall and handsome you are!"
Betty did as she was told, and upon her fe=
et
she was a young woman of long lines, and fine curves so inspiring to behold
that Lady Anstruthers clasped her hands together on her knees in an excited
gesture.
"Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" she cried.
"You are just as wonderful as you looked when I turned and saw you und=
er
the trees. You almost make me afraid."
"Because I am wonderful?" said
Betty. "Then I will not be wonderful any more."
"It is not because I think you wonder=
ful,
but because other people will. Would you rebuild a great house?"
hesitatingly.
The fine line of Betty's black brows drew
itself slightly together.
"No," she said.
"Wouldn't
you?"
"How could the man who owned it persu=
ade
me that he was in earnest if he said he loved me? How could I persuade him =
that
I was worth caring for and not a mere ambitious fool? There would be too mu=
ch
against us."
"Against you?" repeated Lady
Anstruthers.
"I don't say I am fair," said Be=
tty.
"People who are proud are often not fair. But we should both of us have
seen and known too much."
"You have seen me now," said Lady
Anstruthers in her listless voice, and at the same moment dinner was announ=
ced
and she got up from the sofa, so that, luckily, there was no time for the
impersonal answer it would have been difficult to invent at a moment's noti=
ce.
As they went into the dining-room Betty was thinking restlessly. She rememb=
ered
all the material she had collected during her education in
There was fine panelling in the dining-room
and a great fireplace and a few family portraits. The service upon the table
was shabby and the dinner was not a bounteous meal. Lady Anstruthers in her
girlish, gauzy dress and looking too small for her big, high-backed chair t=
ried
to talk rapidly, and every few minutes forgot herself and sank into silence=
, with
her eyes unconsciously fixed upon her sister's face. Ughtred watched Betty
also, and with a hungry questioning. The man-servant in the worn livery was=
not
a sufficiently well-trained and experienced domestic to make any effort to =
keep
his eyes from her. He was young enough to be excited by an innovation so
unusual as the presence of a young and beautiful person surrounded by an
unmistakable atmosphere of ease and fearlessness. He had been talking of her
below stairs and felt that he had failed in describing her. He had found
himself barely supported by the suggestion of a housemaid that sometimes th=
ese
dresses that looked plain had been made in
Betty did not look too small for her
high-backed chair, and she did not forget herself when she talked. In spite=
of
all she had found, her imagination was stirred by the surroundings. Her sen=
se
of the fine spaces and possibilities of dignity in the barren house, her
knowledge that outside the windows there lay stretched broad views of the p=
ark
and its heavy-branched trees, and that outside the gates stood the neglected
picturesqueness of the village and all the rural and--to her--interesting l=
ife
it slowly lived--this pleased and attracted her.
If she had been as helpless and discourage=
d as
Rosalie she could see that it would all have meant a totally different and
depressing thing, but, strong and spirited, and with the power of full hand=
s,
she was remotely rejoicing in what might be done with it all. As she talked=
she
was gradually learning detail. Sir Nigel was on the Continent. Apparently he
often went there; also it revealed itself that no one knew at what moment he
might return, for what reason he would return, or if he would return at all
during the summer. It was evident that no one had been at any time encourag=
ed
to ask questions as to his intentions, or to feel that they had a right to =
do
so.
This she knew, and a number of other thing=
s,
before they left the table. When they did so they went out to stroll upon t=
he
moss-grown stone terrace and listened to the nightingales throwing 'm into =
the
air silver fountains of trilling song. When Bettina paused, leaning against=
the
balustrade of the terrace that she might hear all the beauty of it, and feel
all the beauty of the warm spring night, Rosy went on making her effort to
talk.
"It is not much of a neighbourhood,
Betty," she said. "You are too accustomed to livelier places to l=
ike
it."
"That is my reason for feeling that I
shall like it. I don't think I could be called a lively person, and I rather
hate lively places."
"But you are
accustomed--accustomed----" Rosy harked back uncertainly.
"I have been accustomed to wishing th=
at I
could come to you," said Betty. "And now I am here."
Lady Anstruthers laid a hand on her dress.=
"I can't believe it! I can't believe
it!" she breathed.
"You will believe it," said Bett=
y,
drawing the hand around her waist and enclosing in her own arm the narrow
shoulders. "Tell me about the neighbourhood."
"There isn't any, really," said =
Lady
Anstruthers. "The houses are so far away from each other. The nearest =
is
six miles from here, and it is one that doesn't count.
"Why?"
"There is no family, and the man who =
owns
it is so poor. It is a big place, but it is falling to pieces as this is.
"What is it called?"
"
"Where?"
"No one knows. To
"Do they invite this man?"
"No. He probably would not go to their
houses if they did. And he went away soon after he came into the title.&quo=
t;
"Is the place beautiful?"
"There is a fine deer park, and the
gardens were wonderful a long time ago. The house is worth looking
at--outside."
"I will go and look at it," said=
Betty.
"The carriage is out of order. There =
is
only Ughtred's cart."
"I am a good walker," said Betty=
.
"Are you? It would be twelve miles--t=
here
and back. When I was in
"They do now," Betty answered.
"They have learned to do it in
As they talked the nightingales sang,
sometimes near, sometimes in the distance, and scents of dewy grass and lea=
ves
and earth were wafted towards them. Sometimes they strolled up and down the
terrace, sometimes they paused and leaned against the stone balustrade. Bet=
ty
allowed Rosy to talk as she chose. She herself asked no obviously leading
questions and passed over trying moments with lightness. Her desire was to
place herself in a position where she might hear the things which would aid=
her
to draw conclusions. Lady Anstruthers gradually grew less nervous and afrai=
d of
her subjects. In the wonder of the luxury of talking to someone who listened
with sympathy, she once or twice almost forgot herself and made revelations=
she
had not intended to make. She had often the manner of a person who was afra=
id
of being overheard; sometimes, even when she was making speeches quite simp=
le
in themselves, her voice dropped and she glanced furtively aside as if there
were chances that something she dreaded might step out of the shadow.
When they went upstairs together and parted
for the night, the clinging of Rosy's embrace was for a moment almost convu=
lsive.
But she tried to laugh off its suggestion of intensity.
"I held you tight so that I could feel
sure that you were real and would not melt away," she said. "I ho=
pe
you will be here in the morning."
"I shall never really go quite away
again, now I have come," Betty answered. "It is not only your hou=
se I
have come into. I have come back into your life."
After she had entered her room and locked =
the
door she sat down and wrote a letter to her father. It was a long letter, b=
ut a
clear one. She painted a definite and detailed picture and made distinct her
chief point.
"She is afraid of me," she wrote.
"That is the first and worst obstacle. She is actually afraid that I w=
ill
do something which will only add to her trouble. She has lived under domini=
on
so long that she has forgotten that there are people who have no reason for
fear. Her old life seems nothing but a dream. The first thing I must teach =
her
is that I am to be trusted not to do futile things, and that she need neith=
er
be afraid of nor for me."
After writing these sentences she found
herself leaving her desk and walking up and down the room to relieve hersel=
f.
She could not sit still, because suddenly the blood ran fast and hot through
her veins. She put her hands against her cheeks and laughed a little, low
laugh.
"I feel violent," she said. &quo=
t;I
feel violent and I must get over it. This is rage. Rage is worth nothing.&q=
uot;
It was rage--the rage of splendid hot blood
which surged in answer to leaping hot thoughts. There would have been a sor=
t of
luxury in giving way to the sway of it. But the self-indulgence would have =
been
no aid to future action. Rage was worth nothing. She said it as the first
Reuben Vanderpoel might have said of a useless but glittering weapon.
"This gun is worth nothing," and cast it aside.
CHAPTER XIV - IN THE GARDENS=
She came out upon the stone terrace again
rather early in the morning. She wanted to wander about in the first freshn=
ess
of the day, which was always an uplifting thing to her. She wanted to see t=
he
dew on the grass and on the ragged flower borders and to hear the tender,
broken fluting of birds in the trees. One cuckoo was calling to another in =
the
park, and she stopped and listened intently. Until yesterday she had never =
heard
a cuckoo call, and its hollow mellowness gave her delight. It meant the spr=
ing
in
There was space enough to ramble about in =
the
gardens. Paths and beds were alike overgrown with weeds, but some strong,
early-blooming things were fighting for life, refusing to be strangled. Aga=
inst
the beautiful old red walls, over which age had stolen with a wonderful grey
bloom, venerable fruit trees were spread and nailed, and here and there sho=
wed bloom,
clumps of low-growing things sturdily advanced their yellowness or whitenes=
s,
as if defying neglect. In one place a wall slanted and threatened to fall,
bearing its nectarine trees with it; in another there was a gap so evidently
not of to-day that the heap of its masonry upon the border bed was already
covered with greenery, and the roots of the fruit tree it had supported had
sent up strong, insistent shoots.
She passed down broad paths and narrow one=
s,
sometimes walking under trees, sometimes pushing her way between encroaching
shrubs; she descended delightful mossy and broken steps and came upon
dilapidated urns, in which weeds grew instead of flowers, and over which
rampant but lovely, savage little creepers clambered and clung.
In one of the walled kitchen gardens she c=
ame
upon an elderly gardener at work. At the sound of her approaching steps he
glanced round and then stood up, touching his forelock in respectful but
startled salute. He was so plainly amazed at the sight of her that she
explained herself.
"Good-morning," she said. "=
I am
her ladyship's sister, Miss Vanderpoel. I came yesterday evening. I am look=
ing
over your gardens."
He touched his forehead again and looked r=
ound
him. His manner was not cheerful. He cast a troubled eye about him.
"They're not much to see, miss,"=
he
said. "They'd ought to be, but they're not. Growing things has to be f=
ed
and took care of. A man and a boy can't do it--nor yet four or five of
'em."
"How many ought there to be?" Be=
tty
inquired, with business-like directness. It was not only the dew on the gra=
ss
she had come out to see.
"If there was eight or ten of us we m=
ight
put it in order and keep it that way. It's a big place, miss."
Betty looked about her as he had done, but
with a less discouraged eye.
"It is a beautiful place, as well as a
large one," she said. "I can see that there ought to be more
workers."
"There's no one," said the garde=
ner,
"as has as many enemies as a gardener, an' as many things to fight.
There's grubs an' there's greenfly, an' there's drout', an' wet an' cold, a=
n'
mildew, an' there's what the soil wants and starves without, an' if you hav=
en't
got it nor yet hands an' feet an' tools enough, how's things to feed, an' f=
ight
an' live--let alone bloom an' bear?"
"I don't know much about gardens,&quo=
t;
said Miss Vanderpoel, "but I can understand that."
The scent of fresh bedewed things was in t=
he
air. It was true that she had not known much about gardens, but here standi=
ng
in the midst of one she began to awaken to a new, practical interest. A
creature of initiative could not let such a place as this alone. It was bea=
uty
being slowly slain. One could not pass it by and do nothing.
"What is your name?" she asked
"Kedgers, miss. I've only been here a=
bout
a twelve-month. I was took on because I'm getting on in years an' can't ask
much wage."
"Can you spare time to take me through
the gardens and show me things?"
Yes, he could do it. In truth, he privately
welcomed an opportunity offering a prospect of excitement so novel. He had
shown more flourishing gardens to other young ladies in his past years of
service, but young ladies did not come to Stornham, and that one having, wi=
th such
extraordinary unexpectedness arrived, should want to look over the desolati=
on
of these, was curious enough to rouse anyone to a sense of a break in
accustomed monotony. The young lady herself mystified him by her difference
from such others as he had seen. What the man in the shabby livery had felt=
, he
felt also, and added to this was a sense of the practicalness of the questi=
ons
she asked and the interest she showed and a way she had of seeming singular=
ly
to suggest by the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice that nothing w=
as
necessarily without remedy. When her ladyship walked through the place and
looked at things, a pale resignation expressed itself in the very droop of =
her figure.
When this one walked through the tumbled-down grape-houses, potting-sheds a=
nd
conservatories, she saw where glass was broken, where benches had fallen and
where roofs sagged and leaked. She inquired about the heating apparatus and
asked that she might see it. She asked about the village and its resources,
about labourers and their wages.
"As if," commented Kedgers menta=
lly,
"she was what Sir Nigel is--leastways what he'd ought to be an'
ain't."
She led the way back to the fallen wall and
stood and looked at it.
"It's a beautiful old wall," she
said. "It should be rebuilt with the old brick. New would spoil it.&qu=
ot;
"Some of this is broken and crumbled
away," said Kedgers, picking up a piece to show it to her.
"Perhaps old brick could be bought
somewhere," replied the young lady speculatively. "One ought to be
able to buy old brick in
Kedgers scratched his head and gazed at he=
r in
respectful wonder which was almost trouble. Who was going to pay for things,
and who was going to look for things which were not on the spot?
When she left him he stood and watched her
upright figure disappear through the ivy-grown door of the kitchen gardens =
with
a disturbed but elated expression on his countenance. He did not know why he
felt elated, but he was conscious of elation. Something new had walked into=
the
place. He stopped his work and grinned and scratched his head several times
after he went back to his pottering among the cabbage plants.
"My word," he muttered. "Sh=
e's
a fine, straight young woman. If she was her ladyship things 'ud be differe=
nt.
Sir Nigel 'ud be different, too--or there'd be some fine upsets."
There was a huge stable yard, and Betty pa=
ssed
through that on her way back. The door of the carriage house was open and s=
he
saw two or three tumbled-down vehicles. One was a landau with a wheel off, =
one
was a shabby, old-fashioned, low phaeton. She caught sight of a patently ve=
nerable
cob in one of the stables. The stalls near him were empty.
"I suppose that is all they have to
depend upon," she thought. "And the stables are like the
gardens."
She found Lady Anstruthers and Ughtred wai=
ting
for her upon the terrace, each of them regarding her with an expression
suggestive of repressed curiosity as she approached. Lady Anstruthers flush=
ed a
little and went to meet her with an eager kiss.
"You look like--I don't know quite wh=
at
you look like, Betty!" she exclaimed.
The girl's dimple deepened and her eyes sa=
id
smiling things.
"It is the morning--and your
gardens," she answered. "I have been round your gardens."
"They were beautiful once, I
suppose," said Rosy deprecatingly.
"They are beautiful now. There is not=
hing
like them in
"I don't remember any gardens in
"They ought not to be allowed to tumb=
le
to pieces," said Betty. She added her next words with simple directnes=
s.
She could only discover how any advancing steps would be taken by taking th=
em.
"Why do you allow them to do it?"
Lady Anstruthers looked away, but as she
looked her eyes passed Ughtred's.
"I!" she said. "There are so
many other things to do. It would cost so much--such an enormity to keep it=
all
in order."
"But it ought to be done--for Ughtred=
's
sake."
"I know that," faltered Rosy,
"but I can't help it."
"You can," answered Betty, and s=
he
put her arm round her as they turned to enter the house. "When you have
become more used to me and my driving American ways I will show you how.&qu=
ot;
The lightness with which she said it had an
odd effect on Lady Anstruthers. Such casual readiness was so full of the
suggestion of unheard of possibilities that it was a kind of shock.
"I have been twelve years in getting
un-used to you--I feel as if it would take twelve years more to get used
again," she said.
"It won't take twelve weeks," sa=
id
Betty.
CHAPTER XV - THE FIRST MAN=
a>
The mystery of the apparently occult metho=
ds
of communication among the natives of India, between whom, it is said, news
flies by means too strange and subtle to be humanly explainable, is no more
difficult a problem to solve than that of the lightning rapidity with which=
a knowledge
of the transpiring of any new local event darts through the slowest, and, as
far as outward signs go, the least communicative English village slumbering
drowsily among its pastures and trees.
That which the Hall or Manor House believed
last night, known only to the four walls of its drawing-room, is discussed =
over
the cottage breakfast tables as though presented in detail through the colu=
mns
of the Morning Post. The vicarage, the smithy, the post office, the little
provision shop, are instantaneously informed as by magic of such incidents =
of
interest as occur, and are prepared to assist vicariously at any future
developments. Through what agency information is given no one can tell, and,
indeed, the agency is of small moment. Facts of interest are perhaps like
flights of swallows and dart chattering from one red roof to another,
proclaiming themselves aloud. Nothing is so true as that in such villages t=
hey
are the property and innocent playthings of man, woman, and child, providing
conversation and drama otherwise likely to be lacked.
When Miss Vanderpoel walked through Stornh=
am
village street she became aware that she was an exciting object of interest.
Faces appeared at cottage windows, women sauntered to doors, men in the tap=
room
of the Clock Inn left beer mugs to cast an eye on her; children pushed open=
gates
and stared as they bobbed their curtsies; the young woman who kept the shop
left her counter and came out upon her door step to pick up her straying ba=
by
and glance over its shoulder at the face with the red mouth, and the mass of
black hair rolled upward under a rough blue straw hat. Everyone knew who th=
is
exotic-looking young lady was. She had arrived yesterday from
As Miss Vanderpoel walked at a light, swin= ging pace through the one village street the gazers felt with Kedgers that somet= hing new was passing and stirring the atmosphere. She looked straight, and with = a friendliness somehow dominating, at the curious women; her handsome eyes met those of the men in a human questioning; she smiled and nodded to the bobbing children. = One of these, young enough to be uncertain on its feet, in running to join some others stumbled and fell on the path before her. Opening its mouth in the inevitable resultant roar, it was shocked almost into silence by the tall y= oung lady stooping at once, picking it up, and cheerfully dusting its pinafore.<= o:p>
"Don't cry," she said; "you=
are
not hurt, you know."
The deep dimple near her mouth showed itse=
lf,
and the laugh in her eyes was so reassuring that the penny she put into the
grubby hand was less productive of effect than her mere self. She walked on,
leaving the group staring after her breathless, because of a sense of having
met with a wonderful adventure. The grand young lady with the black hair and
the blue hat and tall, straight body was the adventure. She left the same s=
ense
of event with the village itself. They talked of her all day over their gar=
den
palings, on their doorsteps, in the street; of her looks, of her height, of=
the
black rim of lashes round her eyes, of the chance that she might be rich and
ready to give half-crowns and sovereigns, of the "Meriker" she had
come from, and above all of the reason for her coming.
Betty swung with the light, firm step of a
good walker out on to the highway. To walk upon the fine, smooth old Roman =
road
was a pleasure in itself, but she soon struck away from it and went through
lanes and by-ways, following sign-posts because she knew where she was goin=
g.
Her walk was to take her to
She passed through variations of the rural
loveliness she had seen on her way from the station to the Court, and felt =
them
grow in beauty as she saw them again. She came at last to a village somewhat
larger than Stornham and marked by the signs of the lack of money-spending =
care
which Stornham showed. Just beyond its limits a big park gate opened on to =
an
avenue of massive trees. She stopped and looked down it, but could see noth=
ing
but its curves and, under the branches, glimpses of a spacious sweep of park
with other trees standing in groups or alone in the sward. The avenue was
unswept and untended, and here and there boughs broken off by wind.
Storms lay upon it. She turned to the road
again and followed it, because it enclosed the park and she wanted to see m=
ore
of its evident beauty. It was very beautiful. As she walked on she saw it
rolled into woods and deeps filled with bracken; she saw stretches of hillo=
cky,
fine-grassed rabbit warren, and hollows holding shadowy pools; she caught t=
he
gleam of a lake with swans sailing slowly upon it with curved necks; there =
were
wonderful lights and wonderful shadows, and brooding stillness, which made =
her
footfall upon the road a too material thing.
Suddenly she heard a stirring in the brack=
en a
yard or two away from her. Something was moving slowly among the waving mas=
ses
of huge fronds and caused them to sway to and fro. It was an antlered stag =
who
rose from his bed in the midst of them, and with majestic deliberation got =
upon
his feet and stood gazing at her with a calmness of pose so splendid, and a
liquid darkness and lustre of eye so stilly and fearlessly beautiful, that =
she
caught her breath. He simply gazed as her as a great king might gaze at an
intruder, scarcely deigning wonder.
As she had passed on her way, Betty had se=
en
that the enclosing park palings were decaying, covered with lichen and fall=
ing
at intervals. It had even passed through her mind that here was one of the =
demands
for expenditure on a large estate, which limited resources could not confro=
nt
with composure. The deer fence itself, a thing of wire ten feet high, to fo=
rm
an obstacle to leaps, she had marked to be in such condition as to threaten=
to
become shortly a useless thing. Until this moment she had seen no deer, but
looking beyond the stag and across the sward she now saw groups near each
other, stags cropping or looking towards her with lifted heads, does at a
respectful but affectionate distance from them, some caring for their fawns.
The stag who had risen near her had merely walked through a gap in the boun=
dary
and now stood free to go where he would.
"He will get away," said Betty,
knitting her black brows. Ah! what a shame!
Even with the best intentions one could not
give chase to a stag. She looked up and down the road, but no one was within
sight. Her brows continued to knit themselves and her eyes ranged over the =
park
itself in the hope that some labourer on the estate, some woodman or
game-keeper, might be about.
"It
is no affair of mine," she said, "but it would be too bad to let =
him get
away, though what happens to stray stags one doesn't exactly know."
As she said it she caught sight of someone=
, a
man in leggings and shabby clothes and with a gun over his shoulder, eviden=
tly
an under keeper. He was a big, rather rough-looking fellow, but as he lurch=
ed
out into the open from a wood Betty saw that she could reach him if she pas=
sed through
a narrow gate a few yards away and walked quickly.
He was slouching along, his head drooping =
and
his broad shoulders expressing the definite antipodes of good spirits. Betty
studied his back as she strode after him, her conclusion being that he was
perhaps not a good-humoured man to approach at any time, and that this was =
by ill
luck one of his less fortunate hours.
"Wait a moment, if you please," =
her
clear, mellow voice flung out after him when she was within hearing distanc=
e.
"I want to speak to you, keeper."
He turned with an air of far from pleased
surprise. The afternoon sun was in his eyes and made him scowl. For a momen=
t he
did not see distinctly who was approaching him, but he had at once recognis=
ed a
certain cool tone of command in the voice whose suddenness had roused him f=
rom
a black mood. A few steps brought them to close quarters, and when he found
himself looking into the eyes of his pursuer he made a movement as if to li=
ft
his cap, then checking himself, touched it, keeper fashion.
"Oh!" he said shortly. "Miss
Vanderpoel! Beg pardon."
Bettina stood still a second. She had her
surprise also. Here was the unexpected again. The under keeper was the
red-haired second-class passenger of the Meridiana.
He did not look pleased to see her, and the
suddenness of his appearance excluded the possibility of her realising that
upon the whole she was at least not displeased to see him.
"How do you do?" she said, feeli=
ng
the remark fantastically conventional, but not being inspired by any
alternative. "I came to tell you that one of the stags has got through=
a
gap in the fence."
"Damn!" she heard him say under =
his
breath. Aloud he said, "Thank you."
"He is a splendid creature," she
said. "I did not know what to do. I was glad to see a keeper coming.&q=
uot;
"Thank you," he said again, and
strode towards the place where the stag still stood gazing up the road, as =
if
reflecting as to whether it allured him or not.
Betty walked back more slowly, watching him
with interest. She wondered what he would find it necessary to do. She heard
him begin a low, flute-like whistling, and then saw the antlered head turn
towards him. The woodland creature moved, but it was in his direction. It h=
ad
without doubt answered his call before and knew its meaning to be friendly.=
It went
towards him, stretching out a tender sniffing nose, and he put his hand in =
the
pocket of his rough coat and gave it something to eat. Afterwards he went to
the gap in the fence and drew the wires together, fastening them with other
wire, which he also took out of the coat pocket.
"He is not afraid of making himself
useful," thought Betty. "And the animals know him. He is not as b=
ad
as he looks."
She lingered a moment watching him, and th=
en
walked towards the gate through which she had entered. He glanced up as she
neared him.
"I don't see your carriage," he
said. "Your man is probably round the trees."
"I walked," answered Betty. &quo=
t;I
had heard of this place and wanted to see it."
He stood up, putting his wire back into his
pocket.
"There is not much to be seen from the
road," he said. "Would you like to see more of it?"
His manner was civil enough, but not the
correct one for a servant. He did not say "miss" or touch his cap=
in
making the suggestion. Betty hesitated a moment.
"Is the family at home?" she
inquired.
"There is no family but--his lordship=
. He
is off the place."
"Does he object to trespassers?"=
"Not if they are respectable and take=
no
liberties."
"I am respectable, and I shall not ta=
ke
liberties," said Miss Vanderpoel, with a touch of hauteur. The truth w=
as
that she had spent a sufficient number of years on the Continent to have be=
come
familiar with conventions which led her not to approve wholly of his bearin=
g.
Perhaps he had lived long enough in
"If you are sure that Lord Mount Duns=
tan
would not object to my walking about, I should like very much to see the
gardens and the house," she said. "If you show them to me, shall =
I be
interfering with your duties?"
"No," he answered, and then for =
the
first time rather glumly added, "miss."
"I am interested," she said, as =
they
crossed the grass together, "because places like this are quite new to=
me.
I have never been in
"There are not many places like
this," he answered, "not many as old and fine, and not many as ne=
arly
gone to ruin. Even Stornham is not quite as far gone."
"It is far gone," said Miss
Vanderpoel. "I am staying there--with my sister, Lady Anstruthers.&quo=
t;
"Beg pardon--miss," he said. This
time he touched his cap in apology.
Enormous as the gulf between their positio=
ns
was, he knew that he had offered to take her over the place because he was =
in a
sense glad to see her again. Why he was glad he did not profess to know or =
even
to ask himself. Coarsely speaking, it might be because she was one of the h=
andsomest
young women he had ever chanced to meet with, and while her youth was appar=
ent
in the rich red of her mouth, the mass of her thick, soft hair and the sple=
ndid
blue of her eyes, there spoke in every line of face and pose something
intensely more interesting and compelling than girlhood. Also, since the ni=
ght
they had come together on the ship's deck for an appalling moment, he had l=
iked
her better and rebelled less against the unnatural wealth she represented. =
He
led her first to the wood from which she had seen him emerge.
"I will show you this first," he
explained. "Keep your eyes on the ground until I tell you to raise
them."
Odd as this was, she obeyed, and her lower=
ed
glance showed her that she was being guided along a narrow path between tre=
es.
The light was mellow golden-green, and birds were singing in the boughs abo=
ve
her. In a few minutes he stopped.
"Now look up," he said.
She uttered an exclamation when she did so.
She was in a fairy dell thick with ferns, and at beautiful distances from e=
ach
other incredibly splendid oaks spread and almost trailed their lovely giant
branches. The glow shining through and between them, the shadows beneath th=
em,
their great boles and moss-covered roots, and the stately, mellow distances=
revealed
under their branches, the ancient wildness and richness, which meant, after
all, centuries of cultivation, made a picture in this exact, perfect moment=
of
ripening afternoon sun of an almost unbelievable beauty.
"There is nothing lovelier," he =
said
in a low voice, "in all
Bettina turned to look at him, because his
tone was a curious one for a man like himself. He was standing resting on h=
is
gun and taking in the loveliness with a strange look in his rugged face.
"You--you love it!" she said.
"Yes," but with a suggestion of
stubborn reluctance in the admission.
She was rather moved.
"Have you been keeper here long?"
she asked.
"No--only a few years. But I have kno=
wn
the place all my life."
"Does Lord Mount Dunstan love it?&quo=
t;
"In his way--yes."
He was plainly not disposed to talk of his
master. He was perhaps not on particularly good terms with him. He led her =
away
and volunteered no further information. He was, upon the whole,
uncommunicative. He did not once refer to the circumstance of their having =
met
before. It was plain that he had no intention of presuming upon the fact th=
at
he, as a second-class passenger on a ship, had once been forced by accident=
across
the barriers between himself and the saloon deck. He was stubbornly resolve=
d to
keep his place; so stubbornly that Bettina felt that to broach the subject
herself would verge upon offence.
But the golden ways through which he led h=
er
made the afternoon one she knew she should never forget. They wandered thro=
ugh
moss walks and alleys, through tangled shrubberies bursting into bloom, ben=
eath
avenues of blossoming horse-chestnuts and scented limes, between thickets o=
f budding
red and white may, and jungles of neglected rhododendrons; through sunken
gardens and walled ones, past terraces with broken balustrades of stone, and
fallen Floras and Dianas, past moss-grown fountains splashing in lovely
corners. Arches, overgrown with yet unblooming roses, crumbled in their time
stained beauty. Stillness brooded over it all, and they met no one. They
scarcely broke the silence themselves. The man led the way as one who knew =
it
by heart, and Bettina followed, not caring for speech herself, because the
stillness seemed to add a spell of enchantment. What could one say, to a
stranger, of such beauty so lost and given over to ruin and decay.
"But, oh!" she murmured once,
standing still, with indrawn breath, "if it were mine!--if it were
mine!" And she said the thing forgetting that her guide was a living
creature and stood near.
Afterwards her memories of it all seemed to
her like the memories of a dream. The lack of speech between herself and the
man who led her, his often averted face, her own sense of the desertedness =
of
each beauteous spot she passed through, the mossy paths which gave back no
sound of footfalls as they walked, suggested, one and all, unreality. When =
at
last they passed through a door half hidden in an ivied wall, and crossing a
grassed
"Oh!" she sighed, "Oh!"=
;
Her companion stood still and leaned upon =
his
gun again, looking as he had looked before.
"Some of it," he said, "was
here before the Conquest. It belonged to
"And only one of them is left," =
she
cried, "and it is like this!"
"They have been a bad lot, the last
hundred years," was the surly liberty of speech he took, "a bad
lot."
It was not his place to speak in such mann=
er
of those of his master's house, and it was not the part of Miss Vanderpoel =
to
encourage him by response. She remained silent, standing perhaps a trifle m=
ore
lightly erect as she gazed at the rows of blind windows in silence.
Neither of them uttered a word for some ti=
me,
but at length Bettina roused herself. She had a six-mile walk before her and
must go.
"I am very much obliged to you,"=
she
began, and then paused a second. A curious hesitance came upon her, though =
she
knew that under ordinary circumstances such hesitation would have been tota=
lly
out of place. She had occupied the man's time for an hour or more, he was of
the working class, and one must not be guilty of the error of imagining tha=
t a
man who has work to do can justly spend his time in one's service for the m=
ere
pleasure of it. She knew what custom demanded. Why should she hesitate befo=
re
this man, with his not too courteous, surly face. She felt slightly irritat=
ed
by her own unpractical embarrassment as she put her hand into the small, la=
tched
bag at her belt.
"I am very much obliged, keeper,"
she said. "You have given me a great deal of your time. You know the p=
lace
so well that it has been a pleasure to be taken about by you. I have never =
seen
anything so beautiful--and so sad. Thank you--thank you." And she put a
goldpiece in his palm.
His fingers closed over it quietly. Why it=
was
to her great relief she did not know--because something in the simple act
annoyed her, even while she congratulated herself that her hesitance had be=
en
absurd. The next moment she wondered if it could be possible that he had
expected a larger fee. He opened his hand and looked at the money with a gr=
im steadiness.
"Thank you, miss," he said, and
touched his cap in the proper manner.
He did not look gracious or grateful, but =
he
began to put it in a small pocket in the breast of his worn corduroy shooti=
ng
jacket. Suddenly he stopped, as if with abrupt resolve. He handed the coin =
back
without any change of his glum look.
"Hang it all," he said, "I
can't take this, you know. I suppose I ought to have told you. It would have
been less awkward for us both. I am that unfortunate beggar,
A pause was inevitable. It was a rather lo=
ng
one. After it, Betty took back her half-sovereign and returned it to her ba=
g,
but she pleased a certain perversity in him by looking more annoyed than
confused.
"Yes," she said. "You ought=
to
have told me, Lord Mount Dunstan."
He slightly shrugged his big shoulders.
"Why
shouldn't you take me for a keeper? You crossed the
"I am not embarrassed," said
Bettina.
"That is what I like," gruffly.<= o:p>
"I am pleased," in her mellowest
velvet voice, "that you like it."
Their eyes met with a singular directness =
of
gaze. Between them a spark passed which was not afterwards to be extinguish=
ed,
though neither of them knew the moment of its kindling, and
"I beg pardon," he said. "Y=
ou
are quite right. It had a deucedly patronising sound."
As he stood before her Betty was given her
opportunity to see him as she had not seen him before, to confront the sum
total of his physique. His red-brown eyes looked out from rather fine heavy
brows, his features were strong and clear, though ruggedly cut, his build
showed weight of bone, not of flesh, and his limbs were big and long. He wo=
uld
have wielded a battle-axe with power in centuries in which men hewed their =
way
with them. Also it occurred to her he would have looked well in a coat of m=
ail.
He did not look ill in his corduroys and gaiters.
"I am a self-absorbed beggar," he
went on. "I had been slouching about the place, almost driven mad by my
thoughts, and when I saw you took me for a servant my fancy was for letting=
the
thing go on. If I had been a rich man instead of a pauper I would have kept
your half-sovereign."
"I should not have enjoyed that when I
found out the truth," said Miss Vanderpoel.
"No, I suppose you wouldn't. But I sh=
ould
not have cared."
He was looking at her straightly and summi=
ng
her up as she had summed him up. A man and young, he did not miss a line or=
a
tint of her chin or cheek, shoulder, or brow, or dense, lifted hair. He had
already, even in his guise of keeper, noticed one thing, which was that whi=
le
at times her eyes were the blue of steel, sometimes they melted to the colo=
ur
of bluebells under water. They had been of this last hue when she had stood=
in
the sunken garden, forgetting him and crying low:
"Oh, if it were mine! If it were
mine!"
He did not like American women with millio=
ns,
but while he would not have said that he liked her, he did not wish her yet=
to
move away. And she, too, did not wish, just yet, to move away. There was
something dramatic and absorbing in the situation. She looked over the soft=
ly stirring
grass and saw the sunshine was deepening its gold and the shadows were grow=
ing
long. It was not a habit of hers to ask questions, but she asked one.
"Did you not like
"Hated it! Hated it! I went there lur=
ed
by a belief that a man like myself, with muscle and will, even without
experience, could make a fortune out of small capital on a sheep ranch. Wind
and weather and disease played the devil with me. I lost the little I had a=
nd
came back to begin over again--on nothing--here!" And he waved his hand
over the park with its sward and coppice and bracken and the deer cropping =
in
the late afternoon gold.
"To begin what again?" said Bett=
y.
It was an extraordinary enough thing, seen in the light of conventions, that
they should stand and talk like this. But the spark had kindled between eye=
and
eye, and because of it they suddenly had forgotten that they were strangers=
.
"You are an American, so it may not s=
eem
as mad to you as it would to others. To begin to build up again, in one man=
's
life, what has taken centuries to grow--and fall into this."
"It would be a splendid thing to
do," she said slowly, and as she said it her eyes took on their colour=
of
bluebells, because what she had seen had moved her. She had not looked at h=
im,
but at the cropping deer as she spoke, but at her next sentence she turned =
to
him again.
"Where should you begin?" she as=
ked,
and in saying it thought of Stornham.
He laughed shortly.
"That is American enough," he sa=
id.
"Your people have not finished their beginnings yet and live in the sp=
irit
of them. I tell you of a wild fancy, and you accept it as a possibility and
turn on me with, 'Where should you begin?'"
"That is one way of beginning," =
said
Bettina. "In fact, it is the only way."
He did not tell her that he liked that, bu= t he knew that he did like it and that her mere words touched him like a spur. It was, of course, her lifelong breathing of the atmosphere of millions which = made for this fashion of moving at once in the direction of obstacles presenting= to the rest of the world barriers seemingly insurmountable. And yet there was something else in it, some quality of nature which did not alone suggest the omnipotence of wealth, but another thing which might be even stronger and therefore carried conviction. He who had raged and clenched his hands in the face of his knowledge of the aspect his dream would have presented if he had revealed it to the ordinary practical mind, felt that a point of view like = this was good for him. There was in it stimulus for a fleeting moment at least.<= o:p>
"That is a good idea," he answer=
ed.
"Where should you begin?"
She replied quite seriously, though he cou=
ld
have imagined some girls rather simpering over the question as a casual jok=
e.
"One would begin at the fences,"=
she
said. "Don't you think so?"
"That is practical."
"That is where I shall begin at
Stornham," reflectively.
"You are going to begin at
Stornham?"
"How could one help it? It is not as
large or as splendid as this has been, but it is like it in a way. And it w=
ill
belong to my sister's son. No, I could not help it."
"I suppose you could not." There=
was
a hint of wholly unconscious resentment in his tone. He was thinking that t=
he
effect produced by their boundless wealth was to make these people feel as a
race of giants might--even their women unknowingly revealed it.
"No, I could not," was her reply.
"I suppose I am on the whole a sort of commercial working person. I ha=
ve
no doubt it is commercial, that instinct which makes one resent seeing thin=
gs
lose their value."
"Shall you begin it for that
reason?"
"Partly for that one--partly for
another." She held out her hand to him. "Look at the length of the
shadows. I must go. Thank you, Lord Mount Dunstan, for showing me the place,
and thank you for undeceiving me."
He held the side gate open for her and lif=
ted
his cap as she passed through. He admitted to himself, with some reluctance,
that he was not content that she should go even yet, but, of course, she mu=
st
go. There passed through his mind a remote wonder why he had suddenly unbos=
omed
himself to her in a way so extraordinarily unlike himself. It was, he thoug=
ht
next, because as he had taken her about from one place to another he had kn=
own
that she had seen in things what he had seen in them so long--the melancholy
loneliness, the significance of it, the lost hopes that lay behind it, the
touching pain of the stateliness wrecked. She had shown it in the way in wh=
ich
she tenderly looked from side to side, in the very lightness of her footfal=
l,
in the bluebell softening of her eyes. Oh, yes, she had understood and care=
d,
American as she was! She had felt it all, even with her hideous background =
of
When he had spoken it had been in involunt=
ary response
to an emotion in herself.
So he stood, thinking, as he for some time
watched her walking up the sunset-glowing road.
CHAPTER XVI - THE PARTICULAR INCIDENT
Betty Vanderpoel's walk back to Stornham d=
id
not, long though it was, give her time to follow to its end the thread of h=
er
thoughts. Mentally she walked again with her uncommunicative guide, through
woodpaths and gardens, and stood gazing at the great blind-faced house. She=
had
not given the man more than an occasional glance until he had told her his =
name.
She had been too much absorbed, too much moved, by what she had been seeing.
She wondered, if she had been more aware of him, whether his face would have
revealed a great deal. She believed it would not. He had made himself outwa=
rdly
stolid. But the thing must have been bitter. To him the whole story of the
splendid past was familiar even if through his own life he had looked on on=
ly
at gradual decay. There must be stories enough of men and women who had liv=
ed
in the place, of what they had done, of how they had loved, of what they had
counted for in their country's wars and peacemakings, great functions and
law-building. To be able to look back through centuries and know of one's b=
lood
that sometimes it had been shed in the doing of great deeds, must be a thin=
g to
remember. To realise that the courage and honour had been lost in ignoble
modern vices, which no sense of dignity and reverence for race and name had
restrained--must be bitter--bitter! And in the role of a servant to lead a
stranger about among the ruins of what had been--that must have been bitter,
too. For a moment Betty felt the bitterness of it herself and her red mouth
took upon itself a grim line. The worst of it for him was that he was not of
that strain of his race who had been the "bad lot." The "bad
lot" had been the weak lot, the vicious, the self-degrading. Scandals
which had shut men out from their class and kind were usually of an ugly ty=
pe.
This man had a strong jaw, a powerful, healthy body, and clean, though perh=
aps hard,
eyes. The First Man of them, who hewed his way to the front, who stood fier=
ce
in the face of things, who won the first lands and laid the first stones, m=
ight
have been like him in build and look.
"It's a disgusting thing," she s=
aid
to herself, "to think of the corrupt weaklings the strong ones dwindled
down to. I hate them. So does he."
There had been many such of late years, she
knew. She had seen them in
The last gold of the sun was mellowing the
grey stone of the terrace and enriching the green of the weeds thrusting
themselves into life between the uneven flags when she reached Stornham, and
passing through the house found Lady Anstruthers sitting there. In sustenan=
ce
of her effort to keep up appearances, she had put on a weird little muslin
dress and had elaborated the dressing of her thin hair. It was no longer
dragged back straight from her face, and she looked a trifle less abject, e=
ven
a shade prettier. Bettina sat upon the edge of the balustrade and touched t=
he
hair with light fingers, ruffling it a little becomingly.
"If you had worn it like this
yesterday," she said, "I should have known you."
"Should you, Betty? I never look into=
a
mirror if I can help it, but when I do I never know myself. The thing that
stares back at me with its pale eyes is not Rosy. But, of course, everyone
grows old."
"Not now! People are just discovering=
how
to grow young instead."
Lady Anstruthers looked into the clear cou=
rage
of her laughing eyes.
"Somehow," she said, "you s=
ay
strange things in such a way that one feels as if they must be true,
however--however unlike anything else they are."
"They are not as new as they seem,&qu=
ot;
said Betty. "Ancient philosophers said things like them centuries ago,=
but
people did not believe them. We are just beginning to drag them out of the =
dust
and furbish them up and pretend they are ours, just as people rub up and ad=
orn
themselves with jewels dug out of excavations."
"In
"The whole civilised world is thinking
what you call new things," said Betty. "The old ones won't do. Th=
ey
have been tried, and though they have helped us to the place we have reache=
d,
they cannot help us any farther. We must begin again."
"It is such a long time since I
began," said Rosy, "such a long time."
"Then there must be another beginning=
for
you, too. The hour has struck."
Lady Anstruthers rose with as involuntary a
movement as if a strong hand had drawn her to her feet. She stood facing Be=
tty,
a pathetic little figure in her washed-out muslin frock and with her washed=
-out
face and eyes and being, though on her faded cheeks a flush was rising.
"Oh, Betty!" she said, "I d=
on't
know what there is about you, but there is something which makes one feel a=
s if
you believed everything and could do everything, and as if one believes YOU.
Whatever you were to say, you would make it seem TRUE. If you said the wild=
est
thing in the world I should BELIEVE you."
Betty got up, too, and there was an
extraordinary steadiness in her eyes.
"You may," she answered. "I
shall never say one thing to you which is not a truth, not one single
thing."
"I believe that," said Rosy
Anstruthers, with a quivering mouth. "I do believe it so."
"I walked to
"Really?" said Rosy. "There=
and
back?"
"Yes, and all round the park and the
gardens."
Rosy looked rather uncertain.
"Weren't you a little afraid of meeti=
ng
someone?"
"I did meet someone. At first I took =
him
for a gamekeeper. But he turned out to be Lord Mount Dunstan."
Lady Anstruthers gasped.
"What did he do?" she exclaimed.
"Did he look angry at seeing a stranger? They say he is so ill-tempered
and rude."
"I should feel ill-tempered if I were=
in
his place," said Betty. "He has enough to rouse his evil passions=
and
make him savage. What a fate for a man with any sense and decency of feelin=
g!
What fools and criminals the last generation of his house must have produce=
d! I
wonder how such things evolve themselves. But he is different--different. O=
ne
can see it. If he had a chance--just half a chance--he would build it all u=
p again.
And I don't mean merely the place, but all that one means when one says 'his
house.'"
"He would need a great deal of
money," sighed Lady Anstruthers.
Betty nodded slowly as she looked out,
reflecting, into the park.
"Yes, it would require money," w=
as
her admission.
"And he has none," Lady Anstruth=
ers
added. "None whatever."
"He will get some," said Betty,
still reflecting. "He will make it, or dig it up, or someone will leav=
e it
to him. There is a great deal of money in the world, and when a strong crea=
ture
ought to have some of it he gets it."
"Oh, Betty!" said Rosy. "Oh,
Betty!"
"Watch that man," said Betty;
"you will see. It will come."
Lady Anstruthers' mind, working at no time=
on
complex lines, presented her with a simple modern solution.
"Perhaps he will marry an American,&q=
uot;
she said, and saying it, sighed again.
"He will not do it on purpose."
Bettina answered slowly and with such an air of absence of mind that Rosy
laughed a little.
"Will he do it accidentally, or again=
st
his will?" she said.
Betty herself smiled.
"Perhaps he will," she said.
"There are Englishmen who rather dislike Americans. I think he is one =
of
them."
It apparently became necessary for Lady
Anstruthers, a moment later, to lean upon the stone balustrade and pick off=
a
young leaf or so, for no reason whatever, unless that in doing so she avert=
ed
her look from her sister as she made her next remark.
"Are you--when are you going to write=
to
father and mother?"
"I have written," with unembarra=
ssed
evenness of tone. "Mother will be counting the days."
"Mother!" Rosy breathed, with a =
soft
little gasp. "Mother!" and turned her face farther away. "Wh=
at
did you tell her?"
Betty moved over to her and stood close at=
her
side. The power of her personality enveloped the tremulous creature as if it
had been a sense of warmth.
"I told her how beautiful the place w=
as,
and how Ughtred adored you--and how you loved us all, and longed to see
The relief in the poor little face was so
immense that Betty's heart shook before it. Lady Anstruthers looked up at h=
er
with adoring eyes.
"I might have known," she said;
"I might have known that--that you would only say the right thing. You
couldn't say the wrong thing, Betty."
Betty bent over her and spoke almost yearn=
ingly.
"Whatever happens," she said,
"we will take care that mother is not hurt. She's too kind--she's too
good--she's too tender."
"That is what I have remembered,"
said Lady Anstruthers brokenly. "She used to hold me on her lap when I=
was
quite grown up. Oh! her soft, warm arms--her warm shoulder! I have so wanted
her."
"She has wanted you," Betty
answered. "She thinks of you just as she did when she held you on her
lap."
"But if she saw me now--looking like
this! If she saw me! Sometimes I have even been glad to think she never
would."
"She will." Betty's tone was cool
and clear. "But before she does I shall have made you look like
yourself."
Lady Anstruthers' thin hand closed on her
plucked leaves convulsively, and then opening let them drop upon the stone =
of
the terrace.
"We shall never see each other. It
wouldn't be possible," she said. "And there is no magic in the wo=
rld
now, Betty. You can't bring back----"
"Yes, you can," said Bettina.
"And what used to be called magic is only the controlled working of the
law and order of things in these days. We must talk it all over."
Lady Anstruthers became a little pale.
"What?" she asked, low and
nervously, and Betty saw her glance sideways at the windows of the room whi=
ch
opened on to the terrace.
Betty took her hand and drew her down into=
a
chair. She sat near her and looked her straight in the face.
"Don't be frightened," she said.
"I tell you there is no need to be frightened. We are not living in the
Middle Ages. There is a policeman even in Stornham village, and we are with=
in
four hours of
Lady Anstruthers tried to laugh, but did n=
ot
succeed very well, and her forehead flushed.
"I don't quite know why I seem so
nervous," she said. "It's very silly of me."
She was still timid enough to cling to some
rag of pretence, but Betty knew that it would fall away. She did the wisest
possible thing, which was to make an apparently impersonal remark.
"I want you to go over the place with=
me
and show me everything. Walls and fences and greenhouses and outbuildings m=
ust
not be allowed to crumble away."
"What?" cried Rosy. "Have y=
ou
seen all that already?" She actually stared at her. "How practical
and--and American!"
"To see that a wall has fallen when y=
ou
find yourself obliged to walk round a pile of grass-grown brickwork?" =
said
Betty.
Lady Anstruthers still softly stared.
"What--what are you thinking of?"
she asked.
"Thinking that it is all too
beautiful----" Betty's look swept the loveliness spread about her, &qu=
ot;too
beautiful and too valuable to be allowed to lose its value and its
beauty." She turned her eyes back to Rosy and the deep dimple near her
mouth showed itself delightfully. "It is a throwing away of capital,&q=
uot;
she added.
"Oh!" cried Lady Anstruthers,
"how clever you are! And you look so different, Betty."
"Do I look stupid?" the dimple
deepening. "I must try to alter that."
"Don't try to alter your looks,"
said Rosy. "It is your looks that make you so--so wonderful. But usual=
ly
women--girls----" Rosy paused.
"Oh, I have been trained," laugh=
ed
Betty. "I am the spoiled daughter of a business man of genius. His
business is an art and a science. I have had advantages. He has let me hear=
him
talk. I even know some trifling things about stocks. Not enough to do me vi=
tal
injury--but something. What I know best of all,"--her laugh ended and =
her
eyes changed their look,--"is that it is a blunder to think that beaut=
y is
not capital--that happiness is not--and that both are not the greatest asse=
ts
in the scheme. This," with a wave of her hand, taking in all they saw,
"is beauty, and it ought to be happiness, and it must be taken care of=
. It
is your home and Ughtred's----"
"It is Nigel's," put in Rosy.
"It is entailed, isn't it?" turn=
ing
quickly. "He cannot sell it?"
"If he could we should not be sitting
here," ruefully.
"Then he cannot object to its being
rescued from ruin."
"He will object to--to money being sp=
ent
on things he does not care for." Lady Anstruthers' voice lowered itsel=
f,
as it always did when she spoke of her husband, and she indulged in the
involuntary hasty glance about her.
"I am going to my room to take off my
hat," Betty said. "Will you come with me?"
She went into the house, talking quietly of
ordinary things, and in this way they mounted the stairway together and pas=
sed
along the gallery which led to her room. When they entered it she closed the
door, locked it, and, taking off her hat, laid it aside. After doing which =
she
sat.
"No one can hear and no one can come
in," she said. "And if they could, you are afraid of things you n=
eed
not be afraid of now. Tell me what happened when you were so ill after Ught=
red
was born."
"You guessed that it happened then,&q=
uot;
gasped Lady Anstruthers.
"It
was a good time to make anything happen," replied Bettina. "You w=
ere prostrated,
you were a child, and felt yourself cast off hopelessly from the people who
loved you."
"Forever! Forever!" Lady
Anstruthers' voice was a sharp little moan. "That was what I felt--that
nothing could ever help me. I dared not write things. He told me he would n=
ot
have it--that he would stop any hysterical complaints--that his mother could
testify that he behaved perfectly to me. She was the only person in the room
with us when--when----"
"When?" said Betty.
Lady Anstruthers shuddered. She leaned for=
ward
and caught Betty's hand between her own shaking ones.
"He struck me! He struck me! He said =
it
never happened--but it did--it did! Betty, it did! That was the one thing t=
hat
came back to me clearest. He said that I was in delirious hysterics, and th=
at I
had struggled with his mother and himself, because they tried to keep me qu=
iet,
and prevent the servants hearing. One awful day he brought Lady Anstruthers
into the room, and they stood over me, as I lay in bed, and she fixed her e=
yes
on me and said that she--being an Englishwoman, and a person whose word wou=
ld
be believed, could tell people the truth--my father and mother, if necessar=
y,
that my spoiled, hysterical American tempers had created unhappiness for
me--merely because I was bored by life in the country and wanted excitement=
. I
tried to answer, but they would not let me, and when I began to shake all o=
ver,
they said that I was throwing myself into hysterics again. And they told the
doctor so, and he believed it."
The possibilities of the situation were
plainly to be seen. Fate, in the form of temperament itself, had been again=
st
her. It was clear enough to Betty as she patted and stroked the thin hands.
"I understand. Tell me the rest," she said.
Lady Anstruthers' head dropped.
"When I was loneliest, and dying of
homesickness, and so weak that I could not speak without sobbing, he came to
me--it was one morning after I had been lying awake all night--and he began=
to
seem kinder. He had not been near me for two days, and I had thought I was
going to be left to die alone--and mother would never know. He said he had =
been
reflecting and that he was afraid that we had misunderstood each other--bec=
ause
we belonged to different countries, and had been brought up in different wa=
ys----"
she paused.
"And that if you understood his posit=
ion
and considered it, you might both be quite happy," Betty gave in quiet
termination.
Lady Anstruthers started.
"Oh, you know it all!" she excla=
imed
"Only because I have heard it before.=
It
is an old trick. And because he seemed kind and relenting, you tried to
understand--and signed something."
"I WANTED to understand. I WANTED to
believe. What did it matter which of us had the money, if we liked each oth=
er
and were happy? He told me things about the estate, and about the enormous =
cost
of it, and his bad luck, and debts he could not help. And I said that I wou=
ld
do anything if--if we could only be like mother and father. And he kissed me
and I signed the paper."
"And then?"
"He went to
"The paper you signed," said Bet=
ty,
"gave him control over your money?"
A forlorn nod was the answer.
"And since then he has done as he cho=
se,
and he has not chosen to care for Stornham. And once he made you write to
father, to ask for more money?"
"I did it once. I never would do it
again. He has tried to make me. He always says it is to save Stornham for
Ughtred."
"Nothing can take Stornham from Ughtr=
ed.
It may come to him a ruin, but it will come to him."
"He says there are legal points I can=
not
understand. And he says he is spending money on it."
"Where?"
"He--doesn't go into that. If I were =
to
ask questions, he would make me know that I had better stop. He says I know
nothing about things. And he is right. He has never allowed me to know and-=
-and
I am not like you, Betty."
"When you signed the paper, you did n=
ot
realise that you were doing something you could never undo and that you wou=
ld
be forced to submit to the consequences?"
"I--I didn't realise anything but tha=
t it
would kill me to live as I had been living--feeling as if they hated me. An=
d I
was so glad and thankful that he seemed kinder. It was as if I had been on =
the
rack, and he turned the screws back, and I was ready to do
anything--anything--if I might be taken off. Oh, Betty! you know, don't you,
that--that if he would only have been a little kind--just a little--I would=
have
obeyed him always, and given him everything."
Betty sat and looked at her, with deeply
pondering eyes. She was confronting the fact that it seemed possible that o=
ne
must build a new soul for her as well as a new body. In these days of scien=
ce
and growing sanity of thought, one did not stand helpless before the proble=
m of
physical rebuilding, and--and perhaps, if one could pour life into a creatu=
re,
the soul of it would respond, and wake again, and grow.
"You do not know where he is?" s=
he
said aloud. "You absolutely do not know?"
"I never know exactly," Lady
Anstruthers answered. "He was here for a few days the week before you
came. He said he was going abroad. He might appear to-morrow, I might not h=
ear
of him for six months. I can't help hoping now that it will be the six
months."
"Why particularly now?" inquired
Betty.
Lady Anstruthers flushed and looked shy and
awkward.
"Because of--you. I don't know what he
would say. I don't know what he would do."
"To me?" said Betty.
"It would be sure to be something
unreasonable and wicked," said Lady Anstruthers. "It would,
Betty."
"I wonder what it would be?" Bet=
ty
said musingly.
"He has told lies for years to keep y=
ou
all from me. If he came now, he would know that he had been found out. He w=
ould
say that I had told you things. He would be furious because you have seen w=
hat
there is to see. He would know that you could not help but realise that the
money he made me ask for had not been spent on the estate. He,--Betty, he w=
ould
try to force you to go away."
"I wonder what he would do?" Bet=
ty
said again musingly. She felt interested, not afraid.
"It would be something cunning,"
Rosy protested. "It would be something no one could expect. He might b=
e so
rude that you could not remain in the room with him, or he might be quite
polite, and pretend he was rather glad to see you. If he was only frightful=
ly
rude we should be safer, because that would not be an unexpected thing, but=
if
he was polite, it would be because he was arranging something hideous, whic=
h you
could not defend yourself against."
"Can you tell me," said Betty qu=
ite
slowly, because, as she looked down at the carpet, she was thinking very ha=
rd,
"the kind of unexpected thing he has done to you?" Lifting her ey=
es,
she saw that a troubled flush was creeping over Lady Anstruthers' face.
"There--have been--so many queer
things," she faltered. Then Betty knew there was some special thing she
was afraid to talk about, and that if she desired to obtain illuminating
information it would be well to go into the matter.
"Try," she said, "to rememb=
er
some particular incident."
Lady Anstruthers looked nervous.
"Rosy," in the level voice,
"there has been a particular incident--and I would rather hear of it f=
rom
you than from him."
Rosy's lap held little shaking hands.
"He has held it over me for years,&qu=
ot;
she said breathlessly. "He said he would write about it to father and
mother. He says he could use it against me as evidence in--in the divorce
court. He says that divorce courts in
The incongruity of the picture of the smal=
l,
faded creature arraigned in a divorce court on charges of misbehaviour would
have made Betty smile if she had been in smiling mood.
"What did he accuse you of?"
"That was the--the unexpected
thing," miserably.
Betty took the unsteady hands firmly in her
own.
"Don't be afraid to tell me," she
said. "He knew you so well that he understood what would terrify you t=
he
most. I know you so well that I understand how he does it. Did he do this
unexpected thing just before you wrote to father for the money?" As she
quite suddenly presented the question, Rosy exclaimed aloud.
"How
did you know?" she said. "You--you are like a lawyer. How could y=
ou know?"
How simple she was! How obviously an easy
prey! She had been unconsciously giving evidence with every word.
"I have been thinking him over,"
Betty said. "He interests me. I have begun to guess that he always wan=
ts
something when he professes that he has a grievance."
Then with drooping head, Rosy told the sto=
ry.
"Yes, it happened before he made me w=
rite
to father for so much money. The vicar was ill and was obliged to go away f=
or
six months. The clergyman who came to take his place was a young man. He was
kind and gentle, and wanted to help people. His mother was with him and she=
was
like him. They loved each other, and they were quite poor. His name was Ffo=
lliott.
I liked to hear him preach. He said things that comforted me. Nigel found o=
ut that
he comforted me, and--when he called here, he was more polite to him than he
had ever been to Mr. Brent. He seemed almost as if he liked him. He actually
asked him to dinner two or three times. After dinner, he would go out of the
room and leave us together. Oh, Betty!" clinging to her hands, "I=
was
so wretched then, that sometimes I thought I was going out of my mind. I th=
ink
I looked wild. I used to kneel down and try to pray, and I could not."=
"Yes, yes," said Betty.
"I used to feel that if I could only =
have
one friend, just one, I could bear it better. Once I said something like th=
at
to Nigel. He only shrugged his shoulders and sneered when I said it. But
afterwards I knew he had remembered. One evening, when he had asked Mr.
Ffolliott to dinner, he led him to talk about religion. Oh, Betty! It made =
my
blood turn cold when he began. I knew he was doing it for some wicked reaso=
n. I
knew the look in his eyes and the awful, agreeable smile on his mouth. When=
he
said at last, 'If you could help my poor wife to find comfort in such thing=
s,'
I began to see. I could not explain to anyone how he did it, but with just a
sentence, dropped here and there, he seemed to tell the whole story of a si=
lly,
selfish, American girl, thwarted in her vulgar little ambitions, and posing=
as
a martyr, because she could not have her own way in everything. He said onc=
e,
quite casually, 'I'm afraid American women are rather spoiled.' And then he
said, in the same tolerant way--'A poor man is a disappointment to an Ameri=
can
girl.
She stopped and swallowed hard. Betty held=
her
hands firmly until she went on.
"For a few minutes, I sat still, and
tried to think of some new subject--something about the church or the villa=
ge.
But I could not begin to speak because of the lump in my throat. And then,
suddenly, but quietly, Mr. Ffolliott got up. And though I dared not lift my
eyes, I knew he was standing before the fire, quite near me. And, oh! what =
do you
think he said, as low and gently as if his voice was a woman's. I did not k=
now
that people ever said such things now, or even thought them. But never, nev=
er
shall I forget that strange minute. He said just this:
"'God will help you. He will. He will=
.'
"As if it was true, Betty! As if there
was a God--and--He had not forgotten me. I did not know what I was doing, b=
ut I
put out my hand and caught at his sleeve, and when I looked up into his fac=
e, I
saw in his kind, good eyes, that he knew--that somehow--God knows how--he u=
nderstood
and that I need not utter a word to explain to him that he had been listeni=
ng
to lies."
"Did you talk to him?" Betty ask=
ed
quietly.
"He talked to me. We did not even spe= ak of Nigel. He talked to me as I had never heard anyone talk before. Somehow = he filled the room with something real, which was hope and comfort and like warmth, which kept my soul from shivering. The tears poured from my eyes at first, but the lump in my throat went away, and when Nigel came back I actu= ally did not feel frightened, though he looked at me and sneered quietly."<= o:p>
"Did he say anything afterwards?"=
;
"He laughed a little cold laugh and s=
aid,
'I see you have been seeking the consolation of religion. Neurotic women li=
ke
confessors. I do not object to your confessing, if you confess your own
backslidings and not mine.'"
"That was the beginning," said B=
etty
speculatively. "The unexpected thing was the end. Tell me the rest?&qu=
ot;
"No one could have dreamed of it,&quo=
t;
Rosy broke forth. "For weeks he was almost like other people. He staye=
d at
Stornham and spent his days in shooting. He professed that he was rather
enjoying himself in a dull way. He encouraged me to go to the vicarage, he
invited the Ffolliotts here. He said Mrs. Ffolliott was a gentlewoman and g=
ood
for me. He said it was proper that I should interest myself in parish work.
Once or twice he even brought some little message to me from Mr.
Ffolliott."
It was a pitiably simple story. Betty saw,
through its relation, the unconsciousness of the easily allured victim, the
adroit leading on from step to step, the ordinary, natural, seeming method
which arranged opportunities. The two had been thrown together at the Court=
, at
the vicarage, the church and in the village, and the hawk had looked on and=
bided
his time. For the first time in her years of exile, Rosy had begun to feel =
that
she might be allowed a friend--though she lived in secret tremor lest the
normal liberty permitted her should suddenly be snatched away.
"We never talked of Nigel," she
said, twisting her hands. "But he made me begin to live again. He talk=
ed
to me of Something that watched and would not leave me--would never leave m=
e. I
was learning to believe it. Sometimes when I walked through the wood to the
village, I used to stop among the trees and look up at the bits of sky betw=
een
the branches, and listen to the sound in the leaves--the sound that never
stops--and it seemed as if it was saying something to me. And I would clasp=
my
hands and whisper, 'Yes, yes,' 'I will,' 'I will.' I used to see Nigel look=
ing at
me at table with a queer smile in his eyes and once he said to me--'You are
growing young and lovely, my dear. Your colour is improving. The counsels of
our friend are of a salutary nature.' It would have made me nervous, but he
said it almost good-naturedly, and I was silly enough even to wonder if it
could be possible that he was pleased to see me looking less ill. It was tr=
ue,
Betty, that I was growing stronger. But it did not last long."
"I was afraid not," said Betty.<= o:p>
"An old woman in the lane near Bartyon
Wood was ill. Mr. Ffolliott had asked me to go to see her, and I used to go.
She suffered a great deal and clung to us both. He comforted her, as he
comforted me. Sometimes when he was called away he would send a note to me,
asking me to go to her. One day he wrote hastily, saying that she was dying,
and asked if I would go with him to her cottage at once. I knew it would sa=
ve
time if I met him in the path which was a short cut. So I wrote a few words=
and
gave them to the messenger. I said, 'Do not come to the house. I will meet =
you
in Bartyon Wood.'"
Betty made a slight movement, and in her f=
ace
there was a dawning of mingled amazement and incredulity. The thought which=
had
come to her seemed--as Ughtred's locking of the door had seemed--too wild f=
or
modern days.
Lady Anstruthers saw her expression and
understood it. She made a hopeless gesture with her small, bony hand.
"Yes," she said, "it is just
like that. No one would believe it. The worst cleverness of the things he d=
oes,
is that when one tells of them, they sound like lies. I have a bewildered
feeling that I should not believe them myself if I had not seen them. He met
the boy in the park and took the note from him. He came back to the house a=
nd
up to my room, where I was dressing quickly to go to Mr. Ffolliott."
She stopped for quite a minute, rather as =
if
to recover breath.
"He closed the door behind him and ca=
me
towards me with the note in his hand. And I saw in a second the look that
always terrifies me, in his face. He had opened the note and he smoothed out
the paper quietly and said, 'What is this. I could not help it--I turned co=
ld
and began to shiver. I could not imagine what was coming."
"'Is it my note to Mr. Ffolliott?' I
asked.
"'Yes, it is your note to Mr. Ffollio=
tt,'
and he read it aloud. "Do not come to the house. I will meet you in
Bartyon Wood." That is a nice note for a man's wife to have written, t=
o be
picked up and read by a stranger, if your confessor is not cautious in the
matter of letters from women----'
"When he begins a thing in that way, =
you
may always know that he has planned everything--that you can do nothing--I
always know. I knew then, and I knew I was quite white when I answered him:=
"'I wrote it in a great hurry, Mrs. F=
arne
is worse. We are going together to her. I said I would meet him--to save ti=
me.'
"He laughed, his awful little laugh, =
and
touched the paper.
"'I have no doubt. And I have no doubt
that if other persons saw this, they would believe it. It is very likely.
"'But you believe it,' I said. 'You k=
now
it is true. No one would be so silly--so silly and wicked as to----' Then I
broke down and cried out. 'What do you mean? What could anyone think it mea=
nt?'
I was so wild that I felt as if I was going crazy. He clenched my wrist and
shook me.
"'Don't think you can play the fool w=
ith
me,' he said. 'I have been watching this thing from the first. The first ti=
me I
leave you alone with the fellow, I come back to find you have been giving h=
im
an emotional scene. Do you suppose your simpering good spirits and your imb=
ecile
pink cheeks told me nothing? They told me exactly this. I have waited to co=
me
upon it, and here it is. "Do not come to the house--I will meet you in=
the
wood."'
"That was the unexpected thing. It wa=
s no
use to argue and try to explain. I knew he did not believe what he was sayi=
ng,
but he worked himself into a rage, he accused me of awful things, and calle=
d me
awful names in a loud voice, so that he could be heard, until I was dumb an=
d staggering.
All the time, I knew there was a reason, but I could not tell then what it =
was.
He said at last, that he was going to Mr. Ffolliott. He said, 'I will meet =
him
in the wood and I will take your note with me.'
"Betty, it was so shameful that I fell
down on my knees. 'Oh, don't--don't--do that,' I said. 'I beg of you, Nigel=
. He
is a gentleman and a clergyman. I beg and beg of you. If you will not, I wi=
ll
do anything--anything.' And at that minute I remembered how he had tried to
make me write to father for money. And I cried out--catching at his coat, a=
nd
holding him back. 'I will write to father as you asked me. I will do anythi=
ng.
I can't bear it.'"
"That was the whole meaning of the wh=
ole
thing," said Betty with eyes ablaze. "That was the beginning, the
middle and the end. What did he say?"
"He pretended to be made more angry. =
He
said, 'Don't insult me by trying to bribe me with your vulgar money. Don't
insult me.' But he gradually grew sulky instead of raging, and though he put
the note in his pocket, he did not go to Mr. Ffolliott. And--I wrote to
father."
"I remember that," Betty answere=
d.
"Did you ever speak to Mr. Ffolliott again?"
"He guessed--he knew--I saw it in his
kind, brown eyes when he passed me without speaking, in the village. I dare=
say
the villagers were told about the awful thing by some servant, who heard
Nigel's voice. Villagers always know what is happening. He went away a few
weeks later. The day before he went, I had walked through the wood, and just
outside it, I met him. He stopped for one minute--just one--he lifted his h=
at and
said, just as he had spoken them that first night--just the same words, 'God
will help you. He will. He will.'"
A strange, almost unearthly joy suddenly
flashed across her face.
"It must be true," she said.
"It must be true. He has sent you, Betty. It has been a long time--it =
has
been so long that sometimes I have forgotten his words. But you have
come!"
"Yes, I have come," Betty answer=
ed.
And she bent forward and kissed her gently, as if she had been soothing a
child.
There were other questions to ask. She was
obliged to ask them. "The unexpected thing" had been used as an
instrument for years. It was always efficacious. Over the yearningly homesi=
ck
creature had hung the threat that her father and mother, those she ached and
longed for, could be told the story in such a manner as would brand her as a
woman with a shameful secret. How could she explain herself? There were the
awful, written words. He was her husband. He was remorseless, plausible. Sh=
e dared
not write freely. She had no witnesses to call upon. She had discovered tha=
t he
had planned with composed steadiness that misleading impressions should be
given to servants and village people. When the Brents returned to the vicar=
age,
she had observed, with terror, that for some reason they stiffened, and loo=
ked
askance when the Ffolliotts were mentioned.
"I am afraid, Lady Anstruthers, that =
Mr.
Ffolliott was a great mistake," Mrs. Brent said once.
Lady Anstruthers had not dared to ask any questions. She had felt the awkward colour rising in her face and had known that she looked guilty. But if she had protested against the injustice of t= he remark, Sir Nigel would have heard of her words before the day had passed, = and she shuddered to think of the result. He had by that time reached the point= of referring to Ffolliott with sneering lightness, as "Your lover."<= o:p>
"Do you defend your lover to me,"=
; he
had said on one occasion, when she had entered a timid protest. And her whi=
te
face and wild helpless eyes had been such evidence as to the effect the word
had produced, that he had seen the expediency of making a point of using it=
.
The blood beat in Betty Vanderpoel's veins=
.
"Rosy," she said, looking steadi=
ly
in the faded face, "tell me this. Did you never think of getting away =
from
him, of going somewhere, and trying to reach father, by cable, or letter, by
some means?"
Lady Anstruthers' weary and wrinkled little
smile was a pitiably illuminating thing.
"My dear" she said, "if you=
are
strong and beautiful and rich and well dressed, so that people care to look=
at
you, and listen to what you say, you can do things. But who, in
"It is not the awful truth now,"
said Betty, and she rose to her feet and stood looking before her, but with=
a
look which did not rest on chairs and tables. She remained so, standing for=
a
few moments of dead silence.
"What a fool he was!" she said at
last. "And what a villain! But a villain is always a fool."
She bent, and taking Rosy's face between h=
er
hands, kissed it with a kiss which seemed like a seal. "That will
do," she said. "Now I know. One must know what is in one's hands =
and
what is not. Then one need not waste time in talking of miserable things. O=
ne
can save one's strength for doing what can be done."
"I believe you would always think abo=
ut
DOING things," said Lady Anstruthers. "That is American, too.&quo=
t;
"It is a quality Americans inherited =
from
She said the last words as if she had ended
with a jest. But she knew what she was doing.
"You were tricked into giving up what=
was
yours, to a person who could not be trusted. What has been done with it,
scarcely matters. It is not yours, but Sir Nigel's. But we are not helpless,
because we have in our hands the most powerful material agent in the world.=
"Come, Rosy, and let us walk over the
house. We will begin with that."
CHAPTER XVII - TOWNLINSON & SHEPPARD=
span>
During the whole course of her interesting
life--and she had always found life interesting--Betty Vanderpoel decided t=
hat
she had known no experience more absorbing than this morning spent in going
over the long-closed and deserted portions of the neglected house. She had
never seen anything like the place, or as full of suggestion. The greater p=
art
of it had simply been shut up and left to time and weather, both of which h=
ad
had their effects. The fine old red roof, having lost tiles, had fallen into
leaks that let in rain, which had stained and rotted walls, plaster, and
woodwork; wind and storm had beaten through broken window panes and done th=
eir
worst with such furniture and hangings as they found to whip and toss and l=
eave
damp and spotted with mould. They passed through corridors, and up and down
short or long stairways, with stained or faded walls, and sometimes with
cracked or fallen plastering and wainscotting. Here and there the oak floor=
ing
itself was uncertain. The rooms, whether large or small, all presented a li=
ke aspect
of potential beauty and comfort, utterly uncared for and forlorn. There were
many rooms, but none more than scantily furnished, and a number of them were
stripped bare. Betty found herself wondering how long a time it had taken t=
he
belongings of the big place to dwindle and melt away into such bareness.
"There was a time, I suppose, when it=
was
all furnished," she said.
"All these rooms were shut up when I =
came
here," Rosy answered. "I suppose things worth selling have been s=
old.
When pieces of furniture were broken in one part of the house, they were
replaced by things brought from another. No one cared. Nigel hates it all. =
He
calls it a rathole. He detests the country everywhere, but particularly this
part of it. After the first year I had learned better than to speak to him =
of spending
money on repairs."
"A good deal of money should be spent=
on
repairs," reflected Betty, looking about her.
She was standing in the middle of a room w=
hose
walls were hung with the remains of what had been chintz, covered with a
pattern of loose clusters of moss rosebuds. The dampness had rotted it unti=
l,
in some places, it had fallen away in strips from its fastenings. A quaint,=
embroidered
couch stood in one corner, and as Betty looked at it, a mouse crept from un=
der
the tattered valance, stared at her in alarm and suddenly darted back again=
, in
terror of intrusion so unusual. A casement window swung open, on a broken
hinge, and a strong branch of ivy, having forced its way inside, had thrown=
a
covering of leaves over the deep ledge, and was beginning to climb the inner
woodwork. Through the casement was to be seen a heavenly spread of country,
whose rolling lands were clad softly in green pastures and thick-branched
trees.
"This is the Rosebud Boudoir," s=
aid
Lady Anstruthers, smiling faintly. "All the rooms have names. I thought
them so delightful, when I first heard them. The Damask Room--the Tapestry
Room--the White Wainscot Room--My Lady's Chamber. It almost broke my heart =
when
I saw what they looked like."
"It would be very interesting,"
Betty commented slowly, "to make them look as they ought to look."=
;
A remote fear rose to the surface of the
expression in Lady Anstruthers' eyes. She could not detach herself from cer=
tain
recollections of Nigel--of his opinions of her family--of his determination=
not
to allow it to enter as a factor in either his life or hers. And Betty had =
come
to Stornham--Betty whom he had detested as a child--and in the course of two
days, she had seemed to become a new part of the atmosphere, and to make the
dead despair of the place begin to stir with life. What other thing than th=
is
was happening as she spoke of making such rooms as the Rosebud Boudoir
"look as they ought to look," and said the words not as if they w=
ere
part of a fantastic vision, but as if they expressed a perfectly possible
thing?
Betty saw the doubt in her eyes, and in a
measure, guessed at its meaning. The time to pause for argument had, however
not arrived. There was too much to be investigated, too much to be seen. She
swept her on her way. They wandered on through some forty rooms, more or le=
ss;
they opened doors and closed them; they unbarred shutters and let the sun s=
tream
in on dust and dampness and cobwebs. The comprehension of the situation whi=
ch
Betty gained was as valuable as it was enlightening.
The descent into the lower part of the hou=
se
was a new experience. Betty had not before seen huge, flagged kitchens, vau=
lted
servants' halls, stone passages, butteries and dairies. The substantial mas=
onry
of the walls and arched ceilings, the stone stairway, and the seemingly end=
less
offices, were interestingly remote in idea from such domestic modernities as
chance views of up-to-date American household workings had provided her.
In the huge kitchen itself, an elderly wom=
an,
rolling pastry, paused to curtsy to them, with stolid curiosity in her
heavy-featured face. In her character as "single-handed" cook, Mr=
s.
Noakes had sent up uninviting meals to Lady Anstruthers for several years, =
but
she had not seen her ladyship below stairs before. And this was the unexpec=
ted
arrival--the young lady there had been "talk of" from the moment =
of
her appearance. Mrs. Noakes admitted with the grudgingness of a person of
uncheerful temperament, that looks like that always would make talk. A cert=
ain degree
of vague mental illumination led her to agree with Robert, the footman, that
the stranger's effectiveness was, perhaps, also, not altogether a matter of
good looks, and certainly it was not an affair of clothes. Her brightish bl=
ue
dress, of rough cloth, was nothing particular, notwithstanding the fit of i=
t.
There was "something else about her." She looked round the place,=
not
with the casual indifference of a fine young lady, carelessly curious to see
what she had not seen before, but with an alert, questioning interest.
"What a big place," she said to =
her
ladyship. "What substantial walls! What huge joints must have been roa=
sted
before such a fireplace."
She drew near to the enormous, antiquated
cooking place.
"People were not very practical when =
this
was built," she said. "It looks as if it must waste a great deal =
of
coal. Is it----?" she looked at Mrs. Noakes. "Do you like it?&quo=
t;
There was a practical directness in the
question for which Mrs. Noakes was not prepared. Until this moment, it had
apparently mattered little whether she liked things or not. The condition of
her implements of trade was one of her grievances--the ancient fireplace and
ovens the bitterest.
"It's out of order, miss," she
answered. "And they don't use 'em like this in these days."
"I thought not," said Miss
Vanderpoel.
She made other inquiries as direct and
significant of the observing eye, and her passage through the lower part of=
the
establishment left Mrs. Noakes and her companions in a strange but not unpl=
easurable
state of ferment.
"Think of a young lady that's never h=
ad
nothing to do with kitchens, going straight to that shameful old fireplace,=
and
seeing what it meant to the woman that's got to use it. 'Do you like it?' s=
he
says. If she'd been a cook herself, she couldn't have put it straighter. Sh=
e's
got eyes."
"She's been using them all over the
place," said Robert. "Her and her ladyship's been into rooms that=
's
not been opened for years."
"More shame to them that should have
opened 'em," remarked Mrs. Noakes. "Her ladyship's a poor, listle=
ss
thing--but her spirit was broken long ago.
"This one will mend it for her,
perhaps," said the man servant. "I wonder what's going to
happen."
"Well, she's got a look with her--the=
new
one--as if where she was things would be likely to happen. You look out. The
place won't seem so dead and alive if we've got something to think of and
expect."
"Who are the solicitors Sir Nigel
employs?" Betty had asked her sister, when their pilgrimage through the
house had been completed.
Messrs. Townlinson & Sheppard, a firm
which for several generations had transacted the legal business of much more
important estates than Stornham, held its affairs in hand. Lady Anstruthers
knew nothing of them, but that they evidently did not approve of the conduc=
t of
their client. Nigel was frequently angry when he spoke of them. It could be=
gathered
that they had refused to allow him to do things he wished to do--sell thing=
s,
or borrow money on them.
"I think we must go to
Rosy was agitated. Why should one see them?
What was there to be spoken of? Their going, Betty explained would be a sor=
t of
visit of ceremony--in a measure a precaution. Since Sir Nigel was apparently
not to be reached, having given no clue as to where he intended to go, it m=
ight
be discreet to consult Messrs. Townlinson & Sheppard with regard to the
things it might be well to do--the repairs it appeared necessary to make at
once. If Messrs. Townlinson & Sheppard approved of the doing of such wo=
rk,
Sir Nigel could not resent their action, and say that in his absence libert=
ies
had been taken. Such a course seemed businesslike and dignified.
It was what Betty felt that her father wou=
ld
do. Nothing could be complained of, which was done with the knowledge and u=
nder
the sanction of the family solicitors.
"Then there are other things we must =
do.
We must go to shops and theatres. It will be good for you to go to shops and
theatres, Rosy."
"I have nothing but rags to wear,&quo=
t;
answered Lady Anstruthers, reddening.
"Then before we go we will have things
sent down. People can be sent from the shops to arrange what we want."=
The magic of the name, standing for great
wealth, could, it was true, bring to them, not only the contents of shops, =
but
the people who showed them, and were ready to carry out any orders. The nam=
e of
Vanderpoel already stood, in
The being reminded in every-day matters of=
the
still real existence of the power of this magic was the first step in the
rebuilding of Lady Anstruthers. To realise that the wonderful and yet simple
necromancy was gradually encircling her again, had its parallel in the taki=
ng
of a tonic, whose effect was cumulative. She herself did not realise the wo=
rking
of it. But Betty regarded it with interest. She saw it was good for her, me=
rely
to look on at the unpacking of the
As the woman removed, from tray after tray,
the tissue-paper-enfolded layers of garments, Lady Anstruthers sat and watc=
hed
her with normal, simply feminine interest growing in her eyes. The things w=
ere
made with the absence of any limit in expenditure, the freedom with delicat=
e stuffs
and priceless laces which belonged only to her faint memories of a lost pas=
t.
Nothing had limited the time spent in the
embroidering of this apparently simple linen frock and coat; nothing had
restrained the hand holding the scissors which had cut into the lace which
adorned in appliques and filmy frills this exquisitely charming ball dress.=
"It is looking back so far," she
said, waving her hand towards them with an odd gesture. "To think that=
it
was once all like--like that."
She got up and went to the things, turning
them over, and touching them with a softness, almost expressing a caress. T=
he
names of the makers stamped on bands and collars, the names of the streets =
in
which their shops stood, moved her. She heard again the once familiar rattl=
e of
wheels, and the rush and roar of
Betty carried on the whole matter with
lightness. She talked easily and casually, giving local colour to what she
said. She described the abnormally rapid growth of the places her sister had
known in her teens, the new buildings, new theatres, new shops, new people,=
the
later mode of living, much of it learned from
"Changing--changing--changing. That i=
s what
it is always doing--
But for years Lady Anstruthers had been li=
ving
in the atmosphere of long-established things, and felt no insistence upon i=
t.
She yearned to hear of the great, changing Western world--of the great,
changing city. Betty must tell her what the changes were. What were the
differences in the streets--where had the new buildings been placed? How ha=
d
It was good for her to talk and be talked =
to
in this manner Betty saw. Still handling her subject lightly, she presented
picture after picture. Some of them were of the wonderful, feverish city
itself--the place quite passionately loved by some, as passionately dislike=
d by
others. She herself had fallen into the habit, as she left childhood behind
her, of looking at it with interested wonder--at its riot of life and power=
, of
huge schemes, and almost superhuman labours, of fortunes so colossal that t=
hey
seemed monstrosities in their relation to the world. People who in Rosalie's
girlhood had lived in big ugly brownstone fronts, had built for themselves =
or
for their children, houses such as, in other countries, would have belonged=
to
nobles and princes, spending fortunes upon their building, filling them with
treasures brought from foreign lands, from palaces, from art galleries, from
collectors. Sometimes strange people built such houses and lived strange
lavish, ostentatious lives in them, forming an overstrained, abnormal,
pleasure-chasing world of their own. The passing of even ten years in
"It does not take long to make an 'old New Yorker,'" she said. "Each day brings so many new ones."<= o:p>
There were, indeed, many new ones, Lady
Anstruthers found. People who had been poor had become hugely rich, a few w=
ho
had been rich had become poor, possessions which had been large had swelled=
to
unnatural proportions. Out of the West had risen fortunes more monstrous th=
an
all others. As she told one story after another, Bettina realised, as she h=
ad
done often before, that it was impossible to enter into description of the =
life
and movements of the place, without its curiously involving some connection
with the huge wealth of it--with its influence, its rise, its swelling, or
waning.
"Somehow one cannot free one's self f=
rom
it. This is the age of wealth and invention--but of wealth before all else.
Sometimes one is tired--tired of it."
"You would not be tired of it if--wel=
l,
if you were I, said Lady Anstruthers rather pathetically.
"Perhaps not," Betty answered.
"Perhaps not."
She herself had seen people who were not t=
ired
of it in the sense in which she was--the men and women, with worn or intent=
ly
anxious faces, hastening with the crowds upon the pavements, all hastening
somewhere, in chase of that small portion of the wealth which they earned by
their labour as their daily share; the same men and women surging towards e=
levated
railroad stations, to seize on places in the homeward-bound trains; or stan=
ding
in tired-looking groups, waiting for the approach of an already overfull st=
reet
car, in which they must be packed together, and swing to the hanging straps=
, to
keep upon their feet. Their way of being weary of it would be different from
hers, they would be weary only of hearing of the mountains of it which roll=
ed
themselves up, as it seemed, in obedience to some irresistible, occult forc=
e.
On the day after Stornham village had lear=
ned
that her ladyship and Miss Vanderpoel had actually gone to
And now appears a Miss Vanderpoel, who wis=
hes
to appoint an interview with Messrs. Townlinson & Sheppard. What does s=
he
wish to say? The family is apparently taking the matter up. Is this lady an
elder or a younger sister of Lady Anstruthers? Is she an older woman of that
strong and rather trying American type one hears of, or is she younger than=
her
ladyship, a pretty, indignant, totally unpractical girl, outraged by the st=
ate
of affairs she has discovered, foolishly coming to demand of Messrs. Townli=
nson
& Sheppard an explanation of things they are not responsible for? Will =
she,
perhaps, lose her temper, and accuse and reproach, or even--most unpleasant=
to
contemplate--shed hysterical tears?
It fell to Mr. Townlinson to receive her in
the absence of Mr. Sheppard, who had been called to Northamptonshire to att=
end
to great affairs. He was a stout, grave man with a heavy, well-cut face, an=
d,
when Bettina entered his room, his courteous reception of her reserved his =
view
of the situation entirely.
She was not of the mature and rather alarm=
ing
American type he had imagined possible, he felt some relief in marking at o=
nce.
She was also not the pretty, fashionable young lady who might have come to
scold him, and ask silly, irrational questions.
His ordinarily rather unillumined countena=
nce
changed somewhat in expression when she sat down and began to speak. Mr.
Townlinson was impressed by the fact that it was at once unmistakably evide=
nt
that whatsoever her reason for coming, she had not presented herself to ask=
irrelevant
or unreasonable questions. Lady Anstruthers, she explained without superflu=
ous
phrase, had no definite knowledge of her husband's whereabouts, and it had
seemed possible that Messrs. Townlinson & Sheppard might have received =
some
information more recent that her own. The impersonal framing of this inquiry
struck Mr. Townlinson as being in remarkably good taste, since it conveyed =
no
condemnation of Sir Nigel, and no desire to involve Mr. Townlinson in
expressing any. It refrained even from implying that the situation was an
unusual one, which might be open to criticism. Excellent reserve and great
cleverness, Mr. Townlinson commented inwardly. There were certainly few you=
ng
ladies who would have clearly realised that a solicitor cannot be called up=
on
to commit himself, until he has had time to weigh matters and decide upon t=
hem.
His long and varied experience had included interviews in which charming,
emotional women had expected him at once to "take sides." Miss Va=
nderpoel
exhibited no signs of expecting anything of this kind, even when she went on
with what she had come to say.
Certainly an unusual young lady. It would =
be
interesting to discover how well she knew Sir Nigel, since it seemed that o=
nly
a knowledge of him--his temper, his bitter, irritable vanity, could have
revealed to her the necessity of the precaution she was taking without even=
intimating
that it was a precaution. Extraordinarily clever girl.
Mr. Townlinson wore an air of quiet,
business-like reflection.
"You are aware, Miss Vanderpoel, that=
the
present income from the estate is not such as would justify anything
approaching the required expenditure?"
"Yes, I am aware of that. The expense
would be provided for by my father."
"Most generous on Mr. Vanderpoel's
part," Mr. Townlinson commented. "The estate would, of course,
increase greatly in value."
Circumstances had prevented her father from
visiting Stornham, Miss Vanderpoel explained, and this had led to his being
ignorant of a condition of things which he might have remedied. She did not
explain what the particular circumstances which had separated the families =
had been,
but Mr. Townlinson thought he understood. The condition existing could be
remedied now, if Messrs. Townlinson & Sheppard saw no obstacles other t=
han
scarcity of money.
Mr. Townlinson's summing up of the matter
expressed in effect that he saw none. The estate had been a fine one in its
day. During the last sixty years it had become much impoverished. With cons=
ervative
decorum of manner, he admitted that there had not been, since Sir Nigel's m=
arriage,
sufficient reason for the neglect of dilapidations. The firm had strongly
represented to Sir Nigel that certain resources should not be diverted from=
the
proper object of restoring the property, which was entailed upon his son. T=
he
son's future should beyond all have been considered in the dispensing of his
mother's fortune.
He, by this time, comprehended fully that =
he
need restrain no dignified expression of opinion in his speech with this yo=
ung
lady. She had come to consult with him with as clear a view of the propriet=
ies
and discretions demanded by his position as he had himself. And yet each, b=
efore
the close of the interview, understood the point of view of the other. What=
he
recognised was that, though she had not seen Sir Nigel since her childhood,=
she
had in some astonishing way obtained an extraordinary insight into his
character, and it was this which had led her to take her present step. She
might not realise all she might have to contend with, but her conservative =
and
formal action had surrounded her and her sister with a certain barrier of
conventional protection, at once self-controlled, dignified, and astutely
intelligent.
"Since, as you say, no structural cha=
nges
are proposed, such as an owner might resent, and as Lady Anstruthers is the
mother of the heir, and as Lady Anstruthers' father undertakes to defray all
expenditure, no sane man could object to the restoration of the property. T=
o do
so would be to cause public opinion to express itself strongly against him.
Such action would place him grossly in the wrong." Then he added with =
deliberation,
realising that he was committing himself, and feeling firmly willing to do =
so
for reasons of his own, "Sir Nigel is a man who objects strongly to
putting himself--publicly--in the wrong."
"Thank you," said Miss Vanderpoe=
l.
He had said this of intention for her
enlightenment, and she was aware that he had done so.
"This will not be the first time that
American fortunes have restored English estates," Mr. Townlinson conti=
nued
amiably. "There have been many notable cases of late years. We shall be
happy to place ourselves at your disposal at all times, Miss Vanderpoel. We=
are
obliged to you for your consideration in the matter."
"Thank you," said Miss Vanderpoel
again. "I wished to be sure that I should not be infringing any English
rule I had no knowledge of."
"You will be infringing none. You have
been most correct and courteous."
Before she went away Mr. Townlinson felt t=
hat
he had been greatly enlightened as to what a young lady might know and be. =
She
gave him singularly clear details as to what was proposed. There was so muc=
h to
be done that he found himself opening his eyes slightly once or twice. But,=
of
course, if Mr. Vanderpoel was prepared to spend money in a lavish manner, it
was all to the good so far as the estate was concerned. They were stupendou=
s,
these people, and after all the heir was his grandson. And how striking it =
was
that with all this power and readiness to use it, was evidently combined, e=
ven
in this beautiful young person, the clearest business sense of the situatio=
n.
What was done would be for the comfort of Lady Anstruthers and the future of
her son. Sir Nigel, being unable to sell either house or lands, could not u=
ndo
it.
When Mr. Townlinson accompanied his visito=
r to
her carriage with dignified politeness he felt somewhat like an elderly
solicitor who had found himself drawn into the atmosphere of a sort of
intensely modern fairy tale. He saw two of his under clerks, with the
impropriety of middle-class youth, looking out of an office window at the d=
ark
blue brougham and the tall young lady, whose beauty bloomed in the sunshine=
. He
did not, on the whole, wonder at, though he deplored, the conduct of the yo=
ung
men. But they, of course, saw only what they colloquially described to each
other as a "rippin' handsome girl." They knew nothing of the
interesting interview.
He himself returned to his private room in=
a
musing mood and thought it all over, his mind dwelling on various features =
of
the international situation, and more than once he said aloud:
"Most remarkable. Very remarkable,
indeed."
CHAPTER XVIII - THE FIFTEENTH EARL OF
James Hubert John Fergus Saltyre--fifteenth
Earl of Mount Dunstan, "Jem Salter," as his neighbours on the Wes=
tern
ranches had called him, the red-haired, second-class passenger of the
Meridiana, sat in the great library of his desolate great house, and stared
fixedly through the open window at the lovely land spread out before him. F=
rom
this particular window was to be seen one of the greatest views in
When Brough had gone away to her far super=
ior
place, and she had been succeeded by one variety of objectionable or
incompetent person after another, he had still continued to learn. In diffe=
rent
ways he silently collected information, and all of it was unpleasant, and, =
as
he grew older, it took for some years one form. Lack of resources, which sh=
ould
of right belong to persons of rank, was the radical objection to his people=
. At
the town house there was no money, at
As Saltyre left nursery days behind, he
learned by degrees that the objection to himself and his people, which had =
at
first endeavoured to explain itself as being the result of an unseemly lack=
of
money, combined with that unpleasant feature, an uglier one--namely, lack o=
f decent
reputation. Angry duns, beggarliness of income, scarcity of the necessaries=
and
luxuries which dignity of rank demanded, the indifference and slights of on=
e's
equals, and the ignoring of one's existence by exalted persons, were all
hideous enough to Lord Mount Dunstan and his elder son--but they were not so
hideous as was, to his younger son, the childish, shamed frenzy of awakenin=
g to
the truth that he was one of a bad lot--a disgraceful lot, from whom nothing
was expected but shifty ways, low vices, and scandals, which in the end cou=
ld
not even be kept out of the newspapers. The day came, in fact, when the wor=
st
of these was seized upon by them and filled their sheets with matter which =
for
a whole season decent
The memory of the fever of the monstrous w=
eeks
which had passed at this time was not one it was wise for a man to recall. =
But
it was not to be forgotten--the hasty midnight arrival at Mount Dunstan of
father and son, their haggard, nervous faces, their terrified discussions, =
and argumentative
raging when they were shut up together behind locked doors, the appearance =
of
legal advisers who looked as anxious as themselves, but failed to conceal t=
he
disgust with which they were battling, the knowledge that tongues were clac=
king
almost hysterically in the village, and that curious faces hurried to the
windows when even a menial from the great house passed, the atmosphere of
below-stairs whispers, and jogged elbows, and winks, and giggles; the final=
desperate,
excited preparations for flight, which might be ignominiously stopped at any
moment by the intervention of the law, the huddling away at night time, the
hot-throated fear that the shameful, self-branding move might be too late--=
the
burning humiliation of knowing the inevitable result of public contempt or
laughter when the world next day heard that the fugitives had put the Engli=
sh
Channel between themselves and their country's laws.
Lord Tenham had died a few years later at =
Just one man knew him intimately, and this=
one
had been from his fifteenth year the sole friend of his life. He had come,
then--the Reverend Lewis Penzance--a poor and unhealthy scholar, to be vica=
r of
the parish of Dunstan. Only a poor and book-absorbed man would have accepted
the position. What this man wanted was no more than quiet, pure country air=
to
fill frail lungs, a roof over his head, and a place to pore over books and
manuscripts. He was a born monk and celibate--in by-gone centuries he would
have lived peacefully in some monastery, spending his years in the reading =
and
writing of black letter and the illuminating of missals. At the vicarage he
could lead an existence which was almost the same thing.
At
There, one day, he had come upon an
uncouth-looking boy with deep eyes and a shaggy crop of red hair. The boy w=
as
poring over an old volume, and was plainly not disposed to leave it. He ros=
e,
not too graciously, and replied to the elder man's greeting, and the friend=
ly
questions which followed. Yes, he was the youngest son of the house. He had=
nothing
to do, and he liked the library. He often came there and sat and read thing=
s.
There were some queer old books and a lot of stupid ones. The book he was
reading now? Oh, that (with a slight reddening of his skin and a little
awkwardness at the admission) was one of those he liked best. It was one of=
the
queer ones, but interesting for all that. It was about their own people--the
generations of
Mr. Penzance was interested. His outlook on
the past and the present had always been that of a bookworm, but he underst=
ood
enough to see that he had come upon a temperament novel enough to awaken
curiosity. The apparently entirely neglected boy, of a type singularly unli=
ke
that of his father and elder brother, living his life virtually alone in the
big place, and finding food to his taste in stories of those of his blood w=
hose
dust had mingled with the earth centuries ago, provided him with a new subj=
ect
for reflection.
That had been the beginning of an unusual
friendship. Gradually
In the old library it fell out in time tha=
t
When the shameful scandal burst forth young
Saltyre was seen by neither his father nor his brother. Neither of them had=
any
desire to see him; in fact, each detested the idea of confronting by any ch=
ance
his hot, intolerant eyes. "The Brat," his father had called him in
his childhood, "The Lout," when he had grown big-limbed and clums=
y.
Both he and Tenham were sick enough, without being called upon to contempla=
te
"The Lout," whose opinion, in any case, they preferred not to hea=
r.
Saltyre, during the hideous days, shut him=
self
up in the library. He did not leave the house, even for exercise, until aft=
er
the pair had fled. His exercise he took in walking up and down from one end=
of
the long room to another. Devils were let loose in him. When
He kicked an ancient volume out of his way=
as
he strode to and fro.
"There has been plenty of the blood of
the beast in us in bygone times," he said, "but it was not like t=
his.
Savagery in savage days had its excuse. This is the beast sunk into the
gibbering, degenerate ape."
"But we are done for," he shouted
once. "We are done for. And I am as much done for as they are. Decent
people won't touch us. That is where the last
The older man thought many things, as he
looked at his big back and body. He stood with his legs astride, and Penzan=
ce
noted that his right hand was clenched on his hip, as a man's might be as he
clenched the hilt of his sword--his one mate who might avenge him even when=
, standing
at bay, he knew that the end had come, and he must fall. Primeval Force--the
thin-faced, narrow-chested, slightly bald clergyman of the Church of Englan=
d was
thinking--never loses its way, or fails to sweep a path before it. The sun
rises and sets, the seasons come and go, Primeval Force is of them, and as
unchangeable. Much of it stood before him embodied in this strongly sentient
thing. In this way the Reverend Lewis found his thoughts leading him, and
he--being moved to the depths of a fine soul--felt them profoundly interest=
ing,
and even sustaining.
He sat in a high-backed chair, holding its
arms with long thin hands, and looking for some time at James Hubert John
Fergus Saltyre. He said, at last, in a sane level voice:
"Lord Tenham is not the last
After which the stillness remained unbroken
again for some minutes. Saltyre did not move or make any response, and, whe=
n he
left his place at the window, he took up a book, and they spoke of other
things.
When the fourteenth Earl died in
"It was a queer thing you said to me =
in
this room a few years ago," he said. "It has just come back to
me."
Singularly enough--or perhaps naturally
enough--it had also just arisen again from the depths of
"Yes," he answered, "I
remember. To-night it suggests premonition. Your brother was not the last <=
st1:place
w:st=3D"on">
"In one sense he never was
"No," he said. "I don't see
that. No--not the last. Believe me."
And singularly, in truth,
Only Penzance had known of his reasons for
going to
*****
He sat at the table, his eyes upon the
wide-spread loveliness of the landscape, but his thought elsewhere. It wand=
ered
over the years already lived through, wandering backwards even to the days =
when
existence, opening before the child eyes, was a baffling and vaguely unhappy
thing.
When the door opened and
Then let us take our old accustomed seat a=
nd
begin some casual talk, which will draw him out of the shadows, and make him
forget such things as it is not good to remember. That is what we have done
many times in the past, and may find it well to do many a time again.
He begins with talk of the village and the
country-side. Village stories are often quaint, and stories of the countrys=
ide
are sometimes--not always--interesting. Tom Benson's wife has presented him
with triplets, and there is great excitement in the village, as to the step=
s to
be taken to secure the three guineas given by the Queen as a reward for this
feat. Old Benny Bates has announced his intention of taking a fifth wife at=
the
age of ninety, and is indignant that it has been suggested that the parochi=
al
authorities in charge of the "Union," in which he must inevitably
shortly take refuge, may interfere with his rights as a citizen. The Revere=
nd
Lewis has been to talk seriously with him, and finds him at once irate and
obdurate.
"Vicar," says old Benny, "he
can't refuse to marry no man. Law won't let him." Such refusal, he
intimates, might drive him to wild and riotous living. Remembering his last
view of old Benny tottering down the village street in his white smock, his
nut-cracker face like a withered rosy apple, his gnarled hand grasping the
knotted staff his bent body leaned on,
"At Stornham village an unexpected th=
ing
has happened," he said. "One of the relatives of Lady Anstruthers=
has
suddenly appeared--a sister. You may remember that the poor woman was said =
to
be the daughter of some rich American, and it seemed unexplainable that non=
e of
her family ever appeared, and things were allowed to go from bad to worse. =
As
it was understood that there was so much money people were mystified by the=
condition
of things."
"Anstruthers has had money to
squander," said
"Certainly her family has seemed to
neglect her for years. Perhaps they were disappointed in his position. Many
Americans are extremely ambitious. These international marriages are often
singular things. Now--apparently without having been expected--the sister
appears. Vanderpoel is the name--Miss Vanderpoel."
"I crossed the Atlantic with her in t=
he
Meridiana," said
"Indeed! That is interesting. You did
not, of course, know that she was coming here."
"I knew nothing of her but that she w=
as a
saloon passenger with a suite of staterooms, and I was in the second cabin.
Nothing? That is not quite true, perhaps. Stewards and passengers gossip, a=
nd
one cannot close one's ears. Of course one heard constant reiteration of the
number of millions her father possessed, and the number of cabins she manag=
ed
to occupy. During the confusion and alarm of the collision, we spoke to each
other."
He did not mention the other occasion on w=
hich
he had seen her. There seemed, on the whole, no special reason why he shoul=
d.
"Then you would recognise her, if you=
saw
her. I heard to-day that she seems an unusual young woman, and has
beauty."
"Her eyes and lashes are remarkable. =
She
is tall. The Americans are setting up a new type."
"Yes, they used to send over slender,
fragile little women. Lady Anstruthers was the type. I confess to an intere=
st
in the sister."
"Why?"
"She has made a curious impression. S=
he
has begun to do things. Stornham village has lost its breath." He laug=
hed
a little. "She has been going over the place and discussing repairs.&q=
uot;
"That is practical," he commente=
d.
"It is really interesting. Why should=
a
young woman turn her attention to repairs? If it had been her father--the
omnipotent Mr. Vanderpoel--who had appeared, one would not have wondered at
such practical activity. But a young lady--with remarkable eyelashes!"=
His elbows were on the arm of his chair, a=
nd
he had placed the tips of his fingers together, wearing an expression of su=
ch
absorbed contemplation that
"You look quite dreamy over it,"=
he
said.
"It allures me. Unknown quantities in
character always allure me. I should like to know her. A community like thi=
s is
made up of the absolutely known quantity--of types repeating themselves thr=
ough
centuries. A new one is almost a startling thing. Gossip over teacups is not
usually entertaining to me, but I found myself listening to little Miss Lau=
ra
Brunel this afternoon with rather marked attention. I confess to having gon=
e so
far as to make an inquiry or so. Sir Nigel Anstruthers is not often at
Stornham. He is away now. It is plainly not he who is interested in
repairs."
"He is on the
CHAPTER XIX - SPRING
The visit to
Vanderpoels, at least, could so establish
themselves as not to greatly feel the hotel atmosphere. Carefully chosen
colours textures, and appointments formed the background of their days, the
food they ate was a thing produced by art, the servants who attended them w=
ere completely-trained
mechanisms. To sit by a window and watch the kaleidoscopic human tide passi=
ng
by on its way to its pleasure, to reach its work, to spend its money in
unending shops, to show itself and its equipage in the park, was a wonderful
thing to Lady Anstruthers. It all seemed to be a part of the life and quali=
ty
of Betty, little Betty, whom she had remembered only as a child, and who had
come to her a tall, strong young beauty, who had--it was resplendently
clear--never known a fear in her life, and whose mere personality had the
effect of making fears seem unreal.
She was taken out in a luxurious little
brougham to shops whose varied allurements were placed eagerly at her dispo=
sal.
Respectful persons, obedient to her most faintly-expressed desire, displayed
garments as wonderful as those the
"Her ladyship's slenderness is a great
advantage," said the wisely inciting ones. "There is no such
advantage as delicacy of line."
Summing up the character of their customer
with the saleswoman's eye, they realised the discretion of turning to Miss
Vanderpoel for encouragement, though she was the younger of the two, and bo=
re
no title. They were aware of the existence of persons of rank who were not
lavish patrons, but the name of Vanderpoel held most promising suggestions.=
To an
English shopkeeper the American has, of late years, represented the
spender--the type which, whatsoever its rank and resources, has, mysterious=
ly,
always money to hand over counters in exchange for things it chances to des=
ire
to possess. Each year surges across the
"Them!" chaffed a costermonger o=
ver
his barrow. "Blimme, if some o' them blokes won't buy Buckin'am Pallis=
an'
the 'ole R'yal Fambly some mornin' when they're out shoppin'."
The subservient attendants in more than one
fashionable shop Betty and her sister visit, know that Miss Vanderpoel is of
the circle, though her father has not as yet bought or hired any great esta=
te,
and his daughter has not been seen in London.
"Its queer we've never heard of her b=
eing
presented," one shopgirl says to another. "Just you look at
her."
She evidently knows what her ladyship ough=
t to
buy--what can be trusted not to overpower her faded fragility. The saleswom=
en,
even if they had not been devoured by alert curiosity, could not have avoid=
ed
seeing that her ladyship did not seem to know what should be bought, and th=
at
Miss Vanderpoel did, though she did not direct her sister's selection, but
merely seemed to suggest with delicate restraint. Her taste was wonderfully
perceptive. The things bought were exquisite, but a little colourless woman
could wear them all with advantage to her restrictions of type.
As the brougham drove down
"Look, Rosy," she said. "Th=
ere
is Mrs. Treat Hilyar in the second carriage to the right. You remember Josie
Treat Hilyar married Lord Varick's son."
In the landau designated an elderly woman =
with
wonderfully-dressed white hair sat smiling and bowing to friends who were
walking. Lady Anstruthers, despite her eagerness, shrank back a little, hop=
ing
to escape being seen.
"Oh, it is the Lows she is speaking
to--Tom and Alice--I did not know they had sailed yet."
The tall, well-groomed young man, with the
nice, ugly face, was showing white teeth in a gay smile of recognition, and=
his
pretty wife was lightly waving a slim hand in a grey suede glove.
"How cheerful and nice-tempered they
look," said Rosy. "Tom was only twenty when I saw him last. Whom =
did
he marry?"
"An English girl. Such a love. A
"How nice
"How clever of you!" laughed Bet=
ty.
"There is so much truth in it." The people walking in the sunshine
were all full of spring thoughts and plans. The colours they wore, the flow=
ers
in the women's hats and the men's buttonholes belonged to the season. The
cheerful crowds of people and carriages had a sort of rushing stir of movem=
ent
which suggested freshness. Later in the year everything looks more tired. N=
ow
things were beginning and everyone was rather inclined to believe that this=
year
would be better than last. "Look at the shop windows," said Betty=
, "full
of whites and pinks and yellows and blues--the colours of hyacinth and daff=
odil
beds. It seems as if they insist that there never has been a winter and nev=
er
will be one. They insist that there never was and never will be anything but
spring."
"It's in the air." Lady Anstruth=
ers'
sigh was actually a happy one. "It is just what I used to feel in April
when we drove down
Among the crowds of freshly-dressed
passers-by, women with flowery hats and light frocks and parasols, men with
touches of flower-colour on the lapels of their coats, and the holiday look=
in
their faces, she noted so many of a familiar type that she began to look for
and try to pick them out with quite excited interest.
"I believe that woman is an
American," she would say. "That girl looks as if she were a New
Yorker," again. "That man's face looks as if it belonged to Broad=
way.
Oh, Betty! do you think I am right? I should say those girls getting out of=
the
hansom to go into Burnham & Staples' came from out West and are going to
buy thousands of things. Don't they look like it?"
She began to lean forward and look on at
things with an interest so unlike her Stornham listlessness that Betty's he=
art
was moved.
Her face looked alive, and little waves of
colour rose under her skin. Several times she laughed the natural little la=
ugh
of her girlhood which it had seemed almost too much to expect to hear again.
The first of these laughs came when she counted her tenth American, a tall
Westerner of the cartoon type, sauntering along with an expression of
speculative enjoyment on his odd face, and evidently, though furtively, che=
wing
tobacco.
"I absolutely love him, Betty," =
she
cried. "You couldn't mistake him for anything else."
"No," answered Betty, feeling th=
at
she loved him herself, "not if you found him embalmed in the
Pyramids."
They pleased themselves immensely, trying =
to
guess what he would buy and take home to his wife and girls in his Western
town--though Western towns were very grand and amazing in these days, Betty
explained, and knew they could give points to
"Rosy, look! Do you see who that is? =
Do
you recognise her? It is Mrs. Bellingham. She was little Mina Thalberg. She
married Captain Bellingham. He was quite poor, but very well born--a nephew=
of
Lord Dunholm's. He could not have married a poor girl--but they have been s=
o happy
together that Mina is growing fat, and spends her days in taking reducing
treatments. She says she wouldn't care in the least, but Dicky fell in love
with her waist and shoulder line."
The plump, pretty young woman getting out =
of
her victoria before a fashionable hairdresser's looked radiant enough. She =
had
not yet lost the waist and shoulder line, though her pink frock fitted her =
with
discreet tightness. She paused a moment to pat and fuss prettily over the t=
wo
blooming, curly children who were to remain under the care of the nurse, who
sat on the back seat, holding the baby on her lap.
"I should not have known her," s=
aid
Rosy. "She has grown pretty. She wasn't a pretty child."
"It's happiness--and the English
climate--and Captain Dicky. They adore each other, and laugh at everything =
like
a pair of children. They were immensely popular in
The effect of the morning upon Lady Anstru=
thers
was what Betty had hoped it might be. The curious drawing near of the two
nations began to dawn upon her as a truth. Immured in the country, not
sufficiently interested in life to read newspapers, she had heard rumours of
some of the more important marriages, but had known nothing of the thousand
small details which made for the weaving of the web. Mrs. Treat Hilyar driv=
ing
in a leisurely, accustomed fashion down
She returned to the hotel with an appetite=
for
lunch and a new expression in her eyes which made Ughtred stare at her.
"Mother," he said, "you look
different. You look well. It isn't only your new dress and your hair."=
The new style of her attire had certainly =
done
much, and the maid who had been engaged to attend her was a woman who knew =
her
duties. She had been called upon in her time to make the most of hair offer=
ing
much less assistance to her skill than was supplied by the fine, fair colou=
rlessness
she had found dragged back from her new mistress's forehead. It was not dra=
gged
back now, but had really been done wonders with. Rosalie had smiled a little
when she had looked at herself in the glass after the first time it was so
dressed.
"You are trying to make me look as I =
did
when mother saw me last, Betty," she said. "I wonder if you possi=
bly
could."
"Let us believe we can," laughed
Betty. "And wait and see."
It seemed wise neither to make nor receive
visits. The time for such things had evidently not yet come. Even the menti=
on
of the Worthingtons led to the revelation that Rosalie shrank from immediate
contact with people. When she felt stronger, when she became more accustome=
d to
the thought, she might feel differently, but just now, to be luxuriously on=
e with
the enviable part of London, to look on, to drink in, to drive here and the=
re,
doing the things she liked to do, ordering what was required at Stornham, w=
as
like the creating for her of a new heaven and a new earth.
When, one night, Betty took her with Ughtr=
ed
to the theatre, it was to see a play written by an American, played by Amer=
ican
actors, produced by an American manager. They had even engaged in theatrical
enterprise, it seemed, their actors played before
"It seems so wonderful," Lady
Anstruthers argued. "I have always felt as if they hated each other.&q=
uot;
"They did once--but how could it last
between those of the same blood--of the same tongue? If we were really alie=
ns
we might be a menace. But we are of their own." Betty leaned forward on
the edge of the box, looking out over the crowded house, filled with almost=
as
many Americans as English faces. She smiled, reflecting. "We were chil=
dren
put out to nurse and breathe new air in the country, and now we are coming
home, vigorous, and full-grown."
She studied the audience for some minutes,
and, as her glance wandered over the stalls, it took in more than one marked
variety of type. Suddenly it fell on a face she delightedly recognised. It =
was
that of the nice, speculative-eyed Westerner they had seen enjoying himself=
in
"Rosy," she said, "there is=
the
Western man we love. Near the end of the fourth row."
Lady Anstruthers looked for him with
eagerness.
"Oh, I see him! Next to the big one w=
ith
the reddish hair."
Betty turned her attention to the man in
question, whom she had not chanced to notice. She uttered an exclamation of
surprise and interest.
"The big man with the red hair. How
lovely that they should chance to sit side by side--the big one is Lord Mou=
nt
Dunstan!"
The necessity of seeing his solicitors, who
happened to be Messrs. Townlinson & Sheppard, had brought Lord Mount
Dunstan to town. After a day devoted to business affairs, he had been attra=
cted
by the idea of going to the theatre to see again a play he had already seen=
in
As this party had entered, "God save =
the
Queen" had been played, and, in rising with the audience during the en=
try,
he had recalled that the tune was identical with that of an American nation=
al
air. How unconsciously inseparable--in spite of the lightness with which th=
ey
regarded the curious tie between them--the two countries were. The people u=
pon
the stage were acting as if they knew their public, their bearing suggestin=
g no
sense of any barrier beyond the footlights. It was the unconsciousness and
lightness of the mutual attitude which had struck him of late. Punch had lo=
ng
jested about "Fair Americans," who, in their first introduction to
its pages, used exotic and cryptic language, beginning every sentence either
with "I guess," or "Say, Stranger"; its male American h=
ad
been of the Uncle Sam order and had invariably worn a "goatee."
American witticisms had represented the Englishman in plaid trousers, openi=
ng
his remarks with "Chawley, deah fellah," and unfailingly missing =
the
point of any joke. Each country had cherished its type and good-naturedly
derided it. In time this had modified itself and the joke had changed in ki=
nd.
Many other things had changed, but the lightness of treatment still remaine=
d.
And yet their blood was mingling itself with that of
The lantern-jawed man looked good-natured
because he was smiling, and he was smiling because he saw something which
pleased him in one of the boxes.
His expression of unqualified approval
naturally directed
Naturally, she was being looked at by othe=
rs
than himself. She was one of those towards whom glasses in a theatre turn
themselves inevitably. The sweep and lift of her black hair would have drawn
them, even if she had offered no other charm. Yes, he thought, here was ano=
ther
of them. To whom was she bringing her good looks and her millions? There we=
re
men enough who needed money, even if they must accept it under less allurin=
g conditions.
In the box next to the one occupied by the royal party was a man who was kn=
own
to be waiting for the advent of some such opportunity. His was a case of di=
re,
if outwardly stately, need. He was young, but a fool, and not noted for
personal charms, yet he had, in one sense, great things to offer. There wer=
e,
of course, many chances that he might offer them to her. If this happened,
would she accept them? There was really no objection to him but his dulness=
, consequently
there seemed many chances that she might. There was something akin to the p=
omp
of royalty in the power her father's wealth implied. She could scarcely mak=
e an
ordinary marriage. It would naturally be a sort of state affair. There were=
few
men who had enough to offer in exchange for Vanderpoel millions, and of the=
few
none had special attractions. The one in the box next to the royal party wa=
s a
decent enough fellow. As young princesses were not infrequently called upon=
, by
the mere exclusion of royal blood, to become united to young or mature prin=
ces
without charm, so American young persons who were of royal possessions must
find themselves limited. If you felt free to pick and choose from among you=
ng
men in the Guards or young attaches in the Diplomatic Service with twopence=
a
year, you might get beauty or wit or temperament or all three by good luck,=
but
if you were of a royal house of New York or Chicago, you would probably feel
you must draw lines and choose only such splendours as accorded with, even
while differing from, your own.
Any possible connection of himself with su=
ch a
case did not present itself to him. If it had done so, he would have counted
himself, haughtily, as beyond the pale. It was for other men to do things of
the sort; a remote antagonism of his whole being warred against the mere id=
ea.
It was bigoted prejudice, perhaps, but it was a strong thing.
A lovely shoulder and a brilliant head set=
on
a long and slender neck have no nationality which can prevent a man's glance
turning naturally towards them. His turned again during the last act of the
play, and at a moment when he saw something rather like the thing he had se=
en
when the Meridiana moved away from the dock and the exalted Miss Vanderpoel=
leaning
upon the rail had held out her arms towards the child who had brought his t=
oy
to her as a farewell offering.
Sitting by her to-night was a boy with a
crooked back--Mount Dunstan remembered hearing that the Anstruthers had a
deformed son--and she was leaning towards him, her hand resting on his
shoulder, explaining something he had not quite grasped in the action of the
play. The absolute adoration in the boy's uplifted eyes was an interesting
thing to take in, and the radiant warmth of her bright look was as unconsci=
ous of
onlookers as it had been when he had seen it yearning towards the child on =
the
wharf. Hers was the temperament which gave--which gave. He found himself
restraining a smile because her look brought back to him the actual sound of
the New York youngster's voice.
"I wanted to kiss you, Betty, oh, I d=
id
so want to kiss you!"
Anstruthers' boy--poor little beggar--look=
ed
as if he, too, in the face of actors and audience, and brilliance of light,
wanted to kiss her.
CHAPTER XX - THINGS OCCUR IN STORNHAM VILL=
AGE
It would not have been possible for Miss
Vanderpoel to remain long in social seclusion in London, and, before many d=
ays
had passed, Stornham village was enlivened by the knowledge that her ladysh=
ip
and her sister had returned to the Court. It was also evident that their vi=
sit
to London had not been made to no purpose. The stagnation of the waters of =
village
life threatened to become a whirlpool. A respectable person, who was to be =
her
ladyship's maid, had come with them, and her ladyship had not been served b=
y a
personal attendant for years. Her ladyship had also appeared at the
dinner-table in new garments, and with her hair done as other ladies wore
theirs. She looked like a different woman, and actually had a bit of colour,
and was beginning to lose her frightened way. Now it dawned upon even the
dullest and least active mind that something had begun to stir.
It had been felt vaguely when the new young
lady from "Meriker" had walked through the village street, and had
drawn people to doors and windows by her mere passing. After the return from
London the signs of activity were such as made the villagers catch their
breaths in uttering uncertain exclamations, and caused the feminine element=
to
catch up offspring or, dragging it by its hand, run into neighbours' cottag=
es
and stand talking the incredible thing over in lowered and rather breathles=
s voices.
Yet the incredible thing in question was--had it been seen from the standpo=
int
of more prosperous villagers--anything but extraordinary. In entirely rural=
places
the Castle, the Hall or the Manor, the Great House--in short--still retains
somewhat of the old feudal power to bestow benefits or withhold them. Wealth
and good will at the Manor supply work and resultant comfort in the village=
and
its surrounding holdings. Patronised by the Great House the two or three sm=
all
village shops bestir themselves and awaken to activity. The blacksmith swin=
gs his
hammer with renewed spirit over the numerous jobs the gentry's stables,
carriage houses, garden tools, and household repairs give to him. The carpe=
nter
mends and makes, the vicarage feels at ease, realising that its church and =
its
charities do not stand unsupported. Small farmers and larger ones, under a =
rich
and interested landlord, thrive and are able to hold their own even against=
the
tricks of wind and weather. Farm labourers being, as a result, certain of
steady and decent wage, trudge to and fro, with stolid cheerfulness, knowing
that the pot boils and the children's feet are shod. Superannuated old men =
and
women are sure of their broth and Sunday dinner, and their dread of the
impending "Union" fades away. The squire or my lord or my lady ca=
n be
depended upon to care for their old bones until they are laid under the sod=
in
the green churchyard. With wealth and good will at the Great House, life wa=
rms
and offers prospects. There are Christmas feasts and gifts and village trea=
ts,
and the big carriage or the smaller ones stop at cottage doors and at once
confer exciting distinction and carry good cheer.
But Stornham village had scarcely a remote
memory of any period of such prosperity. It had not existed even in the old=
er
Sir Nigel's time, and certainly the present Sir Nigel's reign had been mark=
ed
only by neglect, ill-temper, indifference, and a falling into disorder and
decay. Farms were poorly worked, labourers were unemployed, there was no tr=
ade
from the manor household, no carriages, no horses, no company, no spending =
of
money. Cottages leaked, floors were damp, the church roof itself was fallin=
g to
pieces, and the vicar had nothing to give. The helpless and old cottagers w=
ere
carried to the "Union" and, dying there, were buried by the stint=
ed
parish in parish coffins.
Her ladyship had not visited the cottages
since her child's birth. And now such inspiriting events as were everyday
happenings in lucky places like Westerbridge and Wratcham and Yangford, sho=
wed
signs of being about to occur in Stornham itself.
To begin with, even before the journey to
London, Kedgers had made two or three visits to The Clock, and had been in a
communicative mood. He had related the story of the morning when he had loo=
ked
up from his work and had found the strange young lady standing before him, =
with
the result that he had been "struck all of a heap." And then he h=
ad
given a detailed account of their walk round the place, and of the way in w=
hich
she had looked at things and asked questions, such as would have done credi=
t to
a man "with a 'ead on 'im."
"Nay! Nay!" commented Kedgers,
shaking his own head doubtfully, even while with admiration. "I've nev=
er
seen the like before--in young women--neither in lady young women nor in th=
em
that's otherwise."
Afterwards had transpired the story of Mrs.
Noakes, and the kitchen grate, Mrs. Noakes having a friend in Miss Lupin, t=
he
village dressmaker.
"I'd not put it past her," was M=
rs.
Noakes' summing up, "to order a new one, I wouldn't."
The footman in the shabby livery had been a
little wild in his statements, being rendered so by the admiring and excited
state of his mind. He dwelt upon the matter of her "looks," and t=
he
way she lighted up the dingy dining-room, and so conversed that a man found
himself listening and glancing when it was his business to be an unhearing,=
unseeing
piece of mechanism.
Such simple records of servitors' impressi=
ons
were quite enough for Stornham village, and produced in it a sense of being
roused a little from sleep to listen to distant and uncomprehended, but not
unagreeable, sounds.
One morning Buttle, the carpenter, looked =
up
as Kedgers had done, and saw standing on the threshold of his shop the tall
young woman, who was a sensation and an event in herself.
"You are the master of this shop?&quo=
t;
she asked.
Buttle came forward, touching his brow in
hasty salute.
"Yes, my lady," he answered.
"Joseph Buttle, your ladyship."
"I am Miss Vanderpoel," dismissi=
ng
the suddenly bestowed title with easy directness. "Are you busy? I wan=
t to
talk to you."
No one had any reason to be "busy&quo=
t;
at any time in Stornham village, no such luck; but Buttle did not smile as =
he
replied that he was at liberty and placed himself at his visitor's disposal.
The tall young lady came into the little shop, and took the chair respectfu=
lly
offered to her. Buttle saw her eyes sweep the place as if taking in its
resources.
"I want to talk to you about some work
which must be done at the Court," she explained at once. "I want =
to
know how much can be done by workmen of the village. How many men have
you?"
"How many men had he?" Buttle
wavered between gratification at its being supposed that he had "men&q=
uot;
under him and grumpy depression because the illusion must be dispelled.
"There's me and Sim Soames, miss,&quo=
t;
he answered. "No more, an' no less."
"Where can you get more?" asked =
Miss
Vanderpoel.
It could not be denied that Buttle receive=
d a
mental shock which verged in its suddenness on being almost a physical one.=
The
promptness and decision of such a query swept him off his feet. That Sim So=
ames
and himself should be an insufficient force to combat with such repairs as =
the
Court could afford was an idea presenting an aspect of unheard-of novelty, =
but
that methods as coolly radical as those this questioning implied, should be
resorted to, was staggering.
"Me and Sim has always done what work=
was
done," he stammered. "It hasn't been much."
Miss Vanderpoel neither assented to nor
dissented from this last palpable truth. She regarded Buttle with searching
eyes. She was wondering if any practical ability concealed itself behind his
dullness. If she gave him work, could he do it? If she gave the whole villa=
ge work,
was it too far gone in its unspurred stodginess to be roused to carrying it
out?
"There is a great deal to be done
now," she said. "All that can be done in the village should be do=
ne
here. It seems to me that the villagers want work--new work. Do they?"=
Work! New work! The spark of life in her
steady eyes actually lighted a spark in the being of Joe Buttle. Young ladi=
es
in villages--gentry--usually visited the cottagers a bit if they were well-=
meaning
young women--left good books and broth or jelly, pottered about and were se=
en
at church, and playing croquet, and finally married and removed to other
places, or gradually faded year by year into respectable spinsterhood. And =
this
one comes in, and in two or three minutes shows that she knows things about=
the
place and understands. A man might then take it for granted that she would
understand the thing he daringly gathered courage to say.
"They want any work, miss--that they =
are
sure of decent pay for--sure of it."
She did understand. And she did not treat =
his
implication as an impertinence. She knew it was not intended as one, and,
indeed, she saw in it a sort of earnest of a possible practical quality in
Buttle. Such work as the Court had demanded had remained unpaid for with qu=
iet persistence,
until even bills had begun to lag and fall off. She could see exactly how it
had been done, and comprehended quite clearly a lack of enthusiasm in the
presence of orders from the Great House.
"All work will be paid for," she
said. "Each week the workmen will receive their wages. They may be sur=
e. I
will be responsible."
"Thank you, miss," said Buttle, =
and
he half unconsciously touched his forehead again.
"In a place like this," the young
lady went on in her mellow voice, and with a reflective thoughtfulness in h=
er
handsome eyes, "on an estate like Stornham, no work that can be done by
the villagers should be done by anyone else. The people of the land should =
be
trained to do such work as the manor house, or cottages, or farms require to
have done."
"How did she think that out?" was
Buttle's reflection. In places such as Stornham, through generation after
generation, the thing she had just said was accepted as law, clung to as a
possession, any divergence from it being a grievance sullenly and bitterly =
grumbled
over. And in places enough there was divergence in these days--the gentry
sending to London for things, and having up workmen to do their best-paying
jobs for them. The law had been so long a law that no village could see jus=
tice
in outsiders being sent for, even to do work they could not do well themsel=
ves.
It showed what she was, this handsome young woman--even though she did come
from America--that she should know what was right.
She took a note-book out and opened it on =
the
rough table before her.
"I have made some notes here," s=
he
said, "and a sketch or two. We must talk them over together."
If she had given Joe Buttle cause for surp=
rise
at the outset, she gave him further cause during the next half-hour. The wo=
rk
that was to be done was such as made him open his eyes, and draw in his bre=
ath.
If he was to be allowed to do it--if he could do it--if it was to be paid
for--it struck him that he would be a man set up for life. If her ladyship =
had
come and ordered it to be done, he would have thought the poor thing had go=
ne
mad. But this one had it all jotted down in a clear hand, without the least
feminine confusion of detail, and with here and there a little sharply-drawn
sketch, such as a carpenter, if he could draw, which Buttle could not, migh=
t have
made.
"There's not workmen enough in the
village to do it in a year, miss," he said at last, with a gasp of
disappointment.
She thought it over a minute, her pencil
poised in her hand and her eyes on his face.
"Can you," she said, "under=
take
to get men from other villages, and superintend what they do? If you can do
that, the work is still passing through your hands, and Stornham will reap =
the
benefit of it. Your workmen will lodge at the cottages and spend part of th=
eir
wages at the shops, and you who are a Stornham workman will earn the money =
to
be made out of a rather large contract."
Joe Buttle became quite hot. If you have
brought up a family for years on the proceeds of such jobs as driving a
ten-penny nail in here or there, tinkering a hole in a cottage roof, knocki=
ng
up a shelf in the vicarage kitchen, and mending a panel of fence, to be
suddenly confronted with a proposal to engage workmen and undertake
"contracts" is shortening to the breath and heating to the blood.=
"Miss," he said, "we've nev=
er
done big jobs, Sim Soames an' me. P'raps we're not up to it--but it'd be a
fortune to us."
She was looking down at one of her papers =
and
making pencil marks on it.
"You did some work last year on a lit=
tle
house at Tidhurst, didn't you?" she said.
To think of her knowing that! Yes, the
unaccountable good luck had actually come to him that two Tidhurst carpente=
rs,
falling ill of the same typhoid at the same time, through living side by si=
de
in the same order of unsanitary cottage, he and Sim had been given their wo=
rk
to finish, and had done their best.
"Yes, miss," he answered.
"I heard that when I was inquiring ab=
out
you. I drove over to Tidhurst to see the work, and it was very sound and we=
ll
done. If you did that, I can at least trust you to do something at the Court
which will prove to me what you are equal to. I want a Stornham man to
undertake this."
"No Tidhurst man," said Joe Butt= le, with sudden courage, "nor yet no Barnhurst, nor yet no Yangford, nor Wratcham shall do it, if I can look it in the face. It's Stornham work and Stornham had ought to have it. It gives me a brace-up to hear of it."<= o:p>
The tall young lady laughed beautifully and
got up.
"Come to the Court to-morrow morning =
at
ten, and we will look it over together," she said. "Good-morning,
Buttle." And she went away.
In the taproom of The Clock, when Joe Butt=
le
dropped in for his pot of beer, he found Fox, the saddler, and Tread, the
blacksmith, and each of them fell upon the others with something of the same
story to tell. The new young lady from the Court had been to see them, too,=
and
had brought to each her definite little note-book. Harness was to be repair=
ed
and furbished up, the big carriage and the old phaeton were to be put in or=
der,
and Master Ughtred's cart was to be given new paint and springs.
"This is what she said," Fox's s=
tory
ran, "and she said it so straightforward and business-like that the
conceitedest man that lived couldn't be upset by it. 'I want to see what you
can do,' she says. 'I am new to the place and I must find out what everyone=
can
do, then I shall know what to do myself.' The way she sets them eyes on a m=
an
is a sight. It's the sense in them and the human nature that takes you.&quo=
t;
"Yes, it's the sense," said Trea=
d,
"and her looking at you as if she expected you to have sense yourself,=
and
understand that she's doing fair business. It's clear-headed like--her aski=
ng
questions and finding out what Stornham men can do. She's having the old th=
ings
done up so that she can find out, and so that she can prove that the Court =
work
is going to be paid for. That's my belief."
"But what does it all mean?" said
Joe Buttle, setting his pot of beer down on the taproom table, round which =
they
sat in conclave. "Where's the money coming from? There's money
somewhere."
Tread was the advanced thinker of the vill=
age.
He had come--through reverses--from a bigger place. He read the newspapers.=
"It'll come from where it's got a way=
of
coming," he gave forth portentously. "It'll come from America. How
they manage to get hold of so much of it there is past me. But they've got =
it,
dang 'em, and they're ready to spend it for what they want, though they're a
sharp lot. Twelve years ago there was a good bit of talk about her ladyship=
's father
being one of them with the fullest pockets. She came here with plenty, but =
Sir
Nigel got hold of it for his games, and they're the games that cost money. =
Her
ladyship wasn't born with a backbone, poor thing, but this new one was, and=
her
ladyship's father is her father, and you mark my words, there's money coming
into Stornham, though it's not going to be played the fool with. Lord, yes!
this new one has a backbone and good strong wrists and a good strong head,
though I must say"--with a little masculine chuckle of
admission--"it's a bit unnatural with them eyelashes and them eyes loo=
king
at you between 'em. Like blue water between rushes in the marsh."
Before the next twenty-four hours had pass=
ed a
still more unlooked-for event had taken place. Long outstanding bills had b=
een
paid, and in as matter-of-fact manner as if they had not been sent in and
ignored, in some cases for years. The settlement of Joe Buttle's account se=
nt
him to bed at the day's end almost light-headed. To become suddenly the pos=
sessor
of thirty-seven pounds, fifteen and tenpence half-penny, of which all hope =
had
been lost three years ago, was almost too much for any man. Six pounds, eig=
ht
pounds, ten pounds, came into places as if sovereigns had been sixpences, a=
nd
shillings farthings. More than one cottage woman, at the sight of the hoard=
ed
wealth in her staring goodman's hand, gulped and began to cry. If they had =
had
it before, and in driblets, it would have been spent long since, now, in a
lump, it meant shoes and petticoats and tea and sugar in temporary abundanc=
e, and
the sense of this abundance was felt to be entirely due to American magic.
America was, in fact, greatly lauded and discussed, the case of "Gaarg=
e"
Lumsden being much quoted.
The work at Stornham Court went on steadil=
y,
though with no greater rapidity than is usually achieved by rural labourers.
There was, however, without doubt, a certain stimulus in the occasional
appearance of Miss Vanderpoel, who almost daily sauntered round the place to
look on, and exchange a few words with the workmen. When they saw her comin=
g, the
men, hastily standing up to touch their foreheads, were conscious of a slig=
ht
acceleration of being which was not quite the ordinary quickening produced =
by
the presence of employers. It was, in fact, a sensation rather pleasing than
anxious. Her interest in the work was, upon the whole, one which they found
themselves beginning to share. The unusualness of the situation--a young wo=
man,
who evidently stood for many things and powers desirable, employing laboure=
rs
and seeming to know what she intended them to do--was a thing not easy to g=
et
over, or be come accustomed to. But there she was, as easy and well mannere=
d as
you please--and with gentlefolks' ways, though, as an American, such finish
could scarcely be expected from her. She knew each man's name, it was revea=
led
gradually, and, what was more, knew what he stood for in the village, what
cottage he lived in, how many children he had, and something about his wife.
She remembered things and made inquiries which showed knowledge. Besides th=
is,
she represented, though perhaps they were scarcely yet fully awake to the f=
act,
the promise their discouraged dulness had long lost sight of.
It actually became apparent that her ladys=
hip,
who walked with her, was altering day by day. Was it true that the bit of
colour they had heard spoken of when she returned from town was deepening a=
nd
fixing itself on her cheek? It sometimes looked like it. Was she a bit less
stiff and shy-like and frightened in her way? Buttle mentioned to his frien=
ds
at The Clock that he was sure of it. She had begun to look a man in the face
when she talked, and more than once he had heard her laugh at things her si=
ster
said.
To one man more than to any other had come=
an
almost unspeakable piece of luck through the new arrival--a thing which to
himself, at least, was as the opening of the heavens. This man was the
discouraged Kedgers. Miss Vanderpoel, coming with her ladyship to talk to h=
im,
found that the man was a person of more experience than might have been
imagined. In his youth he had been an under gardener at a great place, and
being fond of his work, had learned more than under gardeners often learn. =
He
had been one of a small army of workers under the orders of an imposing hea=
d gardener,
whose knowledge was a science. He had seen and taken part in what was done =
in
orchid houses, orangeries, vineries, peach houses, conservatories full of
wondrous tropical plants. But it was not easy for a man like himself,
uneducated and lacking confidence of character, to advance as a bolder young
man might have done. The all-ruling head gardener had inspired him with awe=
. He
had watched him reverently, accumulating knowledge, but being given, as an
underling, no opportunity to do more than obey orders. He had spent his lif=
e in
obeying, and congratulated himself that obedience secured him his weekly wa=
ge.
"He was a great man--Mr. Timson--he
was," he said, in talking to Miss Vanderpoel. "Ay, he was that. K=
new
everything that could happen to a flower or a s'rub or a vegetable. Knew it
all. Had a lib'ery of books an' read 'em night an' day. Head gardener's cot=
tage
was good enough for gentry. The old Markis used to walk round the hothouses=
an'
gardens talking to him by the hour. If you did what he told you EXACTLY lik=
e he
told it to you, then you were all right, but if you didn't--well, you was o=
ff
the place before you'd time to look round. Worked under him from twenty to
forty. Then he died an' the new one that came in had new ways. He made a cl=
ean
sweep of most of us. The men said he was jealous of Mr. Timson."
"That was bad for you, if you had a w=
ife
and children," Miss Vanderpoel said.
"Eight of us to feed," Kedgers
answered. "A man with that on him can't wait, miss. I had to take the
first place I could get. It wasn't a good one--poor parsonage with a big fa=
mily
an' not room on the place for the vegetables they wanted. Cabbages, an'
potatoes, an' beans, an' broccoli. No time nor ground for flowers. Used to =
seem
as if flowers got to be a kind of dream." Kedgers gave vent to a
deprecatory half laugh. "Me--I was fond of flowers. I wouldn't have as=
ked
no better than to live among 'em. Mr. Timson gave me a book or two when his
lordship sent him a lot of new ones. I've bought a few myself--though I sup=
pose
I couldn't afford it."
From the poor parsonage he had gone to a
market gardener, and had evidently liked the work better, hard and unceasin=
g as
it had been, because he had been among flowers again. Sudden changes from
forcing houses to chill outside dampness had resulted in rheumatism. After =
that
things had gone badly. He began to be regarded as past his prime of strengt=
h.
Lower wages and labour still as hard as ever, though it professed to be
lighter, and therefore cheaper. At last the big neglected gardens of Stornh=
am.
"What I'm seeing, miss, all the time,=
is
what could be done with 'em. Wonderful it'd be. They might be the show of t=
he
county-if we had Mr. Timson here."
Miss Vanderpoel, standing in the sunshine =
on
the broad weed-grown pathway, was conscious that he was remotely moving. His
flowers--his flowers. They had been the centre of his rudimentary rural bei=
ng.
Each man or woman cared for some one thing, and the unfed longing for it le=
ft the
life of the creature a thwarted passion. Kedgers, yearning to stir the earth
about the roots of blooming things, and doomed to broccoli and cabbage, had
spent his years unfed. No thing is a small thing. Kedgers, with the earth u=
nder
his broad finger nails, and his half apologetic laugh, being the centre of =
his
own world, was as large as Mount Dunstan, who stood thwarted in the centre =
of
his. Chancing-for God knows what mystery of reason-to be born one of those
having power, one might perhaps set in order a world like Kedgers'.
"In the course of twenty years' work
under Timson," she said, "you must have learned a great deal from
him."
"A good bit, miss-a good bit,"
admitted Kedgers. "If I hadn't ha' cared for the work, I might ha' gon=
e on
doing it with my eyes shut, but I didn't. Mr. Timson's heart was set on it =
as
well as his head. An' mine got to be. But I wasn't even second or third und=
er
him--I was only one of a lot. He would have thought me fine an' impident if=
I'd
told him I'd got to know a good deal of what he knew--and had some bits of
ideas of my own."
"If you had men enough under you, and
could order all you want," Miss Vanderpoel said tentatively, "you
know what the place should be, no doubt."
"That I do, miss," answered Kedg=
ers,
turning red with feeling. "Why, if the soil was well treated, anything
would grow here. There's situations for everything. There's shade for things
that wants it, and south aspects for things that won't grow without the war=
mth
of 'em. Well, I've gone about many a day when I was low down in my mind and
worked myself up to being cheerful by just planning where I could put things
and what they'd look like. Liliums, now, I could grow them in masses from J=
une
to October." He was becoming excited, like a war horse scenting battle
from afar, and forgot himself. "The Lilium Giganteum--I don't know whe=
ther
you've ever seen one, miss--but if you did, it'd almost take your breath aw=
ay.
A Lilium that grows twelve feet high and more, and has a flower like a great
snow-white trumpet, and the scent pouring out of it so that it floats for
yards. There's a place where I could grow them so that you'd come on them
sudden, and you'd think they couldn't be true."
"Grow them, Kedgers, begin to grow
them," said Miss Vanderpoel. "I have never seen them--I must see
them."
Kedgers' low, deprecatory chuckle made its=
elf
heard again,
"Perhaps I'm going too fast," he
said. "It would take a good bit of expense to do it, miss. A good
bit."
Then Miss Vanderpoel made--and she made it=
in
the simplest matter-of-fact manner, too--the startling remark which, three
hours later, all Stornham village had heard of. The most astounding part of=
the
remark was that it was uttered as if there was nothing in it which was not =
the
absolutely natural outcome of the circumstances of the case.
"Expense which is proper and necessary
need not be considered," she said. "Regular accounts will be kept=
and
supervised, but you can have all that is required."
Then it appeared that Kedgers almost became
pale. Being a foreigner, perhaps she did not know how much she was implying
when she said such a thing to a man who had never held a place like Timson'=
s.
"Miss," he hesitated, even
shamefacedly, because to suggest to such a fine-mannered, calm young lady t=
hat
she might be ignorant, seemed perilously near impertinence. "Miss, did=
you
mean you wanted only the Lilium Giganteum, or--or other things, as well.&qu=
ot;
"I should like to see," she answ=
ered
him, "all that you see. I should like to hear more of it all, when we =
have
time to talk it over. I understand we should need time to discuss plans.&qu=
ot;
The quiet way she went on! Seeming to beli=
eve
in him, almost as if he was Mr. Timson. The old feeling, born and fostered =
by
the great head gardener's rule, reasserted itself.
"It means more to work--and someone o=
ver
them, miss," he said. "If--if you had a man like Mr. Timson----&q=
uot;
"You have not forgotten what you lear=
ned.
With men enough under you it can be put into practice."
"You mean you'd trust me, miss--same =
as
if I was Mr. Timson?"
"Yes. If you ever feel the need of a =
man
like Timson, no doubt we can find one. But you will not. You love the work =
too
much."
Then still standing in the sunshine, on the
weed-grown path, she continued to talk to him. It revealed itself that she
understood a good deal. As he was to assume heavier responsibilities, he wa=
s to
receive higher wages. It was his experience which was to be considered, not=
his
years. This was a new point of view. The mere propeller of wheel-barrows and
digger of the soil--particularly after having been attacked by rheumatism--=
depreciates
in value after youth is past. Kedgers knew that a Mr. Timson, with a regime=
nt
of under gardeners, and daily increasing knowledge of his profession, could
continue to direct, though years rolled by. But to such fortune he had not
dared to aspire.
One of the lodges might be put in order for
him to live in. He might have the hothouses to put in order, too; he might =
have
implements, plants, shrubs, even some of the newer books to consult. Kedger=
s'
brain reeled.
"You--think I am to be trusted,
miss?" he said more than once. "You think it would be all right? I
wasn't even second or third under Mr. Timson--but--if I say it as shouldn't=
--I
never lost a chance of learning things. I was just mad about it. T'aint only
Liliums--Lord, I know 'em all, as if they were my own children born an' bre=
d--shrubs,
coniferas, herbaceous borders that bloom in succession. My word! what you c=
an
do with just delphiniums an' campanula an' acquilegia an' poppies, everyday=
things
like them, that'll grow in any cottage garden, an' bulbs an' annuals! Roses,
miss--why, Mr. Timson had them in thickets--an' carpets--an' clambering over
trees and tumbling over walls in sheets an' torrents--just know their ways =
an'
what they want, an' they'll grow in a riot. But they want feeding--feeding.=
A
rose is a gross feeder. Feed a Glory deejon, and watch over him, an' he'll
cover a housetop an' give you two bloomings."
"I have never lived in an English gar=
den.
I should like to see this one at its best."
Leaving her with salutes of abject gratitu= de, Kedgers moved away bewildered. What man could believe it true? At three or = four yards' distance he stopped and, turning, came back to touch his cap again.<= o:p>
"You understand, miss," he said.
"I wasn't even second or third under Mr. Timson. I'm not deceiving you=
, am
I, miss?"
"You are to be trusted," said Mi=
ss
Vanderpoel, "first because you love the things--and next because of
Timson."
CHAPTER XXII - ONE OF MR. VANDERPOEL'S LET=
TERS
Mr. Germen, the secretary of the great Mr.
Vanderpoel, in arranging the neat stacks of letters preparatory to his chie=
f's
entrance to his private room each morning, knowing where each should be pla=
ced,
understood that such as were addressed in Miss Vanderpoel's hand would be r=
ead
before anything else. This had been the case even when she had just been pl=
aced
in a French school, a tall, slim little girl, with immense demanding eyes, =
and
a thick black plait of hair swinging between her straight, rather thin,
shoulders. Between other financial potentates and their little girls, Mr.
Germen knew that the oddly confidential relation which existed between these
two was unusual. Her schoolgirl letters, it had been understood, should be
given the first place on the stacks of envelopes each incoming ocean steamer
brought in its mail bags. Since the beginning of her visit to her sister, L=
ady
Anstruthers, the exact dates of mail steamers seemed to be of increased
importance. Miss Vanderpoel evidently found much to write about. Each steam=
er brought
a full-looking envelope to be placed in a prominent position.
On a hot morning in the early summer Mr.
Germen found two or three--two of them of larger size and seeming to contain
business papers. These he placed where they would be seen at once. Mr.
Vanderpoel was a little later than usual in his arrival. At this season he =
came
from his place in the country, and before leaving it this morning he had be=
en
talking to his wife, whom he found rather disturbed by a chance encounter w=
ith a
young woman who had returned to visit her mother after a year spent in Engl=
and
with her English husband. This young woman, now Lady Bowen, once Milly Jone=
s,
had been one of the amusing marvels of New York. A girl neither rich nor so
endowed by nature as to be able to press upon the world any special claim to
consideration as a beauty, her enterprise, and the daring of her tactics, h=
ad
been the delight of many a satiric onlooker. In her schooldays she had
ingenuously mapped out her future career. Other American girls married men =
with
titles, and she intended to do the same thing. The other little girls laugh=
ed,
but they liked to hear her talk. All information regarding such unions as w=
as
to be found in the newspapers and magazines, she collected and studiously r=
ead--sometimes
aloud to her companions.
Social paragraphs about royalties, dukes a=
nd
duchesses, lords and ladies, court balls and glittering functions, she devo=
ured
and learned by heart. An abominably vulgar little person, she was an
interestingly pertinacious creature, and wrought night and day at acquiring=
an
air of fashionable elegance, at first naturally laying it on in such manner=
as
suggested that it should be scraped off with a knife, but with experience
gaining a certain specious knowledge of forms. How the over-mature child at
school had assimilated her uncanny young worldliness, it would have been le=
ss
difficult to decide, if possible sources had been less numerous. The air was
full of it, the literature of the day, the chatter of afternoon teas, the
gossip of the hour. Before she was fifteen she saw the indiscretion of her
childish frankness, and realised that it might easily be detrimental to her=
ambitions.
She said no more of her plans for her future, and even took the astute tone=
of
carelessly treating as a joke her vulgar little past. But no titled foreign=
er
appeared upon the horizon without setting her small, but business-like, bra=
in
at work. Her lack of wealth and assured position made her situation rather
hopeless. She was not of the class of lucky young women whose parents' gorg=
eous
establishments offered attractions to wandering persons of rank. She and her
mother lived in a flat, and gave rather pathetic afternoon teas in return f=
or
such more brilliant hospitalities as careful and pertinacious calling and r=
ecalling
obliged their acquaintances to feel they could not decently be left wholly =
out
of. Milly and her anxious mother had worked hard. They lost no opportunity =
of
writing a note, or sending a Christmas card, or an economical funeral wreat=
h.
By daily toil and the amicable ignoring of casualness of manner or slights,
they managed to cling to the edge of the precipice of social oblivion, into
whose depths a lesser degree of assiduity, or a greater sensitiveness, would
have plunged them. Once--early in Milly's career, when her ever-ready chatt=
er
and her superficial brightness were a novelty, it had seemed for a short ti=
me that
luck might be glancing towards her. A young man of foreign title and of
Bohemian tastes met her at a studio dance, and, misled by the smartness of =
her
dress and her always carefully carried air of careless prosperity, began to=
pay
a delusive court to her. For a few weeks all her freshest frocks were worn
assiduously and credit was strained to buy new ones. The flat was adorned w=
ith
fresh flowers and several new yellow and pale blue cushions appeared at the
little teas, which began to assume a more festive air. Desirable people, who
went ordinarily to the teas at long intervals and through reluctant weaknes=
s,
or sometimes rebellious amiability, were drummed up and brought firmly to t=
he
fore. Milly herself began to look pink and fluffy through mere hopeful good
spirits. Her thin little laugh was heard incessantly, and people amusedly if
they were good-tempered, derisively if they were spiteful, wondered if it
really would come to something. But it did not. The young foreigner suddenly
left New York, making his adieus with entire lightness. There was the end of
it. He had heard something about lack of income and uncertainty of credit,
which had suggested to him that discretion was the better part of valour. He
married later a young lady in the West, whose father was a solid person.
Less astute young women, under the
circumstances, would have allowed themselves a week or so of headache or
influenza, but Milly did not. She made calls in the new frocks, and with su=
ch
persistent spirit that she fished forth from the depths of indifferent
hospitality two or three excellent invitations. She wore her freshest pink
frock, and an amazingly clever little Parisian diamond crescent in her hair=
, at
the huge Monson ball at Delmonico's, and it was recorded that it was on tha=
t glittering
occasion that her "Uncle James" was first brought upon the scene.=
He
was only mentioned lightly at first. It was to Milly's credit that he was n=
ot
made too much of. He was casually touched upon as a very rich uncle, who li=
ved
in Dakota, and had actually lived there since his youth, letting his few
relations know nothing of him. He had been rather a black sheep as a boy, b=
ut
Milly's mother had liked him, and, when he had run away from New York, he h=
ad
told her what he was going to do, and had kissed her when she cried, and had
taken her daguerreotype with him. Now he had written, and it turned out tha=
t he
was enormously rich, and was interested in Milly. From that time Uncle James
formed an atmosphere. He did not appear in New York, but Milly spent the ne=
xt season
in London, and the Monsons, being at Hurlingham one day, had her pointed ou=
t to
them as a new American girl, who was the idol of a millionaire uncle. She w=
as
not living in an ultra fashionable quarter, or with ultra fashionable peopl=
e,
but she was, on all occasions, they heard, beautifully dressed and
beautifully--if a little heavily--hung with gauds and gems, her rings being
said to be quite amazing and suggesting an impassioned lavishness on the pa=
rt
of Uncle James. London, having become inured to American marvels--Milly's b=
it
of it--accepted and enjoyed Uncle James and all the sumptuous attributes of=
his
Dakota.
English people would swallow anything
sometimes, Mrs. Monson commented sagely, and yet sometimes they stared and
evidently thought you were lying about the simplest things. Milly's corner =
of
South Kensington had gulped down the Dakota uncle. Her managing in this way=
, if
there was no uncle, was too clever and amusing. She had left her mother at =
home
to scrimp and save, and by hook or by crook she had contrived to get a numb=
er
of quite good things to wear. She wore them with such an air of accustomed
resource that the jewels might easily--mixed with some relics of her mother=
's
better days--be of the order of the clever little Parisian diamond crescent=
. It
was Milly's never-laid-aside manner which did it. The announcement of her u=
nion
with Sir Arthur Bowen was received in certain New York circles with little
suppressed shrieks of glee. It had been so sharp of her to aim low and to
realise so quickly that she could not aim high. The baronetcy was a recent =
one,
and not unconnected with trade. Sir Arthur was not a rich man, and, had it
leaked out, believed in Uncle James. If he did not find him all his fancy
painted, Milly was clever enough to keep him quiet. She was, when all was s=
aid and
done, one of the American women of title, her servants and the tradespeople
addressed her as "my lady," and with her capacity for appropriati=
ng
what was most useful, and her easy assumption of possessing all required, s=
he
was a very smart person indeed. She provided herself with an English accent=
, an
English vocabulary, and an English manner, and in certain circles was felt =
to
be most impressive.
At an afternoon function in the country Mr=
s.
Vanderpoel had met Lady Bowen. She had been one of the few kindly ones, who=
in
the past had given an occasional treat to Milly Jones for her girlhood's sa=
ke.
Lady Bowen, having gathered a small group of hearers, was talking volubly t=
o it,
when the nice woman entered, and, catching sight of her, she swept across t=
he
room. It would not have been like Milly to fail to see and greet at once the
wife of Reuben Vanderpoel. She would count anywhere, even in London sets it=
was
not easy to connect one's self with. She had already discovered that there =
were
almost as many difficulties to be surmounted in London by the wife of an
unimportant baronet as there had been to be overcome in New York by a girl
without money or place. It was well to have something in the way of informa=
tion
to offer in one's small talk with the lucky ones and Milly knew what subject
lay nearest to Mrs. Vanderpoel's heart.
"Miss Vanderpoel has evidently been
enjoying her visit to Stornham Court," she said, after her first few
sentences. "I met Mrs. Worthington at the Embassy, and she said she had
buried herself in the country. But I think she must have run up to town qui=
etly
for shopping. I saw her one day in Piccadilly, and I was almost sure Lady
Anstruthers was with her in the carriage--almost sure."
Mrs. Vanderpoel's heart quickened its beat=
.
"You were so young when she
married," she said. "I daresay you have forgotten her face."=
"Oh, no!" Milly protested
effusively. "I remember her quite well. She was so pretty and pink and
happy-looking, and her hair curled naturally. I used to pray every night th=
at
when I grew up I might have hair and a complexion like hers."
Mrs. Vanderpoel's kind, maternal face fell=
.
"And you were not sure you recognised
her? Well, I suppose twelve years does make a difference," her voice
dragging a little.
Milly saw that she had made a blunder. The
fact was she had not even guessed at Rosy's identity until long after the
carriage had passed her.
"Oh, you see," she hesitated,
"their carriage was not near me, and I was not expecting to see them. =
And
perhaps she looked a little delicate. I heard she had been rather
delicate."
She felt she was floundering, and bravely
floundered away from the subject. She plunged into talk of Betty and people=
's
anxiety to see her, and the fact that the society columns were already fain=
tly
heralding her. She would surely come soon to town. It was too late for the
first Drawing-room this year. When did Mrs. Vanderpoel think she would be p=
resented?
Would Lady Anstruthers present her? Mrs. Vanderpoel could not bring her bac=
k to
Rosy, and the nature of the change which had made it difficult to recognise
her.
The result of this chance encounter was th=
at
she did not sleep very well, and the next morning talked anxiously to her
husband.
"What I could see, Reuben, was that M=
illy
Bowen had not known her at all, even when she saw her in the carriage with
Betty. She couldn't have changed as much as that, if she had been taken care
of, and happy."
Her affection and admiration for her husba=
nd
were such as made the task of soothing her a comparatively simple thing. The
instinct of tenderness for the mate his youth had chosen was an unchangeable
one in Reuben Vanderpoel. He was not a primitive man, but in this he was as=
unquestioningly
simple as if he had been a kindly New England farmer. He had outgrown his w=
ife,
but he had always loved and protected her gentle goodness. He had never fai=
led
her in her smallest difficulty, he could not bear to see her hurt. Betty had
been his compeer and his companion almost since her childhood, but his wife=
was
the tenderest care of his days. There was a strong sense of relief in his
thought of Betty now. It was good to remember the fineness of her perceptio=
ns,
her clearness of judgment, and recall that they were qualities he might rely
upon.
When he left his wife to take his train to
town, he left her smiling again. She scarcely knew how her fears had been
dispelled. His talk had all been kindly, practical, and reasonable. It was =
true
Betty had said in her letter that Rosy had been rather delicate, and had not
been taking very good care of herself, but that was to be remedied. Rosy ha=
d made
a little joke or so about it herself.
"Betty says I am not fat enough for an
English matron. I am drinking milk and breakfasting in bed, and am going to=
be
massaged to please her. I believe we all used to obey Betty when she was a
child, and now she is so tall and splendid, one would never dare to cross h=
er.
Oh, mother! I am so happy at having her with me!"
To reread just these simple things caused =
the
suggestion of things not comfortably normal to melt away. Mrs. Vanderpoel s=
at
down at a sunny window with her lap full of letters, and forgot Milly Bowen=
's floundering.
When Mr. Vanderpoel reached his office and
glanced at his carefully arranged morning's mail, Mr. Germen saw him smile =
at
the sight of the envelopes addressed in his daughter's hand. He sat down to
read them at once, and, as he read, the smile of welcome became a shrewd and
deeply interested one.
"She has undertaken a good-sized
contract," he was saying to himself, "and she's to be trusted to =
see
it through. It is rather fine, the way she manages to combine emotions and
romance and sentiments with practical good business, without letting one in=
terfere
with the other. It's none of it bad business this, as the estate is entaile=
d,
and the boy is Rosy's. It's good business."
This was what Betty had written to her fat=
her
in New York from Stornham Court.
"The things I am beginning to do, it
would be impossible for me to resist doing, and it would certainly be
impossible for you. The thing I am seeing I have never seen, at close hand,
before, though I have taken in something almost its parallel as part of cer=
tain
picturesqueness of scenes in other countries. But I am LIVING with this and
also, through relationship to Rosy, I, in a measure, belong to it, and it
belongs to me. You and I may have often seen in American villages crudeness=
, incompleteness,
lack of comfort, and the composition of a picture, a rough ugliness the res=
ult
of haste and unsettled life which stays nowhere long, but packs up its goods
and chattels and wanders farther afield in search of something better or wo=
rse,
in any case in search of change, but we have never seen ripe, gradual falli=
ng
to ruin of what generations ago was beautiful. To me it is wonderful and tr=
agic
and touching. If you could see the Court, if you could see the village, if =
you
could see the church, if you could see the people, all quietly disintegrati=
ng,
and so dearly perfect in their way that if one knew absolutely that nothing
could be done to save them, one could only stand still and catch one's brea=
th
and burst into tears. The church has stood since the Conquest, and, as it s=
till
stands, grey and fine, with its mass of square tower, and despite the state=
of
its roof, is not yet given wholly to the winds and weather, it will, no dou=
bt,
stand a few centuries longer. The Court, however, cannot long remain a poss=
ible
habitation, if it is not given a new lease of life. I do not mean that it w=
ill
crumble to-morrow, or the day after, but we should not think it habitable n=
ow,
even while we should admit that nothing could be more delightful to look at.
The cottages in the village are already, many of them, amazing, when regard=
ed
as the dwellings of human beings. How long ago the cottagers gave up expect=
ing
that anything in particular would be done for them, I do not know. I am
impressed by the fact that they are an unexpecting people. Their calm
non-expectancy fills me with interest. Only centuries of waiting for their
superiors in rank to do things for them, and the slow formation of the habi=
t of
realising that not to submit to disappointment was no use, could have produ=
ced
the almost SERENITY of their attitude. It is all very well for newborn
republican nations--meaning my native land--to sniff sternly and say that s=
uch
a state of affairs is an insult to the spirit of the race. Perhaps it is no=
w,
but it was not apparently centuries ago, which was when it all began and wh=
en 'Man'
and the 'Race' had not developed to the point of asking questions, to which
they demand replies, about themselves and the things which happened to them=
. It
began in the time of Egbert and Canute, and earlier, in the days of the Dru=
ids,
when they used peacefully to allow themselves to be burned by the score,
enclosed in wicker idols, as natural offerings to placate the gods. The mod=
ern acceptance
of things is only a somewhat attenuated remnant of the ancient idea. And th=
is
is what I have to deal with and understand. When I begin to do the things I=
am
going to do, with the aid of your practical advice, if I have your approval,
the people will be at first rather afraid of me. They will privately suspec=
t I
am mad. It will, also, not seem at all unlikely that an American should be =
of unreasoningly
extravagant and flighty mind. Stornham, having long slumbered in remote pea=
ce
through lack of railroad convenience, still regards America as almost of the
character of wild rumour. Rosy was their one American, and she disappeared =
from
their view so soon that she had not time to make any lasting impression. I =
am
asking myself how difficult, or how simple, it will be to quite understand
these people, and to make them understand me. I greatly doubt its being sim=
ple.
Layers and layers and layers of centuries must be far from easy to burrow t=
hrough.
They look simple, they do not know that they are not simple, but really they
are not. Their point of view has been the point of view of the English peas=
ant
so many hundred years that an American point of view, which has had no more
than a trifling century and a half to form itself in, may find its thews and
sinews the less powerful of the two. When I walk down the village street, f=
aces
appear at windows, and figures, stolidly, at doors. What I see is that, vag=
uely
and remotely, American though I am, the fact that I am of 'her ladyship's
blood,' and that her ladyship--American though she is--has the claim on the=
m of
being the mother of the son of the owner of the land--stirs in them a feeli=
ng
that I have a shadowy sort of relationship in the whole thing, and with reg=
ard
to their bad roofs and bad chimneys, to their broken palings, and damp floo=
rs,
to their comforts and discomforts, a sort of responsibility. That is the wh=
ole
thing, and you--just you, father--will understand me when I say that I actu=
ally
like it. I might not like it if I were poor Rosy, but, being myself, I love=
it.
There is something patriarchal in it which moves me.
"Is it an abounding and arrogant deli=
ght
in power which makes it appeal to me, or is it something better? To feel th=
at
every man on the land, every woman, every child knew one, counted on one's
honour and friendship, turned to one believingly in time of stress, to know
that one could help and be a finely faithful thing, the very knowledge of it
would give one vigour and warm blood in the veins. I wish I had been born to
it, I wish the first sounds falling on my newborn ears had been the clangin=
g of
the peal from an old Norman church tower, calling out to me, 'Welcome; newc=
omer
of our house, long life among us! Welcome!' Still, though the first sounds =
that
greeted me were probably the rattling of a Fifth Avenue stage, I have broug=
ht
them SOMETHING, and who knows whether I could have brought it from without =
the
range of that prosaic, but cheerful, rattle."
The rest of the letter was detail of a business-like order. A large envelope contained the detail-notes of things = to be done, notes concerning roofs, windows, flooring, park fences, gardens, greenhouses, tool houses, potting sheds, garden walls, gates, woodwork, masonry. Sharp little sketches, such as Buttle had seen, notes concerning Buttle, Fox, Tread, Kedgers, and less accomplished workmen; concerning wage= s of day labourers, hours, capabilities. Buttle, if he had chanced to see them, would have broken into a light perspiration at the idea of a young woman ha= ving compiled the documents. He had never heard of the first Reuben Vanderpoel.<= o:p>
Her father's reply to Betty was as long as=
her
own to him, and gave her keen pleasure by its support, both of sympathetic
interest and practical advice. He left none of her points unnoted, and dealt
with each of them as she had most hoped and indeed had felt she knew he wou=
ld.
This was his final summing up:
"If you had been a boy, and I own I am
glad you were not--a man wants a daughter--I should have been quite willing=
to
allow you your flutter on Wall Street, or your try at anything you felt you
would like to handle. It would have interested me to look on and see what y=
ou
were made of, what you wanted, and how you set about trying to get it. It's=
a
new kind of deal you have undertaken. It's more romantic than Wall Street, =
but
I think I do see what you see in it. Even apart from Rosy and the boy, it w=
ould
interest me to see what you would do with it. This is your 'flutter.' I like
the way you face it. If you were a son instead of a daughter, I should see I
might have confidence in you. I could not confide to Wall Street what I will
tell you--which is that in the midst of the drive and swirl and tumult of my
life here, I like what you see in the thing, I like your idea of the lord of
the land, who should love the land and the souls born on it, and be the fri=
end
and strength of them and give the best and get it back in fair exchange.
There's a steadiness in the thought of such a life among one's kind which h=
as attractions
for a man who has spent years in a maelstrom, snatching at what whirls among
the eddies of it. Your notes and sketches and summing up of probable costs =
did
us both credit--I say 'both' because your business education is the result =
of
our long talks and journeyings together. You began to train for this when y=
ou
began going to visit mines and railroads with me at twelve years old. I lea=
ve
the whole thing in your hands, my girl, I leave Rosy in your hands, and in
leaving Rosy to you, you know how I am trusting you with your mother. Your
letters to her tell her only what is good for her. She is beginning to look
happier and younger already, and is looking forward to the day when Rosy an=
d the
boy will come home to visit us, and when we shall go in state to Stornham
Court. God bless her, she is made up of affection and simple trust, and that
makes it easy to keep things from her. She has never been ill-treated, and =
she
knows I love her, so when I tell her that things are coming right, she never
doubts me.
"While you are rebuilding the place y=
ou
will rebuild Rosy so that the sight of her may not be a pain when her mother
sees her again, which is what she is living for."
CHAPTER XXIII - INTRODUCING G. SELDEN
A bird was perched upon a swaying branch o=
f a
slim young sapling near the fence-supported hedge which bounded the park, a=
nd
Mount Dunstan had stopped to look at it and listen. A soft shower had falle=
n,
and after its passing, the sun coming through the light clouds, there had
broken forth again in the trees brief trills and calls and fluting of bird =
notes.
The sward and ferns glittered fresh green under the raindrops; the young le=
aves
on trees and hedge seemed visibly to uncurl, the uncovered earth looked ric=
hly
dark and moist, and sent forth the fragrance from its deeps, which, rising =
to a
man's nostrils, stirs and thrills him because it is the scent of life's sel=
f.
The bird upon the sapling was a robin, the tiny round body perched upon his
delicate legs, plump and bright plumaged for mating. He touched his warm red
breast with his beak, fluffed out and shook his feathers, and, swelling his=
throat,
poured forth his small, entranced song. It was a gay, brief, jaunty thing, =
but
pure, joyous, gallant, liquid melody. There was dainty bravado in it, saucy
demand and allurement. It was addressed to some invisible hearer of the ten=
der
sex, and wheresoever she might be hidden--whether in great branch or low
thicket or hedge--there was hinted no doubt in her small wooer's note that =
she
would hear it and in due time respond. Mount Dunstan, listening, even laugh=
ed
at its confident music. The tiny thing uttering its Call of the World--jubi=
lant
in the surety of answer!
Having flung it forth, he paused a moment =
and
waited, his small head turned sideways, his big, round, dew-bright black eye
roguishly attentive. Then with more swelling of the throat he trilled and
rippled gayly anew, undisturbed and undoubting, but with a trifle of insist=
ence.
Then he listened, tried again two or three times, with brave chirps and
exultant little roulades. "Here am I, the bright-breasted, the liquid-=
eyed,
the slender-legged, the joyous and conquering! Listen to me--listen to me.
Listen and answer in the call of God's world." It was the joy and
triumphant faith in the tiny note of the tiny thing--Life as he himself was,
though Life whose mystery his man's hand could have crushed--which, while he
laughed, set Mount Dunstan thinking. Spring warmth and spring scents and sp=
ring
notes set a man's being in tune with infinite things.
The bright roulade began again, prolonged
itself with renewed effort, rose to its height, and ended. From a bush in t=
he
thicket farther up the road a liquid answer came. And Mount Dunstan's laugh=
at
the sound of it was echoed by another which came apparently from the bank
rising from the road on the other side of the hedge, and accompanying the l=
augh
was a good-natured nasal voice.
"She's caught on. There's no mistake
about that. I guess it's time for you to hustle, Mr. Rob."
Mount Dunstan laughed again. Jem Salter had
heard voices like it, and cheerful slang phrases of the same order in his r=
anch
days. On the other side of his park fence there was evidently sitting, thro=
ugh
some odd chance, an American of the cheery, casual order, not sufficiently =
polished
by travel to have lost his picturesque national characteristics.
Mount Dunstan put a hand on a broken panel=
of
fence and leaped over into the road.
A bicycle was lying upon the roadside gras=
s,
and on the bank, looking as though he had been sheltering himself under the
hedge from the rain, sat a young man in a cheap bicycling suit. His features
were sharply cut and keen, his cap was pushed back from his forehead, and he
had a pair of shrewdly careless boyish eyes.
Mount Dunstan liked the look of him, and
seeing his natural start at the unheralded leap over the gap, which was qui=
te
close to him, he spoke.
"Good-morning," he said. "I=
am
afraid I startled you."
"Good-morning," was the response.
"It was a bit of a jolt seeing you jump almost over my shoulder. Where=
did
you come from? You must have been just behind me."
"I was," explained Mount Dunstan.
"Standing in the park listening to the robin."
The young fellow laughed outright.
"Say," he said, "that was
pretty fine, wasn't it? Wasn't he getting it off his chest! He was an Engli=
sh
robin, I guess. American robins are three or four times as big. I liked that
little chap. He was a winner."
"You are an American?"
"Sure," nodding. "Good old
Stars and Stripes for mine. First time I've been here. Came part for busine=
ss
and part for pleasure. Having the time of my life."
Mount Dunstan sat down beside him. He want=
ed
to hear him talk. He had liked to hear the ranchmen talk. This one was of t=
he
city type, but his genial conversational wanderings would be full of quaint
slang and good spirits. He was quite ready to converse, as was made manifes=
t by
his next speech.
"I'm biking through the country becau=
se I
once had an old grandmother that was English, and she was always talking ab=
out
English country, and how green things was, and how there was hedges instead=
of
rail fences. She thought there was nothing like little old England. Well, as
far as roads and hedges go, I'm with her. They're all right. I wanted a fel=
low I
met crossing, to come with me, but he took a Cook's trip to Paris. He's a g=
ay
sort of boy. Said he didn't want any green lanes in his. He wanted
Boolyvard." He laughed again and pushed his cap farther back on his
forehead. "Said I wasn't much of a sport. I tell YOU, a chap that's go=
t to
earn his fifteen per, and live on it, can't be TOO much of a sport."
"Fifteen per?" Mount Dunstan
repeated doubtfully.
His companion chuckled.
"I forgot I was talking to an English=
man.
Fifteen dollars per week--that's what 'fifteen per' means. That's what he t=
old
me he gets at Lobenstien's brewery in New York. Fifteen per. Not much, is
it?"
"How does he manage Continental trave=
l on
fifteen per?" Mount Dunstan inquired.
"He's a typewriter and stenographer, =
and
he dug up some extra jobs to do at night. He's been working and saving two
years to do this. We didn't come over on one of the big liners with the Four
Hundred, you can bet. Took a cheap one, inside cabin, second class."
"By George!" said Mount Dunstan.
"That was American."
The American eagle slightly flapped his wi=
ngs.
The young man pushed his cap a trifle sideways this time, and flushed a lit=
tle.
"Well, when an American wants anythin=
g he
generally reaches out for it."
"Wasn't it rather--rash, considering =
the
fifteen per?" Mount Dunstan suggested. He was really beginning to enjoy
himself.
"What's the use of making a dollar and
sitting on it. I've not got fifteen per--steady--and here I am."
Mount Dunstan knew his man, and looked at =
him
with inquiring interest. He was quite sure he would go on. This was a thing=
he
had seen before--an utter freedom from the insular grudging reserve, a sort=
of occult
perception of the presence of friendly sympathy, and an ingenuous readiness=
to
meet it half way. The youngster, having missed his fellow-traveler, and
probably feeling the lack of companionship in his country rides, was in the
mood for self-revelation.
"I'm selling for a big concern,"=
he
said, "and I've got a first-class article to carry. Up to date, you kn=
ow,
and all that. It's the top notch of typewriting machines, the Delkoff. Ever
seen it? Here's my card," taking a card from an inside pocket and hand=
ing
it to him. It was inscribed:
J. BURRIDGE & SON,
DELKOFF TYPEWRITER CO.
BROADWAY, NEW YORK. G. SELDEN.
"That's
my name," he said, pointing to the inscription in the corner. "I'=
m G.
Selden, the junior assistant of Mr. Jones."
At the sight of the insignia of his trade,=
his
holiday air dropped from him, and he hastily drew from another pocket an
illustrated catalogue.
"If you use a typewriter," he br=
oke
forth, "I can assure you it would be to your interest to look at
this." And as Mount Dunstan took the proffered pamphlet, and with amia=
ble
gravity opened it, he rapidly poured forth his salesman's patter, scarcely
pausing to take his breath: "It's the most up-to-date machine on the
market. It has all the latest improved mechanical appliances. You will see =
from
the cut in the catalogue that the platen roller is easily removed without a
long mechanical operation. All you do is to slip two pins back and off come=
s the
roller. There is also another point worth mentioning--the ribbon switch. By
using this ribbon switch you can write in either red or blue ink while you =
are
using only one ribbon. By throwing the switch on this side, you can use
thirteen yards on the upper edge of the ribbon, by reversing it, you use
thirteen yards on the lower edge--thus getting practically twenty-six yards=
of
good, serviceable ribbon out of one that is only thirteen yards long--makin=
g a
saving of fifty per cent. in your ribbon expenditure alone, which you will =
see
is quite an item to any enterprising firm."
He was obliged to pause here for a second =
or
so, but as Mount Dunstan exhibited no signs of intending to use violence, a=
nd,
on the contrary, continued to inspect the catalogue, he broke forth with
renewed cheery volubility:
"Another advantage is the new basket
shift. Also, the carriage on this machine is perfectly stationary and rigid=
. On
all other machines it is fastened by a series of connecting bolts and links,
which you will readily understand makes perfect alignment uncertain. Then o=
ur
tabulator is a part and parcel of the instrument, costing you nothing more =
than
the original price of the machine, which is one hundred dollars--without di=
scount."
"It seems a good thing," said Mo= unt Dunstan. "If I had much business to transact, I should buy one."<= o:p>
"If you bought one you'd HAVE
business," responded Selden. "That's what's the matter. It's the
up-to-date machines that set things humming. A slow, old-fashioned typewrit=
er
uses a firm's time, and time's money."
"I don't find it so," said Mount
Dunstan. "I have more time than I can possibly use--and no money."=
;
G. Selden looked at him with friendly
interest. His experience, which was varied, had taught him to recognize
symptoms. This nice, rough-looking chap, who, despite his rather shabby
clothes, looked like a gentleman, wore an expression Jones's junior assista=
nt
had seen many a time before. He had seen it frequently on the countenances =
of
other junior assistants who had tramped the streets and met more or less sa=
vage
rebuffs through a day's length, without disposing of a single Delkoff, and
thereby adding five dollars to the ten per. It was the kind of thing which
wiped the youth out of a man's face and gave him a hard, worn look about the
eyes. He had looked like that himself many an unfeeling day before he had
learned to "know the ropes and not mind a bit of hot air." His
buoyant, slangy soul was a friendly thing. He was a gregarious creature, and
liked his fellow man. He felt, indeed, more at ease with him when he needed
"jollying along." Reticence was not even etiquette in a case as u=
sual
as this.
"Say," he broke out, "perha=
ps I
oughtn't to have worried you. Are you up against it? Down on your luck, I
mean," in hasty translation.
Mount Dunstan grinned a little.
"That's a very good way of putting
it," he answered. "I never heard 'up against it' before. It's goo=
d.
Yes, I'm up against it.
"Out of a job?" with genial
sympathy.
"Well, the job I had was too big for =
me.
It needed capital." He grinned slightly again, recalling a phrase of h=
is
Western past. "I'm afraid I'm down and out."
"No, you're not," with cheerful
scorn. "You're not dead, are you? S'long as a man's not been dead a mo=
nth,
there's always a chance that there's luck round the corner. How did you hap=
pen
here? Are you piking it?"
Momentarily Mount Dunstan was baffled. G.
Selden, recognising the fact, enlightened him. "That's New York
again," he said, with a boyish touch of apology. "It means on the
tramp. Travelling along the turnpike. You don't look as if you had come to
that--though it's queer the sort of fellows you do meet piking sometimes.
Theatrical companies that have gone to pieces on the road, you know.
Perhaps--" with a sudden thought, "you're an actor. Are you?"=
;
Mount Dunstan admitted to himself that he
liked the junior assistant of Jones immensely. A more ingenuously common yo=
ung
man, a more innocent outsider, it had never been his blessed privilege to e=
nter
into close converse with, but his very commonness was a healthy, normal thi=
ng. It
made no effort to wreathe itself with chaplets of elegance; it was beautifu=
lly
unaware that such adornment was necessary. It enjoyed itself, youthfully; a=
ttacked
the earning of its bread with genial pluck, and its good-natured humanness =
had
touched him. He had enjoyed his talk; he wanted to hear more of it. He was =
not
in the mood to let him go his way. To Penzance, who was to lunch with him
to-day, he would present a study of absorbing interest.
"No," he answered. "I'm not=
an
actor. My name is Mount Dunstan, and this place," with a nod over his
shoulder, "is mine--but I'm up against it, nevertheless."
Selden looked a trifle disgusted. He began=
to
pick up his bicycle. He had given a degree of natural sympathy, and this wa=
s an
English chap's idea of a joke.
"I'm the Prince of Wales, myself,&quo=
t;
he remarked, "and my mother's expecting me to lunch at Windsor. So lon=
g,
me lord," and he set his foot on the treadle.
Mount Dunstan rose, feeling rather awkward.
The point seemed somewhat difficult to contend.
"It is not a joke," he said,
conscious that he spoke rather stiffly.
"Little Willie's not quite as easy as=
he
looks," was the cryptic remark of Mr. Selden.
Mount Dunstan lost his rather easily lost
temper, which happened to be the best thing he could have done under the
circumstances.
"Damn it," he burst out. "I=
'm
not such a fool as I evidently look. A nice ass I should be to play an idiot
joke like that. I'm speaking the truth. Go if you like--and be hanged."=
;
Selden's attention was arrested. The fellow
was in earnest. The place was his. He must be the earl chap he had heard sp=
oken
of at the wayside public house he had stopped at for a pot of beer. He
dismounted from his bicycle, and came back, pushing it before him, good-nat=
ured
relenting and awkwardness combining in his look.
"All right," he said. "I
apologise--if it's cold fact. I'm not calling you a liar."
"Thank you," still a little stif=
fly,
from Mount Dunstan.
The unabashed good cheer of G. Selden carr=
ied
him lightly over a slightly difficult moment. He laughed, pushing his cap b=
ack,
of course, and looking over the hedge at the sweep of park, with a group of
deer cropping softly in the foreground.
"I guess I should get a bit hot
myself," he volunteered handsomely, "if I was an earl, and owned a
place like this, and a fool fellow came along and took me for a tramp. That=
was
a pretty bad break, wasn't it? But I did say you didn't look like it. Anyway
you needn't mind me. I shouldn't get onto Pierpont Morgan or W. K. Vanderbi=
lt,
if I met 'em in the street."
He spoke the two names as an Englishman of=
his
class would have spoken of the Dukes of Westminster or Marlborough. These w=
ere
his nobles--the heads of the great American houses, and entirely parallel, =
in
his mind, with the heads of any great house in England. They wielded the po=
wer
of the world, and could wield it for evil or good, as any prince or duke mi=
ght.
Mount Dunstan saw the parallel.
"I apologise, all right," G. Sel=
den
ended genially.
"I am not offended," Mount Dunst=
an
answered. "There was no reason why you should know me from another man=
. I
was taken for a gamekeeper a few weeks since. I was savage a moment, because
you refused to believe me--and why should you believe me after all?"
G. Selden hesitated. He liked the fellow
anyhow.
"You said you were up against it--that
was it. And--and I've seen chaps down on their luck often enough. Good Lord,
the hard-luck stories I hear every day of my life. And they get a sort of l=
ook
about the eyes and mouth. I hate to see it on any fellow. It makes me sort =
of
sick to come across it even in a chap that's only got his fool self to blam=
e. I
may be making another break, telling you--but you looked sort of that
way."
"Perhaps," stolidly, "I
did." Then, his voice warming,
"It was jolly good-natured of you to
think about it at all. Thank you."
"That's all right," in polite
acknowledgment. Then with another look over the hedge, "Say--what ough=
t I
to call you? Earl, or my Lord?"
"It's not necessary for you to call me
anything in particular--as a rule. If you were speaking of me, you might say
Lord Mount Dunstan."
G. Selden looked relieved.
"I don't want to be too much off,&quo=
t;
he said. "And I'd like to ask you a favour. I've only three weeks here,
and I don't want to miss any chances."
"What chance would you like?"
"One of the things I'm biking over the
country for, is to get a look at just such a place as this. We haven't got =
'em
in America. My old grandmother was always talking about them. Before her mo=
ther
brought her to New York she'd lived in a village near some park gates, and =
she chinned
about it till she died. When I was a little chap I liked to hear her. She
wasn't much of an American. Wore a black net cap with purple ribbons in it,=
and
hadn't outlived her respect for aristocracy. Gee!" chuckling, "if
she'd heard what I said to you just now, I reckon she'd have thrown a fit.
Anyhow she made me feel I'd like to see the kind of places she talked about.
And I shall think myself in luck if you'll let me have a look at yours--jus=
t a
bike around the park, if you don't object--or I'll leave the bike outside, =
if
you'd rather."
"I don't object at all," said Mo=
unt
Dunstan. "The fact is, I happened to be on the point of asking you to =
come
and have some lunch--when you got on your bicycle."
Selden pushed his cap and cleared his thro=
at.
"I wasn't expecting that," he sa=
id.
"I'm pretty dusty," with a glance at his clothes. "I need a =
wash
and brush up--particularly if there are ladies."
There were no ladies, and he could be made
comfortable. This being explained to him, he was obviously rejoiced. With
unembarrassed frankness, he expressed exultation. Such luck had not, at any
time, presented itself to him as a possibility in his holiday scheme.
"By gee," he ejaculated, as they
walked under the broad oaks of the avenue leading to the house. "Speak=
ing
of luck, this is the limit! I can't help thinking of what my grandmother wo=
uld
say if she saw me."
He was a new order of companion, but before
they had reached the house, Mount Dunstan had begun to find him inspiring to
the spirits. His jovial, if crude youth, his unaffected acknowledgment of u=
naccustomedness
to grandeur, even when in dilapidation, his delight in the novelty of the
particular forms of everything about him--trees and sward, ferns and moss, =
his
open self-congratulation, were without doubt cheerful things.
His exclamation, when they came within sig=
ht
of the house itself, was for a moment disturbing to Mount Dunstan's composu=
re.
"Hully gee!" he said. "The =
old
lady was right. All I've thought about 'em was 'way off. It's bigger than a
museum." His approval was immense.
During the absence in which he was supplied
with the "wash and brush up," Mount Dunstan found Mr. Penzance in=
the
library. He explained to him what he had encountered, and how it had attrac=
ted
him.
"You have liked to hear me describe my
Western neighbours," he said. "This youngster is a New York
development, and of a different type. But there is a likeness. I have invit=
ed
to lunch with us, a young man whom--Tenham, for instance, if he were
here--would call 'a bounder.' He is nothing of the sort. In his
junior-assistant-salesman way, he is rather a fine thing. I never saw anyth=
ing
more decently human than his way of asking me--man to man, making friends by
the roadside if I was 'up against it.' No other fellow I have known has ever
exhibited the same healthy sympathy."
The Reverend Lewis was entranced. Already =
he
was really quite flushed with interest. As Assyrian character, engraved upon
sarcophogi, would have allured and thrilled him, so was he allured by the
cryptic nature of the two or three American slang phrases Mount Dunstan had
repeated to him. His was the student's simple ardour.
"Up against it," he echoed.
"Really! Dear! Dear! And that signifies, you say----"
"Apparently it means that a man has c=
ome
face to face with an obstacle difficult or impossible to overcome."
"But, upon my word, that is not bad. =
It
is strong figure of speech. It brings up a picture. A man hurrying to an
end--much desired--comes unexpectedly upon a stone wall. One can almost hear
the impact. He is up against it. Most vivid. Excellent! Excellent!"
The nature of Selden's calling was such th=
at
he was not accustomed to being received with a hint of enthusiastic welcome.
There was something almost akin to this in the vicar's courteously amiable,
aquiline countenance when he rose to shake hands with the young man on his =
entrance.
Mr. Penzance was indeed slightly disappointed that his greeting was not
responded to by some characteristic phrasing. His American was that of Sam
Slick and Artemus Ward, Punch and various English witticisms in anecdote. L=
ife
at the vicarage of Dunstan had not revealed to him that the model had become
archaic.
The revelation dawned upon him during his
intercourse with G. Selden. The young man in his cheap bicycling suit was a=
new
development. He was markedly unlike an English youth of his class, as he was
neither shy, nor laboriously at his ease. That he was at his ease to quite =
an
amazing degree might perhaps have been remotely resented by the insular min=
d, accustomed
to another order of bearing in its social inferiors, had it not been so
obviously founded on entire unconsciousness of self, and so mingled with op=
en
appreciation of the unanticipated pleasures of the occasion. Nothing could =
have
been farther from G. Selden than any desire to attempt to convey the impres=
sion
that he had enjoyed the hospitality of persons of rank on previous occasion=
s. He
found indeed a gleeful point in the joke of the incongruousness of his own
presence amid such surroundings.
"What Little Willie was expecting,&qu=
ot;
he remarked once, to the keen joy of Mr. Penzance, "was a hunk of bread
and cheese at a village saloon somewhere. I ought to have said 'pub,' ought=
n't
I? You don't call them saloons here."
He was encouraged to talk, and in his
care-free fluency he opened up many vistas to the interested Mr. Penzance, =
who
found himself, so to speak, whirled along Broadway, rushed up the steps of =
the
elevated railroad and struggling to obtain a seat, or a strap to hang to on=
a Sixth
Avenue train. The man was saturated with the atmosphere of the hot battle he
lived in. From his childhood he had known nothing but the fever heat of his
"little old New York," as he called it with affectionate slangine=
ss,
and any temperature lower than that he was accustomed to would have struck =
him
as being below normal. Penzance was impressed by his feeling of affection f=
or
the amazing city of his birth. He admired, he adored it, he boasted joyousl=
y of
its perfervid charm.
"Something doing," he said.
"That's what my sort of a fellow likes--something doing. You feel it r=
ight
there when you walk along the streets. Little old New York for mine. It's g=
ood enough
for Little Willie. And it never stops. Why, Broadway at night----"
He forgot his chop, and leaned forward on =
the
table to pour forth his description. The manservant, standing behind Mount
Dunstan's chair, forgot himself also, thought he was a trained domestic who=
se
duty it was to present dishes to the attention without any apparent mental =
processes.
Certainly it was not his business to listen, and gaze fascinated. This he d=
id,
however, actually for the time unconscious of his breach of manners. The ve=
ry
crudity of the language used, the oddly sounding, sometimes not easily
translatable slang phrases, used as if they were a necessary part of any
conversation--the blunt, uneducated bareness of figure--seemed to Penzance =
to
make more roughly vivid the picture dashed off. The broad thoroughfare almo=
st
as thronged by night as by day. Crowds going to theatres, loaded electric c=
ars,
whizzing and clanging bells, the elevated railroad rushing and roaring past
within hearing, theatre fronts flaming with electric light, announcements o=
f names
of theatrical stars and the plays they appeared in, electric light
advertisements of brands of cigars, whiskies, breakfast foods, all blazing =
high
in the night air in such number and with such strength of brilliancy that t=
he
whole thoroughfare was as bright with light as a ballroom or a theatre. The
vicar felt himself standing in the midst of it all, blinded by the glare.
"Sit down on the sidewalk and read yo=
ur
newspaper, a book, a magazine--any old thing you like," with an exulta=
nt
laugh.
The names of the dramatic stars blazing ov=
er
entrances to the theatres were often English names, their plays English pla=
ys,
their companies made up of English men and women. G. Selden was as familiar
with them and commented upon their gifts as easily as if he had drawn his d=
rama
from the Strand instead of from Broadway. The novels piled up in the statio=
ns
of what he called "the L" (which revealed itself as being a
New-York-haste abbreviation of Elevated railroad), were in large proportion=
English
novels, and he had his ingenuous estimate of English novelists, as well as =
of
all else.
"Ruddy, now," he said; "I l=
ike
him. He's all right, even though we haven't quite caught onto India yet.&qu=
ot;
The dazzle and brilliancy of Broadway so
surrounded Penzance that he found it necessary to withdraw himself and retu=
rn
to his immediate surroundings, that he might recover from his sense of
interested bewilderment. His eyes fell upon the stern lineaments of a Mount
Dunstan in a costume of the time of Henry VIII. He was a burly gentleman, w=
hose
ruff-shortened thick neck and haughty fixedness of stare from the backgroun=
d of
his portrait were such as seemed to eliminate him from the scheme of things,
the clanging of electric cars, and the prevailing roar of the L. Confronted=
by
his gaze, electric light advertisements of whiskies, cigars, and corsets se=
emed
impossible.
"He's all right," continued G.
Selden. "I'm ready to separate myself from one fifty any time I see a =
new
book of his. He's got the goods with him."
The richness of colloquialism moved the vi=
car
of Mount Dunstan to deep enjoyment.
"Would you mind--I trust you won't,&q=
uot;
he apologised courteously, "telling me exactly the significance of tho=
se
two last sentences. In think I see their meaning, but----"
G. Selden looked good-naturedly apologetic
himself.
"Well, it's slang--you see," he
explained. "I guess I can't help it. You--" flushing a trifle, but
without any touch of resentment in the boyish colour, "you know what s=
ort
of a chap I am. I'm not passing myself off as anything but an ordinary busi=
ness
hustler, am I--just under salesman to a typewriter concern? I shouldn't lik=
e to
think I'd got in here on any bluff. I guess I sling in slang every half doz=
en words----."
"My dear boy," Penzance was abso=
lutely
moved and he spoke with warmth quite paternal, "Lord Mount Dunstan and=
I
are genuinely interested--genuinely. He, because he knows New York a little,
and I because I don't. I am an elderly man, and have spent my life buried i=
n my
books in drowsy villages. Pray go on. Your American slang has frequently a
delightful meaning--a fantastic hilarity, or common sense, or philosophy,
hidden in its origin. In that it generally differs from English slang, whic=
h--I
regret to say--is usually founded on some silly catch word. Pray go on. When
you see a new book by Mr. Kipling, you are ready to 'separate yourself from=
one
fifty' because he 'has the goods with him.'"
G. Selden suppressed an involuntary young
laugh.
"One dollar and fifty cents is usually
the price of a book," he said. "You separate yourself from it when
you take it out of your clothes--I mean out of your pocket--and pay it over=
the
counter."
"There's a careless humour in it,&quo=
t;
said Mount Dunstan grimly. "The suggestion of parting is not half bad.=
On
the whole, it is subtle."
"A great deal of it is subtle," =
said
Penzance, "though it all professes to be obvious. The other sentence h=
as a
commercial sound."
"When a man goes about selling for a
concern," said the junior assistant of Jones, "he can prove what =
he
says, if he has the goods with him. I guess it came from that. I don't know=
. I
only know that when a man is a straight sort of fellow, and can show up, we=
say
he's got the goods with him."
They sat after lunch in the library, befor=
e an
open window, looking into a lovely sunken garden. Blossoms were breaking ou=
t on
every side, and robins, thrushes, and blackbirds chirped and trilled and
whistled, as Mount Dunstan and Penzance led G. Selden on to paint further
pictures for them.
Some of them were rather painful, Penzance
thought. As connected with youth, they held a touch of pathos Selden was all
unconscious of. He had had a hard life, made up, since his tenth year, of
struggles to earn his living. He had sold newspapers, he had run errands, he
had swept out a "candy store." He had had a few years at the publ=
ic
school, and a few months at a business college, to which he went at night,
after work hours. He had been "up against it good and plenty," he
told them. He seemed, however, to have had a knack of making friends and of
giving them "a boost along" when such a chance was possible. Both=
of
his listeners realised that a good many people had liked him, and the reaso=
n was
apparent enough to them.
"When a chap gets sorry for
himself," he remarked once, "he's down and out. That's a stone-co=
ld
fact. There's lots of hard-luck stories that you've got to hear anyhow. The
fellow that can keep his to himself is the fellow that's likely to get
there."
"Get there?" the vicar murmured
reflectively, and Selden chuckled again.
"Get where he started out to go to--t=
he
White House, if you like. The fellows that have got there kept their hardlu=
ck
stories quiet, I bet. Guess most of 'em had plenty during election, if they
were the kind to lie awake sobbing on their pillows because their feelings =
were
hurt."
He had never been sorry for himself, it was
evident, though it must be admitted that there were moments when the elderly
English clergyman, whose most serious encounters had been annoying intervie=
ws
with cottagers of disrespectful manner, rather shuddered as he heard his si=
mple
recital of days when he had tramped street after street, carrying his catal=
ogue
with him, and trying to tell his story of the Delkoff to frantically busy m=
en
who were driven mad by the importunate sight of him, to worried, ill-temper=
ed
ones who broke into fury when they heard his voice, and to savage brutes who
were only restrained by law from kicking him into the street.
"You've got to take it, if you don't =
want
to lose your job. Some of them's as tired as you are. Sometimes, if you can
give 'em a jolly and make 'em laugh, they'll listen, and you may unload a
machine. But it's no merry jest just at first--particularly in bad weather.=
The
first five weeks I was with the Delkoff I never made a sale. Had to live on=
my
ten per, and that's pretty hard in New York. Three and a half for your hall
bedroom, and the rest for your hash and shoes. But I held on, and gradually
luck began to turn, and I began not to care so much when a man gave it to me
hot."
The vicar of Mount Dunstan had never heard=
of
the "hall bedroom" as an institution. A dozen unconscious sentenc=
es
placed it before his mental vision. He thought it horribly touching. A narr=
ow
room at the back of a cheap lodging house, a bed, a strip of carpet, a
washstand--this the sole refuge of a male human creature, in the flood tide=
of
youth, no more than this to come back to nightly, footsore and resentful of
soul, after a day's tramp spent in forcing himself and his wares on people =
who
did not want him or them, and who found infinite variety in the forcefulnes=
s of
their method of saying so.
"What you know, when you go into a pl=
ace,
is that nobody wants to see you, and no one will let you talk if they can h=
elp
it. The only thing is to get in and rattle off your stunt before you can be
fired out."
Sometimes at first he had gone back at nig=
ht
to the hall bedroom, and sat on the edge of the narrow bed, swinging his fe=
et,
and asking himself how long he could hold out. But he had held out, and
evidently developed into a good salesman, being bold and of imperturbable g=
ood
spirits and temper, and not troubled by hypersensitiveness. Hearing of the
"hall bedroom," the coldness of it in winter, and the breathless =
heat
in summer, the utter loneliness of it at all times and seasons, one could n=
ot
have felt surprise if the grown-up lad doomed to its narrowness as home had
been drawn into the electric-lighted gaiety of Broadway, and being caught in
its maelstrom, had been sucked under to its lowest depths. But it was to be
observed that G. Selden had a clear eye, and a healthy skin, and a healthy
young laugh yet, which were all wonderfully to his credit, and added enormo=
usly
to one's liking for him.
"Do you use a typewriter?" he sa=
id
at last to Mr. Penzance. "It would cut out half your work with your
sermons. If you do use one, I'd just like to call your attention to the
Delkoff. It's the most up-to-date machine on the market to-day," drawi=
ng
out the catalogue.
"I do not use one, and I am extremely
sorry to say that I could not afford to buy one," said Mr. Penzance wi=
th
considerate courtesy, "but do tell me about it. I am afraid I never sa=
w a
typewriter."
It was the most hospitable thing he could =
have
done, and was of the tact of courts. He arranged his pince nez, and taking =
the
catalogue, applied himself to it. G. Selden's soul warmed within him. To be
listened to like this. To be treated as a gentleman by a gentleman--by &quo=
t;a
fine old swell like this--Hully gee!"
"This isn't what I'm used to," he
said with genuine enjoyment. "It doesn't matter, your not being ready =
to
buy now. You may be sometime, or you may run up against someone who is. Lit=
tle
Willie's always ready to say his piece."
He poured it forth with glee--the improved
mechanical appliances, the cuts in the catalogue, the platen roller, the ri=
bbon
switch, the twenty-six yards of red or blue typing, the fifty per cent. sav=
ing
in ribbon expenditure alone, the new basket shift, the stationary carriage,=
the
tabulator, the superiority to all other typewriting machines--the price one
hundred dollars without discount. And both Mount Dunstan and Mr. Penzance
listened entranced, examined cuts in the catalogue, asked questions, and in
fact ended by finding that they must repress an actual desire to possess the
luxury. The joy their attitude bestowed upon Selden was the thing he would =
feel
gave the finishing touch to the hours which he would recall to the end of h=
is
days as the "time of his life." Yes, by gee! he was having "=
the
time of his life."
Later he found himself feeling--as Miss
Vanderpoel had felt--rather as if the whole thing was a dream. This came up=
on
him when, with Mount Dunstan and Penzance, he walked through the park and t=
he
curiously beautiful old gardens. The lovely, soundless quiet, broken into o=
nly
by bird notes, or his companions' voices, had an extraordinary effect on hi=
m.
"It's so still you can hear it,"=
he
said once, stopping in a velvet, moss-covered path. "Seems like you've=
got
quiet shut up here, and you've turned it on till the air's thick with it. G=
ood
Lord, think of little old Broadway keeping it up, and the L whizzing and
thundering along every three minutes, just the same, while we're standing h=
ere!
You can't believe it."
It would have gone hard with him to descri=
be
to them the value of his enjoyment. Again and again there came back to him =
the
memory of the grandmother who wore the black net cap trimmed with purple
ribbons. Apparently she had remained to the last almost contumaciously Brit=
ish.
She had kept photographs of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on her be=
droom
mantelpiece, and had made caustic, international comparisons. But she had s=
een
places like this, and her stories became realities to him now. But she had
never thought of the possibility of any chance of his being shown about by =
the
lord of the manor himself--lunching, by gee! and talking to them about
typewriters. He vaguely knew that if the grandmother had not emigrated, and=
he
had been born in Dunstan village, he would naturally have touched his foreh=
ead
to Mount Dunstan and the vicar when they passed him in the road, and
conversation between them would have been an unlikely thing. Somehow things=
had
been changed by Destiny--perhaps for the whole of them, as years had passed=
.
What he felt when he stood in the picture
gallery neither of his companions could at first guess. He ceased to talk, =
and
wandered silently about. Secretly he found himself a trifle awed by being
looked down upon by the unchanging eyes of men in strange, rich garments--i=
n corslet,
ruff, and doublet, velvet, powder, curled love locks, brocade and lace. The
face of long-dead loveliness smiled out from its canvas, or withheld itself
haughtily from his salesman's gaze. Wonderful bare white shoulders, and bos=
oms
clasped with gems or flowers and lace, defied him to recall any treasures of
Broadway to compare with them. Elderly dames, garbed in stiff splendour, he=
ld
stiff, unsympathetic inquiry in their eyes, as they looked back upon him. W=
hat
exactly was a thirty shilling bicycle suit doing there? In the Delkoff, pla=
inly
none were interested. A pretty, masquerading shepherdess, with a lamb and a=
crook,
seemed to laugh at him from under her broad beribboned straw hat. After loo=
king
at her for a minute or so, he gave a half laugh himself--but it was an awkw=
ard
one.
"She's a looker," he remarked.
"They're a lot of them lookers--not all--but a fair show----"
"A looker," translated Mount Dun=
stan
in a low voice to Penzance, "means, I believe, a young women with good
looks--a beauty."
"Yes, she IS a looker, by gee," =
said
G. Selden, "but--but--" the awkward half laugh, taking on a depre=
ssed
touch of sheepishness, "she makes me feel 'way off--they all do."=
That was it. Surrounded by them, he was
fascinated but not cheered. They were all so smilingly, or disdainfully, or=
indifferently
unconscious of the existence of the human thing of his class. His aspect, h=
is
life, and his desires were as remote as those of prehistoric man. His Broad=
way,
his L railroad, his Delkoff--what were they where did they come into the sc=
heme
of the Universe? They silently gazed and lightly smiled or frowned THROUGH =
him
as he stood. He was probably not in the least aware that he rather loudly
sighed.
"Yes," he said, "they make =
me
feel 'way off. I'm not in it. But she is a looker. Get onto that dimple in =
her
cheek."
Mount Dunstan and Penzance spent the after=
noon
in doing their best for him. He was well worth it. Mr. Penzance was filled =
with
delight, and saturated with the atmosphere of New York.
"I feel," he said, softly polish=
ing
his eyeglasses and almost affectionately smiling, "I really feel as if=
I
had been walking down Broadway or Fifth Avenue. I believe that I might find=
my
way to--well, suppose we say Weber & Field's," and G. Selden shout=
ed
with glee.
Never before, in fact, had he felt his hea=
rt
so warmed by spontaneous affection as it was by this elderly, somewhat bald=
and
thin-faced clergyman of the Church of England. This he had never seen befor=
e. Without
the trained subtlety to have explained to himself the finely sweet and simp=
ly
gracious deeps of it, he was moved and uplifted. He was glad he had "c=
ome
across" it, he felt a vague regret at passing on his way, and leaving =
it
behind. He would have liked to feel that perhaps he might come back. He wou=
ld
have liked to present him with a Delkoff, and teach him how to run it. He h=
ad
delighted in Mount Dunstan, and rejoiced in him, but he had rather fallen in
love with Penzance. Certain American doubts he had had of the solidity and
permanency of England's position and power were somewhat modified. When fel=
lows
like these two stood at the first rank, little old England was a pretty safe
proposition.
After they had given him tea among the sce=
nts
and songs of the sunken garden outside the library window, they set him on =
his
way. The shadows were lengthening and the sunlight falling in deepening gold
when they walked up the avenue and shook hands with him at the big entrance
gates.
"Well, gentlemen," he said,
"you've treated me grand--as fine as silk, and it won't be like Little
Willie to forget it. When I go back to New York it'll be all I can do to ke=
ep
from getting the swell head and bragging about it. I've enjoyed myself down=
to
the ground, every minute. I'm not the kind of fellow to be likely to be abl=
e to
pay you back your kindness, but, hully gee! if I could I'd do it to beat the
band. Good-bye, gentlemen--and thank you--thank you."
Across which one of their minds passed the
thought that the sound of the hollow impact of a trotting horse's hoofs on =
the
road, which each that moment became conscious of hearing was the sound of t=
he
advancing foot of Fate? It crossed no mind among the three. There was no re=
ason
why it should. And yet at that moment the meaning of the regular, stirring =
sound
was a fateful thing.
"Someone on horseback," said Pen=
zance.
He had scarcely spoken before round the cu=
rve
of the road she came. A finely slender and spiritedly erect girl's figure, =
upon
a satin-skinned bright chestnut with a thoroughbred gait, a smart groom rid=
ing
behind her. She came towards them, was abreast them, looked at Mount Dunsta=
n, a
smiling dimple near her lip as she returned his quick salute.
"Miss Vanderpoel," he said low to
the vicar, "Lady Anstruther's sister."
Mr. Penzance, replacing his own hat, looked
after her with surprised pleasure.
"Really," he exclaimed, "Mi=
ss
Vanderpoel! What a fine girl! How unusually handsome!"
Selden turned with a gasp of delighted, am=
azed
recognition.
"Miss Vanderpoel," he burst fort=
h,
"Reuben Vanderpoel's daughter! The one that's over here visiting her
sister. Is it that one--sure?"
"Yes," from Mount Dunstan without
fervour. "Lady Anstruthers lives at Stornham, about six miles from
here."
"Gee," with feverish regret.
"If her father was there, and I could get next to him, my fortune woul=
d be
made."
"Should you," ventured Penzance
politely, "endeavour to sell him a typewriter?"
"A typewriter! Holy smoke! I'd try to
sell him ten thousand. A fellow like that syndicates the world. If I could =
get
next to him----" and he mounted his bicycle with a laugh.
"Get next," murmured Penzance.
"Get on the good side of him," M=
ount
Dunstan murmured in reply.
"So long, gentlemen, good-bye, and th=
ank
you again," called G. Selden as he wheeled off, and was carried
soundlessly down the golden road.
CHAPTER XXIV- THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF
STORNHAM
The satin-skinned chestnut was one of the =
new
horses now standing in the Stornham stables. There were several of them--a =
pair
for the landau, saddle horses, smart young cobs for phaeton or dog cart, a =
pony
for Ughtred--the animals necessary at such a place at Stornham. The stables=
themselves
had been quickly put in order, grooms and stable boys kept them as they had=
not
been kept for years. The men learned in a week's time that their work could=
not
be done too well. There were new carriages as well as horses. They had come
from London after Lady Anstruthers and her sister returned from town. The
horses had been brought down by their grooms--immensely looked after,
blanketed, hooded, and altogether cared for as if they were visiting dukes =
and
duchesses. They were all fine, handsome, carefully chosen creatures. When t=
hey danced
and sidled through the village on their way to the Court, they created a
sensation. Whosoever had chosen them had known his business. The older vehi=
cles
had been repaired in the village by Tread, and did him credit. Fox had also
done his work well.
Plenty more of it had come into their
work-shops. Tools to be used on the estate, garden implements, wheelbarrows,
lawn rollers, things needed about the house, stables, and cottages, were to=
be
attended to. The church roof was being repaired. Taking all these things and
the "doing up" of the Court itself, there was more work than the
village could manage, and carpenters, bricklayers, and decorators were
necessarily brought from other places. Still Joe Buttle and Sim Soames were
allowed to lead in all such things as lay within their capabilities. It was
they who made such a splendid job of the entrance gates and the lodges. It =
was
astonishing how much was done, and how the sense of life in the air--the wo=
rk
of resulting prosperity, made men begin to tread with less listless steps as
they went to and from their labour. In the cottages things were being done
which made downcast women bestir themselves and look less slatternly. Leaks
mended here, windows there, the hopeless copper in the tiny washhouse repla=
ced
by a new one, chimneys cured of the habit of smoking, a clean, flowered pap=
er
put on a wall, a coat of whitewash--they were small matters, but produced g=
reat
effect.
Betty had begun to drop into the cottages,=
and
make the acquaintance of their owners. Her first visits, she observed, crea=
ted
great consternation. Women looked frightened or sullen, children stared and
refused to speak, clinging to skirts and aprons. She found the atmosphere c=
lear
after her second visit. The women began to talk, and the children collected=
in
groups and listened with cheerful grins. She could pick up little Jane's
kitten, or give a pat to small Thomas' mongrel dog, in a manner which threw
down barriers.
"Don't put out your pipe," she s=
aid
to old Grandfather Doby, rising totteringly respectful from his chimney-side
chair. "You have only just lighted it. You mustn't waste a whole pipef=
ul
of tobacco because I have come in."
The old man, grown childish with age, titt=
ered
and shuffled and giggled. Such a joke as the grand young lady was having wi=
th
him. She saw he had only just lighted his pipe. The gentry joked a bit
sometimes. But he was afraid of his grandson's wife, who was frowning and
shaking her head.
Betty went to him, and put her hand on his
arm.
"Sit down," she said, "and I
will sit by you." And she sat down and showed him that she had brought=
a
package of tobacco with her, and actually a wonder of a red and yellow jar =
to
hold it, at the sight of which unheard-of joys his rapture was so great that
his trembling hands could scarcely clasp his treasures.
"Tee-hee! Tee-hee-ee! Deary me!
Thankee--thankee, my lady," he tittered, and he gazed and blinked at h=
er
beauty through heavenly tears.
"Nearly a hundred years old, and he h=
as
lived on sixteen shillings a week all his life, and earned it by working ev=
ery
hour between sunrise and sunset," Betty said to her sister, when she w=
ent
home. "A man has one life, and his has passed like that. It is done no=
w,
and all the years and work have left nothing in his old hands but his pipe.
That's all. I should not like to put it out for him. Who am I that I can bu=
y him
a new one, and keep it filled for him until the end? How did it happen?
No," suddenly, "I must not lose time in asking myself that. I must
get the new pipe."
She did it--a pipe of great magnificence--=
such
as drew to the Doby cottage as many callers as the village could provide, e=
ach
coming with fevered interest, to look at it--to be allowed to hold and exam=
ine
it for a few moments, guessing at its probable enormous cost, and returning=
it
reverently, to gaze at Doby with respect--the increase of which can be imag=
ined
when it was known that he was not only possessor of the pipe, but of an
assurance that he would be supplied with as much tobacco as he could use, to
the end of his days. From the time of the advent of the pipe, Grandfather D=
oby
became a man of mark, and his life in the chimney corner a changed thing. A=
man
who owns splendours and unlimited, excellent shag may like friends to drop =
in
and crack jokes--and even smoke a pipe with him--a common pipe, which, howe=
ver,
is not amiss when excellent shag comes free.
"He lives in a wild whirl of gaiety--a
social vortex," said Betty to Lady Anstruthers, after one of her visit=
s.
"He is actually rejuvenated. I must order some new white smocks for hi=
m to
receive his visitors in. Someone brought him an old copy of the Illustrated
London News last night. We will send him illustrated papers every week.&quo=
t;
In the dull old brain, God knows what spar=
k of
life had been relighted. Young Mrs. Doby related with chuckles that granddad
had begged that his chair might be dragged to the window, that he might sit=
and
watch the village street. Sitting there, day after day, he smoked and looke=
d at
his pictures, and dozed and dreamed, his pipe and tobacco jar beside him on=
the
window ledge. At any sound of wheels or footsteps his face lighted, and if,=
by
chance, he caught a glimpse of Betty, he tottered to his feet, and stood
hurriedly touching his bald forehead with a reverent, palsied hand.
"'Tis 'urr," he would say, enrap=
t.
"I seen 'urr--I did." And young Mrs. Doby knew that this was his =
joy,
and what he waited for as one waits for the coming of the sun.
"'Tis 'urr! 'Tis 'urr!"
The vicar's wife, Mrs. Brent, who since the
affair of John Wilson's fire had dropped into the background and felt it
indiscreet to present tales of distress at the Court, began to recover her
courage. Her perfunctory visits assumed a new character. The vicarage had, =
of
course, called promptly upon Miss Vanderpoel, after her arrival. Mrs. Brent
admired Miss Vanderpoel hugely.
"You seem so unlike an American,"
she said once in her most tactful, ingratiating manner--which was very
ingratiating indeed.
"Do I? What is one like when one is l=
ike
an American? I am one, you know."
"I can scarcely believe it," with
sweet ardour.
"Pray try," said Betty with simp=
le
brevity, and Mrs. Brent felt that perhaps Miss Vanderpoel was not really ve=
ry
easy to get on with.
"She meant to imply that I did not sp=
eak
through my nose, and talk too much, and too vivaciously, in a shrill
voice," Betty said afterwards, in talking the interview over with Rosy.
"I like to convince myself that is not one's sole national characteris=
tic.
Also it was not exactly Mrs. Brent's place to kindly encourage me with the
information that I do not seem to belong to my own country."
Lady Anstruthers laughed, and Betty looked=
at
her inquiringly.
"You said that just like--just like an
Englishwoman."
"Did I?" said Betty.
Mrs. Brent had come to talk to her because=
she
did not wish to trouble dear Lady Anstruthers. Lady Anstruthers already loo=
ked
much stronger, but she had been delicate so long that one hesitated to dist=
ress
her with village matters. She did not add that she realised that she was co=
ming
to headquarters. The vicar and herself were much disturbed about a rather
tiresome old woman--old Mrs. Welden--who lived in a tiny cottage in the
village. She was eighty-three years old, and a respectable old person--a wi=
dow,
who had reared ten children. The children had all grown up, and scattered, =
and
old Mrs. Welden had nothing whatever to live on. No one knew how she lived,=
and
really she would be better off in the workhouse. She could be sent to Brexl=
ey Union,
and comfortably taken care of, but she had that singular, obstinate dislike=
to
going, which it was so difficult to manage. She had asked for a shilling a =
week
from the parish, but that could not be allowed her, as it would merely upho=
ld her
in her obstinate intention of remaining in her cottage, and taking care of
herself--which she could not do. Betty gathered that the shilling a week wo=
uld
be a drain on the parish funds, and would so raise the old creature to
affluence that she would feel she could defy fate. And the contumacity of o=
ld
men and women should not be strengthened by the reckless bestowal of shilli=
ngs.
Knowing that Miss Vanderpoel had already
gained influence among the village people, Mrs. Brent said, she had come to=
ask
her if she would see old Mrs. Welden and argue with her in such a manner as
would convince her that the workhouse was the best place for her. It was, o=
f course,
so much pleasanter if these old people could be induced to go to Brexley
willingly.
"Shall I be undermining the whole
Political Economy of Stornham if I take care of her myself?" suggested
Betty.
"You--you will lead others to expect =
the
same thing will be done for them."
"When one has resources to draw on,&q=
uot;
Miss Vanderpoel commented, "in the case of a woman who has lived
eighty-three years and brought up ten children until they were old and stro=
ng
enough to leave her to take care of herself, it is difficult for the weak of
mind to apply the laws of Political Economics. I will go and see old Mrs. W=
elden."
If the Vanderpoels would provide for all t=
he
obstinate old men and women in the parish, the Political Economics of Storn=
ham
would proffer no marked objections. "A good many Americans," Mrs.
Brent reflected, "seemed to have those odd, lavish ways," as witn=
ess
Lady Anstruthers herself, on her first introduction to village life. Miss
Vanderpoel was evidently a much stronger character, and extremely clever, a=
nd
somehow the stream of the American fortune was at last being directed towar=
ds Stornham--which,
of course, should have happened long ago. A good deal was "being
done," and the whole situation looked more promising. So was the matter
discussed and summed up, the same evening after dinner, at the vicarage.
Betty found old Mrs. Welden's cottage. It =
was in
a green lane, turning from the village street--which was almost a green lane
itself. A tiny hedged-in front garden was before the cottage door. A
crazy-looking wicket gate was in the hedge, and a fuschia bush and a few old
roses were in the few yards of garden. There were actually two or three ger=
aniums
in the window, showing cheerful scarlet between the short, white dimity
curtains.
"A house this size and of this povert=
y in
an American village," was Betty's thought, "would be a bare and
straggling hideousness, with old tomato cans in the front yard. Here is one=
of
the things we have to learn from them."
When she knocked at the door an old woman
opened it. She was a well-preserved and markedly respectable old person, in=
a
decent print frock and a cap. At the sight of her visitor she beamed and ma=
de a
suggestion of curtsey.
"How do you do, Mrs. Welden?" sa=
id
Betty. "I am Lady Anstruthers' sister, Miss Vanderpoel. I thought I wo=
uld
like to come and see you."
"Thank you, miss, I am obliged for the
kindness, miss. Won't you come in and have a chair?"
There were no signs of decrepitude about h=
er,
and she had a cheery old eye. The tiny front room was neat, though there was
scarcely space enough in it to contain the table covered with its blue-chec=
ked
cotton cloth, the narrow sofa, and two or three chairs. There were a few sm=
all coloured
prints, and a framed photograph or so on the walls, and on the table was a
Bible, and a brown earthenware teapot, and a plate.
"Tom Wood's wife, that's neighbour ne=
xt
door to me," she said, "gave me a pinch o' tea--an' I've just been
'avin it. Tom Woods, miss, 'as just been took on by Muster Kedgers as one of
the new under gardeners at the Court."
Betty found her delightful. She made no
complaints, and was evidently pleased with the excitement of receiving a
visitor. The truth was, that in common with every other old woman, she had
secretly aspired to being visited some day by the amazing young lady from
"Meriker." Betty had yet to learn of the heartburnings which may =
be
occasioned by an unconscious favouritism. She was not aware that when she
dropped in to talk to old Doby, his neighbour, old Megworth, peered from be=
hind
his curtains, with the dew of envy in his rheumy eyes.
"S'ems," he mumbled, "as if
they wasn't nobody now in Stornham village but Gaarge Doby--s'ems not."
They were very fierce in their jealousy of attention, and one must beware of
rousing evil passions in the octogenarian breast.
The young lady from "Meriker" had
not so far had time to make a call at any cottage in old Mrs. Welden's
lane--and she had knocked just at old Mrs. Welden's door. This was enough to
put in good spirits even a less cheery old person.
At first Betty wondered how she could with
delicacy ask personal questions. A few minutes' conversation, however, show=
ed
her that the personal affairs of Sir Nigel's tenants were also the affairs =
of
not only himself, but of such of his relatives as attended to their natural=
duty.
Her presence in the cottage, and her interest in Mrs. Welden's ready flow of
simple talk, were desirable and proper compliments to the old woman herself.
She was a decent and self-respecting old person, but in her mind there was =
no
faintest glimmer of resentment of questions concerning rent and food and the
needs of her simple, hard-driven existence. She had answered such questions=
on
many occasions, when they had not been asked in the manner in which her
ladyship's sister asked them. Mrs. Brent had scolded her and "poked
about" her cottage, going into her tiny "wash 'us," and up i=
nto
her infinitesimal bedroom under the slanting roof, to see that they were ke=
pt
clean. Miss Vanderpoel showed no disposition to "poke." She sat a=
nd
listened, and made an inquiry here and there, in a nice voice and with a sm=
ile
in her eyes. There was some pleasure in relating the whole history of your =
eighty-three
years to a young lady who listened as if she wanted to hear it. So old Mrs.
Welden prattled on. About her good days, when she was young, and was
kitchenmaid at the parsonage in a village twenty miles away; about her marr=
iage
with a young farm labourer; about his "steady" habits, and the
comfort they had together, in spite of the yearly arrival of a new baby, and
the crowding of the bit of a cottage his master allowed them. Ten of 'em, a=
nd
it had been "up before sunrise, and a good bit of hard work to keep th=
em
all fed and clean." But she had not minded that until Jack died quite
sudden after a sunstroke. It was odd how much colour her rustic phraseology
held. She made Betty see it all. The apparent natural inevitableness of the=
ir
being turned out of the cottage, because another man must have it; the years
during which she worked her way while the ten were growing up, having measl=
es,
and chicken pox, and scarlet fever, one dying here and there, dropping out =
quite
in the natural order of things, and being buried by the parish in corners of
the ancient church yard. Three of them "was took" by scarlet feve=
r,
then one of a "decline," then one or two by other illnesses. Only=
four
reached man and womanhood. One had gone to Australia, but he never was one =
to
write, and after a year or two, Betty gathered, he had seemed to melt away =
into
the great distance. Two girls had married, and Mrs. Welden could not say th=
ey
had been "comf'able." They could barely feed themselves and their
swarms of children. The other son had never been steady like his father. He=
had
at last gone to London, and London had swallowed him up. Betty was struck by
the fact that she did not seem to feel that the mother of ten might have ex=
pected
some return for her labours, at eighty-three.
Her unresentful acceptance of things was at
once significant and moving. Betty found her amazing. What she lived on it =
was
not easy to understand. She seemed rather like a cheerful old bird, getting=
up
each unprovided-for morning, and picking up her sustenance where she found =
it.
"There's more in the sayin' 'the Lord
pervides' than a good many thinks," she said with a small chuckle, mar=
ked
more by a genial and comfortable sense of humour than by an air of meritori=
ously
quoting the vicar. "He DO."
She paid one and threepence a week in rent=
for
her cottage, and this was the most serious drain upon her resources. She
apparently could live without food or fire, but the rent must be paid.
"An' I do get a bit be'ind sometimes," she confessed apologetical=
ly,
"an' then it's a trouble to get straight."
Her cottage was one of a short row, and she
did odd jobs for the women who were her neighbours. There were always babie=
s to
be looked after, and "bits of 'elp" needed, sometimes there were
"movings" from one cottage to another, and "confinements&quo=
t;
were plainly at once exhilarating and enriching. Her temperamental good che=
er,
combined with her experience, made her a desirable companion and assistant.=
She
was engagingly frank.
"When they're new to it, an' a bit
frightened, I just give 'em a cup of 'ot tea, an' joke with 'em to cheer 'em
up," she said. "I says to Charles Jenkins' wife, as lives next do=
or,
'come now, me girl, it's been goin' on since Adam an' Eve, an' there's a go=
od
many of us left, isn't there?' An' a fine boy it was, too, miss, an' 'er up=
an'
about before 'er month."
She was paid in sixpences and spare shilli=
ngs,
and in cups of tea, or a fresh-baked loaf, or screws of sugar, or even in a
garment not yet worn beyond repair. And she was free to run in and out, and
grow a flower or so in her garden, and talk with a neighbour over the low
dividing hedge.
"They want me to go into the
'Ouse,'" reaching the dangerous subject at last. "They say I'll be
took care of an' looked after. But I don't want to do it, miss. I want to k=
eep
my bit of a 'ome if I can, an' be free to come an' go. I'm eighty-three, an=
' it
won't be long. I 'ad a shilling a week from the parish, but they stopped it
because they said I ought to go into the 'Ouse.'"
She looked at Betty with a momentarily anx=
ious
smile.
"P'raps you don't quite understand,
miss," she said. "It'll seem like nothin' to you--a place like
this."
"It doesn't," Betty answered,
smiling bravely back into the old eyes, though she felt a slight fulness of=
the
throat. "I understand all about it."
It is possible that old Mrs. Welden was a
little taken aback by an attitude which, satisfactory to her own prejudices
though it might be, was, taken in connection with fixed customs, a trifle
unnatural.
"You don't mind me not wantin' to
go?" she said.
"No," was the answer, "not =
at
all."
Betty began to ask questions. How much tea,
sugar, soap, candles, bread, butter, bacon, could Mrs. Welden use in a week=
? It
was not very easy to find out the exact quantities, as Mrs. Welden's estima=
tes
of such things had been based, during her entire existence, upon calculatio=
n as
to how little, not how much she could use.
When Betty suggested a pound of tea, a half
pound--the old woman smiled at the innocent ignorance the suggestion of such
reckless profusion implied.
"Oh, no! Bless you, miss, no! I could= n't never do away with it. A quarter, miss--that'd be plenty--a quarter."<= o:p>
Mrs. Welden's idea of "the best,"
was that at two shillings a pound. Quarter of a pound would cost sixpence
(twelve cents, thought Betty). A pound of sugar would be twopence, Mrs. Wel=
den
would use half a pound (the riotous extravagance of two cents). Half a poun=
d of
butter, "Good tub butter, miss," would be ten pence three farthin=
gs a
pound. Soap, candles, bacon, bread, coal, wood, in the quantities required =
by
Mrs. Welden, might, with the addition of rent, amount to the dizzying heigh=
t of
eight or ten shillings.
"With careful extravagance," Bet=
ty
mentally summed up, "I might spend almost two dollars a week in
surrounding her with a riot of luxury."
She made a list of the things, and added s=
ome
extras as an idea of her own. Life had not afforded her this kind of thing
before, she realised. She felt for the first time the joy of reckless
extravagance, and thrilled with the excitement of it.
"You need not think of Brexley Union =
any
more," she said, when she, having risen to go, stood at the cottage do=
or
with old Mrs. Welden. "The things I have written down here shall be se=
nt to
you every Saturday night. I will pay your rent."
"Miss--miss!" Mrs. Welden looked
affrighted. "It's too much, miss. An' coals eighteen pence a
hundred!"
"Never mind," said her ladyship's
sister, and the old woman, looking up into her eyes, found there the colour
Mount Dunstan had thought of as being that of bluebells under water. "I
think we can manage it, Mrs. Welden. Keep yourself as warm as you like, and
sometime I will come and have a cup of tea with you and see if the tea is
good."
"Oh! Deary me!" said Mrs. Welden.
"I can't think what to say, miss. It lifts everythin'--everythin'. It's
not to be believed. It's like bein' left a fortune."
When the wicket gate swung to and the young
lady went up the lane, the old woman stood staring after her. And here was a
piece of news to run into Charley Jenkins' cottage and tell--and what woman=
or
man in the row would quite believe it?
CHAPTER XXV - "WE BEGAN TO MARRY THEM=
, MY
GOOD FELLOW!"
Lord Dunholm and his eldest son, Lord
Westholt, sauntered together smoking their after-dinner cigars on the
broad-turfed terrace overlooking park and gardens which seemed to sweep wit=
hout
boundary line into the purplish land beyond. The grey mass of the castle st=
ood clear-cut
against the blue of a sky whose twilight was still almost daylight, though =
in
the purity of its evening stillness a star already hung, here and there, an=
d a
young moon swung low. The great spaces about them held a silence whose
exquisite entirety was marked at intervals by the distant bark of a shepherd
dog driving his master's sheep to the fold, their soft, intermittent
plaints--the mother ewes' mellow answering to the tender, fretful
lambs--floated on the air, a lovely part of the ending day's repose. Where =
two
who are friends stroll together at such hours, the great beauty makes for
silence or for thoughtful talk. These two men--father and son--were friends=
and
intimates, and had been so from Westholt's first memory of the time when his
childish individuality began to detach itself from the background of misty =
and
indistinct things. They had liked each other, and their liking and intimacy=
had
increased with the onward moving and change of years. After sixty sane and
decently spent active years of life, Lord Dunholm, in either country tweed =
or
evening dress, was a well-built and handsome man; at thirty-three his son w=
as
still like him.
"Have you seen her?" he was sayi=
ng.
"Only at a distance. She was driving =
Lady
Anstruthers across the marshes in a cart. She drove well and----" he
laughed as he flicked the ash from his cigar--"the back of her head and
shoulders looked handsome."
"The American young woman is at prese=
nt a
factor which is without doubt to be counted with," Lord Dunholm put the
matter without lightness. "Any young woman is a factor, but the Americ=
an
young woman just now--just now----" He paused a moment as though
considering. "It did not seem at all necessary to count with them at
first, when they began to appear among us. They were generally curiously
exotic, funny little creatures with odd manners and voices. They were often
most amusing, and one liked to hear them chatter and see the airy lightness
with which they took superfluous, and sometimes unsuperfluous, conventions,=
as
a hunter takes a five-barred gate. But it never occurred to us to marry the=
m.
We did not take them seriously enough. But we began to marry them--we began=
to marry
them, my good fellow!"
The final words broke forth with such a
suggestion of sudden anxiety that, in spite of himself, Westholt laughed
involuntarily, and his father, turning to look at him, laughed also. But he
recovered his seriousness.
"It was all rather a muddle at
first," he went on. "Things were not fairly done, and certain bad
lots looked on it as a paying scheme on the one side, while it was a matter=
of
silly, little ambitions on the other. But that it is an extraordinary count=
ry
there is no sane denying--huge, fabulously resourceful in every way--area,
variety of climate, wealth of minerals, products of all sorts, soil to grow
anything, and sun and rain enough to give each thing what it needs; last, or
rather first, a people who, considered as a nation, are in the riot of yout=
h,
and who began by being English--which we Englishmen have an innocent belief=
is
the one method of 'owning the earth.' That figure of speech is an Americani=
sm I
carefully committed to memory. Well, after all, look at the map--look at the
map! There we are."
They had frequently discussed together the
question of the development of international relations. Lord Dunholm, a man=
of
far-reaching and clear logic, had realised that the oddly unaccentuated gro=
wth
of intercourse between the two countries might be a subject to be reflected=
on
without lightness.
"The habit we have of regarding Ameri=
ca
and Americans as rather a joke," he had once said, "has a sort of
parallel in the condescendingly amiable amusement of a parent at the precoc=
ity
or whimsicalness of a child. But the child is shooting up amazingly--amazin=
gly.
In a way which suggests divers possibilities."
The exchange of visits between Dunholm and
Stornham had been rare and formal. From the call made upon the younger Lady
Anstruthers on her marriage, the Dunholms had returned with a sense of puzz=
led
pity for the little American bride, with her wonderful frock and her uneasy,
childish eyes. For some years Lady Anstruthers had been too delicate to mak=
e or
return calls. One heard painful accounts of her apparent wretched ill-health
and of the condition of her husband's estate.
"As the relations between the two
families have evidently been strained for years," Lord Dunholm said,
"it is interesting to hear of the sudden advent of the sister. It seem=
s to
point to reconciliation. And you say the girl is an unusual person.
"From what one hears, she would be
unusual if she were an English girl who had spent her life on an English
estate. That an American who is making her first visit to England should se=
em
to see at once the practical needs of a neglected place is a thing to wonder
at. What can she know about it, one thinks. But she apparently does know. T=
hey
say she has made no mistakes--even with the village people. She is managing=
, in
one way or another, to give work to every man who wants it. Result, of
course--unbounded rustic enthusiasm."
Lord Dunholm laughed between the soothing =
whiffs
of his cigar.
"How clever of her! And what sensible
good feeling! Yes--yes! She evidently has learned things somewhere. Perhaps=
New
York has found it wise to begin to give young women professional training in
the management of English estates. Who knows? Not a bad idea."
It was the rustic enthusiasm, Westholt
explained, which had in a manner spread her fame. One heard enlightening and
illustrative anecdotes of her. He related several well worth hearing. She h=
ad
evidently a sense of humour and unexpected perceptions.
"One detail of the story of old Doby's
meerschaum," Westholt said, "pleased me enormously. She managed to
convey to him--without hurting his aged feelings or overwhelming him with
embarrassment--that if he preferred a clean churchwarden or his old briarwo=
od,
he need not feel obliged to smoke the new pipe. He could regard it as a tro=
phy.
Now, how did she do that without filling him with fright and confusion, lest
she might think him not sufficiently grateful for her present? But they tel=
l me
she did it, and that old Doby is rapturously happy and takes the meerschaum=
to
bed with him, but only smokes it on Sundays--sitting at his window blowing
great clouds when his neighbours are coming from church. It was a clever gi=
rl
who knew that an old fellow might secretly like his old pipe best."
"It was a deliciously clever girl,&qu=
ot;
said Lord Dunholm. "One wants to know and make friends with her. We mu=
st
drive over and call. I confess, I rather congratulate myself that Anstruthe=
rs
is not at home."
"So do I," Westholt answered.
"One wonders a little how far he and his sister-in-law will 'foregathe=
r'
when he returns. He's an unpleasant beggar."
A few days later Mrs. Brent, returning fro=
m a
call on Mrs. Charley Jenkins, was passed by a carriage whose liveries she
recognised half way up the village street. It was the carriage from Dunholm
Castle. Lord and Lady Dunholm and Lord Westholt sat in it. They were, of
course, going to call at the Court. Miss Vanderpoel was beginning to draw
people. She naturally would. She would be likely to make quite a difference=
in
the neighbourhood now that it had heard of her and Lady Anstruthers had bee=
n seen
driving with her, evidently no longer an unvisitable invalid, but actually
decently clothed and in her right mind. Mrs. Brent slackened her steps that=
she
might have the pleasure of receiving and responding gracefully to salutatio=
ns
from the important personages in the landau. She felt that the Dunholms were
important. There were earldoms AND earldoms, and that of Dunholm was dignif=
ied
and of distinction.
A common-looking young man on a bicycle, w=
ho
had wheeled into the village with the carriage, riding alongside it for a
hundred yards or so, stopped before the Clock Inn and dismounted, just as M=
rs.
Brent neared him. He saw her looking after the equipage, and lifting his ca=
p spoke
to her civilly.
"This is Stornham village, ain't it,
ma'am?" he inquired.
"Yes, my man." His costume and
general aspect seemed to indicate that he was of the class one addressed as
"my man," though there was something a little odd about him.
"Thank you. That wasn't Miss Vanderpo=
el's
eldest sister in that carriage, was it?"
"Miss Vanderpoel's----" Mrs. Bre=
nt
hesitated. "Do you mean Lady Anstruthers?"
"I'd forgotten her name. I know Miss
Vanderpoel's eldest sister lives at Stornham--Reuben S. Vanderpoel's
daughter."
"Lady Anstruthers' younger sister is a
Miss Vanderpoel, and she is visiting at Stornham Court now." Mrs. Brent
could not help adding, curiously, "Why do you ask?"
"I am going to see her. I'm an
American."
Mrs. Brent coughed to cover a slight gasp.=
She
had heard remarkable things of the democratic customs of America. It was
painful not to be able to ask questions.
"The lady in the carriage was the
Countess of Dunholm," she said rather grandly. "They are going to=
the
Court to call on Miss Vanderpoel."
"Then Miss Vanderpoel's there yet. Th=
at's
all right. Thank you, ma'am," and lifting his cap again he turned into=
the
little public house.
The Dunholm party had been accustomed on t=
heir
rare visits to Stornham to be received by the kind of man-servant in the ki=
nd
of livery which is a manifest, though unwilling, confession. The men who th=
rew
open the doors were of regulation height, well dressed, and of trained bear=
ing.
The entrance hall had lost its hopeless shabbiness. It was a complete and
picturesquely luxurious thing. The change suggested magic. The magic which =
had
been used, Lord Dunholm reflected, was the simplest and most powerful on ea=
rth.
Given surroundings, combined with a gift for knowing values of form and col=
our,
if you have the power to spend thousands of guineas on tiger skins, Oriental
rugs, and other beauties, barrenness is easily transformed.
The drawing-room wore a changed aspect, an=
d at
a first glance it was to be seen that in poor little Lady Anstruthers, as s=
he
had generally been called, there was to be noted alteration also. In her ca=
se
the change, being in its first stages, could not perhaps be yet called tran=
sformation,
but, aided by softly pretty arrangement of dress and hair, a light in her e=
yes,
and a suggestion of pink under her skin, one recalled that she had once bee=
n a
pretty little woman, and that after all she was only about thirty-two years
old.
That her sister, Miss Vanderpoel, had beau=
ty,
it was not necessary to hesitate in deciding. Neither Lord Dunholm nor his =
wife
nor their son did hesitate. A girl with long limbs an alluring profile, and=
extraordinary
black lashes set round lovely Irish-blue eyes, possesses physical capital n=
ot
to be argued about.
She was not one of the curious, exotic lit=
tle
creatures, whose thin, though sometimes rather sweet, and always gay,
high-pitched young voices Lord Dunholm had been so especially struck by in =
the
early days of the American invasion. Her voice had a tone one would be like=
ly
to remember with pleasure. How well she moved--how well her black head was =
set
on her neck! Yes, she was of the new type--the later generation.
These amazing, oddly practical people had
evolved it--planned it, perhaps, bought--figuratively speaking--the archite=
cts
and material to design and build it--bought them in whatever country they f=
ound
them, England, France, Italy Germany--pocketing them coolly and carrying th=
em back
home to develop, complete, and send forth into the world when their inventi=
on
was a perfected thing. Struck by the humour of his fancy, Lord Dunholm found
himself smiling into the Irish-blue eyes. They smiled back at him in a way
which warmed his heart. There were no pauses in the conversation which
followed. In times past, calls at Stornham had generally held painfully bla=
nk
moments. Lady Dunholm was as pleased as her husband. A really charming girl=
was
an enormous acquisition to the neighbourhood.
Westholt, his father saw, had found even m=
ore
than the story of old Doby's pipe had prepared him to expect.
Country calls were not usually interesting=
or
stimulating, and this one was. Lord Dunholm laid subtly brilliant plans to =
lead
Miss Vanderpoel to talk of her native land and her views of it. He knew that
she would say things worth hearing. Incidentally one gathered picturesque
detail. To have vibrated between the two continents since her thirteenth ye=
ar,
to have spent a few years at school in one country, a few years in another,=
and
yet a few years more in still another, as part of an arranged educational p=
lan;
to have crossed the Atlantic for the holidays, and to have journeyed thousa=
nds
of miles with her father in his private car; to make the visits of a man of
great schemes to his possessions of mines, railroads, and lands which were
almost principalities--these things had been merely details of her life, ad=
ding
interest and variety, it was true, but seeming the merely normal outcome of
existence. They were normal to Vanderpoels and others of their class who we=
re
abnormalities in themselves when compared with the rest of the world.
Her own very lack of any abnormality reach=
ed,
in Lord Dunholm's mind, the highest point of illustration of the phase of l=
ife
she beautifully represented--for beautiful he felt its rare charms were.
When they strolled out to look at the gard= ens he found talk with her no less a stimulating thing. She told her story of Kedgers, and showed the chosen spot where thickets of lilies were to bloom, with the giants lifting white archangel trumpets above them in the centre.<= o:p>
"He can be trusted," she said.
"I feel sure he can be trusted. He loves them. He could not love them =
so
much and not be able to take care of them." And as she looked at him in
frank appeal for sympathy, Lord Dunholm felt that for the moment she looked
like a tall, queenly child.
But pleased as he was, he presently gave up
his place at her side to Westholt. He must not be a selfish old fellow and
monopolise her. He hoped they would see each other often, he said charmingl=
y.
He thought she would be sure to like Dunholm, which was really a thoroughly
English old place, marked by all the features she seemed so much attracted =
by. There
were some beautiful relics of the past there, and some rather shocking
ones--certain dungeons, for instance, and a gallows mount, on which in good=
old
times the family gallows had stood. This had apparently been a working adju=
nct
to the domestic arrangements of every respectable family, and that irritati=
ng
persons should dangle from it had been a simple domestic necessity, if one =
were
to believe old stories.
"It was then that nobles were regarded
with respect," he said, with his fine smile. "In the days when a =
man
appeared with clang of arms and with javelins and spears before, and donjon
keeps in the background, the attitude of bent knees and awful reverence were
the inevitable results. When one could hang a servant on one's own private
gallows, or chop off his hand for irreverence or disobedience--obedience and
reverence were a rule. Now, a month's notice is the extremity of punishment,
and the old pomp of armed servitors suggests comic opera. But we can show y=
ou
relics of it at Dunholm."
He joined his wife and began at once to ma=
ke
himself so delightful to Rosy that she ceased to be afraid of him, and ende=
d by
talking almost gaily of her London visit.
Betty and Westholt walked together. The
afternoon being lovely, they had all sauntered into the park to look at cer=
tain
views, and the sun was shining between the trees. Betty thought the young m=
an
almost as charming as his father, which was saying much. She had fallen who=
lly
in love with Lord Dunholm--with his handsome, elderly face, his voice, his =
erect
bearing, his fine smile, his attraction of manner, his courteous ease and w=
it.
He was one of the men who stood for the best of all they had been born to
represent. Her own father, she felt, stood for the best of all such an Amer=
ican
as himself should be. Lord Westholt would in time be what his father was. He
had inherited from him good looks, good feeling, and a sense of humour. Yes=
, he
had been given from the outset all that the other man had been denied. She =
was
thinking of Mount Dunstan as "the other man," and spoke of him.
"You know Lord Mount Dunstan?" s=
he
said.
Westholt hesitated slightly.
"Yes--and no," he answered, after
the hesitation. "No one knows him very well. You have not met him?&quo=
t;
with a touch of surprise in his tone.
"He was a passenger on the Meridiana =
when
I last crossed the Atlantic. There was a slight accident and we were thrown
together for a few moments. Afterwards I met him by chance again. I did not
know who he was."
Lord Westholt showed signs of hesitation a=
new.
In fact, he was rather disturbed. She evidently did not know anything whate=
ver
of the Mount Dunstans. She would not be likely to hear the details of the
scandal which had obliterated them, as it were, from the decent world.
The present man, though he had not openly =
been
mixed up with the hideous thing, had borne the brand because he had not pro=
ved
himself to possess any qualities likely to recommend him. It was generally
understood that he was a bad lot also. To such a man the allurements such a
young woman as Miss Vanderpoel would present would be extraordinary. It was=
unfortunate
that she should have been thrown in his way. At the same time it was not
possible to state the case clearly during one's first call on a beautiful
stranger.
"His going to America was rather
spirited," said the mellow voice beside him. "I thought only
Americans took their fates in their hands in that way. For a man of his cla=
ss
to face a rancher's life means determination. It means the spirit----"
with a low little laugh at the leap of her imagination--"of the men who
were Mount Dunstans in early days and went forth to fight for what they mea=
nt
to have. He went to fight. He ought to have won. He will win some day."=
;
"I do not know about fighting," =
Lord
Westholt answered. Had the fellow been telling her romantic stories? "=
The
general impression was that he went to America to amuse himself."
"No, he did not do that," said
Betty, with simple finality. "A sheep ranch is not amusing----" S=
he
stopped short and stood still for a moment. They had been walking down the
avenue, and she stopped because her eyes had been caught by a figure half
sitting, half lying in the middle of the road, a prostrate bicycle near it.=
It
was the figure of a cheaply dressed young man, who, as she looked, seemed to
make an ineffectual effort to rise.
"Is that man ill?" she exclaimed.
"I think he must be." They went towards him at once, and when they
reached him he lifted a dazed white face, down which a stream of blood was
trickling from a cut on his forehead. He was, in fact, very white indeed, a=
nd
did not seem to know what he was doing.
"I am afraid you are hurt," Betty
said, and as she spoke the rest of the party joined them. The young man
vacantly smiled, and making an unconscious-looking pass across his face with
his hand, smeared the blood over his features painfully. Betty kneeled down,
and drawing out her handkerchief, lightly wiped the gruesome smears away. L=
ord
Westholt saw what had happened, having given a look at the bicycle.
"His chain broke as he was coming down
the incline, and as he fell he got a nasty knock on this stone," touch=
ing
with his foot a rather large one, which had evidently fallen from some cart=
load
of building material.
The young man, still vacantly smiling, was
fumbling at his breast pocket. He began to talk incoherently in good, nasal=
New
York, at the mere sound of which Lady Anstruthers made a little yearning st=
ep forward.
"Superior any other," he muttere=
d.
"Tabulator spacer--marginal release key--call your
'tention--instantly--'justable--Delkoff--no equal on market." And havi=
ng
found what he had fumbled for, he handed a card to Miss Vanderpoel and sank=
unconscious
on her breast.
"Let me support him, Miss
Vanderpoel," said Westholt, starting forward.
"Never mind, thank you," said Be=
tty.
"If he has fainted I suppose he must be laid flat on the ground. Will =
you
please to read the card."
It was the card Mount Dunstan had read the=
day
before.
J. BURRIDGE & SON,
DELKOFF TYPEWRITER CO.
BROADWAY, NEW YORK. G. SELDEN.
"He is probably G. Selden," said Westholt. "Travelling in the interes= ts of his firm, poor chap. The clue is not of much immediate use, however."<= o:p>
They were fortunately not far from the hou=
se,
and Westholt went back quickly to summon servants and send for the village
doctor. The Dunholms were kindly sympathetic, and each of the party lent a
handkerchief to staunch the bleeding. Lord Dunholm helped Miss Vanderpoel to
lay the young man down carefully.
"I am afraid," he said; "I =
am
really afraid his leg is broken. It was twisted under him. What can be done
with him?"
Miss Vanderpoel looked at her sister.
"Will you allow him to be carried to =
the
house temporarily, Rosy?" she asked. "There is apparently nothing
else to be done."
"Yes, yes," said Lady Anstruther=
s.
"How could one send him away, poor fellow! Let him be carried to the
house."
Miss Vanderpoel smiled into Lord Dunholm's
much approving, elderly eyes.
"G. Selden is a compatriot," she
said. "Perhaps he heard I was here and came to sell me a typewriter.&q=
uot;
Lord Westholt returning with two footmen a=
nd a
light mattress, G. Selden was carried with cautious care to the house. The
afternoon sun, breaking through the branches of the ancestral oaks, kindly
touched his keen-featured, white young face. Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt
each lent a friendly hand, and Miss Vanderpoel, keeping near, once or twice=
wiped
away an insistent trickle of blood which showed itself from beneath the
handkerchiefs. Lady Dunholm followed with Lady Anstruthers.
Afterwards, during his convalescence, G.
Selden frequently felt with regret that by his unconsciousness of the digni=
ty
of his cortege at the moment he had missed feeling himself to be for once i=
n a
position he would have designated as "out of sight" in the novelt=
y of
its importance. To have beheld him, borne by nobles and liveried menials, a=
ccompanied
by ladies of title, up the avenue of an English park on his way to be cared=
for
in baronial halls, would, he knew, have added a joy to the final moments of=
his
grandmother, which the consolations of religion could scarcely have met equ=
ally
in competition. His own point of view, however, would not, it is true, have=
been
that of the old woman in the black net cap and purple ribbons, but of a less
reverent nature. His enjoyment, in fact, would have been based upon that
transatlantic sense of humour, whose soul is glee at the incompatible, which
would have been full fed by the incongruity of "Little Willie being ya=
nked
along by a bunch of earls, and Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughters following t=
he
funeral." That he himself should have been unconscious of the situation
seemed to him like "throwing away money."
The doctor arriving after he had been put =
to
bed found slight concussion of the brain and a broken leg. With Lady
Anstruthers' kind permission, it would certainly be best that he should rem=
ain
for the present where he was. So, in a bedroom whose windows looked out upo=
n spreading
lawns and broad-branched trees, he was as comfortably established as was po=
ssible.
G. Selden, through the capricious intervention of Fate, if he had not "=
;got
next" to Reuben S. Vanderpoel himself, had most undisputably "got
next" to his favourite daughter.
As the Dunholm carriage rolled down the av=
enue
there reigned for a few minutes a reflective silence. It was Lady Dunholm w=
ho
broke it. "That," she said in her softly decided voice, "tha=
t is
a nice girl."
Lord Dunholm's agreeable, humorous smile
flickered into evidence.
"That is it," he said. "Tha=
nk
you, Eleanor, for supplying me with a quite delightful early Victorian word=
. I
believe I wanted it. She is a beauty and she is clever. She is a number of
other things--but she is also a nice girl. If you will allow me to say so, I
have fallen in love with her."
"If you will allow me to say so,"
put in Westholt, "so have I--quite fatally."
"That," said his father, with
speculation in his eye, "is more serious."
CHAPTER XXVI - "WHAT IT MUST BE TO YO=
U--JUST
YOU!"
G. Selden, awakening to consciousness two =
days
later, lay and stared at the chintz covering of the top of his four-post bed
through a few minutes of vacant amazement. It was a four-post bed he was ly=
ing
on, wasn't it? And his leg was bandaged and felt unmovable. The last thing =
he
remembered was going down an incline in a tree-bordered avenue. There was
nothing more. He had been all right then. Was this a four-post bed or was it
not? Yes, it was. And was it part of the furnishings of a swell bedroom--the
kind of bedroom he had never been in before? Tip top, in fact? He stared and
tried to recall things--but could not, and in his bewilderment exclaimed al=
oud.
"Well," he said, "if this a=
in't
the limit! You may search ME!"
A respectable person in a white apron came=
to
him from the other side of the room. It was Buttle's wife, who had been has=
tily
called in.
"Sh--sh," she said soothingly.
"Don't you worry. Nobody ain't goin' to search you. Nobody ain't. Ther=
e!
Sh, sh, sh," rather as if he were a baby. Beginning to be conscious of=
a
curious sense of weakness, Selden lay and stared at her in a helplessness w=
hich
might have been considered pathetic. Perhaps he had got "bats in his
belfry," and there was no use in talking.
At that moment, however, the door opened a=
nd a
young lady entered. She was "a looker," G. Selden's weakness did =
not
interfere with his perceiving. "A looker, by gee!" She was dresse=
d,
as if for going out, in softly tinted, exquisite things, and a large, stran=
ge
hydrangea blue flower under the brim of her hat rested on soft and full bla=
ck
hair. The black hair gave him a clue. It was hair like that he had seen as
Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter rode by when he stood at the park gates at =
Mount
Dunstan. "Bats in his belfry," of course.
"How is he?" she said to the nur=
se.
"He's been seeming comfortable all da=
y,
miss," the woman answered, "but he's light-headed yet. He opened =
his
eyes quite sensible looking a bit ago, but he spoke queer. He said something
was the limit, and that we might search him."
Betty approached the bedside to look at hi=
m,
and meeting the disturbed inquiry in his uplifted eyes, laughed, because,
seeing that he was not delirious, she thought she understood. She had not l=
ived
in New York without hearing its argot, and she realised that the exclamation
which had appeared delirium to Mrs. Buttle had probably indicated that the =
unexplainableness
of the situation in which G. Selden found himself struck him as reaching the
limit of probability, and that the most extended search of his person would
fail to reveal any clue to satisfactory explanation.
She bent over him, with her laugh still
shining in her eyes.
"I hope you feel better. Can you tell
me?" she said.
His voice was not strong, but his answer w=
as
that of a young man who knew what he was saying.
"If I'm not off my head, ma'am, I'm q=
uite
comfortable, thank you," he replied.
"I am glad to hear that," said
Betty. "Don't be disturbed. Your mind is quite clear."
"All I want," said G. Selden
impartially, "is just to know where I'm at, and how I blew in here. It
would help me to rest better."
"You met with an accident," the
"looker" explained, still smiling with both lips and eyes. "=
Your
bicycle chain broke and you were thrown and hurt yourself. It happened in t=
he
avenue in the park. We found you and brought you in. You are at Stornham Co=
urt,
which belongs to Sir Nigel Anstruthers. Lady Anstruthers is my sister. I am
Miss Vanderpoel."
"Hully gee!" ejaculated G. Selden
inevitably. "Hully GEE!" The splendour of the moment was such that
his brain whirled. As it was not yet in the physical condition to whirl with
any comfort, he found himself closing his eyes weakly.
"That's right," Miss Vanderpoel
said. "Keep them closed. I must not talk to you until you are stronger.
Lie still and try not to think. The doctor says you are getting on very wel=
l. I
will come and see you again."
As the soft sweep of her dress reached the
door he managed to open his eyes.
"Thank you, Miss Vanderpoel," he
said. "Thank you, ma'am." And as his eyelids closed again he murm=
ured
in luxurious peace: "Well, if that's her--she can have ME--and
welcome!"
*****
She came to see him again each day--someti=
mes
in a linen frock and garden hat, sometimes in her soft tints and lace and
flowers before or after her drive in the afternoon, and two or three times =
in
the evening, with lovely shoulders and wonderfully trailing draperies--look=
ing
like the women he had caught far-off glimpses of on the rare occasion of hi=
s having
indulged himself in the highest and most remotely placed seat in the galler=
y at
the opera, which inconvenience he had borne not through any ardent desire to
hear the music, but because he wanted to see the show and get "a
look-in" at the Four Hundred. He believed very implicitly in his Four =
Hundred,
and privately--though perhaps almost unconsciously--cherished the distincti=
on
his share of them conferred upon him, as fondly as the English young man of=
his
rudimentary type cherishes his dukes and duchesses. The English young man m=
ay
revel in his coroneted beauties in photograph shops, the young American dwe=
lls fondly
on flattering, or very unflattering, reproductions of his multi-millionaire=
s'
wives and daughters in the voluminous illustrated sheets of his Sunday pape=
r,
without which life would be a wretched and savourless thing.
Selden had never seen Miss Vanderpoel in h=
is
Sunday paper, and here he was lying in a room in the same house with her. A=
nd
she coming in to see him and talk to him as if he was one of the Four Hundr=
ed
himself! The comfort and luxury with which he found himself surrounded sank
into insignificance when compared with such unearthly luck as this. Lady An=
struthers
came in to see him also, and she several times brought with her a queer lit=
tle
lame fellow, who was spoken of as "Master Ughtred." "Master&=
quot;
was supposed by G. Selden to be a sort of title conferred upon the small so=
ns
of baronets and the like. The children he knew in New York and elsewhere
answered to the names of Bob, or Jimmy, or Bill. No parallel to
"Master" had been in vogue among them.
Lady Anstruthers was not like her sister. =
She
was a little thing, and both she and Master Ughtred seemed fond of talking =
of
New York. She had not been home for years, and the youngster had never seen=
it
at all. He had some queer ideas about America, and seemed never to have see=
n anything
but Stornham and the village. G. Selden liked him, and was vaguely sorry fo=
r a
little chap to whom a description of the festivities attendant upon the Fou=
rth
of July and a Presidential election seemed like stories from the Arabian
Nights.
"Tell me about the Tammany Tiger, if =
you
please," he said once. "I want to know what kind of an animal it
is."
From a point of view somewhat different fr=
om
that of Mount Dunstan and Mr. Penzance, Betty Vanderpoel found talk with him
interesting. To her he did not wear the aspect of a foreign product. She had
not met and conversed with young men like him, but she knew of them. String=
ent precautions
were taken to protect her father from their ingenuous enterprises. They were
not permitted to enter his offices; they were even discouraged from hovering
about their neighbourhood when seen and suspected. The atmosphere, it was
understood, was to be, if possible, disinfected of agents. This one, lying
softly in the four-post bed, cheerfully grateful for the kindness shown him,
and plainly filled with delight in his adventure, despite the physical
discomforts attending it, gave her, as he began to recover, new views of the
life he lived in common with his kind. It was like reading scenes from a
realistic novel of New York life to listen to his frank, slangy conversatio=
n.
To her, as well as to Mr. Penzance, sidelights were thrown upon existence in
the "hall bedroom" and upon previously unknown phases of business
life in Broadway and roaring "downtown" streets.
His determination, his sharp readiness, his
control of temper under rebuff and superfluous harshness, his odd, imperson=
al
summing up of men and things, and good-natured patience with the world in
general, were, she knew, business assets. She was even moved--no less--by t=
he
remote connection of such a life with that of the first Reuben Vanderpoel w=
ho had
laid the huge, solid foundations of their modern fortune. The first Reuben
Vanderpoel must have seen and known the faces of men as G. Selden saw and k=
new
them. Fighting his way step by step, knocking pertinaciously at every gatew=
ay
which might give ingress to some passage leading to even the smallest gain,
meeting with rebuff and indifference only to be overcome by steady and
continued assault--if G. Selden was a nuisance, the first Vanderpoel had
without doubt worn that aspect upon innumerable occasions. No one desires t=
he
presence of the man who while having nothing to give must persist in keeping
himself in evidence, even if by strategy or force. From stories she was
familiar with, she had gathered that the first Reuben Vanderpoel had certai=
nly
lacked a certain youth of soul she felt in this modern struggler for life. =
He
had been the cleverer man of the two; G. Selden she secretly liked the bett=
er.
The curiosity of Mrs. Buttle, who was the
nurse, had been awakened by a singular feature of her patient's feverish
wanderings.
"He keeps muttering, miss, things I c=
an't
make out about Lord Mount Dunstan, and Mr. Penzance, and some child he calls
Little Willie. He talks to them the same as if he knew them--same as if he =
was
with them and they were talking to him quite friendly."
One morning Betty, coming to make her visi=
t of
inquiry found the patient looking thoughtful, and when she commented upon h=
is
air of pondering, his reply cast light upon the mystery.
"Well, Miss Vanderpoel," he
explained, "I was lying here thinking of Lord Mount Dunstan and Mr.
Penzance, and how well they treated me--I haven't told you about that, have=
I?
"That explains what Mrs. Buttle
said," she answered. "When you were delirious you talked frequent=
ly
to Lord Mount Dunstan and Mr. Penzance. We both wondered why."
Then he told her the whole story. Beginning
with his sitting on the grassy bank outside the park, listening to the song=
of
the robin, he ended with the adieux at the entrance gates when the sound of=
her
horse's trotting hoofs had been heard by each of them.
"What I've been lying here thinking
of," he said, "is how queer it was it happened just that way. If I
hadn't stopped just that minute, and if you hadn't gone by, and if Lord Mou=
nt
Dunstan hadn't known you and said who you were, Little Willie would have be=
en
in London by this time, hustling to get a cheap bunk back to New York in.&q=
uot;
"Because?" inquired Miss Vanderp=
oel.
G. Selden laughed and hesitated a moment. =
Then
he made a clean breast of it.
"Say, Miss Vanderpoel," he said,
"I hope it won't make you mad if I own up. Ladies like you don't know
anything about chaps like me. On the square and straight out, when I seen y=
ou
and heard your name I couldn't help remembering whose daughter you was. Reu=
ben
S. Vanderpoel spells a big thing. Why, when I was in New York we fellows us=
ed
to get together and talk about what it'd mean to the chap who could get nex=
t to
Reuben S. Vanderpoel. We used to count up all the business he does, and all=
the
clerks he's got under him pounding away on typewriters, and how they'd be b=
ound
to get worn out and need new ones. And we'd make calculations how many a man
could unload, if he could get next. It was a kind of typewriting junior
assistant fairy story, and we knew it couldn't happen really. But we used to
chin about it just for the fun of the thing. One of the boys made up a thing
about one of us saving Reuben S.'s life--dragging him from under a runaway =
auto
and, when he says, 'What can I do to show my gratitude, young man?' him han=
ding
out his catalogue and saying, 'I should like to call your attention to the
Delkoff, sir,' and getting him to promise he'd never use any other, as long=
as
he lived!"
Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter laughed as
spontaneously as any girl might have done. G. Selden laughed with her. At a=
ny
rate, she hadn't got mad, so far.
"That was what did it," he went =
on.
"When I rode away on my bike I got thinking about it and could not get=
it
out of my head. The next day I just stopped on the road and got off my whee=
l,
and I says to myself: 'Look here, business is business, if you ARE travelli=
ng
in Europe and lunching at Buckingham Palace with the main squeeze. Get busy!
What'll the boys say if they hear you've missed a chance like this? YOU hit=
the
pike for Stornham Castle, or whatever it's called, and take your nerve with
you! She can't do more than have you fired out, and you've been fired befor=
e and
got your breath after it. So I turned round and made time. And that was how=
I
happened on your avenue. And perhaps it was because I was feeling a bit rat=
tled
I lost my hold when the chain broke, and pitched over on my head. There, I'=
ve
got it off my chest. I was thinking I should have to explain somehow."=
Something akin to her feeling of affection=
for
the nice, long-legged Westerner she had seen rambling in Bond Street touched
Betty again. The Delkoff was the centre of G. Selden's world as the flowers=
were
of Kedgers', as the "little 'ome" was of Mrs. Welden's.
"Were you going to try to sell ME a
typewriter?" she asked.
"Well," G. Selden admitted, &quo=
t;I
didn't know but what there might be use for one, writing business letters o=
n a
big place like this. Straight, I won't say I wasn't going to try pretty har=
d.
It may look like gall, but you see a fellow has to rush things or he'll nev=
er
get there. A chap like me HAS to get there, somehow."
She was silent a few moments and looked as=
if
she was thinking something over. Her silence and this look on her face actu=
ally
caused to dawn in the breast of Selden a gleam of daring hope. He looked ro=
und
at her with a faint rising of colour.
"Say, Miss Vanderpoel--say----" =
he
began, and then broke off.
"Yes?" said Betty, still thinkin=
g.
"C-COULD you use one--anywhere?"=
he
said. "I don't want to rush things too much, but--COULD you?"
"Is it easy to learn to use it?"=
"Easy!" his head lifted from his
pillow. "It's as easy as falling off a log. A baby in a perambulator c=
ould
learn to tick off orders for its bottle. And--on the square--there isn't its
equal on the market, Miss Vanderpoel--there isn't." He fumbled beneath=
his
pillow and actually brought forth his catalogue.
"I asked the nurse to put it there. I
wanted to study it now and then and think up arguments. See--adjustable to =
hold
with perfect ease an envelope, an index card, or a strip of paper no wider =
than
a postage stamp. Unsurpassed paper feed, practical ribbon mechanism--perfect
and permanent alignment."
As Mount Dunstan had taken the book, Betty
Vanderpoel took it. Never had G. Selden beheld such smiling in eyes about to
bend upon his catalogue.
"You will raise your temperature,&quo=
t;
she said, "if you excite yourself. You mustn't do that. I believe there
are two or three people on the estate who might be taught to use a typewrit=
er.
I will buy three. Yes--we will say three."
She would buy three. He soared to heights.=
He
did not know how to thank her, though he did his best. Dizzying visions of =
what
he would have to tell "the boys" when he returned to New York fla=
shed
across his mind. The daughter of Reuben S. Vanderpoel had bought three
Delkoffs, and he was the junior assistant who had sold them to her.
"You don't know what it means to me, =
Miss
Vanderpoel," he said, "but if you were a junior salesman you'd kn=
ow.
It's not only the sale--though that's a rake-off of fifteen dollars to me--=
but
it's because it's YOU that's bought them. Gee!" gazing at her with a f=
rank
awe whose obvious sincerity held a queer touch of pathos. "What it mus=
t be
to be YOU--just YOU!"
She did not laugh. She felt as if a hand h=
ad
lightly touched her on her naked heart. She had thought of it so often--had
been bewildered restlessly by it as a mere child--this difference in human
lot--this chance. Was it chance which had placed her entity in the centre o=
f Bettina
Vanderpoel's world instead of in that of some little cash girl with hair ra=
ked
back from a sallow face, who stared at her as she passed in a shop--or in t=
hat
of the young Frenchwoman whose life was spent in serving her, in caring for
delicate dresses and keeping guard over ornaments whose price would have gi=
ven
to her own humbleness ease for the rest of existence? What did it mean? And
what Law was laid upon her? What Law which could only work through her and =
such
as she who had been born with almost unearthly power laid in their hands--t=
he
reins of monstrous wealth, which guided or drove the world? Sometimes fear =
touched
her, as with this light touch an her heart, because she did not KNOW the Law
and could only pray that her guessing at it might be right. And, even as she
thought these things, G. Selden went on.
"You never can know," he said,
"because you've always been in it. And the rest of the world can't kno=
w,
because they've never been anywhere near it." He stopped and evidently
fell to thinking.
"Tell me about the rest of the
world," said Betty quietly.
He laughed again.
"Why, I was just thinking to myself y=
ou
didn't know a thing about it. And it's queer. It's the rest of us that moun=
ts
up when you come to numbers. I guess it'd run into millions. I'm not thinki=
ng
of beggars and starving people, I've been rushing the Delkoff too steady to=
get
onto any swell charity organisation, so I don't know about them. I'm just t=
hinking
of the millions of fellows, and women, too, for the matter of that, that wa=
ken
up every morning and know they've got to hustle for their ten per or their
fifteen per--if they can stir it up as thick as that. If it's as much as fi=
fty
per, of course, seems like to me, they're on Easy Street. But sometimes tho=
se
that's got to fifty per--or even more--have got more things to do with
it--kids, you know, and more rent and clothes. They've got to get at it jus=
t as
hard as we have. Why, Miss Vanderpoel, how many people do you suppose there=
are
in a million that don't have to worry over their next month's grocery bills,
and the rent of their flat? I bet there's not ten--and I don't know the
ten."
He did not state his case uncheerfully.
"The rest of the world" represented to him the normal condition of
things.
"Most married men's a bit afraid to l=
ook
an honest grocery bill in the face. And they WILL come in--as regular as sp=
ring
hats. And I tell YOU, when a man's got to live on seventy-five a month, a t=
hing
that'll take all the strength and energy out of a twenty-dollar bill sorter
gets him down on the mat."
Like old Mrs. Welden's, his roughly sketch=
ed
picture was a graphic one.
"'Tain't the working that bothers mos=
t of
us. We were born to that, and most of us would feel like deadbeats if we we=
re
doing nothing. It's the earning less than you can live on, and getting a so=
rt
of tired feeling over it. It's the having to make a dollar-bill look like t=
wo,
and watching every other fellow try to do the same thing, and not often mak=
e the
trip. There's millions of us--just millions--every one of us with his Delko=
ff
to sell----" his figure of speech pleased him and he chuckled at his o=
wn
cleverness--"and thinking of it, and talking about it, and--under his
vest--half afraid that he can't make it. And what you say in the morning wh=
en
you open your eyes and stretch yourself is, 'Hully gee! I've GOT to sell a
Delkoff to-day, and suppose I shouldn't, and couldn't hold down my job!' I
began it over my feeding bottle. So did all the people I know. That's what =
gave
me a sort of a jolt just now when I looked at you and thought about you bei=
ng
YOU--and what it meant."
When their conversation ended she had a mu=
ch
more intimate knowledge of New York than she had ever had before, and she f=
elt
it a rich possession. She had heard of the "hall bedroom" previou=
sly,
and she had seen from the outside the "quick lunch" counter, but =
G.
Selden unconsciously escorted her inside and threw upon faces and lives the=
glare
of a flashlight.
"There was a thing I've been thinking=
I'd
ask you, Miss Vanderpoel," he said just before she left him. "I'd
like you to tell me, if you please. It's like this. You see those two fello=
ws
treated me as fine as silk. I mean Lord Mount Dunstan and Mr. Penzance. I n=
ever
expected it. I never saw a lord before, much less spoke to one, but I can t=
ell
you that one's just about all right--Mount Dunstan. And the other one--the =
old vicar--I've
never taken to anyone since I was born like I took to him. The way he puts =
on
his eye-glasses and looks at you, sorter kind and curious about you at the =
same
time! And his voice and his way of saying his words--well, they just GOT
me--sure. And they both of 'em did say they'd like to see me again. Now do =
you
think, Miss Vanderpoel, it would look too fresh--if I was to write a polite
note and ask if either of them could make it convenient to come and take a =
look
at me, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I don't WANT to be too fresh--and
perhaps they wouldn't come anyhow--and if it is, please won't you tell me, =
Miss
Vanderpoel?"
Betty thought of Mount Dunstan as he had s=
tood
and talked to her in the deepening afternoon sun. She did not know much of =
him,
but she thought--having heard G. Selden's story of the lunch--that he would=
come.
She had never seen Mr. Penzance, but she knew she should like to see him.
"I think you might write the note,&qu=
ot;
she said. "I believe they would come to see you."
"Do you?" with eager pleasure.
"Then I'll do it. I'd give a good deal to see them again. I tell you, =
they
are just It--both of them."
Mount Dunstan, walking through the park ne=
xt
morning on his way to the vicarage, just after post time, met Mr. Penzance
himself coming to make an equally early call at the Mount. Each of them had=
a
letter in his hand, and each met the other's glance with a smile.
"G. Selden," Mount Dunstan said.
"And yours?"
"G. Selden also," answered the
vicar. "Poor young fellow, what ill-luck. And yet--is it ill-luck? He =
says
not."
"He tells me it is not," said Mo=
unt
Dunstan. "And I agree with him."
Mr. Penzance read his letter aloud.
"DEAR
SIR:
"This is to notify you that owing to =
my
bike going back on me when going down hill, I met with an accident in Storn=
ham
Park. Was cut about the head and leg broken. Little Willie being far from h=
ome
and mother, you can see what sort of fix he'd been in if it hadn't been for=
the
kindness of Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughters--Miss Bettina and her sister L=
ady Anstruthers.
The way they've had me taken care of has been great. I've been under a nurse
and doctor same as if I was Albert Edward with appendycytus (I apologise if
that's not spelt right). Dear Sir, this is to say that I asked Miss Vanderp=
oel
if I should be butting in too much if I dropped a line to ask if you could
spare the time to call and see me. It would be considered a favour and
appreciated by
"G. SELDEN,
"Delkoff Typewriter Co. Broadway.
"P. S. Have already sold three Delkof=
fs
to Miss Vanderpoel."
"Upon
my word," Mr. Penzance commented, and his amiable fervour quite glowed,
"I like that queer young fellow--I like him. He does not wish to 'butt=
in
too much.' Now, there is rudimentary delicacy in that. And what a humorous,
forceful figure of speech! Some butting animal--a goat, I seem to see,
preferably--forcing its way into a group or closed circle of persons."=
His gleeful analysis of the phrase had such
evident charm for him that Mount Dunstan broke into a shout of laughter, ev=
en
as G. Selden had done at the adroit mention of Weber & Fields.
"Shall we ride over together to see h=
im
this morning? An hour with G. Selden, surrounded by the atmosphere of Reube=
n S.
Vanderpoel, would be a cheering thing," he said.
"It would," Mr. Penzance answere=
d.
"Let us go by all means. We should not, I suppose," with keen
delight, "be 'butting in' upon Lady Anstruthers too early?" He was
quite enraptured with his own aptness. "Like G. Selden, I should not l=
ike
to 'butt in,'" he added.
The scent and warmth and glow of a glorious
morning filled the hour. Combining themselves with a certain normal human
gaiety which surrounded the mere thought of G. Selden, they were good things
for Mount Dunstan. Life was strong and young in him, and he had laughed a b=
ig
young laugh, which had, perhaps tended to the waking in him of the feeling =
he
was suddenly conscious of--that a six-mile ride over a white, tree-dappled,=
sunlit
road would be pleasant enough, and, after all, if at the end of the gallop =
one
came again upon that other in whom life was strong and young, and bloomed on
rose-cheek and was the far fire in the blue deeps of lovely eyes, and the s=
lim
straightness of the fair body, why would it not be, in a way, all to the go=
od?
He had thought of her on more than one day, and felt that he wanted to see =
her
again.
"Let us go," he answered Penzanc=
e.
"One can call on an invalid at any time. Lady Anstruthers will forgive
us."
In less than an hour's time they were on t=
heir
way. They laughed and talked as they rode, their horses' hoofs striking out=
a
cheerful ringing accompaniment to their voices. There is nothing more
exhilarating than the hollow, regular ring and click-clack of good hoofs go=
ing
well over a fine old Roman road in the morning sunlight. They talked of the
junior assistant salesman and of Miss Vanderpoel. Penzance was much pleased=
by the
prospect of seeing "this delightful and unusual girl." He had hea=
rd stories
of her, as had Lord Westholt. He knew of old Doby's pipe, and of Mrs. Welde=
n's
respite from the Union, and though such incidents would seem mere trifles to
the dweller in great towns, he had himself lived and done his work long eno=
ugh
in villages to know the village mind and the scale of proportions by which =
its
gladness and sadness were measured. He knew more of all this than Mount Dun=
stan
could, since Mount Dunstan's existence had isolated itself, from rather glo=
omy
choice. But as he rode, Mount Dunstan knew that he liked to hear these thin=
gs. There
was the suggestion of new life and new thought in them, and such suggestion=
was
good for any man--or woman, either--who had fallen into living in a dull,
narrow groove.
"It is the new life in her which stri=
kes
me," he said. "She has brought wealth with her, and wealth is pow=
er
to do the good or evil that grows in a man's soul; but she has brought
something more. She might have come here and brought all the sumptuousness =
of a
fashionable young beauty, who drove through the village and drew people to
their windows, and made clodhoppers scratch their heads and pull their
forelocks, and children bob curtsies and stare. She might have come and gone
and left a mind-dazzling memory and nothing else. A few sovereigns tossed h=
ere and
there would have earned her a reputation--but, by gee! to quote Selden--she=
has
begun LIVING with them, as if her ancestors had done it for six hundred yea=
rs.
And what I see is that if she had come without a penny in her pocket she wo=
uld
have done the same thing." He paused a pondering moment, and then drew=
a
sharp breath which was an exclamation in itself. "She's Life!" he
said. "She's Life itself! Good God! what a thing it is for a man or wo=
man
to be Life--instead of a mass of tissue and muscle and nerve, dragged about=
by
the mere mechanism of living!"
Penzance had listened seriously.
"What you say is very suggestive,&quo=
t;
he commented. "It strikes me as true, too. You have seen something of =
her
also, at least more than I have."
"I did not think these things when I =
saw
her--though I suppose I felt them unconsciously. I have reached this way of
summing her up by processes of exclusion and inclusion. One hears of her, as
you know yourself, and one thinks her over."
"You have thought her over?"
"A lot," rather grumpily. "A
beautiful female creature inevitably gives an unbeautiful male creature
something to think of--if he is not otherwise actively employed. I am not. =
She
has become a sort of dawning relief to my hopeless humours. Being a low and
unworthy beast, I am sometimes resentful enough of the unfairness of things.
She has too much."
When they rode through Stornham village th=
ey
saw signs of work already done and work still in hand. There were no broken
windows or palings or hanging wicket gates; cottage gardens had been put in
order, and there were evidences of such cheering touches as new bits of win=
dow
curtain and strong-looking young plants blooming between them. So many smal=
l, but
necessary, things had been done that the whole village wore the aspect of a
place which had taken heart, and was facing existence in a hopeful spirit. A
year ago Mount Dunstan and his vicar riding through it had been struck by i=
ts
neglected and dispirited look.
As they entered the hall of the Court Miss
Vanderpoel was descending the staircase. She was laughing a little to herse=
lf,
and she looked pleased when she saw them.
"It is good of you to come," she
said, as they crossed the hall to the drawing-room. "But I told him I
really thought you would. I have just been talking to him, and he was a lit=
tle
uncertain as to whether he had assumed too much."
"As to whether he had 'butted in,'&qu=
ot;
said Mr. Penzance. "I think he must have said that."
"He did. He also was afraid that he m=
ight
have been 'too fresh.'" answered Betty.
"On our part," said Mr. Penzance,
with gentle glee, "we hesitated a moment in fear lest we also might ap=
pear
to be 'butting in.'"
Then they all laughed together. They were =
laughing
when Lady Anstruthers entered, and she herself joined them. But to Mount
Dunstan, who felt her to be somehow a touching little person, there was
manifest a tenderness in her feeling for G. Selden. For that matter, howeve=
r,
there was something already beginning to be rather affectionate in the atti=
tude
of each of them. They went upstairs to find him lying in state upon a big s=
ofa
placed near a window, and his joy at the sight of them was a genuine, human
thing. In fact, he had pondered a good deal in secret on the possibility of
these swell people thinking he had "more than his share of gall" =
to
expect them to remember him after he passed on his junior assistant salesma=
n's
way. Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughters were of the highest of his Four Hundr=
ed,
but they were Americans, and Americans were not as a rule so "stuck on
themselves" as the English. And here these two swells came as friendly=
as
you please. And that nice old chap that was a vicar, smiling and giving him
"the glad hand"!
Betty and Mount Dunstan left Mr. Penzance
talking to the convalescent after a short time. Mount Dunstan had asked to =
be
shown the gardens. He wanted to see the wonderful things he had heard had b=
een
already done to them.
They went down the stairs together and pas=
sed
through the drawing-room into the pleasure grounds. The once neglected lawns
had already been mown and rolled, clipped and trimmed, until they spread be=
fore
the eye huge measures of green velvet; even the beds girdling and adorning =
them
were brilliant with flowers.
"Kedgers!" said Betty, waving her
hand. "In my ignorance I thought we must wait for blossoms until next
year; but it appears that wonders can be brought all ready to bloom for one
from nursery gardens, and can be made to grow with care--and daring--and
passionate affection. I have seen Kedgers turn pale with anguish as he hung
over a bed of transplanted things which seemed to droop too long. They droop
just at first, you know, and then they slowly lift their heads, slowly, as =
if to
listen to a Voice calling--calling. Once I sat for quite a long time before=
a
rose, watching it. When I saw it BEGIN to listen, I felt a little trembling
pass over my body. I seemed to be so strangely near to such a strange thing=
. It
was Life--Life coming back--in answer to what we cannot hear."
She had begun lightly, and then her voice =
had
changed. It was very quiet at the end of her speaking. Mount Dunstan simply
repeated her last words.
"To what we cannot hear."
"One feels it so much in a garden,&qu=
ot;
she said. "I have never lived in a garden of my own. This is not mine,=
but
I have been living in it--with Kedgers. One is so close to Life in it--the
stirring in the brown earth, the piercing through of green spears, that
breaking of buds and pouring forth of scent! Why shouldn't one tremble, if =
one
thinks? I have stood in a potting shed and watched Kedgers fill a shallow b=
ox
with damp rich mould and scatter over it a thin layer of infinitesimal seed=
s;
then he moistens them and carries them reverently to his altars in a greenh=
ouse.
The ledges in Kedgers' green-houses are altars. I think he offers prayers
before them. Why not? I should. And when one comes to see them, the moist s=
eeds
are swelled to fulness, and when one comes again they are bursting. And the
next time, tiny green things are curling outward. And, at last, there is a
fairy forest of tiniest pale green stems and leaves. And one is standing cl=
ose
to the Secret of the World! And why should not one prostrate one's self,
breathing softly--and touching one's awed forehead to the earth?"
Mount Dunstan turned and looked at her--a
pause in his step--they were walking down a turfed path, and over their hea=
ds
meeting branches of new leaves hung. Something in his movement made her turn
and pause also. They both paused--and quite unknowingly.
"Do you know," he said, in a low=
and
rather unusual voice, "that as we were on our way here, I said of you =
to
Penzance, that you were Life--YOU!"
For a few seconds, as they stood so, his l=
ook
held her--their eyes involuntarily and strangely held each other. Something
softly glowing in the sunlight falling on them both, something raining down=
in
the song of a rising skylark trilling in the blue a field away, something in
the warmed incense of blossoms near them, was calling--calling in the Voice=
, though
they did not know they heard. Strangely, a splendid blush rose in a fair fl=
ood
under her skin. She was conscious of it, and felt a second's amazed impatie=
nce
that she should colour like a schoolgirl suspecting a compliment. He did not
look at her as a man looks who has made a pretty speech. His eyes met hers
straight and thoughtfully, and he repeated his last words as he had before
repeated hers.
"That YOU were Life--you!"
The bluebells under water were for the mom=
ent
incredibly lovely. Her feeling about the blush melted away as the blush its=
elf
had done.
"I am glad you said that!" she
answered. "It was a beautiful thing to say. I have often thought that I
should like it to be true."
"It is true," he said.
Then the skylark, showering golden rain, s=
wept
down to earth and its nest in the meadow, and they walked on.
She learned from him, as they walked toget=
her,
and he also learned from her, in a manner which built for them as they went
from point to point, a certain degree of delicate intimacy, gradually, duri=
ng
their ramble, tending to make discussion and question possible. Her intelli=
gent
and broad interest in the work on the estate, her frank desire to acquire s=
uch
practical information as she lacked, aroused in himself an interest he had =
previously
seen no reason that he should feel. He realised that his outlook upon the
unusual situation was being illuminated by an intelligence at once brilliant
and fine, while it was also full of nice shading. The situation, of course,=
WAS
unusual. A beautiful young sister-in-law appearing upon the dark horizon of=
a
shamefully ill-used estate, and restoring, with touches of a wand of gold, =
what
a fellow who was a blackguard should have set in order years ago. That Lady=
Anstruthers'
money should have rescued her boy's inheritance instead of being spent upon
lavish viciousness went without saying. What Mount Dunstan was most struck =
by
was the perfect clearness, and its combination with a certain judicial good
breeding, in Miss Vanderpoel's view of the matter. She made no confidences,
beautifully candid as her manner was, but he saw that she clearly understood
the thing she was doing, and that if her sister had had no son she would not
have done this, but something totally different. He had an idea that Lady A=
nstruthers
would have been swiftly and lightly swept back to New York, and Sir Nigel l=
eft
to his own devices, in which case Stornham Court and its village would
gradually have crumbled to decay. It was for Sir Ughtred Anstruthers the pl=
ace
was being restored. She was quite clear on the matter of entail. He wondere=
d at
first--not unnaturally--how a girl had learned certain things she had an
obviously clear knowledge of. As they continued to converse he learned. Reu=
ben
S. Vanderpoel was without doubt a man remarkable not only in the matter of
being the owner of vast wealth. The rising flood of his millions had borne =
him
upon its strange surface a thinking, not an unthinking being--in fact, a st=
rong
and fine intelligence. His thousands of miles of yearly journeying in his s=
umptuous
private car had been the means of his accumulating not merely added gains, =
but
ideas, points of view, emotions, a human outlook worth counting as an asset.
His daughter, when she had travelled with him, had seen and talked with him=
of
all he himself had seen. When she had not been his companion she had heard =
from
him afterwards all best worth hearing. She had become--without any special
process--familiar with the technicalities of huge business schemes, with law
and commerce and political situations. Even her childish interest in the wo=
rld of
enterprise and labour had been passionate. So she had acquired--inevitably,
while almost unconsciously--a remarkable education.
"If he had not been HIMSELF he might
easily have grown tired of a little girl constantly wanting to hear
things--constantly asking questions," she said. "But he did not g=
et
tired. We invented a special knock on the door of his private room. It said,
'May I come in, father?' If he was busy he answered with one knock on his d=
esk,
and I went away. If he had time to talk he called out, 'Come, Betty,' and I
went to him. I used to sit upon the floor and lean against his knee. He had=
a
beautiful way of stroking my hair or my hand as he talked. He trusted me. He
told me of great things even before he had talked of them to men. He knew I
would never speak of what was said between us in his room. That was part of=
his
trust. He said once that it was a part of the evolution of race, that men h=
ad
begun to expect of women what in past ages they really only expected of each
other."
Mount Dunstan hesitated before speaking.
"You mean--absolute faith--apart from
affection?"
"Yes. The power to be quite silent, e=
ven
when one is tempted to speak--if to speak might betray what it is wiser to =
keep
to one's self because it is another man's affair. The kind of thing which is
good faith among business men. It applies to small things as much as to lar=
ge,
and to other things than business."
Mount Dunstan, recalling his own childhood=
and
his own father, felt again the pressure of the remote mental suggestion that
she had had too much, a childhood and girlhood like this, the affection and=
companionship
of a man of large and ordered intelligence, of clear and judicial outlook u=
pon
an immense area of life and experience. There was no cause for wonder that =
her
young womanhood was all it presented to himself, as well as to others.
Recognising the shadow of resentment in his thought, he swept it away, an
inward sense making it clear to him that if their positions had been revers=
ed,
she would have been more generous than himself.
He pulled himself together with an unconsc=
ious
movement of his shoulders. Here was the day of early June, the gold of the =
sun
in its morning, the green shadows, the turf they walked on together, the sk=
ylark
rising again from the meadow and showering down its song. Why think of anyt=
hing
else. What a line that was which swept from her chin down her long slim thr=
oat
to its hollow! The colour between the velvet of her close-set lashes--the r=
emembrance
of her curious splendid blush--made the man's lost and unlived youth come b=
ack
to him. What did it matter whether she was American or English--what did it
matter whether she was insolently rich or beggarly poor? He would let himse=
lf go
and forget all but the pleasure of the sight and hearing of her.
So as they went they found themselves laug=
hing
together and talking without restraint. They went through the flower and
kitchen gardens; they saw the once fallen wall rebuilt now with the old bri=
ck;
they visited the greenhouses and came upon Kedgers entranced with business,=
but
enraptured at being called upon to show his treasures. His eyes, turning
magnetised upon Betty, revealed the story of his soul. Mount Dunstan remark=
ed
that when he spoke to her of his flowers it was as if there existed between
them the sympathy which might be engendered between two who had sat up toge=
ther
night after night with delicate children.
"He's stronger to-day, miss," he
said, as they paused before a new wonderful bloom. "What he's getting =
now
is good for him. I had to change his food, miss, but this seems all right. =
His
colour's better."
Betty herself bent over the flower as she
might have bent over a child. Her eyes softened, she touched a leaf with a =
slim
finger, as delicately as if it had been a new-born baby's cheek. As Mount
Dunstan watched her he drew a step nearer to her side. For the first time in
his life he felt the glow of a normal and simple pleasure untouched by any =
bitterness.
CHAPTER XXVIII - SETTING THEM THINKING
Old Doby, sitting at his open window, with=
his
pipe and illustrated papers on the table by his side, began to find life a
series of thrills. The advantage of a window giving upon the village street
unspeakably increased. For many years he had preferred the chimney corner
greatly, and had rejoiced at the drawing in of winter days when a fire must=
be well
kept up, and a man might bend over it, and rub his hands slowly gazing into=
the
red coals or little pointed flames which seemed the only things alive and
worthy the watching. The flames were blue at the base and yellow at the top,
and jumped looking merry, and caught at bits of black coal, and set them
crackling and throwing off splinters till they were ablaze and as much aliv=
e as
the rest. A man could get comfort and entertainment therefrom. There was na=
ught
else so good to live with. Nothing happened in the street, and every dull f=
ace
that passed was an old story, and told an old tale of stupefying hard labour
and hard days.
But now the window was a better place to s=
it
near. Carts went by with men whistling as they walked by the horses heads.
Loads of things wanted for work at the Court. New faces passed faces of
workmen--sometimes grinning, "impident youngsters," who larked wi=
th
the young women, and called out to them as they passed their cottages, if a
good-looking one was loitering about her garden gate. Old Doby chuckled at
their love-making chaff, remembering dimly that seventy years ago he had be=
en just
as proper a young chap, and had made love in the same way. Lord, Lord, yes!=
He
had been a bold young chap as ever winked an eye. Then, too, there were the
vans, heavy-loaded and closed, and coming along slowly. Every few days, at
first, there had come a van from "Lunnon." Going to the Court, of
course. And to sit there, and hear the women talk about what might be in th=
em,
and to try to guess one's self, that was a rare pastime. Fine things going =
to
the Court these days--furniture and grandeur filling up the shabby or empty=
old
rooms, and making them look like other big houses--same as Westerbridge eve=
n,
so the women said. The women were always talking and getting bits of news
somehow, and were beginning to be worth listening to, because they had
something more interesting to talk about than children's worn-out shoes, and
whooping cough.
Doby heard everything first from them.
"Dang the women, they always knowed things fust." It was them as
knowed about the smart carriages as began to roll through the one village
street. They were gentry's carriages, with fine, stamping horses, and jingl=
ing
silver harness, and big coachmen, and tall footmen, and such like had long =
ago
dropped off showing themselves at Stornham.
"But now the gentry has heard about M=
iss
Vanderpoel, and what's being done at the Court, and they know what it
means," said young Mrs. Doby. "And they want to see her, and find=
out
what she's like. It's her brings them."
Old Doby chuckled and rubbed his hands. He
knew what she was like. That straight, slim back of hers, and the thick twi=
st of
black hair, and the way she had of laughing at you, as cheery as if a bell =
was
ringing. Aye, he knew all about that.
"When they see her once, they'll come
agen, for sure," he quavered shrilly, and day by day he watched for the
grand carriages with vivid eagerness. If a day or two passed without his se=
eing
one, he grew fretful, and was injured, feeling that his beauty was being
neglected! "None to-day, nor yet yest'day," he would cackle.
"What be they folk a-doin'?"
Old Mrs. Welden, having heard of the pipe,=
and
come to see it, had struck up an acquaintance with him, and dropped in almo=
st
every day to talk and sit at his window. She was a young thing, by comparis=
on,
and could bring him lively news, and, indeed, so stir him up with her gossi=
p that
he was in danger of becoming a young thing himself. Her groceries and his
tobacco were subjects whose interest was undying.
A great curiosity had been awakened in the
county, and visitors came from distances greater than such as ordinarily
include usual calls. Naturally, one was curious about the daughter of the
Vanderpoel who was a sort of national institution in his own country. His n=
ame
had not been so much heard of in England when Lady Anstruthers had arrived =
but there
had, at first, been felt an interest in her. But she had been a failure--a
childish-looking girl--whose thin, fair, prettiness had no distinction, and=
who
was obviously overwhelmed by her surroundings. She had evidently had no
influence over Sir Nigel, and had not been able to prevent his making ducks=
and
drakes of her money, which of course ought to have been spent on the estate.
Besides which a married woman represented fewer potentialities than a hands=
ome
unmarried girl entitled to expectations from huge American wealth.
So the carriages came and came again, and,
stately or unstately far-off neighbours sat at tea upon the lawn under the
trees, and it was observed that the methods and appointments of the Court h=
ad
entirely changed. Nothing looked new and American. The silently moving
men-servants could not have been improved upon, there was plainly an excell=
ent chef
somewhere, and the massive silver was old and wonderful. Upon everybody's w=
ord,
the change was such as it was worth a long drive merely to see!
The most wonderful thing, however, was Lady
Anstruthers herself. She had begun to grow delicately plump, her once drawn=
and
haggard face had rounded out, her skin had smoothed, and was actually becom=
ing
pink and fair, a nimbus of pale fine hair puffed airily over her forehead, =
and she
wore the most charming little clothes, all of which made her look fifteen y=
ears
younger than she had seemed when, on the grounds of ill-health, she had ret=
ired
into seclusion. The renewed relations with her family, the atmosphere by wh=
ich
she was surrounded, had evidently given her a fresh lease of life, and awak=
ened
in her a new courage.
When the summer epidemic of garden parties
broke forth, old Doby gleefully beheld, day after day, the Court carriage d=
rive
by bearing her ladyship and her sister attired in fairest shades and tints
"same as if they was flowers." Their delicate vaporousness, and r=
are
colours, were sweet delights to the old man, and he and Mrs. Welden spent h=
appy
evenings discussing them as personal possessions. To these two Betty WAS a
personal possession, bestowing upon them a marked distinction. They were he=
rs
and she was theirs. No one else so owned her. Heaven had given her to them =
that
their last years might be lighted with splendour.
On her way to one of the garden parties she
stopped the carriage before old Doby's cottage, and went in to him to speak=
a
few words. She was of pale convolvulus blue that afternoon, and Doby, stand=
ing
up touching his forelock and Mrs. Welden curtsying, gazed at her with praye=
r in
their eyes. She had a few flowers in her hand, and a book of coloured photo=
graphs
of Venice.
"These are pictures of the city I told
you about--the city built in the sea--where the streets are water. You and =
Mrs.
Welden can look at them together," she said, as she laid flowers and b=
ook
down. "I am going to Dunholm Castle to a garden party this afternoon. =
Some
day I will come and tell you about it."
The two were at the window staring spellbo=
und,
as she swept back to the carriage between the sweet-williams and Canterbury
bells bordering the narrow garden path.
"Do you know I really went in to let =
them
see my dress," she said, when she rejoined Lady Anstruthers. "Old
Doby's granddaughter told me that he and Mrs. Welden have little quarrels a=
bout
the colours I wear. It seems that they find my wardrobe an absorbing intere=
st.
When I put the book on the table, I felt Doby touch my sleeve with his
trembling old hand. He thought I did not know."
"What will they do with Venice?"
asked Rosy.
"They will believe the water is as bl=
ue
as the photographs make it--and the palaces as pink. It will seem like a
chapter out of Revelations, which they can believe is true and not merely
'Scriptur,'--because I have been there. I wish I had been to the City of the
Gates of Pearl, and could tell them about that."
On the lawns at the garden parties she was
much gazed at and commented upon. Her height and her long slender neck held=
her
head above those of other girls, the dense black of her hair made a rich no=
te
of shadow amid the prevailing English blondness. Her mere colouring set her
apart. Rosy used to watch her with tender wonder, recalling her memory of n=
ine-year-old
Betty, with the long slim legs and the demanding and accusing child-eyes. S=
he
had always been this creature even in those far-off days. At the garden par=
ty
at Dunholm Castle it became evident that she was, after a manner, unusually=
the
central figure of the occasion. It was not at all surprising, people said to
each other. Nothing could have been more desirable for Lord Westholt. He
combined rank with fortune, and the Vanderpoel wealth almost constituted ra=
nk
in itself. Both Lord and Lady Dunholm seemed pleased with the girl. Lord Du=
nholm
showed her great attention. When she took part in the dancing on the lawn, =
he
looked on delightedly. He walked about the gardens with her, and it was pla=
in
to see that their conversation was not the ordinary polite effort to accord,
usually marking the talk between a mature man and a merely pretty girl. Lord
Dunholm sometimes laughed with unfeigned delight, and sometimes the two see=
med
to talk of grave things.
"Such occasions as these are a sort of
yearly taking of the social census of the county," Lord Dunholm explai=
ned.
"One invites ALL one's neighbours and is invited again. It is a friend=
ly
duty one owes."
"I do not see Lord Mount Dunstan,&quo=
t;
Betty answered. "Is he here?"
She had never denied to herself her intere=
st
in Mount Dunstan, and she had looked for him. Lord Dunholm hesitated a seco=
nd,
as his son had done at Miss Vanderpoel's mention of the tabooed name. But,
being an older man, he felt more at liberty to speak, and gave her a rather
long kind look.
"My dear young lady," he said,
"did you expect to see him here?"
"Yes, I think I did," Betty repl=
ied,
with slow softness. "I believe I rather hoped I should."
"Indeed! You are interested in him?&q=
uot;
"I know him very little. But I am
interested. I will tell you why."
She paused by a seat beneath a tree, and t=
hey
sat down together. She gave, with a few swift vivid touches, a sketch of the
red-haired second-class passenger on the Meridiana, of whom she had only
thought that he was an unhappy, rough-looking young man, until the brief mo=
ment
in which they had stood face to face, each comprehending that the other was=
to
be relied on if the worst should come to the worst. She had understood his
prompt disappearance from the scene, and had liked it. When she related the
incident of her meeting with him when she thought him a mere keeper on his =
own
lands, Lord Dunholm listened with a changed and thoughtful expression. The =
effect
produced upon her imagination by what she had seen, her silent wandering
through the sad beauty of the wronged place, led by the man who tried stiff=
ly
to bear himself as a servant, his unintended self-revelations, her clear,
well-argued point of view charmed him. She had seen the thing set apart from
its county scandal, and so had read possibilities others had been blind to.=
He
was immensely touched by certain things she said about the First Man.
"He is one of them," she said.
"They find their way in the end--they find their way. But just now he
thinks there is none. He is standing in the dark--where the roads meet.&quo=
t;
"You think he will find his way?"
Lord Dunholm said. "Why do you think so?"
"Because I KNOW he will," she
answered. "But I cannot tell you WHY I know."
"What you have said has been interest=
ing
to me, because of the light your own thought threw upon what you saw. It has
not been Mount Dunstan I have been caring for, but for the light you saw him
in. You met him without prejudice, and you carried the light in your hand. =
You
always carry a light, my impression is," very quietly. "Some women
do."
"The prejudice you speak of must be a
bitter thing for a proud man to bear. Is it a just prejudice? What has he
done?"
Lord Dunholm was gravely silent for a few
moments.
"It is an extraordinary thing to
reflect,"--his words came slowly--"that it may NOT be a just
prejudice. I do not know that he has done anything--but seem rather sulky, =
and
be the son of his father, and the brother of his brother."
"And go to America," said Betty.
"He could have avoided doing that--but he cannot be called to account =
for
his relations. If that is all--the prejudice is NOT just."
"No, it is not," said Lord Dunho=
lm,
"and one feels rather awkward at having shared it. You have set me
thinking again, Miss Vanderpoel."
CHAPTER XXIX - THE THREAD OF G. SELDEN
The Shuttle having in its weaving caught up
the thread of G. Selden's rudimentary existence and drawn it, with the young
man himself, across the sea, used curiously the thread in question, in the
forming of the design of its huge web. As wool and coarse linen are sometim=
es interwoven
with rich silk for decorative or utilitarian purposes, so perhaps was this
previously unvalued material employed.
It was, indeed, an interesting truth that =
the
young man, during his convalescence, without his own knowledge, acted as a
species of magnet which drew together persons who might not easily otherwise
have met. Mr. Penzance and Mount Dunstan rode over to see him every few day=
s,
and their visits naturally established relations with Stornham Court much m=
ore
intimate than could have formed themselves in the same length of time under=
any
of the ordinary circumstances of country life. Conventionalities lost their
prominence in friendly intercourse with Selden. It was not, however, that he
himself desired to dispense with convention. His intense wish to "do t=
he
right thing," and avoid giving offence was the most ingenuous and touc=
hing
feature of his broad cosmopolitan good nature.
"If I ever make a break, sir," he
had once said, with almost passionate fervour, in talking to Mr. Penzance,
"please tell me, and set me on the right track. No fellow likes to look
like a hoosier, but I don't mind that half as much as--as seeming not to AP=
PRECIATE."
He used the word "appreciate"
frequently. It expressed for him many degrees of thanks.
"I tell you that's fine," he sai=
d to
Ughtred, who brought him a flower from the garden. "I appreciate
that."
To Betty he said more than once:
"You know how I appreciate all this, =
Miss
Vanderpoel. You DO know I appreciate it, don't you?"
He had an immense admiration for Mount
Dunstan, and talked to him a great deal about America, often about the sheep
ranch, and what it might have done and ought to have done. But his admirati=
on
for Mr. Penzance became affection. To him he talked oftener about England, =
and
listened to the vicar's scholarly stories of its history, its past glories =
and its
present ones, as he might have listened at fourteen to stories from the Ara=
bian
Nights.
These two being frequently absorbed in
conversation, Mount Dunstan was rather thrown upon Betty's hands. When they
strolled together about the place or sat under the deep shade of green tree=
s,
they talked not only of England and America, but of divers things which
increased their knowledge of each other. It is points of view which reveal
qualities, tendencies, and innate differences, or accordances of thought, a=
nd
the points of view of each interested the other.
"Mr. Selden is asking Mr. Penzance
questions about English history," Betty said, on one of the afternoons=
in
which they sat in the shade. "I need not ask you questions. You ARE
English history."
"And you are American history,"
Mount Dunstan answered.
"I suppose I am."
At one of their chance meetings Miss
Vanderpoel had told Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt something of the story o=
f G.
Selden. The novelty of it had delighted and amused them. Lord Dunholm had, =
at
points, been touched as Penzance had been. Westholt had felt that he must r=
ide
over to Stornham to see the convalescent. He wanted to learn some New York =
slang.
He would take lessons from Selden, and he
would also buy a Delkoff--two Delkoffs, if that would be better. He knew a
hard-working fellow who ought to have a typewriter.
"Heath ought to have one," he had
said to his father. Heath was the house-steward. "Think of the letters=
the
poor chap has to write to trades-people to order things, and unorder them, =
and
blackguard the shopkeepers when they are not satisfactory. Invest in one for
Heath, father."
"It is by no means a bad idea," =
Lord
Dunholm reflected. "Time would be saved by the use of it, I have no
doubt."
"It saves time in any department wher=
e it
can be used," Betty had answered. "Three are now in use at Stornh=
am,
and I am going to present one to Kedgers. This is a testimonial I am offeri=
ng.
Three weeks ago I began to use the Delkoff. Since then I have used no other=
. If
YOU use them you will introduce them to the county."
She understood the feeling of the junior
assistant, when he found himself in the presence of possible purchasers. Her
blood tingled slightly. She wished she had brought a catalogue.
"We will come to Stornham to see the
catalogue," Lord Dunholm promised.
"Perhaps you will read it aloud to
us," Westholt suggested gleefully.
"G. Selden knows it by heart, and will
repeat it to you with running comments. Do you know I shall be very glad if=
you
decide to buy one--or two--or three," with an uplift of the Irish blue
eyes to Lord Dunholm. "The blood of the first Reuben Vanderpoel stirs =
in
my veins--also I have begun to be fond of G. Selden."
Therefore it occurred that on the afternoon
referred to Lady Anstruthers appeared crossing the sward with two male visi=
tors
in her wake.
"Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt,"
said Betty, rising.
For this meeting between the men Selden wa=
s,
without doubt, responsible. While his father talked to Mount Dunstan, Westh=
olt
explained that they had come athirst for the catalogue. Presently Betty took
him to the sheltered corner of the lawn, where the convalescent sat with Mr=
. Penzance.
But, for a short time, Lord Dunholm remain=
ed
to converse with Mount Dunstan. In a way the situation was delicate. To
encounter by chance a neighbour whom one--for reasons--has not seen since h=
is
childhood, and to be equal to passing over and gracefully obliterating the
intervening years, makes demand even upon finished tact. Lord Dunholm's wor=
ld had
been a large one, and he had acquired experience tending to the development=
of
the most perfect methods. If G. Selden had chanced to be the magnet which h=
ad
decided his course this special afternoon, Miss Vanderpoel it was who had
stirred in him sufficient interest in Mount Dunstan to cause him to use the
best of these methods when he found himself face to face with him.
He beautifully eliminated the years, he
eliminated all but the facts that the young man's father and himself had be=
en
acquaintances in youth, that he remembered Mount Dunstan himself as a child,
that he had heard with interest of his visit to America. Whatsoever the you=
ng
man felt, he made no sign which presented obstacles. He accepted the
eliminations with outward composure. He was a powerful-looking fellow, with=
a
fine way of carrying his shoulders, and an eye which might be able to light=
savagely,
but just now, at least, he showed nothing of the sulkiness he was accused o=
f.
Lord Dunholm progressed admirably with him=
. He
soon found that he need not be upon any strain with regard to the eliminati=
ons.
The man himself could eliminate, which was an assistance.
They talked together when they turned to
follow the others to the retreat of G. Selden.
"Have you bought a Delkoff?" Lord
Dunholm inquired.
"If I could have afforded it, I should
have bought one."
"I think that we have come here with =
the
intention of buying three. We did not know we required them until Miss
Vanderpoel recited half a page of the catalogue to us."
"Three will mean a 'rake off' of fift=
een
dollars to G. Selden," said Mount Dunstan. It was, he saw, necessary t=
hat
he should explain the meaning of a "rake off," and he did so to h=
is
companion's entertainment.
The afternoon was a satisfactory one. They
were all kind to G. Selden, and he on his part was an aid to them. In his
innocence he steered three of them, at least, through narrow places into an
open sea of easy intercourse. This was a good beginning. The junior assista=
nt
was recovering rapidly, and looked remarkably well. The doctor had told him=
that
he might try to use his leg. The inside cabin of the cheap Liner and "=
little
old New York" were looming up before him. But what luck he had had, and
what a holiday! It had been enough to set a fellow up for ten years' work. =
It
would set up the boys merely to be told about it. He didn't know what HE had
ever done to deserve such luck as had happened to him. For the rest of his =
life
he would he waving the Union Jack alongside of the Stars and Stripes.
Mr. Penzance it was who suggested that he
should try the strength of the leg now.
"Yes," Mount Dunstan said. "=
;Let
me help you."
As he rose to go to him, Westholt
good-naturedly got up also. They took their places at either side of his
invalid chair and assisted him to rise and stand on his feet.
"It's all right, gentlemen. It's all
right," he called out with a delighted flush, when he found himself
upright. "I believe I could stand alone. Thank you. Thank you."
He was able, leaning on Mount Dunstan's ar=
m,
to take a few steps. Evidently, in a short time, he would find himself no
longer disabled.
Mr. Penzance had invited him to spend a we=
ek
at the vicarage. He was to do this as soon as he could comfortably drive fr=
om
the one place to the other. After receiving the invitation he had sent secr=
etly
to London for one of the Delkoffs he had brought with him from America as a
specimen. He cherished in private a plan of gently entertaining his host by=
teaching
him to use the machine. The vicar would thus be prepared for that future in
which surely a Delkoff must in some way fall into his hands. Indeed, Fortune
having at length cast an eye on himself, might chance to favour him further,
and in time he might be able to send a "high-class machine" as a
grateful gift to the vicarage. Perhaps Mr. Penzance would accept it because=
he
would understand what it meant of feeling and appreciation.
During the afternoon Lord Dunholm managed =
to
talk a good deal with Mount Dunstan. There was no air of intention in his
manner, nevertheless intention was concealed beneath its courteous amiabili=
ty.
He wanted to get at the man. Before they parted he felt he had, perhaps,
learned things opening up new points of view.
. . . . .
In the smoking-room at Dunholm that night =
he
and his son talked of their chance encounter. It seemed possible that mista=
kes
had been made about Mount Dunstan. One did not form a definite idea of a ma=
n's
character in the course of an afternoon, but he himself had been impressed =
by a
conviction that there had been mistakes.
"We are rather a stiff-necked lot--in=
the
country--when we allow ourselves to be taken possession of by an idea,"
Westholt commented.
"I am not at all proud of the way in
which we have taken things for granted," was his father's summing up.
"It is, perhaps, worth observing," taking his cigar from his mouth
and smiling at the end of it, as he removed the ash, "that, but for Mi=
ss
Vanderpoel and G. Selden, we might never have had an opportunity of facing =
the
fact that we may not have been giving fair play. And one has prided one's s=
elf
on one's fair play."
At the close of a long, warm afternoon Bet=
ty
Vanderpoel came out upon the square stone terrace overlooking the gardens, =
and
that part of the park which, enclosing them, caused them, as they melted in=
to
its greenness, to lose all limitations and appear to be only a more bloomin=
g bit
of the landscape.
Upon the garden Betty's eyes dwelt, as she
stood still for some minutes taking in their effect thoughtfully.
Kedgers had certainly accomplished much. H=
is
close-trimmed lawns did him credit, his flower beds were flushed and azured,
purpled and snowed with bloom. Sweet tall spires, hung with blue or white or
rosy flower bells, lifted their heads above the colour of lower growths. On=
ly
the fervent affection, the fasting and prayer of a Kedgers could have done =
such
wonders with new things and old. The old ones he had cherished and allured =
into
a renewal of existence--the new ones he had so coaxed out of their earthen =
pots
into the soil, luxuriously prepared for their reception, and had afterwards=
so
nourished and bedewed with soft waterings, so supported, watched over and
adored that they had been almost unconscious of their transplanting. Without
assistants he could have done nothing, but he had been given a sufficient
number of under gardeners, and had even managed to inspire them with someth=
ing
of his own ambition and solicitude. The result was before Betty's eyes in an
aspect which, to such as knew the gardens well,--the Dunholms, for instance=
,--was
astonishing in its success.
"I've had privileges, miss, and so ha=
ve
the flowers," Kedgers had said warmly, when Miss Vanderpoel had report=
ed
to him, for his encouragement, Dunholm Castle's praise. "Not one of 'em
has ever had to wait for his food and drink, nor to complain of his bed not
being what he was accustomed to. They've not had to wait for rain, for we've
given it to 'em from watering cans, and, thank goodness, the season's been =
kind
to 'em."
Betty, descending the terrace steps, wande=
red
down the paths between the flower beds, glancing about her as she went. The=
air
of neglect and desolation had been swept away. Buttle and Tim Soames had be=
en
given as many privileges as Kedgers. The chief points impressed upon them h=
ad been
that the work must be done, not only thoroughly, but quickly. As many
additional workmen as they required, as much solid material as they needed,=
but
there must be a despatch which at first it staggered them to contemplate. T=
hey
had not known such methods before. They had been accustomed to work under m=
oney
limitation throughout their lives, and, when work must be done with
insufficient aid, it must be done slowly. Economy had been the chief factor=
in
all calculations, speed had not entered into them, so leisureliness had bec=
ome
a fixed habit. But it seemed American to sweep leisureliness away into space
with a free gesture.
"It must be done QUICKLY," Miss
Vanderpoel had said. "If ten men cannot do it quickly enough, you must
have twenty--or as many more as are needed. It is time which must be saved =
just
now."
Time more than money, it appeared. Buttle's
experience had been that you might take time, if you did not charge for it.
When time began to mean money, that was a different matter. If you did work=
by
the job, you might drive in a few nails, loiter, and return without haste; =
if
you worked by the hour, your absence would be inquired into. In the present=
case
no one could loiter. That was realised early. The tall girl, with the deep
straight look at you, made you realise that without spoken words. She expec=
ted
energy something like her own. She was a new force and spurred them. No man=
knew
how it was done, but, when she appeared among them--even in the
afternoon--"lookin' that womany," holding up her thin dress over =
lace
petticoats, the like of which had not been seen before, she looked on with =
just
the same straight, expecting eyes. They did not seem to doubt in the least =
that
she would find that great advance had been made.
So advance had been made, and work
accomplished. As Betty walked from one place to another she saw the signs o=
f it
with gratification. The place was not the one she had come to a few months =
ago.
Hothouses, outbuildings, stables were in repair. Work was still being done =
in different
places. In the house itself carpenters or decorators were enclosed in some
rooms, and at their business, but exterior order prevailed. In the courtyard
stablemen were at work, and her own groom came forward touching his forehea=
d.
She paid a visit to the horses. They were fine creatures, and, when she ent=
ered
their stalls, made room for her and whinnied gently, in well-founded
expectation of sugar and bread which were kept in a cupboard awaiting her
visits. She smoothed velvet noses and patted satin sides, talking to Mason a
little before she went her way.
Then she strolled into the park. The park =
was
always a pleasure. She was in a thoughtful mood, and the soft green shadowed
silence lured her. The summer wind hus-s-shed the branches as it lightly wa=
ved
them, the brown earth of the avenue was sun-dappled, there were bird notes =
and
calls to be heard here and there and everywhere, if one only arrested one's=
attention
a moment to listen. And she was in a listening and dreaming mood--one of the
moods in which bird, leaf, and wind, sun, shade, and scent of growing things
have part.
And yet her thoughts were of mundane thing=
s.
It was on this avenue that G. Selden had m=
et
with his accident. He was still at Dunstan vicarage, and yesterday Mount
Dunstan, in calling, had told them that Mr. Penzance was applying himself w=
ith
delighted interest to a study of the manipulation of the Delkoff.
The thought of Mount Dunstan brought with =
it
the thought of her father. This was because there was frequently in her min=
d a
connection between the two. How would the man of schemes, of wealth, and po=
wer
almost unbounded, regard the man born with a load about his neck--chained to
earth by it, standing in the midst of his hungering and thirsting possessio=
ns,
his hands empty of what would feed them and restore their strength? Would he
see any solution of the problem? She could imagine his looking at the situa=
tion
through his gaze at the man, and considering both in his summing up.
"Circumstances and the man," she=
had
heard him say. "But always the man first."
Being no visionary, he did not underestima=
te
the power of circumstance. This Betty had learned from him. And what could
practically be done with circumstance such as this? The question had begun =
to
recur to her. What could she herself have done in the care of Rosy and
Stornham, if chance had not placed in her hand the strongest lever? What she
had accomplished had been easy--easy. All that had been required had been t=
he
qualities which control of the lever might itself tend to create in one.
Given--by mere chance again--imagination and initiative, the moving of the
lever did the rest. If chance had not been on one's side, what then? And wh=
ere
was this man's chance? She had said to Rosy, in speaking of the wealth of
America, "Sometimes one is tired of it." And Rosy had reminded her
that there were those who were not tired of it, who could bear some of the
burden of it, if it might be laid on their own shoulders. The great beautif=
ul,
blind-faced house, awaiting its slow doom in the midst of its lonely unfed
lands--what could save it, and all it represented of race and name, and the
stately history of men, but the power one professed to call base and
sordid--mere money? She felt a sudden impatience at herself for having said=
she
was tired of it. That was a folly which took upon itself the aspect of an
affectation.
And, if a man could not earn money--or go
forth to rob richer neighbours of it as in the good old marauding days--or
accept it if it were offered to him as a gift--what could he do? Nothing. I=
f he
had been born a village labourer, he could have earned by the work of his h=
ands
enough to keep his cottage roof over him, and have held up his head among h=
is fellows.
But for such as himself there was no mere labour which would avail. He had =
not
that rough honest resource. Only the decent living and orderly management of
the generations behind him would have left to him fairly his own chance to =
hold
with dignity the place in the world into which Fate had thrust him at the
outset--a blind, newborn thing of whom no permission had been asked.
"If I broke stones upon the highway f=
or
twelve hours a day, I might earn two shillings," he had said to Betty,=
on
the previous day. "I could break stones well," holding out a big =
arm,
"but fourteen shillings a week will do no more than buy bread and bacon
for a stonebreaker."
He was ordinarily rather silent and stiff =
in
his conversational attitude towards his own affairs. Betty sometimes wonder=
ed
how she herself knew so much about them--how it happened that her thoughts =
so
often dwelt upon them. The explanation she had once made to herself had been
half irony, half serious reflection.
"It is a result of the first Reuben
Vanderpoel. It is because I am of the fighting commercial stock, and, when I
see a business problem, I cannot leave it alone, even when it is no affair =
of
mine."
As an exposition of the type of the commer=
cial
fighting-stock she presented, as she paused beneath overshadowing trees, an
aspect beautifully suggesting a far different thing.
She stood--all white from slim shoe to til=
ted
parasol,--and either the result of her inspection of the work done by her
order, or a combination of her summer-day mood with her feeling for the
problem, had given her a special radiance. It glowed on lip and cheek, and
shone in her Irish eyes.
She had paused to look at a man approaching
down the avenue. He was not a labourer, and she did not know him. Men who w=
ere
not labourers usually rode or drove, and this one was walking. He was neith=
er
young nor old, and, though at a distance his aspect was not attracting, she
found that she regarded him curiously, and waited for him to draw nearer.
The man himself was glancing about him wit=
h a
puzzled look and knitted forehead. When he had passed through the village he
had seen things he had not expected to see; when he had reached the entrance
gate, and--for reasons of his own--dismissed his station trap, he had looke=
d at
the lodge scrutinisingly, because he was not prepared for its picturesque t=
rimness.
The avenue was free from weeds and in order, the two gates beyond him were =
new
and substantial. As he went on his way and reached the first, he saw at abo=
ut a
hundred yards distance a tall girl in white standing watching him. Things w=
hich
were not easily explainable always irritated him. That this place--which was
his own affair--should present an air of mystery, did not improve his humou=
r,
which was bad to begin with. He had lately been passing through unpleasant
things, which had left him feeling himself tricked and made ridiculous--as =
only
women can trick a man and make him ridiculous, he had said to himself. And
there had been an acrid consolation in looking forward to the relief of ven=
ting
one's self on a woman who dare not resent.
"What has happened, confound it!"=
; he
muttered, when he caught sight of the girl. "Have we set up a house
party?" And then, as he saw more distinctly, "Damn! What a figure=
!"
By this time Betty herself had begun to see
more clearly. Surely this was a face she remembered--though the passing of
years and ugly living had thickened and blurred, somewhat, its always heavy
features. Suddenly she knew it, and the look in its eyes--the look she had,=
as
a child, unreasoningly hated.
Nigel Anstruthers had returned from his
private holiday.
As she took a few quiet steps forward to m=
eet
him, their eyes rested on each other. After a night or two in town his were
slightly bloodshot, and the light in them was not agreeable.
It was he who spoke first, and it is possi=
ble
that he did not quite intend to use the expletive which broke from him. But=
he
was remembering things also. Here were eyes he, too, had seen before--twelve
years ago in the face of an objectionable, long-legged child in New York. A=
nd
his own hatred of them had been founded in his own opinion on the best of r=
easons.
And here they gazed at him from the face of a young beauty--for a beauty she
was.
"Damn it!" he exclaimed; "i=
t is
Betty."
"Yes," she answered, with a fain=
t,
but entirely courteous, smile. "It is. I hope you are very well."=
She held out her hand. "A delicious
hand," was what he said to himself, as he took it. And what eyes for a
girl to have in her head were those which looked out at him between shadows.
Was there a hint of the devil in them? He thought so--he hoped so, since she
had descended on the place in this way. But WHAT the devil was the meaning =
of
her being on the spot at all? He was, however, far beyond the lack of
astuteness which might have permitted him to express this last thought at t=
his particular
juncture. He was only betrayed into stupid mistakes, afterwards to be
regretted, when rage caused him utterly to lose control of his wits. And,
though he was startled and not exactly pleased, he was not in a rage now. T=
he
eyelashes and the figure gave an agreeable fillip to his humour. Howsoever =
she
had come, she was worth looking at.
"How could one expect such a delightf=
ul
thing as this?" he said, with a touch of ironic amiability. "It is
more than one deserves."
"It is very polite of you to say
that," answered Betty.
He was thinking rapidly as he stood and ga=
zed
at her. There were, in truth, many things to think of under circumstances so
unexpected.
"May I ask you to excuse my staring at
you?" he inquired with what Rosy had called his "awful, agreeable
smile." "When I saw you last you were a fierce nine-year-old Amer=
ican
child. I use the word 'fierce' because--if you'll pardon my saying so--there
was a certain ferocity about you."
"I have learned at various educational
institutions to conceal it," smiled Betty.
"May
I ask when you arrived?"
"A short time after you went
abroad."
"Rosalie did not inform me of your
arrival."
"She did not know your address. You h=
ad
forgotten to leave it."
He had made a mistake and realised it. But=
she
presented to him no air of having observed his slip. He paused a few second=
s,
still regarding her and still thinking rapidly. He recalled the mended wind=
ows
and roofs and palings in the village, the park gates and entrance. Who the
devil had done all that? How could a mere handsome girl be concerned in it?=
And
yet--here she was.
"When I drove through the village,&qu=
ot;
he said next, "I saw that some remarkable changes had taken place on my
property. I feel as if you can explain them to me."
"I hope they are changes which meet w=
ith
your approval."
"Quite--quite," a little curtly.
"Though I confess they mystify me. Though I am the son-in-law of an
American multimillionaire, I could not afford to make such repairs
myself."
A certain small spitefulness which was his
most frequent undoing made it impossible for him to resist adding the innue=
ndo
in his last sentence. And again he saw it was a folly. The impersonal tone =
of
her reply simply left him where he had placed himself.
"We were sorry not to be able to reach
you. As it seemed well to begin the work at once, we consulted Messrs.
Townlinson & Sheppard."
"We?" he repeated. "Am I to
have the pleasure," with a slight wryness of the mouth, "of findi=
ng
Mr. Vanderpoel also at Stornham?"
"No--not yet. As I was on the spot, I=
saw
your solicitors and asked their advice and approval--for my father. If he h=
ad
known how necessary the work was, it would have been done before, for Ughtr=
ed's
sake."
Her voice was that of a person who, in sta=
ting
obvious facts, provides no approach to enlightening comment upon them. And
there was in her manner the merest gracious impersonality.
"Do I understand that Mr. Vanderpoel
employed someone to visit the place and direct the work?"
"It was really not difficult to direc=
t.
It was merely a matter of engaging labour and competent foremen."
An odd expression rose in his eyes.
"You suggest a novel idea, upon my
word," he said. "Is it possible--you see I know something of
America--is it possible I must thank YOU for the working of this magic?&quo=
t;
"You need not thank me," she sai=
d,
rather slowly, because it was necessary that she also should think of many
things at once. "I could not have helped doing it."
She wished to make all clear to him before=
he
met Rosy. She knew it was not unnatural that the unexpectedness of his
appearance might deprive Lady Anstruthers of presence of mind. Instinct told
her that what was needed in intercourse with him was, above all things,
presence of mind.
"I will tell you about it," she
said. "We will walk slowly up and down here, if you do not object.&quo=
t;
He did not object. He wanted to hear the s=
tory
as he could not hear it from his nervous little fool of a wife, who would be
frightened into forgetting things and their sequence. What he meant to disc=
over
was where he stood in the matter--where his father-in-law stood, and, rathe=
r specially,
to have a chance to sum up the weaknesses and strengths of the new arrival.
That would be to his interest. In talking this thing over she would
unconsciously reveal how much vanity or emotion or inexperience he might co=
unt
upon as factors safe to use in one's dealings with her in the future.
As he listened he was supported by the fact
that he did not lose consciousness of the eyes and the figure. But for thes=
e it
is probable that he would have gone blind with fury at certain points which
forced themselves upon him. The first was that there had been an absurd and=
immense
expenditure which would simply benefit his son and not himself. He could not
sell or borrow money on what had been given. Apparently the place had been
re-established on a footing such as it had not rested upon during his own
generation, or his father's. As he loathed life in the country, it was not =
he
who would enjoy its luxury, but his wife and her child. The second point was
that these people--this girl--had somehow had the sharpness to put themselv=
es
in the right, and to place him in a position at which he could not complain
without putting himself in the wrong. Public opinion would say that benefits
had been heaped upon him, that the correct thing had been done correctly wi=
th
the knowledge and approval of the legal advisers of his family. It had been=
a
masterly thing, that visit to Townlinson & Sheppard. He was obliged to =
aid
his self-control by a glance at the eyelashes. She was a new sort of girl, =
this
Betty, whose childhood he had loathed, and, to his jaded taste, novelty
appealed enormously. Her attraction for him was also added to by the fact t=
hat
he was not at all sure that there was not combined with it a pungent spice =
of
the old detestation. He was repelled as well as allured. She represented th=
ings
which he hated. First, the mere material power, which no man can bully, wha=
tsoever
his humour. It was the power he most longed for and, as he could not hope to
possess it, most sneered at and raged against. Also, as she talked, it was =
plain
that her habit of self-control and her sense of resource would be difficult=
to
deal with. He was a survival of the type of man whose simple creed was that
women should not possess resources, as when they possessed them they could
rarely be made to behave themselves.
But while he thought these things, he walk=
ed
by her side and both listened and talked smiling the agreeable smile.
"You will pardon my dull
bewilderment," he said. "It is not unnatural, is it--in a mere
outsider?"
And Betty, with the beautiful impersonal
smile, said:
"We felt it so unfortunate that even =
your
solicitors did not know your address."
When, at length, they turned and strolled
towards the house, a carriage was drawing up before the door, and at the si=
ght
of it, Betty saw her companion slightly lift his eyebrows. Lady Anstruthers=
had
been out and was returning. The groom got down from the box, and two
men-servants appeared upon the steps. Lady Anstruthers descended, laughing a
little as she talked to Ughtred, who had been with her. She was dressed in =
clear,
pale grey, and the soft rose lining of her parasol warmed the colour of her
skin.
Sir Nigel paused a second and put up his
glass.
"Is that my wife?" he said.
"Really! She quite recalls New York."
The agreeable smile was on his lips as he
hastened forward. He always more or less enjoyed coming upon Rosalie sudden=
ly.
The obvious result was a pleasing tribute to his power.
Betty, following him, saw what occurred.
Ughtred saw him first, and spoke quick and
low.
"Mother!" he said.
The tone of his voice was evidently enough.
Lady Anstruthers turned with an unmistakable start. The rose lining of her
parasol ceased to warm her colour. In fact, the parasol itself stepped asid=
e,
and she stood with a blank, stiff, white face.
"My
dear Rosalie," said Sir Nigel, going towards her. "You don't look=
very
glad to see me."
He bent and kissed her quite with the air =
of a
devoted husband. Knowing what the caress meant, and seeing Rosy's face as s=
he
submitted to it, Betty felt rather cold. After the conjugal greeting he tur=
ned
to Ughtred.
"You look remarkably well," he s=
aid.
Betty came forward.
"We met in the park, Rosy," she
explained. "We have been talking to each other for half an hour."=
The atmosphere which had surrounded her du=
ring
the last three months had done much for Lady Anstruthers' nerves. She had t=
he
power to recover herself. Sir Nigel himself saw this when she spoke.
"I was startled because I was not
expecting to see you," she said. "I thought you were still on the
Riviera. I hope you had a pleasant journey home."
"I had an extraordinarily pleasant
surprise in finding your sister here," he answered. And they went into=
the
house.
In descending the staircase on his way to =
the
drawing-room before dinner, Sir Nigel glanced about him with interested
curiosity. If the village had been put in order, something more had been do=
ne
here. Remembering the worn rugs and the bald-headed tiger, he lifted his br=
ows.
To leave one's house in a state of resigned dilapidation and return to find=
it
filled with all such things as comfort combined with excellent taste might
demand, was an enlivening experience--or would have been so under some
circumstances. As matters stood, perhaps, he might have felt better pleased=
if
things had been less well done. But they were very well done. They had mana=
ged
to put themselves in the right in this also. The rich sobriety of colour and
form left no opening for supercilious comment--which was a neat weapon it w=
as
annoying to be robbed of.
The drawing-room was fresh, brightly charm=
ing,
and full of flowers. Betty was standing before an open window with her sist=
er.
His wife's shoulders, he observed at once, had absolutely begun to suggest =
contours.
At all events, her bones no longer stuck out. But one did not look at one's
wife's shoulders when one could turn from them to a fairness of velvet and
ivory. "You know," he said, approaching them, "I find all th=
is
very amazing. I have been looking out of my window on to the gardens."=
"It is Betty who has done it all,&quo=
t;
said Rosy.
"I did not suspect you of doing it, my
dear Rosalie," smiling. "When I saw Betty standing in the avenue,=
I
knew at once that it was she who had mended the chimney-pots in the village=
and
rehung the gates."
For the present, at least, it was evident =
that
he meant to be sufficiently amiable. At the dinner table he was conversatio=
nal
and asked many questions, professing a natural interest in what had been do=
ne.
It was not difficult to talk to a girl whose eyes and shoulders combined
themselves with a quick wit and a power to attract which he reluctantly own=
ed
he had never seen equalled. His reluctance arose from the fact that such a
power complicated matters. He must be on the defensive until he knew what s=
he
was going to do, what he must do himself, and what results were probable or
possible. He had spent his life in intrigue of one order or another. He enj=
oyed
outwitting people and rather preferred to attain an end by devious paths. He
began every acquaintance on the defensive. His argument was that you never =
knew
how things would turn out, consequently, it was as well to conduct one's se=
lf
at the outset with the discreet forethought of a man in the presence of an
enemy. He did not know how things would turn out in Betty's case, and it wa=
s a
little confusing to find one's self watching her with a sense of excitement=
. He
would have preferred to be cool--to be cold--and he realised that he could =
not
keep his eyes off her.
"I remember, with regret," he sa=
id
to her later in the evening, "that when you were a child we were
enemies."
"I am afraid we were," was Betty=
's
impartial answer.
"I am sure it was my fault," he
said. "Pray forget it. Since you have accomplished such wonders, will =
you
not, in the morning, take me about the place and explain to me how it has b=
een
done?"
When Betty went to her room she dismissed =
her
maid as soon as possible, and sat for some time alone and waiting. She had =
had
no opportunity to speak to Rosy in private, and she was sure she would come=
to
her. In the course of half an hour she heard a knock at the door.
Yes, it was Rosy, and her newly-born colour
had fled and left her looking dragged again. She came forward and dropped i=
nto
a low chair near Betty, letting her face fall into her hands.
"I'm very sorry, Betty," she half
whispered, "but it is no use."
"What is no use?" Betty asked.
"Nothing is any use. All these years =
have
made me such a coward. I suppose I always was a coward, but in the old days
there never was anything to be afraid of."
"What are you most afraid of now?&quo=
t;
"I don't know. That is the worst. I am
afraid of HIM--just of himself--of the look in his eyes--of what he may be
planning quietly. My strength dies away when he comes near me."
"What has he said to you?" she
asked.
"He came into my dressing-room and sat
and talked. He looked about from one thing to another and pretended to admi=
re
it all and congratulated me. But though he did not sneer at what he saw, his
eyes were sneering at me. He talked about you. He said that you were a very
clever woman. I don't know how he manages to imply that a very clever woman=
is
something cunning and debased--but it means that when he says it. It seems =
to insinuate
things which make one grow hot all over."
She put out a hand and caught one of Betty=
's.
"Betty, Betty," she implored.
"Don't make him angry. Don't."
"I am not going to begin by making him
angry," Betty said. "And I do not think he will try to make me
angry--at first."
"No, he will not," cried Rosalie.
"And--and you remember what I told you when first we talked about
him?"
"And do you remember," was Betty=
's
answer, "what I said to you when I first met you in the park? If we we=
re
to cable to New York this moment, we could receive an answer in a few
hours."
"He would not let us do it," said
Rosy. "He would stop us in some way--as he stopped my letters to
mother--as he stopped me when I tried to run away. Oh, Betty, I know him and
you do not."
"I shall know him better every day. T=
hat
is what I must do. I must learn to know him. He said something more to you =
than
you have told me, Rosy. What was it?"
"He waited until Detcham left me,&quo=
t;
Lady Anstruthers confessed, more than half reluctantly. "And then he g=
ot
up to go away, and stood with his hands resting on the chairback, and spoke=
to
me in a low, queer voice. He said, 'Don't try to play any tricks on me, my =
good
girl--and don't let your sister try to play any. You would both have reason=
to
regret it.'"
She was a half-hypnotised thing, and Betty,
watching her with curious but tender eyes, recognised the abnormality.
"Ah, if I am a clever woman," she
said, "he is a clever man. He is beginning to see that his power is
slipping away. That was what G. Selden would call 'bluff.'"
CHAPTER XXXI - NO, SHE WOULD NOT
Sir Nigel did not invite Rosalie to accomp=
any
them, when the next morning, after breakfast, he reminded Betty of his
suggestion of the night before, that she should walk over the place with hi=
m,
and show him what had been done. He preferred to make his study of his
sister-in-law undisturbed.
There was no detail whose significance he
missed as they went about together. He had keen eyes and was a quite
sufficiently practical person on such matters as concerned his own interest=
s.
In this case it was to his interest to make up his mind as to what he might
gain or lose by the appearance of his wife's family. He did not mean to
lose--if it could be helped--anything either of personal importance or mate=
rial
benefit. And it could only be helped by his comprehending clearly what he h=
ad
to deal with. Betty was, at present, the chief factor in the situation, and=
he was
sufficiently astute to see that she might not be easy to read. His personal
theories concerning women presented to him two or three effective ways of
managing them. You made love to them, you flattered them either subtly or
grossly, you roughly or smoothly bullied them, or you harrowed them with ha=
ughty
indifference--if your love-making had produced its proper effect--when it w=
as
necessary to lure or drive or trick them into submission. Women should be m=
ade
useful in one way or another. Little fool as she was, Rosalie had been usef=
ul.
He had, after all was said and done, had some comparatively easy years as t=
he
result of her existence. But she had not been useful enough, and there had =
even
been moments when he had wondered if he had made a mistake in separating her
entirely from her family. There might have been more to be gained if he had
allowed them to visit her and had played the part of a devoted husband in t=
heir
presence. A great bore, of course, but they could not have spent their enti=
re
lives at Stornham. Twelve years ago, however, he had known very little of
Americans, and he had lost his temper. He was really very fond of his tempe=
r,
and rather enjoyed referring to it with tolerant regret as being a bad one =
and
beyond his control--with a manner which suggested that the attribute was the
inevitable result of strength of character and masculine spirit. The luxury=
of
giving way to it was a great one, and it was exasperating as he walked about
with this handsome girl to find himself beginning to suspect that, where she
was concerned, some self-control might be necessary. He was led to this tho=
ught
because the things he took in on all sides could only have been achieved by=
a person
whose mind was a steadily-balanced thing. In one's treatment of such a
creature, methods must be well chosen. The crudest had sufficed to overwhelm
Rosalie. He tried two or three little things as experiments during their wa=
lk.
The first was to touch with dignified path=
os
on the subject of Ughtred. Betty, he intimated gently, could imagine what a
man's grief and disappointment might be on finding his son and heir deforme=
d in
such a manner. The delicate reserve with which he managed to convey his fea=
r that
Rosalie's own uncontrolled hysteric attacks had been the cause of the
misfortune was very well done. She had, of course, been very young and much
spoiled, and had not learned self-restraint, poor girl.
It was at this point that Betty first real=
ised
a certain hideous thing. She must actually remain silent--there would be at=
the
outset many times when she could only protect her sister by refraining from
either denial or argument. If she turned upon him now with refutation, it w=
as
Rosy who would be called upon to bear the consequences. He would go at once=
to Rosy,
and she herself would have done what she had said she would not do--she wou=
ld
have brought trouble upon the poor girl before she was strong enough to bear
it. She suspected also that his intention was to discover how much she had
heard, and if she might be goaded into betraying her attitude in the matter=
.
But she was not to be so goaded. He watched
her closely and her very colour itself seemed to be under her own control. =
He
had expected--if she had heard hysteric, garbled stories from his wife--to =
see
a flame of scarlet leap up on the cheek he was admiring. There was no such
leap, which was baffling in itself. Could it be that experience had taught =
Rosalie
the discretion of keeping her mouth shut?
"I am very fond of Ughtred," was=
the
sole comment he was granted. "We made friends from the first. As he gr=
ows
older and stronger, his misfortune may be less apparent. He will be a very
clever man."
"He will be a very clever man if he i=
s at
all like----" He checked himself with a slight movement of his shoulde=
rs.
"I was going to say a thing utterly banal. I beg your pardon. I forgot=
for
the moment that I was not talking to an English girl."
It was so stupid that she turned and looke=
d at
him, smiling faintly. But her answer was quite mild and soft.
"Do not deprive me of compliments bec=
ause
I am a mere American," she said. "I am very fond of them, and res=
pond
at once."
"You are very daring," he said,
looking straight into her eyes--"deliciously so. American women always
are, I think."
"The young devil," he was saying
internally. "The beautiful young devil! She throws one off the
track."
He found himself more and more attracted a=
nd
exasperated as they made their rounds. It was his sense of being attracted
which was the cause of his exasperation. A girl who could stir one like this
would be a dangerous enemy. Even as a friend she would not be safe, because=
one
faced the absurd peril of losing one's head a little and forgetting the
precautions one should never lose sight of where a woman was concerned--the
precautions which provided for one's holding a good taut rein in one's own
hands.
They went from gardens to greenhouses, from
greenhouses to stables, and he was on the watch for the moment when she wou=
ld
reveal some little feminine pose or vanity, but, this morning, at least, she
laid none bare. She did not strike him as a being of angelic perfections, b=
ut she
was very modern and not likely to show easily any openings in her armour.
"Of course, I continue to be
amazed," he commented, "though one ought not to be amazed at anyt=
hing
which evolves from your extraordinary country. In spite of your impersonal =
air,
I shall persist in regarding you as my benefactor. But, to be frank, I alwa=
ys
told Rosalie that if she would write to your father he would certainly put
things in order."
"She did write once, you will
remember," answered Betty.
"Did she?" with courteous vaguen=
ess.
"Really, I am afraid I did not hear of it. My poor wife has her own li=
ttle
ideas about the disposal of her income."
And Betty knew that she was expected to
believe that Rosy had hoarded the money sent to restore the place, and from
sheer weak miserliness had allowed her son's heritage to fall to ruin. And =
but
for Rosy's sake, she might have stopped upon the path and, looking at him
squarely, have said, "You are lying to me. And I know the truth."=
He continued to converse amiably.
"Of course, it is you one must thank,=
not
only for rousing in the poor girl some interest in her personal appearance,=
but
also some interest in her neighbours. Some women, after they marry and pass
girlhood, seem to release their hold on all desire to attract or retain
friends. For years Rosalie has given herself up to a chronic semi-invalidis=
m.
When the mistress of a house is always depressed and languid and does not
return visits, neighbours become discouraged and drop off, as it were."=
;
If his wife had told stories to gain her
sympathy his companion would be sure to lose her temper and show her hand. =
If
he could make her openly lose her temper, he would have made an advance.
"One can quite understand that,"=
she
said. "It is a great happiness to me to see Rosy gaining ground every =
day.
She has taken me out with her a good many times, and people are beginning to
realise that she likes to see them at Stornham."
"You are very delightful," he sa=
id,
"with your 'She has taken me out.' When I glanced at the magnificent a=
rray
of cards on the salver in the hall, I realised a number of things, and quite
vulgarly lost my breath. The Dunholms have been very amiable in recalling o=
ur
existence. But charming Americans--of your order--arouse amiable emotions.&=
quot;
"I am very amiable myself," said
Betty.
It was he who flushed now. He was losing
patience at feeling himself held with such lightness at arm's length, and at
being, in spite of himself, somehow compelled to continue to assume a jocul=
ar
courtesy.
"No, you are not," he answered.<= o:p>
"Not?" repeated Betty, with an
incredulous lifting of her brows.
"You are charming and clever, but I
rather suspect you of being a vixen. At all events you are a spirited young
woman and quick-witted enough to understand the attraction you must have for
the sordid herd."
And then he became aware--if not of an ope=
ning
in her armour--at least of a joint in it. For he saw, near her ear, a deepe=
ning
warmth. That was it. She was quick-witted, and she hid somewhere a hot prid=
e.
"I confess, however," he proceed=
ed
cheerfully, "that notwithstanding my own experience of the habits of t=
he
sordid herd, I saw one card I was surprised to find, though
really"--shrugging his shoulders--"I ought to have been less
surprised to find it than to find any other. But it was bold. I suppose the
fellow is desperate."
"You are speaking of----?" sugge=
sted
Betty.
"Of Mount Dunstan. Hang it all, it WAS
bold!" As if in half-amused disgust.
As she had walked through the garden paths,
Betty had at intervals bent and gathered a flower, until she held in one ha=
nd a
loose, fair sheaf. At this moment she stooped to break off a spire of pale =
blue
campanula. And she was--as with a shock--struck with a consciousness that s=
he bent
because she must--because to do so was a refuge--a concealment of something=
she
must hide. It had come upon her without a second's warning. Sir Nigel was
right. She was a vixen--a virago. She was in such a rage that her heart spr=
ang
up and down and her cheek and eyes were on fire. Her long-trained control of
herself was gone. And her shock was a lightning-swift awakening to the fact
that she felt all this--she must hide her face--because it was this one
man--just this one and no other--who was being dragged into this thing with
insult.
It was an awakening, and she broke off, ra=
ther
slowly, one--two--three--even four campanula stems before she stood upright=
again.
As for Nigel Anstruthers--he went on talki=
ng
in his low-pitched, disgusted voice.
"Surely he might count himself out of=
the
running. There will be a good deal of running, my dear Betty. You fair
Americans have learned that by this time. But that a man who has not even a
decent name to offer--who is blackballed by his county--should coolly prese=
nt
himself as a pretendant is an insolence he should be kicked for."
Betty arranged her campanulas carefully. T=
here
was no exterior reason why she should draw sword in Lord Mount Dunstan's
defence. He had certainly not seemed to expect anything intimately interest=
ed
from her. His manner she had generally felt to be rather restrained. But on=
e could,
in a measure, express one's self.
"Whatsoever the 'running,'" she
remarked, "no pretendant has complimented me by presenting himself, so
far--and Lord Mount Dunstan is physically an unusually strong man."
"You mean it would be difficult to ki=
ck
him? Is this partisanship? I hope not. Am I to understand," he added w=
ith
deliberation, "that Rosalie has received him here?"
"Yes."
"And that you have received him, also=
--as
you have received Lord Westholt?"
"Quite."
"Then I must discuss the matter with
Rosalie. It is not to be discussed with you."
"You mean that you will exercise your
authority in the matter?"
"In England, my dear girl, the master=
of
a house is still sometimes guilty of exercising authority in matters which
concern the reputation of his female relatives. In the absence of your fath=
er,
I shall not allow you, while you are under my roof, to endanger your name in
any degree. I am, at least, your brother by marriage. I intend to protect y=
ou."
"Thank you," said Betty.
"You are young and extremely handsome,
you will have an enormous fortune, and you have evidently had your own way =
all
your life. A girl, such as you are, may either make a magnificent marriage =
or a
ridiculous and humiliating one. Neither American young women, nor English y=
oung
men, are as disinterested as they were some years ago. Each has begun to le=
arn
what the other has to give."
"I think that is true," commented
Betty.
"In some cases there is a good deal t=
o be
exchanged on both sides. You have a great deal to give, and should get exch=
ange
worth accepting. A beggared estate and a tainted title are not good
enough."
"That is businesslike," Betty ma=
de
comment again.
Sir Nigel laughed quietly.
"The fact is--I hope you won't
misunderstand my saying it--you do not strike me as being UN-businesslike,
yourself."
"I am not," answered Betty.
"I thought not," rather narrowing
his eyes as he watched her, because he believed that she must involuntarily
show her hand if he irritated her sufficiently. "You do not impress me=
as
being one of the girls who make unsuccessful marriages. You are a modern New
York beauty--not an early Victorian sentimentalist." He did not despai=
r of
results from his process of irritation. To gently but steadily convey to a
beautiful and spirited young creature that no man could approach her without
ulterior motive was rather a good idea. If one could make it clear--with a
casual air of sensibly taking it for granted--that the natural power of you=
th, wit,
and beauty were rendered impotent by a greatness of fortune whose proportio=
ns
obliterated all else; if one simply argued from the premise that young love=
was
no affair of hers, since she must always be regarded as a gilded chattel, w=
hose
cost was writ large in plain figures, what girl, with blood in her veins, c=
ould
endure it long without wincing? This girl had undue, and, as he regarded su=
ch
matters, unseemly control over her temper and her nerves, but she had blood
enough in her veins, and presently she would say or do something which would
give him a lead.
"When you marry----" he began.
She lifted her head delicately, but ended =
the
sentence for him with eyes which were actually not unsmiling.
"When I marry, I shall ask something =
in
exchange for what I have to give."
"If the exchange is to be equal, you =
must
ask a great deal," he answered. "That is why you must be protected
from such fellows as Mount Dunstan."
"If it becomes necessary, perhaps I s=
hall
be able to protect myself," she said.
"Ah!" regretfully, "I am af=
raid
I have annoyed you--and that you need protection more than you suspect.&quo=
t;
If she were flesh and blood, she could scarcely resist resenting the
implication contained in this. But resist it she did, and with a cool little
smile which stirred him to sudden, if irritated, admiration.
She paused a second, and used the touch of
gentle regret herself.
"You have wounded my vanity by intima=
ting
that my admirers do not love me for myself alone."
He paused, also, and, narrowing his eyes a=
gain,
looked straight between her lashes.
"They ought to love you for yourself
alone," he said, in a low voice. "You are a deucedly attractive
girl."
"Oh, Betty," Rosy had pleaded,
"don't make him angry--don't make him angry."
So Betty lifted her shoulders slightly wit=
hout
comment.
"Shall we go back to the house now?&q=
uot;
she said. "Rosalie will naturally be anxious to hear that what has been
done in your absence has met with your approval."
In what manner his approval was expressed =
to
Rosalie, Betty did not hear this morning, at least. Externally cool though =
she
had appeared, the process had not been without its results, and she felt th=
at
she would prefer to be alone.
"I must write some letters to catch t=
he
next steamer," she said, as she went upstairs.
When she entered her room, she went to her
writing table and sat down, with pen and paper before her. She drew the pap=
er
towards her and took up the pen, but the next moment she laid it down and g=
ave
a slight push to the paper. As she did so she realised that her hand trembl=
ed.
"I must not let myself form the habit=
of
falling into rages--or I shall not be able to keep still some day, when I o=
ught
to do it," she whispered. "I am in a fury--a fury." And for a
moment she covered her face.
She was a strong girl, but a girl,
notwithstanding her powers. What she suddenly saw was that, as if by one
movement of some powerful unseen hand, Rosy, who had been the centre of all
things, had been swept out of her thought. Her anger at the injustice done =
to
Rosy had been as nothing before the fire which had flamed in her at the ins=
ult
flung at the other. And all that was undue and unbalanced. One might as well
look the thing straightly in the face. Her old child hatred of Nigel
Anstruthers had sprung up again in ten-fold strength. There was, it was tru=
e, something
abominable about him, something which made his words more abominable than t=
hey
would have been if another man had uttered them--but, though it was inevita=
ble
that his method should rouse one, where those of one's own blood were
concerned, it was not enough to fill one with raging flame when his maligni=
ty
was dealing with those who were almost strangers. Mount Dunstan was almost a
stranger--she had met Lord Westholt oftener. Would she have felt the same h=
ot
beat of the blood, if Lord Westholt had been concerned? No, she answered
herself frankly, she would not.
CHAPTER XXXII - A GREAT BALL=
A certain great ball, given yearly at Dunh=
olm
Castle, was one of the most notable social features of the county. It took
place when the house was full of its most interestingly distinguished guest=
s,
and, though other balls might be given at other times, this one was marked =
by a
degree of greater state. On several occasions the chief guests had been gre=
at
personages indeed, and to be bidden to meet them implied a selection flatte=
ring
in itself. One's invitation must convey by inference that one was either
brilliant, beautiful, or admirable, if not important.
Nigel Anstruthers had never appeared at wh=
at
the uninvited were wont, with derisive smiles, to call The Great Panjandrum
Function--which was an ironic designation not employed by such persons as
received cards bidding them to the festivity. Stornham Court was not popula=
r in
the county; no one had yearned for the society of the Dowager Lady Anstruth=
ers,
even in her youth; and a not too well-favoured young man with an ill-favour=
ed
temper, noticeably on the lookout for grievances, is not an addition to one=
's
circle. At nineteen Nigel had discovered the older Lord Mount Dunstan and h=
is son
Tenham to be congenial acquaintances, and had been so often absent from home
that his neighbours would have found social intercourse with him difficult,
even if desirable. Accordingly, when the county paper recorded the splendou=
rs of
The Great Panjandrum Function--which it by no means mentioned by that name-=
-the
list of "Among those present" had not so far contained the name of
Sir Nigel Anstruthers.
So, on a morning a few days after his retu=
rn,
the master of Stornham turned over a card of invitation and read it several
times before speaking.
"I suppose you know what this
means," he said at last to Rosalie, who was alone with him.
"It means that we are invited to Dunh=
olm
Castle for the ball, doesn't it?"
Her husband tossed the card aside on the t=
able.
"It means that Betty will be invited =
to
every house where there is a son who must be disposed of profitably.
"She is invited because she is beauti=
ful
and clever. She would be invited if she had no money at all," said Rosy
daringly. She was actually growing daring, she thought sometimes. It would =
not
have been possible to say anything like this a few months ago.
"Don't make silly mistakes," said
Nigel. "There are a good many handsome girls who receive comparatively
little attention. But the hounds of war are let loose, when one of your swo=
llen
American fortunes appears. The obviousness of it 'virtuously' makes me sick.
It's as vulgar--as New York."
What befel next brought to Sir Nigel a sho=
ck
of curious enlightenment, but no one was more amazed than Rosy herself. She
felt, when she heard her own voice, as if she must be rather mad.
"I would rather," she said quite
distinctly, "that you did not speak to me of New York in that way.&quo=
t;
"What!" said Anstruthers, starin=
g at
her with contempt which was derision.
"It is my home," she answered.
"It is not proper that I should hear it spoken of slightingly."
"Your home! It has not taken the
slightest notice of you for twelve years. Your people dropped you as if you
were a hot potato."
"They have taken me up again." S=
till
in amazement at her own boldness, but somehow learning something as she went
on.
He walked over to her side, and stood befo=
re
her.
"Look here, Rosalie," he said.
"You have been taking lessons from your sister. She is a beauty and yo=
ung
and you are not. People will stand things from her they will not take from =
you.
I would stand some things myself, because it rather amuses a man to see a f=
ine
girl peacocking. It's merely ridiculous in you, and I won't stand it--not a=
bit
of it."
It was not specially fortunate for him that
the door opened as he was speaking, and Betty came in with her own invitati=
on
in her hand. He was quick enough, however, to turn to greet her with a shru=
g of
his shoulders.
"I am being favoured with a little sc=
ene
by my wife," he explained. "She is capable of getting up excellent
little scenes, but I daresay she does not show you that side of her
temper."
Betty took a comfortable chintz-covered, e=
asy
chair. Her expression was evasively speculative.
"Was it a scene I interrupted?" =
she
said. "Then I must not go away and leave you to finish it. You were sa=
ying
that you would not 'stand' something. What does a man do when he will not
'stand' a thing? It always sounds so final and appalling--as if he were
threatening horrible things such as, perhaps, were a resource in feudal tim=
es.
What IS the resource in these dull days of law and order--and policemen?&qu=
ot;
"Is this American chaff?" he was
disagreeably conscious that he was not wholly successful in his effort to be
lofty.
The frankness of Betty's smile was quite
without prejudice.
"Dear me, no," she said. "I=
t is
only the unpicturesque result of an unfeminine knowledge of the law. And I =
was
thinking how one is limited--and yet how things are simplified after all.&q=
uot;
"Simplified!" disgustedly.
"Yes, really. You see, if Rosy were
violent she could not beat you--even if she were strong enough--because you
could ring the bell and give her into custody. And you could not beat her
because the same unpleasant thing would happen to you. Policemen do rob thi=
ngs
of colour, don't they? And besides, when one remembers that mere vulgar law
insists that no one can be forced to live with another person who is brutal=
or loathsome,
that's simple, isn't it? You could go away from Rosy," with sweet clea=
rness,
"at any moment you wished--as far away as you liked."
"You seem to forget," still feel=
ing
that convincing loftiness was not easy, "that when a man leaves his wi=
fe,
or she deserts him, it is she who is likely to be called upon to bear the o=
nus
of public opinion."
"Would she be called upon to bear it
under all circumstances?"
"Damned clever woman as you are, you =
know
that she would, as well as I know it." He made an abrupt gesture with =
his
hand. "You know that what I say is true. Women who take to their heels=
are
deucedly unpopular in England."
"I have not been long in England, but=
I
have been struck by the prevalence of a sort of constitutional British sens=
e of
fair play among the people who really count. The Dunholms, for instance, ha=
ve it
markedly. In America it is the men who force women to take to their heels w=
ho
are deucedly unpopular. The Americans' sense of fair play is their most Eng=
lish
quality. It was brought over in ships by the first colonists--like the piec=
es
of fine solid old furniture, one even now sees, here and there, in houses in
Virginia."
"But the fact remains," said Nig=
el,
with an unpleasant laugh, "the fact remains, my dear girl."
"The fact that does remain," said
Betty, not unpleasantly at all, and still with her gentle air of mere
unprejudiced speculation, "is that, if a man or woman is properly
ill-treated--PROPERLY--not in any amateurish way--they reach the point of n=
ot
caring in the least--nothing matters, but that they must get away from the
horror of the unbearable thing --never to see or hear of it again is heaven
enough to make anything else a thing to smile at. But one could settle the
other point by experimenting. Suppose you run away from Rosy, and then we c=
an
see if she is cut by the county."
His laugh was unpleasant again.
"So long as you are with her, she will
not be cut. There are a number of penniless young men of family in this, as
well as the adjoining, counties. Do you think Mount Dunstan would cut
her?"
She looked down at the carpet thoughtfully=
a
moment, and then lifted her eyes.
"I do not think so," she answere=
d.
"But I will ask him."
He was startled by a sudden feeling that s=
he
might be capable of it.
"Oh, come now," he said, "t=
hat
goes beyond a joke. You will not do any such absurd thing. One does not want
one's domestic difficulties discussed by one's neighbours."
Betty opened coolly surprised eyes.
"I did not understand it was a person=
al
matter," she remarked. "Where do the domestic difficulties come
in?"
He stared at her a few seconds with the lo=
ok
she did not like, which was less likeable at the moment, because it combined
itself with other things.
"Hang it," he muttered. "I =
wish
I could keep my temper as you can keep yours," and he turned on his he=
el
and left the room.
Rosy had not spoken. She had sat with her
hands in her lap, looking out of the window. She had at first had a moment =
of
terror. She had, indeed, once uttered in her soul the abject cry: "Don=
't
make him angry, Betty--oh, don't, don't!" And suddenly it had been
stilled, and she had listened. This was because she realised that Nigel him=
self
was listening. That made her see what she had not dared to allow herself to=
see
before. These trite things were true. There were laws to protect one. If Be=
tty
had not been dealing with mere truths, Nigel would have stopped her. He had
been supercilious, but he could not contradict her.
"Betty," she said, when her sist=
er
came to her, "you said that to show ME things, as well as to show them=
to
him. I knew you did, and listened to every word. It was good for me to hear
you."
"Clear-cut, unadorned facts are like
bullets," said Betty. "They reach home, if one's aim is good. The
shiftiest people cannot evade them."
. . . . .
A certain thing became evident to Betty du=
ring
the time which elapsed between the arrival of the invitations and the great
ball. Despite an obvious intention to assume an amiable pose for the time
being, Sir Nigel could not conceal a not quite unexplainable antipathy to o=
ne individual.
This individual was Mount Dunstan, whom it did not seem easy for him to lea=
ve
alone. He seemed to recur to him as a subject, without any special reason, =
and
this somewhat puzzled Betty until she heard from Rosalie of his intimacy wi=
th
Lord Tenham, which, in a measure, explained it. The whole truth was that
"The Lout," as he had been called, had indulged in frank speech in
his rare intercourse with his brother and his friends, and had once interfe=
red
with hot young fury in a matter in which the pair had specially wished to a=
void
all interference. His open scorn of their methods of entertaining themselves
they had felt to be disgusting impudence, which would have been deservedly
punished with a horsewhip, if the youngster had not been a big-muscled, clu=
msy
oaf, with a dangerous eye. Upon this footing their acquaintance had stood in
past years, and to decide--as Sir Nigel had decided--that the oaf in questi=
on had
begun to make his bid for splendid fortune under the roof of Stornham Court
itself was a thing not to be regarded calmly. It was more than he could sta=
nd,
and the folly of temper, which was forever his undoing, betrayed him into
mistakes more than once. This girl, with her beauty and her wealth, he chos=
e to
regard as a sort of property rightfully his own. She was his sister-in-law,=
at
least; she was living under his roof; he had more or less the power to
encourage or discourage such aspirants as appeared. Upon the whole there was
something soothing to one's vanity in appearing before the world as the per=
son
at present responsible for her. It gave a man a certain dignity of position,
and his chief girding at fate had always risen from the fact that he had no=
t had
dignity of position. He would not be held cheap in this matter, at least. B=
ut
sometimes, as he looked at the girl he turned hot and sick, as it was driven
home to him that he was no longer young, that he had never been good-lookin=
g,
and that he had cut the ground from under his feet twelve years ago, when he
had married Rosalie! If he could have waited--if he could have done several
other things--perhaps the clever acting of a part, and his power of dominat=
ion
might have given him a chance. Even that blackguard of a Mount Dunstan had a
better one now. He was young, at least, and free--and a big strong beast. He
was forced, with bitter reluctance, to admit that he himself was not even p=
articularly
strong--of late he had felt it hideously.
So he detested Mount Dunstan the more for
increasing reasons, as he thought the matter over. It would seem, perhaps, =
but
a subtle pleasure to the normal mind, but to him there was pleasure--suppor=
t--aggrandisement--in
referring to the ill case of the Mount Dunstan estate, in relating illustra=
tive
anecdotes, in dwelling upon the hopelessness of the outlook, and the notable
unpopularity of the man himself. A confiding young lady from the States was
required, he said on one occasion, but it would be necessary that she shoul=
d be
a young person of much simplicity, who would not be alarmed or chilled by t=
he
obvious. No one would realise this more clearly than Mount Dunstan himself.=
He
said it coldly and casually, as if it were the simplest matter of fact. If =
the
fellow had been making himself agreeable to Betty, it was as well that cert=
ain
points should be--as it were inadvertently--brought before her.
Miss Vanderpoel was really rather fine, pe=
ople
said to each other afterwards, when she entered the ballroom at Dunholm Cas=
tle
with her brother-in-law. She bore herself as composedly as if she had been =
escorted
by the most admirable and dignified of conservative relatives, instead of b=
y a
man who was more definitely disliked and disapproved of than any other man =
in
the county whom decent people were likely to meet. Yet, she was far too cle=
ver
a girl not to realise the situation clearly, they said to each other. She h=
ad
arrived in England to find her sister a neglected wreck, her fortune
squandered, and her existence stripped bare of even such things as one felt=
to
be the mere decencies. There was but one thing to be deduced from the facts
which had stared her in the face. But of her deductions she had said nothing
whatever, which was, of course, remarkable in a young person. It may be
mentioned that, perhaps, there had been those who would not have been reluc=
tant
to hear what she must have had to say, and who had even possibly given her a
delicate lead. But the lead had never been taken. One lady had even remarke=
d that,
on her part, she felt that a too great reserve verged upon secretiveness, w=
hich
was not a desirable girlish quality.
Of course the situation had been so much d=
iscussed
that people were naturally on the lookout for the arrival of the Stornham
party, as it was known that Sir Nigel had returned home, and would be likel=
y to
present himself with his wife and sister-in-law. There was not a dowager pr=
esent
who did not know how and where he had reprehensibly spent the last months. =
It
served him quite right that the Spanish dancing person had coolly left him =
in
the lurch for a younger and more attractive, as well as a richer man. If it
were not for Miss Vanderpoel, one need not pretend that one knew nothing ab=
out
the affair--in fact, if it had not been for Miss Vanderpoel, he would not h=
ave
received an invitation--and poor Lady Anstruthers would be sitting at home,
still the forlorn little frump and invalid she had so wonderfully ceased to=
be
since her sister had taken her in hand. She was absolutely growing even pre=
tty
and young, and her clothes were really beautiful. The whole thing was amazi=
ng.
Betty, as well as Rosalie and Nigel--knew =
that
many people turned undisguisedly to look at them--even to watch them as they
came into the splendid ballroom. It was a splendid ballroom and a stately o=
ne,
and Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt shared a certain thought when they met h=
er,
which was that hers was distinctly the proud young brilliance of presence w=
hich
figured most perfectly against its background. Much as people wanted to loo=
k at
Sir Nigel, their eyes were drawn from him to Miss Vanderpoel. After all it =
was
she who made him an object of interest. One wanted to know what she would do
with him--how she would "carry him off." How much did she know of=
the
distaste people felt for him, since she would not talk or encourage talk? T=
he
Dunholms could not have invited her and her sister, and have ignored him; b=
ut
did she not guess that they would have ignored him, if they could? and was
there not natural embarrassment in feeling forced to appear in pomp, as it
were, under his escort?
But
no embarrassment was perceptible. Her manner committed her to no recognitio=
n of
a shadow of a flaw in the character of her companion. It even carried a cer=
tain
conviction with it, and the lookers-on felt the impossibility of suggesting=
any
such flaw by their own manner. For this evening, at least, the man must
actually be treated as if he were an entirely unobjectionable person. It
appeared as if that was what the girl wanted, and intended should happen.
This was what Nigel himself had begun to
perceive, but he did not put it pleasantly. Deucedly clever girl as she was=
, he
said to himself, she saw that it would be more agreeable to have no nonsense
talked, and no ruffling of tempers. He had always been able to convey to pe=
ople
that the ruffling of his temper was a thing to be avoided, and perhaps she =
had
already been sharp enough to realise this was a fact to be counted with. She
was sharp enough, he said to himself, to see anything.
The function was a superb one. The house w=
as
superb, the rooms of entertainment were in every proportion perfect, and we=
re
quite renowned for the beauty of the space they offered; the people themsel=
ves
were, through centuries of dignified living, so placed that intercourse wit=
h their
kind was an easy and delightful thing. They need never doubt either their o=
wn
effect, or the effect of their hospitalities. Sir Nigel saw about him all t=
he
people who held enviable place in the county. Some of them he had never kno=
wn,
some of them had long ceased to recall his existence. There were those among
them who lifted lorgnettes or stuck monocles into their eyes as he passed,
asking each other in politely subdued tones who the man was who seemed to b=
e in
attendance on Miss Vanderpoel. Nigel knew this and girded at it internally,
while he made the most of his suave smile.
The distinguished personage who was the ch=
ief
guest was to be seen at the upper end of the room talking to a tall man with
broad shoulders, who was plainly interesting him for the moment. As the
Stornham party passed on, this person, making his bow, retired, and, as he
turned towards them, Sir Nigel recognising him, the agreeable smile was for=
the
moment lost.
"How in the name of Heaven did Mount
Dunstan come here?" broke from him with involuntary heat.
"Would it be rash to conclude," =
said
Betty, as she returned the bow of a very grand old lady in black velvet and=
an
imposing tiara, "that he came in response to invitation?"
The very grand old lady seemed pleased to =
see
her, and, with a royal little sign, called her to her side. As Betty Vander=
poel
was a great success with the Mrs. Weldens and old Dobys of village life, she
was also a success among grand old ladies. When she stood before them there=
was
a delicate submission in her air which was suggestive of obedience to the
dignity of their years and state. Strongly conservative and rather feudal o=
ld
persons were much pleased by this. In the present irreverent iconoclasm of
modern times, it was most agreeable to talk to a handsome creature who was =
as
beautifully attentive as if she had been a specially perfect young
lady-in-waiting.
This one even patted Betty's hand a little,
when she took it. She was a great county potentate, who was known as Lady
Alanby of Dole--her house being one of the most ancient and interesting in
England.
"I am glad to see you here
to-night," she said. "You are looking very nice. But you cannot h=
elp
that."
Betty asked permission to present her sist=
er
and brother-in-law. Lady Alanby was polite to both of them, but she gave Ni=
gel
a rather sharp glance through her gold pince-nez as she greeted him.
"Janey and Mary," she said to the
two girls nearest her, "I daresay you will kindly change your chairs a=
nd
let Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel sit next to me."
The Ladies Jane and Mary Lithcom, who had =
been
ordered about by her from their infancy, obeyed with polite smiles. They we=
re
not particularly pretty girls, and were of the indigent noble. Jane, who had
almost overlarge blue eyes, sighed as she reseated herself a few chairs low=
er down.
"It does seem beastly unfair," s=
he
said in a low voice to her sister, "that a girl such as that should be=
so
awfully good-looking. She ought to have a turned-up nose."
"Thank you," said Mary, "I =
have
a turned-up nose myself, and I've got nothing to balance it."
"Oh, I didn't mean a nice turned-up n=
ose
like yours," said Jane; "I meant an ugly one. Of course Lady Alan=
by
wants her for Tommy." And her manner was not resigned.
"What she, or anyone else for that
matter," disdainfully, "could want with Tommy, I don't know,"
replied Mary.
"I do," answered Jane obstinatel=
y.
"I played cricket with him when I was eight, and I've liked him ever
since. It is AWFUL," in a smothered outburst, "what girls like us
have to suffer."
Lady Mary turned to look at her curiously.=
"Jane," she said, "are you
SUFFERING about Tommy?"
"Yes, I am. Oh, what a question to as=
k in
a ballroom! Do you want me to burst out crying?"
"No," sharply, "look at the
Prince. Stare at that fat woman curtsying to him. Stare and then wink your
eyes."
Lady Alanby was talking about Mount Dunsta=
n.
"Lord Dunholm has given us a lead. He=
is
an old friend of mine, and he has been talking to me about it. It appears t=
hat
he has been looking into things seriously. Modern as he is, he rather tilts=
at
injustices, in a quiet way. He has satisfactorily convinced himself that Lo=
rd
Mount Dunstan has been suffering for the sins of the fathers--which must be=
annoying."
"Is Lord Dunholm quite sure of
that?" put in Sir Nigel, with a suggestively civil air.
Old Lady Alanby gave him an unencouraging
look.
"Quite," she said. "He woul=
d be
likely to be before he took any steps."
"Ah," remarked Nigel. "I kn=
ew
Lord Tenham, you see."
Lady Alanby's look was more unencouraging
still. She quietly and openly put up her glass and stared. There were times
when she had not the remotest objection to being rude to certain people.
"I am sorry to hear that," she
observed. "There never was any room for mistake about Tenham. He is not
usually mentioned."
"I do not think this man would be usu=
ally
mentioned, if everything were known," said Nigel.
Then an appalling thing happened. Lady Ala=
nby
gazed at him a few seconds, and made no reply whatever. She dropped her gla=
ss,
and turned again to talk to Betty. It was as if she had turned her back on =
him,
and Sir Nigel, still wearing an amiable exterior, used internally some bad =
language.
"But I was a fool to speak of
Tenham," he thought. "A great fool."
A little later Miss Vanderpoel made her cu=
rtsy
to the exalted guest, and was commented upon again by those who looked on. =
It
was not at all unnatural that one should find ones eyes following a girl wh=
o, representing
a sort of royal power, should have the good fortune of possessing such looks
and bearing.
Remembering his child bete noir of the long
legs and square, audacious little face, Nigel Anstruthers found himself
restraining a slight grin as he looked on at her dancing. Partners flocked
about her like bees, and Lady Alanby of Dole, and other very grand old or
middle-aged ladies all found the evening more interesting because they could
watch her.
"She is full of spirit," said La=
dy
Alanby, "and she enjoys herself as a girl should. It is a pleasure to =
look
at her. I like a girl who gets a magnificent colour and stars in her eyes w=
hen
she dances. It looks healthy and young."
It was Tommy Miss Vanderpoel was dancing w=
ith
when her ladyship said this. Tommy was her grandson and a young man of grea=
ter
rank than fortune. He was a nice, frank, heavy youth, who loved a simple co=
unty
life spent in tramping about with guns, and in friendly hobnobbing with the
neighbours, and eating great afternoon teas with people whose jokes were ea=
sy
to understand, and who were ready to laugh if you tried a joke yourself. He
liked girls, and especially he liked Jane Lithcom, but that was a weakness =
his
grandmother did not at all encourage, and, as he danced with Betty Vanderpo=
el,
he looked over her shoulder more than once at a pair of big, unhappy blue e=
yes,
whose owner sat against the wall.
Betty Vanderpoel herself was not thinking =
of
Tommy. In fact, during this brilliant evening she faced still further
developments of her own strange case. Certain new things were happening to =
her.
When she had entered the ballroom she had known at once who the man was who
stood before the royal guest--she had known before he bowed low and withdre=
w. And
her recognition had brought with it a shock of joy. For a few moments her
throat felt hot and pulsing. It was true--the things which concerned him
concerned her. All that happened to him suddenly became her affair, as if in
some way they were of the same blood. Nigel's slighting of him had infuriat=
ed
her; that Lord Dunholm had offered him friendship and hospitality was a thi=
ng
which seemed done to herself, and filled her with gratitude and affection; =
that
he should be at this place, on this special occasion, swept away dark things
from his path. It was as if it were stated without words that a conservative
man of the world, who knew things as they were, having means of reaching
truths, vouched for him and placed his dignity and firmness at his side.
And there was the gladness at the sight of
him. It was an overpoweringly strong thing. She had never known anything li=
ke
it. She had not seen him since Nigel's return, and here he was, and she knew
that her life quickened in her because they were together in the same room.=
He
had come to them and said a few courteous words, but he had soon gone away.=
At
first she wondered if it was because of Nigel, who at the time was making
himself rather ostentatiously amiable to her. Afterwards she saw him dancin=
g,
talking, being presented to people, being, with a tactful easiness, taken c=
are
of by his host and hostess, and Lord Westholt. She was struck by the gracef=
ul
magic with which this tactful ease surrounded him without any obviousness. =
The
Dunholms had given a lead, as Lady Alanby had said, and the rest were follo=
wing
it and ignoring intervals with reposeful readiness. It was wonderfully well
done. Apparently there had been no past at all. All began with this large y=
oung
man, who, despite his Viking type, really looked particularly well in eveni=
ng dress.
Lady Alanby held him by her chair for some time, openly enjoying her talk w=
ith
him, and calling up Tommy, that they might make friends.
After a while, Betty said to herself, he w=
ould
come and ask for a dance. But he did not come, and she danced with one man
after another. Westholt came to her several times and had more dances than =
one.
Why did the other not come? Several times they whirled past each other, and
when it occurred they looked--both feeling it an accident--into each other'=
s eyes.
The strong and strange thing--that which m=
oves
on its way as do birth and death, and the rising and setting of the sun--had
begun to move in them. It was no new and rare thing, but an ancient and com=
mon
one--as common and ancient as death and birth themselves; and part of the l=
aw as
they are. As it comes to royal persons to whom one makes obeisance at their
mere passing by, as it comes to scullery maids in royal kitchens, and groom=
s in
royal stables, as it comes to ladies-in-waiting and the women who serve the=
m,
so it had come to these two who had been drawn near to each other from the
opposite sides of the earth, and each started at the touch of it, and withd=
rew
a pace in bewilderment, and some fear.
"I wish," Mount Dunstan was feel=
ing
throughout the evening, "that her eyes had some fault in their
expression--that they drew one less--that they drew ME less. I am losing my
head."
"It would be better," Betty thou=
ght,
"if I did not wish so much that he would come and ask me to dance with
him--that he would not keep away so. He is keeping away for a reason. Why i=
s he
doing it?"
The music swung on in lovely measures, and=
the
dancers swung with it. Sir Nigel walked dutifully through the Lancers once =
with
his wife, and once with his beautiful sister-in-law. Lady Anstruthers, in h=
er
new bloom, had not lacked partners, who discovered that she was a childishl=
y light
creature who danced extremely well. Everyone was kind to her, and the very
grand old ladies, who admired Betty, were absolutely benign in their manner.
Betty's partners paid ingenuous court to her, and Sir Nigel found he had not
been mistaken in his estimate of the dignity his position of escort and male
relation gave to him.
Rosy, standing for a moment looking out on= the brilliancy and state about her, meeting Betty's eyes, laughed quiveringly.<= o:p>
"I am in a dream," she said.
"You have awakened from a dream,"
Betty answered.
From the opposite side of the room someone=
was
coming towards them, and, seeing him, Rosy smiled in welcome.
"I am sure Lord Mount Dunstan is comi=
ng
to ask you to dance with him," she said. "Why have you not danced
with him before, Betty?"
"He has not asked me," Betty
answered. "That is the only reason."
"Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt calle=
d at
the Mount a few days after they met him at Stornham," Rosalie explaine=
d in
an undertone. "They wanted to know him. Then it seems they found they
liked each other. Lady Dunholm has been telling me about it. She says Lord
Dunholm thanks you, because you said something illuminating. That was the w=
ord
she used--'illuminating.' I believe you are always illuminating, Betty.&quo=
t;
Mount Dunstan was certainly coming to them.
How broad his shoulders looked in his close-fitting black coat, how well bu=
ilt
his whole strong body was, and how steadily he held his eyes! Here and there
one sees a man or woman who is, through some trick of fate, by nature a
compelling thing unconsciously demanding that one should submit to some
domineering attraction. One does not call it domineering, but it is so. This
special creature is charged unfairly with more than his or her single share=
of force.
Betty Vanderpoel thought this out as this "other one" came to her=
. He
did not use the ballroom formula when he spoke to her. He said in rather a =
low
voice:
"Will you dance with me?"
"Yes," she answered.
Lord Dunholm and his wife agreed afterwards
that so noticeable a pair had never before danced together in their ballroo=
m.
Certainly no pair had ever been watched with quite the same interested
curiosity. Some onlookers thought it singular that they should dance togeth=
er
at all, some pleased themselves by reflecting on the fact that no other two=
could
have represented with such picturesqueness the opposite poles of fate and
circumstance. No one attempted to deny that they were an extraordinarily st=
riking-looking
couple, and that one's eyes followed them in spite of one's self.
"Taken together they produce an effect
that is somehow rather amazing," old Lady Alanby commented. "He i=
s a
magnificently built man, you know, and she is a magnificently built girl.
Everybody should look like that. My impression would be that Adam and Eve d=
id,
but for the fact that neither of them had any particular character. That af=
fair
of the apple was so silly. Eve has always struck me as being the kind of wo=
man
who, if she lived to-day, would run up stupid bills at her dressmakers and =
be
afraid to tell her husband. That wonderful black head of Miss Vanderpoel's
looks very nice poised near Mount Dunstan's dark red one."
"I am glad to be dancing with him,&qu=
ot;
Betty was thinking. "I am glad to be near him."
"Will you dance this with me to the v=
ery
end," asked Mount Dunstan--"to the very late note?"
"Yes," answered Betty.
He had spoken in a low but level voice--the
kind of voice whose tone places a man and woman alone together, and wholly
apart from all others by whomsoever they are surrounded. There had been no
preliminary speech and no explanation of the request followed. The music wa=
s a
perfect thing, the brilliant, lofty ballroom, the beauty of colour and soun=
d about
them, the jewels and fair faces, the warm breath of flowers in the air, the
very sense of royal presence and its accompanying state and ceremony, seemed
merely a naturally arranged background for the strange consciousness each h=
eld
close and silently--knowing nothing of the mind of the other.
This was what was passing through the man's
mind.
"This is the thing which most men
experience several times during their lives. It would be reason enough for =
all
the great deeds and all the crimes one hears of. It is an enormous kind of
anguish and a fearful kind of joy. It is scarcely to be borne, and yet, at =
this
moment, I could kill myself and her, at the thought of losing it. If I had
begun earlier, would it have been easier? No, it would not. With me it is b=
ound
to go hard. At twenty I should probably not have been able to keep myself f=
rom
shouting it aloud, and I should not have known that it was only the working=
of
the Law. 'Only!' Good God, what a fool I am! It is because it is only the L=
aw
that I cannot escape, and must go on to the end, grinding my teeth together
because I cannot speak. Oh, her smooth young cheek! Oh, the deep shadows of=
her
lashes! And while we sway round and round together, I hold her slim strong =
body
in the hollow of my arm."
It was, quite possibly, as he thought this
that Nigel Anstruthers, following him with his eyes as he passed, began to
frown. He had been watching the pair as others had, he had seen what others
saw, and now he had an idea that he saw something more, and it was somethin=
g which
did not please him. The instinct of the male bestirred itself--the curious =
instinct
of resentment against another man--any other man. And, in this case, Mount
Dunstan was not any other man, but one for whom his antipathy was personal.=
"I won't have that," he said to
himself. "I won't have it."
. . . . .
The music rose and swelled, and then sank =
into
soft breathing, as they moved in harmony together, gliding and swirling as =
they
threaded their way among other couples who swirled and glided also, some of
them light and smiling, some exchanging low-toned speech--perhaps saying wo=
rds which,
unheard by others, touched on deep things. The exalted guest fell into
momentary silence as he looked on, being a man much attracted by physical
fineness and temperamental power and charm. A girl like that would bring a
great deal to a man and to the country he belonged to. A great race might be
founded on such superbness of physique and health and beauty. Combined with
abnormal resources, certainly no more could be asked. He expressed somethin=
g of
the kind to Lord Dunholm, who stood near him in attendance.
To herself Betty was saying: "That wa=
s a
strange thing he asked me. It is curious that we say so little. I should ne=
ver
know much about him. I have no intelligence where he is concerned--only a
strong, stupid feeling, which is not like a feeling of my own. I am no long=
er
Betty Vanderpoel--and I wish to go on dancing with him--on and on--to the l=
ast note,
as he said."
She felt a little hot wave run over her ch=
eek
uncomfortably, and the next instant the big arm tightened its clasp of her-=
-for
just one second--not more than one. She did not know that he, himself, had =
seen
the sudden ripple of red colour, and that the equally sudden contraction of=
the
arm had been as unexpected to him and as involuntary as the quick wave itse=
lf.
It had horrified and made him angry. He looked the next instant entirely st=
iff
and cold.
"He did not know it happened," B=
etty
resolved.
"The music is going to stop," sa=
id
Mount Dunstan. "I know the waltz. We can get once round the room again
before the final chord. It was to be the last note--the very last," bu=
t he
said it quite rigidly, and Betty laughed.
"Quite the last," she answered.<= o:p>
The music hastened a little, and their gli=
ding
whirl became more rapid--a little faster--a little faster still--a running
sweep of notes, a big, terminating harmony, and the thing was over.
"Thank you," said Mount Dunstan.
"One will have it to remember." And his tone was slightly sardoni=
c.
"Yes," Betty acquiesced politely=
.
"Oh, not you. Only I. I have never
waltzed before."
Betty turned to look at him curiously.
"Under circumstances such as these,&q=
uot;
he explained. "I learned to dance at a particularly hideous boys' scho=
ol
in France. I abhorred it. And the trend of my life has made it quite easy f=
or
me to keep my twelve-year-old vow that I would never dance after I left the
place, unless I WANTED to do it, and that, especially, nothing should make =
me
waltz until certain agreeable conditions were fulfilled. Waltzing I approved
of--out of hideous schools. I was a pig-headed, objectionable child. I dete=
sted
myself even, then."
Betty's composure returned to her.
"I am trusting," she remarked,
"that I may secretly regard myself as one of the agreeable conditions =
to be
fulfilled. Do not dispel my hopes roughly."
"I will not," he answered. "=
;You
are, in fact, several of them."
"One breathes with much greater
freedom," she responded.
This sort of cool nonsense was safe. It
dispelled feelings of tenseness, and carried them to the place where Sir Ni=
gel
and Lady Anstruthers awaited them. A slight stir was beginning to be felt
throughout the ballroom. The royal guest was retiring, and soon the rest be=
gan
to melt away. The Anstruthers, who had a long return drive before them, wer=
e among
those who went first.
When Lady Anstruthers and her sister retur=
ned
from the cloak room, they found Sir Nigel standing near Mount Dunstan, who =
was
going also, and talking to him in an amiably detached manner. Mount Dunstan,
himself, did not look amiable, or seem to be saying much, but Sir Nigel sho=
wed
no signs of being disturbed.
"Now that you have ceased to forswear=
the
world," he said as his wife approached, "I hope we shall see you =
at
Stornham. Your visits must not cease because we cannot offer you G. Selden =
any
longer."
He had his own reasons for giving the
invitation--several of them. And there was a satisfaction in letting the fe=
llow
know, casually, that he was not in the ridiculous position of being unaware=
of
what had occurred during his absence--that there had been visits--and also =
the objectionable
episode of the American bounder. That the episode had been objectionable, he
knew he had adroitly conveyed by mere tone and manner.
Mount Dunstan thanked him in the usual
formula, and then spoke to Betty.
"G. Selden left us tremulous and feve=
red
with ecstatic anticipation. He carried your kind letter to Mr. Vanderpoel, =
next
to his heart. His brain seemed to whirl at the thought of what 'the boys' w=
ould
say, when he arrived with it in New York. You have materialised the dream of
his life!"
"I have interested my father," B=
etty
answered, with a brilliant smile. "He liked the romance of the Reuben =
S.
Vanderpoel who rewarded the saver of his life by unbounded orders for the
Delkoff."
. . . . .
As their carriage drove away, Sir Nigel be=
nt
forward to look out of the window, and having done it, laughed a little.
"Mount Dunstan does not play the game
well," he remarked.
It was annoying that neither Betty nor his
wife inquired what the game in question might be, and that his temperament
forced him into explaining without encouragement.
"He should have 'stood motionless with
folded arms,' or something of the sort, and 'watched her equipage until it =
was
out of sight.'"
"And he did not?" said Betty
"He turned on his heel as soon as the
door was shut."
"People ought not to do such things," was her simple comment. To which it seemed useless to reply.<= o:p>
CHAPTER XXXIII - FOR LADY JANE
There is no one thing on earth of such
interest as the study of the laws of temperament, which impel, support, or
entrap into folly and danger the being they rule. As a child, not old enoug=
h to
give a definite name to the thing she watched and pondered on, in child
fashion, Bettina Vanderpoel had thought much on this subject. As she had gr=
own
older, she had never been ignorant of the workings of her own temperament, =
and
she had looked on for years at the laws which had wrought in her father's b=
eing--the
laws of strength, executive capacity, and that pleasure in great schemes, w=
hich
is roused less by a desire for gain than for a strongly-felt necessity for
action, resulting in success. She mentally followed other people on their w=
ay,
sometimes asking herself how far the individual was to be praised or blamed=
for
his treading of the path he seemed to choose. And now there was given her t=
he
opportunity to study the workings of the nature of Nigel Anstruthers, which=
was
a curious thing.
He was not an individual to be envied. Nev=
er
was man more tormented by lack of power to control his special devil, at the
right moment of time, and therefore, never was there one so inevitably his =
own
frustration. This Betty saw after the passing of but a few days, and wonder=
ed
how far he was conscious or unconscious of the thing. At times it appeared =
to her
that he was in a state of unrest--that he was as a man wavering between lin=
es
of action, swayed at one moment by one thought, at another by an idea quite
different, and that he was harried because he could not hold his own with
himself.
This was true. The ball at Dunholm Castle =
had
been enlightening, and had wrought some changes in his points of view. Also
other factors had influenced him. In the first place, the changed atmospher=
e of
Stornham, the fitness and luxury of his surroundings, the new dignity given=
to
his position by the altered aspect of things, rendered external amiability =
more
easy. To ride about the country on a good horse, or drive in a smart phaeto=
n,
or suitable carriage, and to find that people who a year ago had passed him=
with
the merest recognition, saluted him with polite intention, was, to a certain
degree, stimulating to a vanity which had been long ill-fed. The power which
produced these results should, of course, have been in his own hands--his
money-making father-in-law should have seen that it was his affair to provi=
de
for that--but since he had not done so, it was rather entertaining that it
should be, for the present, in the hands of this extraordinarily good-looki=
ng
girl.
He had begun by merely thinking of her in =
this
manner--as "this extraordinarily good-looking girl," and had not,=
for
a moment, hesitated before the edifying idea of its not being impossible to
arrange a lively flirtation with her. She was at an age when, in his opinio=
n,
girlhood was poised for flight with adventure, and his tastes had not led h=
im in
the direction of youth which was fastidious. His Riviera episode had left h=
is
vanity blistered and requiring some soothing application. His life had work=
ed
evil with him, and he had fallen ill on the hands of a woman who had treated
him as a shattered, useless thing whose day was done and with whom strength=
and
bloom could not be burdened. He had kept his illness a hidden secret, on his
return to Stornham, his one desire having been to forget--even to disbeliev=
e in
it, but dreams of its suggestion sometimes awakened him at night with shudd=
ers
and cold sweat. He was hideously afraid of death and pain, and he had had
monstrous pain--and while he had lain battling with it, upon his bed in the
villa on the Mediterranean, he had been able to hear, in the garden outside=
, the
low voices and laughter of the Spanish dancer and the healthy, strong young
fool who was her new adorer.
When he had found himself face to face with
Betty in the avenue, after the first leap of annoyance, which had suddenly =
died
down into perversely interested curiosity, he could have laughed outright a=
t the
novelty and odd unexpectedness of the situation. The ill-mannered, impudent=
ly-staring,
little New York beast had developed into THIS! Hang it! No man could guess =
what
the embryo female creature might result in. His mere shakiness of physical
condition added strength to her attraction. She was like a young goddess of
health and life and fire; the very spring of her firm foot upon the moss
beneath it was a stimulating thing to a man whose nerves sprung secret fears
upon him. There were sparks between the sweep of her lashes, but she manage=
d to
carry herself with the air of being as cool as a cucumber, which gave spice=
to
the effort to "upset" her. If she did not prove suitably amenable,
there would be piquancy in getting the better of her--in stirring up unplea=
sant
little things, which would make it easier for her to go away than remain on=
the
spot--if one should end by choosing to get rid of her. But, for the moment,=
he
had no desire to get rid of her. He wanted to see what she intended to do--=
to
see the thing out, in fact. It amused him to hear that Mount Dunstan was on=
her
track. There exists for persons of a certain type a pleasure full-fed by the
mere sense of having "got even" with an opponent. Throughout his =
life
he had made a point of "getting even" with those who had irritati=
ngly
crossed his path, or much disliked him. The working out of small or large p=
lans
to achieve this end had formed one of his most agreeable recreations. He had
long owed Mount Dunstan a debt, which he had always meant to pay. He had not
intended to forget the episode of the nice little village girl with whom Te=
nham
and himself had been getting along so enormously well, when the raging young
ass had found them out, and made an absurdly exaggerated scene, even going =
so
far as threatening to smash the pair of them, marching off to the father and
mother, and setting the vicar on, and then scratching together--God knows
how--money enough to pack the lot off to America, where they had since done
well. Why should a man forgive another who had made him look like a schoolb=
oy
and a fool? So, to find Mount Dunstan rushing down a steep hill into this
thing, was edifying. You cannot take much out of a man if you never encount=
er
him. If you meet him, you are provided by Heaven with opportunities. You ca=
n find
out what he feels most sharply, and what he will suffer most by being depri=
ved
of. His impression was that there was a good deal to be got out of Mount
Dunstan. He was an obstinate, haughty devil, and just the fellow to conceal
with a fury of pride a score of tender places in his hide.
At the ball he had seen that the girl's ef=
fect
had been of a kind which even money and good looks uncombined with another
thing might not have produced. And she had the other thing--whatsoever it m=
ight
be. He observed the way in which the Dunholms met and greeted her, he marke=
d the
glance of the royal personage, and his manner, when after her presentation =
he
conversed with and detained her, he saw the turning of heads and exchange of
remarks as she moved through the rooms. Most especially, he took in the bea=
ring
of the very grand old ladies, led by Lady Alanby of Dole. Barriers had thro=
wn
themselves down, these portentous, rigorous old pussycats admired her, even
liked her.
"Upon my word," he said to himse=
lf.
"She has a way with her, you know. She is a combination of Ethel Newco=
me
and Becky Sharp. But she is more level-headed than either of them, There's a
touch of Trix Esmond, too."
The sense of the success which followed he=
r,
and the gradually-growing excitement of looking on at her light whirls of
dance, the carnation of her cheek, and the laughter and pleasure she drew a=
bout
her, had affected him in a way by which he was secretly a little exhilarate=
d.
He was conscious of a rash desire to force his way through these laughing, =
vaunting
young idiots, juggle or snatch their dances away from them, and seize on the
girl himself. He had not for so long a time been impelled by such agreeable
folly that he had sometimes felt the stab of the thought that he was past i=
t.
That it should rise in him again made him feel young. There was nothing whi=
ch
so irritated him against Mount Dunstan as his own rebelling recognition of =
the
man's youth, the strength of his fine body, his high-held head and clear ey=
e.
These things and others it was which swayed
him, as was plain to Betty in the time which followed, to many changes of m=
ood.
"Are you sorry for a man who is ill a=
nd
depressed," he asked one day, "or do you despise him?"
"I am sorry."
"Then be sorry for me."
He had come out of the house to her as she=
sat
on the lawn, under a broad, level-branched tree, and had thrown himself upo=
n a
rug with his hands clasped behind his head.
"Are you ill?"
"When I was on the Riviera I had a
fall." He lied simply. "I strained some muscle or other, and it h=
as
left me rather lame. Sometimes I have a good deal of pain."
"I am very sorry," said Betty.
"Very."
A woman who can be made sorry it is rarely
impossible to manage. To dwell with pathetic patience on your grievances, if
she is weak and unintelligent, to deplore, with honest regret, your faults =
and
blunders, if she is strong, are not bad ideas.
He looked at her reflectively.
"Yes, you are capable of being
sorry," he decided. For a few moments of silence his eyes rested upon =
the
view spread before him. To give the expression of dignified reflection was =
not
a bad idea either.
"Do you know," he said at length,
"that you produce an extraordinary effect upon me, Betty?"
She was occupying herself by adding a few
stitches to one of Rosy's ancient strips of embroidery, and as she answered,
she laid it flat upon her knee to consider its effect.
"Good or bad?" she inquired, with
delicate abstraction.
He turned his face towards her again--this
time quickly.
"Both," he answered.
"Both."
His tone held the flash of a heat which he
felt should have startled her slightly. But apparently it did not.
"I do not like 'both,'" with com=
posed
lightness. "If you had said that you felt yourself develop angelic
qualities when you were near me, I should feel flattered, and swell with pr=
ide.
But 'both' leaves me unsatisfied. It interferes with the happy little conce=
it
that one is an all-pervading, beneficent power. One likes to contemplate a =
large
picture of one's self--not plain, but coloured--as a wholesale reformer.&qu=
ot;
"I see. Thank you," stiffly and
flushing. "You do not believe me."
Her effect upon him was such that, for the
moment, he found himself choosing to believe that he was in earnest. His de=
sire
to impress her with his mood had actually led to this result. She ought to =
have
been rather moved--a little fluttered, perhaps, at hearing that she disturb=
ed his
equilibrium.
"You set yourself against me, as a ch=
ild,
Betty," he said. "And you set yourself against me now. You will n=
ot
give me fair play. You might give me fair play." He dropped his voice =
at
the last sentence, and knew it was well done. A touch of hopelessness is not
often lost on a woman.
"What would you consider fair play?&q=
uot;
she inquired.
"It would be fair to listen to me wit=
hout
prejudice--to let me explain how it has happened that I have appeared to you
a--a blackguard--I have no doubt you would call it--and a fool." He th=
rew
out his hand in an impatient gesture--impatient of himself--his fate--the
tricks of bad fortune which it implied had made of him a more erring mortal
than he would have been if left to himself, and treated decently.
"Do not put it so strongly," wit=
h conservative
politeness.
"I don't refuse to admit that I am handicapped by a devil of a temperament. That is an inherited thing."<= o:p>
"Ah!" said Betty. "One of t=
he
temperaments one reads about--for which no one is to be blamed but one's
deceased relatives. After all, that is comparatively easy to deal with. One=
can
just go on doing what one wants to do--and then condemn one's grandparents
severely."
A repellent quality in her--which had also=
the
trick of transforming itself into an exasperating attraction--was that she
deprived him of the luxury he had been most tenacious of throughout his
existence. If the injustice of fate has failed to bestow upon a man fortune,
good looks or brilliance, his exercise of the power to disturb, to enrage t=
hose
who dare not resent, to wound and take the nonsense out of those about him,=
will,
at all events, preclude the possibility of his being passed over as a factor
not to be considered. If to charm and bestow gives the sense of power, to
thwart and humiliate may be found not wholly unsatisfying.
But in her case the inadequacy of the usual
methods had forced itself upon him. It was as if the dart being aimed at he=
r,
she caught it in her hand in its flight, broke off its point and threw it
lightly aside without comment. Most women cannot resist the temptation to
answer a speech containing a sting or a reproach. It was part of her
abnormality that she could let such things go by in a detached silence, whi=
ch
did not express even the germ of comment or opinion upon them. This, he sai=
d,
was the result of her beastly sense of security, which, in its turn, was the
result of the atmosphere of wealth she had breathed since her birth. There =
had
been no obstacle which could not be removed for her, no law of limitation h=
ad
laid its rein on her neck. She had not been taught by her existence the
importance of propitiating opinion. Under such conditions, how was fear to =
be
learned? She had not learned it. But for the devil in the blue between her
lashes, he realised that he should have broken loose long ago.
"I suppose I deserved that for making=
a
stupid appeal to sympathy," he remarked. "I will not do it
again."
If she had been the woman who can be gently
goaded into reply, she would have made answer to this. But she allowed the
observation to pass, giving it free flight into space, where it lost itself
after the annoying manner of its kind.
"Have you any objection to telling me=
why
you decided to come to England this year?" he inquired, with a casual =
air,
after the pause which she did not fill in.
The bluntness of the question did not seem=
to
disturb her. She was not sorry, in fact, that he had asked it. She let her =
work
lie upon her knee, and leaned back in her low garden chair, her hands resti=
ng
upon its wicker arms. She turned on him a clear unprejudiced gaze.
"I came to see Rosy. I have always be=
en
very fond of her. I did not believe that she had forgotten how much we had
loved her, or how much she had loved us. I knew that if I could see her aga=
in I
should understand why she had seemed to forget us."
"And when you saw her, you, of course,
decided that I had behaved, to quote my own words--like a blackguard and a
fool."
"It is, of course, very rude to say y=
ou
have behaved like a fool, but--if you'll excuse my saying so--that is what =
has impressed
me very much. Don't you know," with a moderation, which singularly dro=
ve
itself home, "that if you had been kind to her, and had made her happy,
you could have had anything you wished for--without trouble?"
This was one of the unadorned facts which =
are
like bullets. Disgustedly, he found himself veering towards an outlook which
forced him to admit that there was probably truth in what she said, and he =
knew
he heard more truth as she went on.
"She would have wanted only what you
wanted, and she would not have asked much in return. She would not have ask=
ed
as much as I should. What you did was not businesslike." She paused a
moment to give thought to it. "You paid too high a price for the luxur=
y of
indulging the inherited temperament. Your luxury was not to control it. But=
it
was a bad investment."
"The figure of speech is rather
commercial," coldly.
"It is curious that most things are, =
as a
rule. There is always the parallel of profit and loss whether one sees it or
not. The profits are happiness and friendship--enjoyment of life and
approbation. If the inherited temperament supplies one with all one wants of
such things, it cannot be called a loss, of course."
"You
think, however, that mine has not brought me much?" "I do not know. It is you who know.&q=
uot; "Well," viciously, "there H=
AS
been a sort of luxury in it in lashing out with one's heels, and smashing
things--and in knowing that people prefer to keep clear." She lifted her shoulders a little. "Then perhaps it has paid." "No," suddenly and fiercely,
"damn it, it has not!" And she actually made no reply to that. "What do you mean to do?" he
questioned as bluntly as before. He knew she would understand what he meant=
. "Not much. To see that Rosy is not
unhappy any more. We can prevent that. She was out of repair--as the house =
was.
She is being rebuilt and decorated. She knows that she will be taken care
of." "I know her better than you do,"
with a laugh. "She will not go away. She is too frightened of the row =
it
would make--of what I should say. I should have plenty to say. I can make h=
er
shake in her shoes." Betty let her eyes rest full upon him, and=
he
saw that she was softly summing him up--quite without prejudice, merely in
interested speculation upon the workings of type. "You are letting the inherited
temperament run away with you at this moment," she reflected aloud--her
quiet scrutiny almost abstracted. "It was foolish to say that." He had known it was foolish two seconds af=
ter
the words had left his lips. But a temper which has been allowed to leap
hedges, unchecked throughout life, is in peril of forming a habit of taking
them even at such times as a leap may land its owner in a ditch. This last =
was
what her interested eyes were obviously saying. It suited him best at the m=
oment
to try to laugh. "Don't look at me like that," he
threw off. "As if you were calculating that two and two make four.&quo=
t; "No prejudice of mine can induce them=
to
make five or six--or three and a half," she said. "No prejudice of
mine--or of yours." The two and two she was calculating with w=
ere
the likelihoods and unlikelihoods of the inherited temperament, and the
practical powers she could absolutely count on if difficulty arose with reg=
ard
to Rosy. He guessed at this, and began to make
calculations himself. But there was no further conversation for
them, as they were obliged to rise to their feet to receive visitors. Lady
Alanby of Dole and Sir Thomas, her grandson, were being brought out of the
house to them by Rosalie. He went forward to meet them--his manner t=
hat
of the graceful host. Lady Alanby, having been welcomed by him, and led to =
the
most comfortable, tree-shaded chair, found his bearing so elegantly chasten=
ed
that she gazed at him with private curiosity. To her far-seeing and highly =
experienced
old mind it seemed the bearing of a man who was "up to something."
What special thing did he chance to be "up to"? His glance certai=
nly
lurked after Miss Vanderpoel oddly. Was he falling in unholy love with the
girl, under his stupid little wife's very nose? She could not, however, give her undivided
attention to him, as she wished to keep her eye on her grandson
and--outrageously enough fit happened that just as tea was brought out and
Tommy was beginning to cheer up and quite come out a little under the spur =
of
the activities of handing bread and butter and cress sandwiches, who should
appear but the two Lithcom girls, escorted by their aunt, Mrs. Manners, with
whom they lived. As they were orphans without money, if the Manners, who we=
re rather
well off, had not taken them in, they would have had to go to the workhouse=
, or
into genteel amateur shops, as they were not clever enough for governesses.=
Mary, with her turned-up nose, looked just
about as usual, but Jane had a new frock on which was exactly the colour of=
the
big, appealing eyes, with their trick of following people about. She looked=
a
little pale and pathetic, which somehow gave her a specious air of being
pretty, which she really was not at all. The swaying young thinness of those
very slight girls whose soft summer muslins make them look like delicate ba=
gs
tied in the middle with fluttering ribbons, has almost invariably a foolish
attraction for burly young men whose characters are chiefly marked by lack =
of
forethought, and Lady Alanby saw Tommy's robust young body give a sort of j=
erk
as the party of three was brought across the grass. After it he pulled hims=
elf
together hastily, and looked stiff and pink, shaking hands as if his elbow
joint was out of order, being at once too loose and too rigid. He began to =
be
clumsy with the bread and butter, and, ceasing his talk with Miss Vanderpoe=
l,
fell into silence. Why should he go on talking? he thought. Miss Vanderpoel=
was
a cracking handsome girl, but she was too clever for him, and he had to thi=
nk of
all sorts of new things to say when he talked to her. And--well, a fellow c=
ould
never imagine himself stretched out on the grass, puffing happily away at a
pipe, with a girl like that sitting near him, smiling--the hot turf smelling
almost like hay, the hot blue sky curving overhead, and both the girl and
himself perfectly happy--chock full of joy--though neither of them were say=
ing
anything at all. You could imagine it with some girls--you DID imagine it w=
hen
you wakened early on a summer morning, and lay in luxurious stillness liste=
ning
to the birds singing like mad. Lady Jane was a nicely-behaved girl, and s=
he
tried to keep her following blue eyes fixed on the grass, or on Lady
Anstruthers, or Miss Vanderpoel, but there was something like a string, whi=
ch
sometimes pulled them in another direction, and once when this had
happened--quite against her will--she was terrified to find Lady Alanby's g=
lass
lifted and fixed upon her. As Lady Alanby's opinion of Mrs. Manners w=
as
but a poor one, and as Mrs. Manners was stricken dumb by her combined disli=
ke
and awe of Lady Alanby, a slight stiffness might have settled upon the
gathering if Betty had not made an effort. She applied herself to Lady Alan=
by
and Mrs. Manners at once, and ended by making them talk to each other. When=
they
left the tea table under the trees to look at the gardens, she walked betwe=
en
them, playing upon the primeval horticultural passions which dominate the
existence of all respectable and normal country ladies, until the gulf betw=
een
them was temporarily bridged. This being achieved, she adroitly passed them
over to Lady Anstruthers, who, Nigel observed with some curiosity, accepted=
the
casual responsibility without manifest discomfiture. To the aching Tommy the manner in which, a=
few
minutes later, he found himself standing alone with Jane Lithcom in a path =
of
clipped laurels was almost bewilderingly simple. At the end of the laurel w=
alk
was a pretty peep of the country, and Miss Vanderpoel had brought him to se=
e it.
Nigel Anstruthers had been loitering behind with Jane and Mary. As Miss
Vanderpoel turned with him into the path, she stooped and picked a blossom =
from
a clump of speedwell growing at the foot of a bit of wall. "Lady Jane's eyes are just the colour=
of
this flower," she said. "Yes, they are," he answered,
glancing down at the lovely little blue thing as she held it in her hand. A=
nd
then, with a thump of the heart, "Most people do not think she is pret=
ty,
but I--" quite desperately--"I DO." His mood had become rash=
. "So do I," Betty Vanderpoel
answered. Then the others joined them, and Miss
Vanderpoel paused to talk a little--and when they went on she was with Mary=
and
Nigel Anstruthers, and he was with Jane, walking slowly, and somehow the ot=
hers
melted away, turning in a perfectly natural manner into a side path. Their =
own slow
pace became slower. In fact, in a few moments, they were standing quite sti=
ll
between the green walls. Jane turned a little aside, and picked off some sm=
all
leaves, nervously. He saw the muslin on her chest lift quiveringly. "Oh, little Jane!" he said in a =
big,
shaky whisper. The following eyes incontinently brimmed over. Some shining
drops fell on the softness of the blue muslin. "Oh, Tommy," giving up, "it=
's
no use--talking at all." "You mustn't think--you mustn't
think--ANYTHING," he falteringly commanded, drawing nearer, because it=
was
impossible not to do it. What he really meant, though he did not kn=
ow
how decorously to say it, was that she must not think that he could be move=
d by
any tall beauty, towards the splendour of whose possessions his revered
grandmother might be driving him. "I am not thinking anything," cr=
ied
Jane in answer. "But she is everything, and I am nothing. Just look at
her--and then look at me, Tommy." "I'll look at you as long as you'll l=
et
me," gulped Tommy, and he was boy enough and man enough to put a hand =
on
each of her shoulders, and drown his longing in her brimming eyes. . . . . . Mary and Miss Vanderpoel were talking with=
a
curious intimacy, in another part of the garden, where they were together
alone, Sir Nigel having been reattached to Lady Alanby. "You have known Sir Thomas a long
time?" Betty had just said. "Since we were children. Jane reminde=
d me
at the Dunholms' ball that she had played cricket with him when she was
eight." "They have always liked each other?&q=
uot;
Miss Vanderpoel suggested. Mary looked up at her, and the meeting of
their eyes was frank to revelation. But for the clear girlish liking for
herself she saw in Betty Vanderpoel's, Mary would have known her next speec=
h to
be of imbecile bluntness. She had heard that Americans often had a queer, d=
elightful
understanding of unconventional things. This splendid girl was understanding
her. "Oh! You SEE!" she broke out.
"You left them together on purpose!" "Yes, I did." And there was a
comprehension so deep in her look that Mary knew it was deeper than her own,
and somehow founded on some subtler feeling than her own. "When two pe=
ople
want so much--care so much to be together," Miss Vanderpoel added quite
slowly--even as if the words rather forced themselves from her, "it se=
ems
as if the whole world ought to help them--everything in the world--the very
wind, and rain, and sun, and stars--oh, things have no RIGHT to keep them
apart." Mary stared at her, moved and fascinated. =
She
scarcely knew that she caught at her hand. "I have never been in the state that =
Jane
is," she poured forth. "And I can't understand how she can be suc=
h a
fool, but--but we care about each other more than most girls do--perhaps be=
cause
we have had no people. And it's the kind of thing there is no use talking
against, it seems. It's killing the youngness in her. If it ends miserably,=
it
will be as if she had had an illness, and got up from it a faded, done-for
spinster with a stretch of hideous years to live. Her blue eyes will look l=
ike boiled
gooseberries, because she will have cried all the colour out of them. Oh! Y=
ou
UNDERSTAND! I see you do." Before she had finished both Miss Vanderpo=
el's
hands were holding hers. "I do! I do," she said. And she =
did,
as a year ago she had not known she could. "Is it Lady Alanby?" s=
he
ventured. "Yes. Tommy will be helplessly poor if
she does not leave him her money. And she won't if he makes her angry. She =
is
very determined. She will leave it to an awful cousin if she gets in a rage.
And Tommy is not clever. He could never earn his living. Neither could Jane.
They could NEVER marry. You CAN'T defy relatives, and marry on nothing, unl=
ess
you are a character in a book." "Has she liked Lady Jane in the
past?" Miss Vanderpoel asked, as if she was, mentally, rapidly going o=
ver
the ground, that she might quite comprehend everything. "Yes. She used to make rather a pet of
her. She didn't like me. She was taken by Jane's meek, attentive, obedient
ways. Jane was born a sweet little affectionate worm. Lady Alanby can't hate
her, even now. She just pushes her out of her path." "Because?" said Betty Vanderpoel=
. Mary prefaced her answer with a brief,
half-embarrassed laugh. "Because of YOU." "Because she thinks----?" "I don't see how she can believe he h=
as
much of a chance. I don't think she does--but she will never forgive him if=
he
doesn't make a try at finding out whether he has one or not." "It is very businesslike," Betty
made observation. Mary laughed. "We talk of American business
outlook," she said, "but very few of us English people are dreamy
idealists. We are of a coolness and a daring--when we are dealing with
questions of this sort. I don't think you can know the thing you have broug=
ht
here. You descend on a dull country place, with your money and your looks, =
and
you simply STAY and amuse yourself by doing extraordinary things, as if the=
re
was no London waiting for you. Everyone knows this won't last. Next season =
you
will be presented, and have a huge success. You will be whirled about in a
vortex, and people will sit on the edge, and cast big strong lines, baited =
with
the most glittering things they can get together. You won't be able to get
away. Lady Alanby knows there would be no chance for Tommy then. It would be
too idiotic to expect it. He must make his try now." Their eyes met again, and Miss Vanderpoel
looked neither shocked nor angry, but an odd small shadow swept across her
face. Mary, of course, did not know that she was thinking of the thing she =
had
realised so often--that it was not easy to detach one's self from the fact =
that
one was Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter. As a result of it here one was ind=
ecently
and unwillingly disturbing the lives of innocent, unassuming lovers. "And so long as Sir Thomas has not
tried--and found out--Lady Jane will be made unhappy?" "If he were to let you escape without
trying, he would not be forgiven. His grandmother has had her own way all h=
er
life." "But suppose after I went away someone
else came?" Mary shook her head. "People like you don't HAPPEN in one
neighbourhood twice in a lifetime. I am twenty-six and you are the first I =
have
seen." "And he will only be safe if?" Mary Lithcom nodded. "Yes--IF," she answered. "I=
t's
silly--and frightful--but it is true." Miss Vanderpoel looked down on the grass a=
few
moments, and then seemed to arrive at a decision. "He likes you? You can make him
understand things?" she inquired. "Yes." "Then go and tell him that if he will
come here and ask me a direct question, I will give him a direct answer--wh=
ich
will satisfy Lady Alanby." Lady Mary caught her breath. "Do you know, you are the most wonder=
ful
girl I ever saw!" she exclaimed. "But if you only knew what I feel
about Janie!" And tears rushed into her eyes. "I feel just the same thing about my
sister," said Miss Vanderpoel. "I think Rosy and Lady Jane are ra=
ther
alike." . . . . . When Tommy tramped across the grass towards
her he was turning red and white by turns, and looking somewhat like a young
man who was being marched up to a cannon's mouth. It struck him that it was=
an
American kind of thing he was called upon to do, and he was not an American,
but British from the top of his closely-cropped head to the rather thick so=
les
of his boots. He was, in truth, overwhelmed by his sense of his inadequacy =
to
the demands of the brilliantly conceived, but unheard-of situation. Joy and
terror swept over his being in waves. The tall, proud, wood-nymph look of her as=
she
stood under a tree, waiting for him, would have struck his courage dead on =
the
spot and caused him to turn and flee in anguish, if she had not made a litt=
le move
towards him, with a heavenly, every-day humanness in her eyes. The way she
managed it was an amazing thing. He could never have managed it at all hims=
elf. She
came forward and gave him her hand, and really it was HER hand which held h=
is
own comparatively steady. "It is for Lady Jane," she said.
"That prevents it from being ridiculous or improper. It is for Lady Ja=
ne.
Her eyes," with a soft-touched laugh, "are the colour of the blue
speedwell I showed you. It is the colour of babies' eyes. And hers look as
theirs do--as if they asked everybody not to hurt them." He actually fell upon his knee, and bending
his head over her hand, kissed it half a dozen times with adoration. Good L=
ord,
how she SAW and KNEW! "If Jane were not Jane, and you were =
not
YOU," the words rushed from him, "it would be the most
outrageous--the most impudent thing a man ever had the cheek to do." "But it is not." She did not draw
her hand away, and oh, the girlish kindness of her smiling, supporting look.
"You came to ask me if----" "If you would marry me, Miss
Vanderpoel," his head bending over her hand again. "I beg your
pardon, I beg your pardon. Oh Lord, I do.' "I thank you for the compliment you p=
ay
me," she answered. "I like you very much, Sir Thomas--and I like =
you
just now more than ever--but I could not marry you. I should not make you
happy, and I should not be happy myself. The truth is----" thinking a
moment, "each of us really belongs to a different kind of person. And =
each
of knows the fact." "God bless you," he said. "I
think you know everything in the world a woman can know--and remain an
angel." It was an outburst of eloquence, and she t=
ook
it in the prettiest way--with the prettiest laugh, which had in it no touch=
of
mockery or disbelief in him. "What I have said is quite final--if =
Lady
Alanby should inquire," she said--adding rather quickly, "Someone=
is
coming." It pleased her to see that he did not hurr=
y to
his feet clumsily, but even stood upright, with a shade of boyish dignity, =
and
did not release her hand before he had bent his head low over it again. Sir Nigel was bringing with him Lady Alanb=
y,
Mrs. Manners, and his wife, and when Betty met his eyes, she knew at once t=
hat
he had not made his way to this particular garden without intention. He had
discovered that she was with Tommy, and it had entertained him to break in =
upon
them. "I did not intend to interrupt Sir Th=
omas
at his devotions," he remarked to her after dinner. "Accept my
apologies." "It did not matter in the least, thank
you," said Betty. . . . . . "I am glad to be able to say, Thomas,
that you did not look an entire fool when you got up from your knees, as we=
came
into the rose garden." Thus Lady Alanby, as their carriage turned out =
of
Stornham village. "I'm glad myself," Tommy answere=
d. "What were you doing there? Even if y=
ou
were asking her to marry you, it was not necessary to go that far. We are n=
ot
in the seventeenth century." Then Tommy flushed. "I did not intend to do it. I could n=
ot
help it. She was so--so nice about everything. That girl is an angel. I told
her so." "Very right and proper spirit to appr=
oach
her in," answered the old woman, watching him keenly. "Was she an=
gel
enough to say she would marry you?" Tommy, for some occult reason, had the cou=
rage
to stare back into his grandmother's eyes, quite as if he were a man, and n=
ot a
hobbledehoy, expecting to be bullied. "She does not want me," he answe=
red.
"And I knew she wouldn't. Why should she? I did what you ordered me to=
do,
and she answered me as I knew she would. She might have snubbed me, but she=
has
such a way with her--such a way of saying things and understanding,
that--that--well, I found myself on one knee, kissing her hand--as if I was
being presented at court." Old Lady Alanby looked out on the passing
landscape. "Well, you did your best," she
summed the matter up at last, "if you went down on your knees
involuntarily. If you had done it on purpose, it would have been
unpardonable." CHAPTER XXXIV - RED GODWYN=
a> Stornham Court had taken its proper positi=
on
in the county as a place which was equal to social exchange in the matter of
entertainment. Sir Nigel and Lady Anstruthers had given a garden party,
according to the decrees of the law obtaining in country neighbourhoods. The
curiosity to behold Miss Vanderpoel, and the change which had been worked in
the well-known desolation and disrepair, precluded the possibility of the r=
efusal
of any invitations sent, the recipient being in his or her right mind, and
sound in wind and limb. That astonishing things had been accomplished, and =
that
the party was a successful affair, could not but be accepted as truths. Gar=
den
parties had been heard of, were a trifle repetitional, and even dull, but at
this one there was real music and real dancing, and clever entertainments w=
ere
given at intervals in a green-embowered little theatre, erected for the
occasion. These were agreeable additions to mere food and conversation, whi=
ch
were capable of palling. To the garden party the Anstruthers did not
confine themselves. There were dinner parties at Stornham, and they also we=
re
successful functions. The guests were of those who make for the success of =
such
entertainments. "I called upon Mount Dunstan this
afternoon," Sir Nigel said one evening, before the first of these dinn=
ers.
"He might expect it, as one is asking him to dine. I wish him to be as=
ked.
The Dunholms have taken him up so tremendously that no festivity seems comp=
lete
without him." He had been invited to the garden party, a=
nd
had appeared, but Betty had seen little of him. It is easy to see little of=
a
guest at an out-of-door festivity. In assisting Rosalie to attend to her
visitors she had been much occupied, but she had known that she might have =
seen
more of him, if he had intended that it should be so. He did not--for reaso=
ns
of his own--intend that it should be so, and this she became aware of. So s=
he
walked, played in the bowling green, danced and talked with Westholt, Tommy
Alanby and others. "He does not want to talk to me. He w=
ill
not, if he can avoid it," was what she said to herself. She saw that he rather sought out Mary
Lithcom, who was not accustomed to receiving special attention. The two wal=
ked
together, danced together, and in adjoining chairs watched the performance =
in
the embowered theatre. Lady Mary enjoyed her companion very much, but she w=
ondered
why he had attached himself to her. Betty Vanderpoel asked herself what they
talked to each other about, and did not suspect the truth, which was that t=
hey
talked a good deal of herself. "Have you seen much of Miss
Vanderpoel?" Lady Mary had begun by asking. "I have SEEN her a good deal, as no d=
oubt
you have." Lady Mary's plain face expressed a somewhat
touched reflectiveness. "Do you know," she said, "t=
hat
the garden parties have been a different thing this whole summer, just beca=
use
one always knew one would see her at them?" A short laugh from Mount Dunstan. "Jane and I have gone to every garden
party within twenty miles, ever since we left the schoolroom. And we are ve=
ry
tired of them. But this year we have quite cheered up. When we are dressing=
to
go to something dull, we say to each other, 'Well, at any rate, Miss Vander=
poel
will be there, and we shall see what she has on, and how her things are mad=
e,' and
that's something--besides the fun of watching people make up to her, and
hearing them talk about the men who want to marry her, and wonder which one=
she
will take. She will not take anyone in this place," the nice turned-up
nose slightly suggesting a derisive sniff. "Who is there who is
suitable?" Mount Dunstan laughed shortly again. "How do you know I am not an aspirant
myself?" he said. He had a mirthless sense of enjoyment in his own
brazenness. Only he himself knew how brazen the speech was. Lady Mary looked at him with entire compos=
ure. "I am quite sure you are not an aspir=
ant
for anybody. And I happen to know that you dislike moneyed international
marriages. You are so obviously British that, even if I had not been told t=
hat,
I should know it was true. Miss Vanderpoel herself knows it is true."<=
o:p> "Does she?" "Lady Alanby spoke of it to Sir Nigel,
and I heard Sir Nigel tell her." "Exactly the kind of unnecessary thin=
g he
would be likely to repeat." He cast the subject aside as if it were a
worthless superfluity and went on: "When you say there is no one suita=
ble,
you surely forget Lord Westholt." "Yes, it's true I forgot him for the
moment. But--" with a laugh--"one rather feels as if she would
require a royal duke or something of that sort." "You think she expects that kind of
thing?" rather indifferently. "She? She doesn't think of the subjec=
t.
She simply thinks of other things--of Lady Anstruthers and Ughtred, of the =
work
at Stornham and the village life, which gives her new emotions and interest.
She also thinks about being nice to people. She is nicer than any girl I
know." "You feel, however, she has a right to
expect it?" still without more than a casual air of interest. "Well, what do you feel yourself?&quo=
t;
said Lady Mary. "Women who look like that--even when they are not
millionairesses--usually marry whom they choose. I do not believe that the =
two
beautiful Miss Gunnings rolled into one would have made anything as undenia=
ble
as she is. One has seen portraits of them. Look at her as she stands there
talking to Tommy and Lord Dunholm!" Internally Mount Dunstan was saying: "=
;I
am looking at her, thank you," and setting his teeth a little. But Lady Mary was launched upon a subject
which swept her along with it, and she--so to speak--ground the thing in. "Look at the turn of her head! Look at
her mouth and chin, and her eyes with the lashes sweeping over them when she
looks down! You must have noticed the effect when she lifts them suddenly to
look at you. It's so odd and lovely that it--it almost----" "Almost makes you jump," ended M=
ount
Dunstan drily. She did not laugh and, in fact, her expres=
sion
became rather sympathetically serious. "Ah," she said, "I believe =
you
feel a sort of rebellion against the unfairness of the way things are dealt
out. It does seem unfair, of course. It would be perfectly disgraceful--if =
she
were different. I had moments of almost hating her until one day not long a=
go
she did something so bewitchingly kind and understanding of other people's =
feelings
that I gave up. It was clever, too," with a laugh, "clever and da=
ring.
If she were a young man she would make a dashing soldier." She did not give him the details of the st=
ory,
but went on to say in effect what she had said to Betty herself of the
inevitable incidentalness of her stay in the country. If she had not eviden=
tly
come to Stornham this year with a purpose, she would have spent the season =
in
London and done the usual thing. Americans were generally presented promptl=
y,
if they had any position--sometimes when they had not. Lady Alanby had heard
that the fact that she was with her sister had awakened curiosity and people
were talking about her. "Lady Alanby said in that dry way of =
hers
that the arrival of an unmarried American fortune in England was becoming
rather like the visit of an unmarried royalty. People ask each other what it
means and begin to arrange for it. So far, only the women have come, but La=
dy
Alanby says that is because the men have had no time to do anything but sta=
y at
home and make the fortunes. She believes that in another generation there w=
ill
be a male leisure class, and then it will swoop down too, and marry people.=
She
was very sharp and amusing about it. She said it would help them to rid
themselves of a plethora of wealth and keep them from bursting." She was an amiable, if unsentimental perso=
n,
Mary Lithcom--and was, quite without ill nature, expressing the consensus of
public opinion. These young women came to the country with something practi=
cal to
exchange in these days, and as there were men who had certain equivalents to
offer, so also there were men who had none, and whom decency should cause to
stand aside. Mount Dunstan knew that when she had said, "Who is there =
who
is suitable?" any shadow of a thought of himself as being in the runni=
ng
had not crossed her mind. And this was not only for the reasons she had had=
the
ready composure to name, but for one less conquerable. Later, having left Mary Lithcom, he decide=
d to
take a turn by himself. He had done his duty as a masculine guest. He had
conversed with young women and old ones, had danced, visited gardens and
greenhouses, and taken his part in all things. Also he had, in fact, reache=
d a
point when a few minutes of solitude seemed a good thing. He found himself
turning into the clipped laurel walk, where Tommy Alanby had stood with Jan=
e Lithcom,
and he went to the end of it and stood looking out on the view. "Look at the turn of her head," =
Lady
Mary had said. "Look at her mouth and chin." And he had been look=
ing
at them the whole afternoon, not because he had intended to do so, but beca=
use
it was not possible to prevent himself from doing it. This was one of the ironies of fate. Ortho=
dox
doctrine might suggest that it was to teach him that his past rebellion had
been undue. Orthodox doctrine was ever ready with these soothing little exp=
lanations.
He had raged and sulked at Destiny, and now he had been given something to =
rage
for. "No one knows anything about it until=
it
takes him by the throat," he was thinking, "and until it happens =
to a
man he has no right to complain. I was not starving before. I was not hunge=
ring
and thirsting--in sight of food and water. I suppose one of the most awful =
things
in the world is to feel this and know it is no use." He was not in the condition to reason calm=
ly
enough to see that there might be one chance in a thousand that it was of u=
se.
At such times the most intelligent of men and women lose balance and mental=
perspicacity.
A certain degree of unreasoning madness possesses them. They see too much a=
nd
too little. There were, it was true, a thousand chances against him, but th=
ere
was one for him--the chance that selection might be on his side. He had not
that balance of thought left which might have suggested to him that he was a
man young and powerful, and filled with an immense passion which might count
for something. All he saw was that he was notably in the position of the men
whom he had privately disdained when they helped themselves by marriage. Su=
ch
marriages he had held were insults to the manhood of any man and the womanh=
ood
of any woman. In such unions neither party could respect himself or his
companion. They must always in secret doubt each other, fret at themselves,
feel distaste for the whole thing. Even if a man loved such a woman, and the
feeling was mutual, to whom would it occur to believe it--to see that they =
were
not gross and contemptible? To no one. Would it have occurred to himself th=
at
such an extenuating circumstance was possible? Certainly it would not.
Pig-headed pride and obstinacy it might be, but he could not yet face even =
the
mere thought of it--even if his whole position had not been grotesque. Beca=
use,
after all, it was grotesque that he should even argue with himself. She--be=
fore
his eyes and the eyes of all others--the most desirable of women; people
dinning it in one's ears that she was surrounded by besiegers who waited for
her to hold out her sceptre, and he--well, what was he! Not that his mental=
attitude
was that of a meek and humble lover who felt himself unworthy and prostrated
himself before her shrine with prayers--he was, on the contrary, a stout and
obstinate Briton finding his stubbornly-held beliefs made as naught by a ce=
rtain
obsession--an intolerable longing which wakened with him in the morning, wh=
ich
sank into troubled sleep with him at night--the longing to see her, to spea=
k to
her, to stand near her, to breathe the air of her. And possessed by this--f=
ull
of the overpowering strength of it--was a man likely to go to a woman and s=
ay, "Give
your life and desirableness to me; and incidentally support me, feed me, cl=
othe
me, keep the roof over my head, as if I were an impotent beggar"? "No, by God!" he said. "If =
she
thinks of me at all it shall be as a man. No, by God, I will not sink to
that!" . . . . . A moving touch of colour caught his eye. It
was the rose of a parasol seen above the laurel hedge, as someone turned in=
to
the walk. He knew the colour of it and expected to see other parasols and h=
ear
voices. But there was no sound, and unaccompanied, the wonderful rose-thing
moved towards him. "The usual things are happening to
me," was his thought as it advanced. "I am hot and cold, and just=
now
my heart leaped like a rabbit. It would be wise to walk off, but I shall no=
t do
it. I shall stay here, because I am no longer a reasoning being. I suppose =
that
a horse who refuses to back out of his stall when his stable is on fire fee=
ls
something of the same thing." When she saw him she made an
involuntary-looking pause, and then recovering herself, came forward. "I seem to have come in search of
you," she said. "You ought to be showing someone the view really-=
-and
so ought I." "Shall we show it to each other?"
was his reply. "Yes." And she sat down on the s=
tone
seat which had been placed for the comfort of view lovers. "I am a lit=
tle
tired--just enough to feel that to slink away for a moment alone would be
agreeable. It IS slinking to leave Rosalie to battle with half the county. =
But
I shall only stay a few minutes." She sat still and gazed at the beautiful l=
ands
spread before her, but there was no stillness in her mind, neither was there
stillness in his. He did not look at the view, but at her, and he was asking
himself what he should be saying to her if he were such a man as Westholt.
Though he had boldness enough, he knew that no man--even though he is free =
to speak
the best and most passionate thoughts of his soul--could be sure that he wo=
uld
gain what he desired. The good fortune of Westholt, or of any other, could =
but
give him one man's fair chance. But having that chance, he knew he should =
not
relinquish it soon. There swept back into his mind the story of the marriag=
e of
his ancestor, Red Godwyn, and he laughed low in spite of himself. Miss Vanderpoel looked up at him quickly.<=
o:p> "Please tell me about it, if it is ve=
ry
amusing," she said. "I wonder if it will amuse you,"=
was
his answer. "Do you like savage romance?" "Very much." It might seem a propos de rien, but he did=
not
care in the least. He wanted to hear what she would say. "An ancestor of mine--a certain Red
Godwyn--was a barbarian immensely to my taste. He became enamoured of rumou=
rs
of the beauty of the daughter and heiress of his bitterest enemy. In his da=
y,
when one wanted a thing, one rode forth with axe and spear to fight for
it." "A simple and alluring method,"
commented Betty. "What was her name?" She leaned in light ease against the stone
back of her seat, the rose light cast by her parasol faintly flushed her. T=
he
silence of their retreat seemed accentuated by its background of music from=
the
gardens. They smiled a second bravely into each other's eyes, then their
glances became entangled, as they had done for a moment when they had stood=
together
in Mount Dunstan park. For one moment each had been held prisoner then--now=
it
was for longer. "Alys of the Sea-Blue Eyes." Betty tried to release herself, but could =
not. "Sometimes the sea is grey," she
said. His own eyes were still in hers. "Hers were the colour of the sea on a=
day
when the sun shines on it, and there are large fleece-white clouds floating=
in
the blue above. They sparkled and were often like bluebells under water.&qu=
ot; "Bluebells under water sounds
entrancing," said Betty. He caught his breath slightly. "They were--entrancing," he said.
"That was evidently the devil of it--saving your presence." "I have never objected to the
devil," said Betty. "He is an energetic, hard-working creature and
paints himself an honest black. Please tell me the rest." "Red Godwyn went forth, and after a
bloody fight took his enemy's castle. If we still lived in like simple, hon=
est
times, I should take Dunholm Castle in the same way. He also took Alys of t=
he
Eyes and bore her away captive." "From such incidents developed the ge=
rms
of the desire for female suffrage," Miss Vanderpoel observed gently. "The interest of the story lies in the
fact that apparently the savage was either epicure or sentimentalist, or bo=
th.
He did not treat the lady ill. He shut her in a tower chamber overlooking h=
is
courtyard, and after allowing her three days to weep, he began his barbarian
wooing. Arraying himself in splendour he ordered her to appear before him. =
He
sat upon the dais in his banquet hall, his retainers gathered about him--a
great feast spread. In archaic English we are told that the board groaned b=
eneath
the weight of golden trenchers and flagons. Minstrels played and sang, whil=
e he
displayed all his splendour." "They do it yet," said Miss
Vanderpoel, "in London and New York and other places." "The next day, attended by his follow=
ers,
he took her with him to ride over his lands. When she returned to her tower
chamber she had learned how powerful and great a chieftain he was. She 'laye
softely' and was attended by many maidens, but she had no entertainment but=
to
look out upon the great green court. There he arranged games and trials of =
strength
and skill, and she saw him bigger, stronger, and more splendid than any oth=
er
man. He did not even lift his eyes to her window. He also sent her daily a =
rich
gift." "How long did this go on?" "Three months. At the end of that tim=
e he
commanded her presence again in his banquet hall. He told her the gates were
opened, the drawbridge down and an escort waiting to take her back to her
father's lands, if she would." "What did she do?" "She looked at him long--and long. She
turned proudly away--in the sea-blue eyes were heavy and stormy tears, which
seeing----" "Ah, he saw them?" from Miss
Vanderpoel. "Yes. And seizing her in his arms cau=
ght
her to his breast, calling for a priest to make them one within the hour. I=
am
quoting the chronicle. I was fifteen when I read it first." "It is spirited," said Betty,
"and Red Godwyn was almost modern in his methods." While professing composure and lightness of
mood, the spell which works between two creatures of opposite sex when in s=
uch
case wrought in them and made them feel awkward and stiff. When each is held
apart from the other by fate, or will, or circumstance, the spell is a stup=
efying
thing, deadening even the clearness of sight and wit. "I must slink back now," Betty s=
aid,
rising. "Will you slink back with me to give me countenance? I have
greatly liked Red Godwyn." So it occurred that when Nigel Anstruthers=
saw
them again it was as they crossed the lawn together, and people looked up f=
rom
ices and cups of tea to follow their slow progress with questioning or
approving eyes. CHAPTER XXXV - THE TIDAL WAVE There was only one man to speak to, and it
being the nature of the beast--so he harshly put it to himself--to be
absolutely impelled to speech at such times, Mount Dunstan laid bare his br=
east
to him, tearing aside all the coverings pride would have folded about him. =
The
man was, of course, Penzance, and the laying bare was done the evening after
the story of Red Godwyn had been told in the laurel walk. They had driven home together in a profound
silence, the elder man as deep in thought as the younger one. Penzance was
thinking that there was a calmness in having reached sixty and in knowing t=
hat
the pain and hunger of earlier years would not tear one again. And yet, he
himself was not untorn by that which shook the man for whom his affection h=
ad grown
year by year. It was evidently very bad--very bad, indeed. He wondered if he
would speak of it, and wished he would, not because he himself had much to =
say
in answer, but because he knew that speech would be better than hard silenc=
e. "Stay with me to-night," Mount
Dunstan said, as they drove through the avenue to the house. "I want y=
ou
to dine with me and sit and talk late. I am not sleeping well." They often dined together, and the vicar n=
ot
infrequently slept at the Mount for mere companionship's sake. Sometimes th=
ey
read, sometimes went over accounts, planned economies, and balanced
expenditures. A chamber still called the Chaplain's room was always kept in
readiness. It had been used in long past days, when a household chaplain had
sat below the salt and left his patron's table before the sweets were serve=
d. They
dined together this night almost as silently as they had driven homeward, a=
nd
after the meal they went and sat alone in the library. The huge room was never more than dimly
lighted, and the far-off corners seemed more darkling than usual in the
insufficient illumination of the far from brilliant lamps. Mount Dunstan, a=
fter
standing upon the hearth for a few minutes smoking a pipe, which would have
compared ill with old Doby's Sunday splendour, left his coffee cup upon the
mantel and began to tramp up and down--out of the dim light into the shadow=
s,
back out of the shadows into the poor light. "You know," he said, "what I
think about most things--you know what I feel." "I think I do." "You know what I feel about Englishmen
who brand themselves as half men and marked merchandise by selling themselv=
es
and their houses and their blood to foreign women who can buy them. You know
how savage I have been at the mere thought of it. And how I have
sworn----" "Yes, I know what you have sworn,&quo=
t;
said Mr. Penzance. It struck him that Mount Dunstan shook and
tossed his head rather like a bull about to charge an enemy. "You know how I have felt myself
perfectly within my rights when I blackguarded such men and sneered at such
women--taking it for granted that each was merchandise of his or her kind a=
nd
beneath contempt. I am not a foul-mouthed man, but I have used gross words =
and
rough ones to describe them." "I have heard you." Mount Dunstan threw back his head with a b=
ig,
harsh laugh. He came out of the shadow and stood still. "Well," he said, "I am in
love--as much in love as any lunatic ever was--with the daughter of Reuben =
S.
Vanderpoel. There you are--and there I am!" "It has seemed to me," Penzance
answered, "that it was almost inevitable." "My condition is such that it seems t=
o ME
that it would be inevitable in the case of any man. When I see another man =
look
at her my blood races through my veins with an awful fear and a wicked heat.
That will show you the point I have reached." He walked over to the
mantelpiece and laid his pipe down with a hand Penzance saw was unsteady.
"In turning over the pages of the volume of Life," he said, "=
;I
have come upon the Book of Revelations." "That is true," Penzance said. "Until one has come upon it one is an
inchoate fool," Mount Dunstan went on. "And afterwards one is--fo=
r a
time at least--a sort of madman raving to one's self, either in or out of a
straitjacket--as the case may be. I am wearing the jacket--worse luck! Do y=
ou
know anything of the state of a man who cannot utter the most ordinary word=
s to
a woman without being conscious that he is making mad love to her? This
afternoon I found myself telling Miss Vanderpoel the story of Red Godwyn and
Alys of the Sea-Blue Eyes. I did not make a single statement having any
connection with myself, but throughout I was calling on her to think of her=
self
and of me as of those two. I saw her in my own arms, with the tears of Alys=
on
her lashes. I was making mad love, though she was unconscious of my doing
it." "How do you know she was unconscious?=
"
remarked Mr. Penzance. "You are a very strong man." Mount Dunstan's short laugh was even a lit=
tle
awful, because it meant so much. He let his forehead drop a moment on to his
arms as they rested on the mantelpiece. "Oh, my God!" he said. But the n=
ext
instant his head lifted itself. "It is the mystery of the world--this
thing. A tidal wave gathering itself mountain high and crashing down upon o=
ne's
helplessness might be as easily defied. It is supposed to disperse, I belie=
ve.
That has been said so often that there must be truth in it. In twenty or th=
irty
or forty years one is told one will have got over it. But one must live thr=
ough
the years--one must LIVE through them--and the chief feature of one's madne=
ss
is that one is convinced that they will last forever." "Go on," said Mr. Penzance, beca=
use
he had paused and stood biting his lip. "Say all that you feel incline=
d to
say. It is the best thing you can do. I have never gone through this myself,
but I have seen and known the amazingness of it for many years. I have seen=
it
come and go." "Can you imagine," Mount Dunstan
said, "that the most damnable thought of all--when a man is passing
through it--is the possibility of its GOING? Anything else rather than the
knowledge that years could change or death could end it! Eternity seems onl=
y to
offer space for it. One knows--but one does not believe. It does something =
to
one's brain." "No scientist, howsoever profound, has
ever discovered what," the vicar mused aloud. "The Book of Revelations has shown to=
me
how--how MAGNIFICENT life might be!" Mount Dunstan clenched and unclen=
ched
his hands, his eyes flashing. "Magnificent--that is the word. To go to=
her
on equal ground to take her hands and speak one's passion as one would--as =
her
eyes answered. Oh, one would know! To bring her home to this place--having =
made
it as it once was--to live with her here--to be WITH her as the sun rose and
set and the seasons changed--with the joy of life filling each of them. SHE=
is
the joy of Life--the very heart of it. You see where I am--you see!" "Yes," Penzance answered. He saw,
and bowed his head, and Mount Dunstan knew he wished him to continue. "Sometimes--of late--it has been too =
much
for me and I have given free rein to my fancy--knowing that there could nev=
er
be more than fancy. I was doing it this afternoon as I watched her move abo=
ut
among the people. And Mary Lithcom began to talk about her." He smiled=
a
grim smile. "Perhaps it was an intervention of the gods to drag me down
from my impious heights. She was quite unconscious that she was driving home
facts like nails--the facts that every man who wanted money wanted Reuben S.
Vanderpoel's daughter--and that the young lady, not being dull, was not una=
ware
of the obvious truth! And that men with prizes to offer were ready to offer
them in a proper manner. Also that she was only a brilliant bird of passage,
who, in a few months, would be caught in the dazzling net of the great worl=
d.
And that even Lord Westholt and Dunholm Castle were not quite what she migh=
t expect.
Lady Mary was sincerely interested. She drove it home in her ardour. She to=
ld
me to LOOK at her--to LOOK at her mouth and chin and eyelashes--and to make=
note
of what she stood for in a crowd of ordinary people. I could have laughed a=
loud
with rage and self-mockery." Mr. Penzance was resting his forehead on h=
is
hand, his elbow on his chair's arm. "This is profound unhappiness," =
he
said. "It is profound unhappiness." Mount Dunstan answered by a brusque gestur=
e. "But it will pass away," went on=
Penzance,
"and not as you fear it must," in answer to another gesture, fier=
cely
impatient. "Not that way. Some day--or night--you will stand here
together, and you will tell her all you have told me. I KNOW it will be
so." "What!" Mount Dunstan cried out.=
But
the words had been spoken with such absolute conviction that he felt himself
become pale. It was with the same conviction that Penza=
nce
went on. "I have spent my quiet life in thinki=
ng
of the forces for which we find no explanation--of the causes of which we o=
nly
see the effects. Long ago in looking at you in one of my pondering moments I
said to myself that YOU were of the Primeval Force which cannot lose its
way--which sweeps a clear pathway for itself as it moves--and which cannot =
be
held back. I said to you just now that because you are a strong man you can=
not
be sure that a woman you are--even in spite of yourself--making mad love to=
, is
unconscious that you are doing it. You do not know what your strength lies =
in.
I do not, the woman does not, but we must all feel it, whether we comprehen=
d it
or no. You said of this fine creature, some time since, that she was Life, =
and
you have just said again something of the same kind. It is quite true. She =
is
Life, and the joy of it. You are two strong forces, and you are drawing
together." He rose from his chair, and going to Mount
Dunstan put his hand on his shoulder, his fine old face singularly rapt and
glowing. "She is drawing you and you are drawi=
ng
her, and each is too strong to release the other. I believe that to be true.
Both bodies and souls do it. They are not separate things. They move on the=
ir
way as the stars do--they move on their way." As he spoke, Mount Dunstan's eyes looked i=
nto
his fixedly. Then they turned aside and looked down upon the mantel against
which he was leaning. He aimlessly picked up his pipe and laid it down agai=
n.
He was paler than before, but he said no single word. "You think your reasons for holding a=
loof
from her are the reasons of a man." Mr. Penzance's voice sounded to him
remote. "They are the reasons of a man's pride--but that is not the
strongest thing in the world. It only imagines it is. You think that you ca=
nnot
go to her as a luckier man could. You think nothing shall force you to spea=
k.
Ask yourself why. It is because you believe that to show your heart would b=
e to
place yourself in the humiliating position of a man who might seem to her a=
nd to
the world to be a base fellow." "An impudent, pushing, base fellow,&q=
uot;
thrust in Mount Dunstan fiercely. "One of a vulgar lot. A thing fancyi=
ng
even its beggary worth buying. What has a man--whose very name is hung with
tattered ugliness--to offer?" Penzance's hand was still on his shoulder =
and
his look at him was long. "His very pride," he said at las=
t,
"his very obstinacy and haughty, stubborn determination. Those broken
because the other feeling is the stronger and overcomes him utterly."<=
o:p> A flush leaped to Mount Dunstan's forehead=
. He
set both elbows on the mantel and let his forehead fall on his clenched fis=
ts.
And the savage Briton rose in him. "No!" he said passionately. &quo=
t;By
God, no!" "You say that," said the older m=
an,
"because you have not yet reached the end of your tether. Unhappy as y=
ou
are, you are not unhappy enough. Of the two, you love yourself the more--yo=
ur
pride and your stubbornness." "Yes," between his teeth. "I
suppose I retain yet a sort of respect--and affection--for my pride. May God
leave it to me!" Penzance felt himself curiously exalted; he
knew himself unreasoningly passing through an oddly unpractical, uplifted
moment, in whose impelling he singularly believed. "You are drawing her and she is drawi=
ng
you," he said. "Perhaps you drew each other across seas. You will
stand here together and you will tell her of this--on this very spot."=
Mount Dunstan changed his position and lau=
ghed
roughly, as if to rouse himself. He threw out his arm in a big, uneasy gest=
ure,
taking in the room. "Oh, come," he said. "You t=
alk
like a seer. Look about you. Look! I am to bring her here!" "If it is the primeval thing she will=
not
care. Why should she?" "She! Bring a life like hers to this!=
Or
perhaps you mean that her own wealth might make her surroundings becoming--=
that
a man would endure that?" "If it is the primeval thing, YOU wou=
ld
not care. You would have forgotten that you two had ever lived an hour
apart." He spoke with a deep, moved gravity--almos=
t as
if he were speaking of the first Titan building of the earth. Mount Dunstan
staring at his delicate, insistent, elderly face, tried to laugh again--and=
failed
because the effort seemed actually irreverent. It was a singular hypnotic
moment, indeed. He himself was hypnotised. A flashlight of new vision blazed
before him and left him dumb. He took up his pipe hurriedly, and with still
unsteady fingers began to refill it. When it was filled he lighted it, and =
then
without a word of answer left the hearth and began to tramp up and down the
room again--out of the dim light into the shadows, back out of the shadows =
and
into the dim light again, his brow working and his teeth holding hard his a=
mber
mouthpiece. The morning awakening of a normal healthy
human creature should be a joyous thing. After the soul's long hours of rel=
ease
from the burden of the body, its long hours spent--one can only say in awe =
at
the mystery of it, "away, away"--in flight, perhaps, on broad,
tireless wings, beating softly in fair, far skies, breathing pure life, to =
be
brought back to renew the strength of each dawning day; after these hours o=
f quiescence
of limb and nerve and brain, the morning life returning should unseal for t=
he
body clear eyes of peace at least. In time to come this will be so, when the
soul's wings are stronger, the body more attuned to infinite law and the ra=
ce a
greater power--but as yet it often seems as though the winged thing came ba=
ck a
lagging and reluctant rebel against its fate and the chain which draws it b=
ack
a prisoner to its toil. It had seemed so often to Mount
Dunstan--oftener than not. Youth should not know such awakening, he was well
aware; but he had known it sometimes even when he had been a child, and sin=
ce
his return from his ill-starred struggle in America, the dull and reluctant
facing of the day had become a habit. Yet on the morning after his talk with
his friend--the curious, uplifted, unpractical talk which had seemed to hyp=
notise
him--he knew when he opened his eyes to the light that he had awakened as a=
man
should awake--with an unreasoning sense of pleasure in the life and health =
of
his own body, as he stretched mighty limbs, strong after the night's rest, =
and
feeling that there was work to be done. It was all unreasoning--there was no
more to be done than on those other days which he had wakened to with
bitterness, because they seemed useless and empty of any worth--but this
morning the mere light of the sun was of use, the rustle of the small breez=
e in
the leaves, the soft floating past of the white clouds, the mere fact that =
the
great blind-faced, stately house was his own, that he could tramp far over =
lands
which were his heritage, unfed though they might be, and that the very rust=
ics
who would pass him in the lanes were, so to speak, his own people: that he =
had
name, life, even the common thing of hunger for his morning food--it was al=
l of
use. An alluring picture--of a certain deep, cl=
ear bathing
pool in the park rose before him. It had not called to him for many a day, =
and
now he saw its dark blueness gleam between flags and green rushes in its
encircling thickness of shrubs and trees. He sprang from his bed, and in a few minut=
es
was striding across the grass of the park, his towels over his arm, his head
thrown back as he drank in the freshness of the morning-scented air. It was
scented with dew and grass and the breath of waking trees and growing thing=
s;
early twitters and thrills were to be heard here and there, insisting on mo=
rning
joyfulness; rabbits frisked about among the fine-grassed hummocks of their
warren and, as he passed, scuttled back into their holes, with a whisking of
short white tails, at which he laughed with friendly amusement. Cropping st=
ags
lifted their antlered heads, and fawns with dappled sides and immense lustr=
ous
eyes gazed at him without actual fear, even while they sidled closer to the=
ir
mothers. A skylark springing suddenly from the grass a few yards from his f=
eet
made him stop short once and stand looking upward and listening. Who could =
pass
by a skylark at five o'clock on a summer's morning--the little, heavenly li=
ght-heart
circling and wheeling, showering down diamonds, showering down pearls, from=
its
tiny pulsating, trilling throat? "Do you know why they sing like that?=
It
is because all but the joy of things has been kept hidden from them. They k=
new
nothing but life and flight and mating, and the gold of the sun. So they
sing." That she had once said. He listened until the jewelled rain seemed=
to
have fallen into his soul. Then he went on his way smiling as he knew he had
never smiled in his life before. He knew it because he realised that he had
never before felt the same vigorous, light normality of spirit, the same se=
nse
of being as other men. It was as though something had swept a great clear s=
pace
about him, and having room for air he breathed deep and was glad of the
commonest gifts of being. The bathing pool had been the greatest
pleasure of his uncared-for boyhood. No one knew which long passed away Mou=
nt
Dunstan had made it. The oldest villager had told him that it had "all=
us
ben there," even in his father's time. Since he himself had known it he
had seen that it was kept at its best. Its dark blue depths reflected in their
pellucid clearness the water plants growing at its edge and the enclosing
shrubs and trees. The turf bordering it was velvet-thick and green, and a f=
ew
flag-steps led down to the water. Birds came there to drink and bathe and p=
reen
and dress their feathers. He knew there were often nests in the
bushes--sometimes the nests of nightingales who filled the soft darkness or
moonlight of early June with the wonderfulness of nesting song. Sometimes a
straying fawn poked in a tender nose, and after drinking delicately stole a=
way,
as if it knew itself a trespasser. To undress and plunge headlong into the da=
rk
sapphire water was a rapturous thing. He swam swiftly and slowly by turns, =
he
floated, looking upward at heaven's blue, listening to birds' song and inha=
ling
all the fragrance of the early day. Strength grew in him and life pulsed as=
the
water lapped his limbs. He found himself thinking with pleasure of a long w=
alk
he intended to take to see a farmer he must talk to about his hop gardens; =
he
found himself thinking with pleasure of other things as simple and common to
everyday life--such things as he ordinarily faced merely because he must, s=
ince
he could not afford an experienced bailiff. He was his own bailiff, his own
steward, merely, he had often thought, an unsuccessful farmer of half-starv=
ed
lands. But this morning neither he nor they seemed so starved, and--for no
reason--there was a future of some sort. He emerged from his pool glowing, the turf
feeling like velvet beneath his feet, a fine light in his eyes. "Yes," he said, throwing out his
arms in a lordly stretch of physical well-being, "it might be a
magnificent thing--mere strong living. THIS is magnificent." CHAPTER XXXVI - BY THE ROADSIDE EVERYWHERE=
His breakfast and the talk over it with
Penzance seemed good things. It suddenly had become worth while to discuss =
the
approaching hop harvest and the yearly influx of the hop pickers from Londo=
n.
Yesterday the subject had appeared discouraging enough. The great hop garde=
ns
of the estate had been in times past its most prolific source of agricultur=
al revenue
and the boast and wonder of the hop-growing county. The neglect and scant f=
ood
of the lean years had cost them their reputation. Each season they had need=
ed
smaller bands of "hoppers," and their standard had been lowered. =
It
had been his habit to think of them gloomily, as of hopeless and irretrieva=
ble
loss. Because this morning, for a remote reason, the pulse of life beat str=
ong
in him he was taking a new view. Might not study of the subject, constant
attention and the application of all available resource to one end produce
appreciable results? The idea presented itself in the form of a thing worth
thinking of. "It would provide an outlook and give=
one
work to do," he put it to his companion. "To have a roof over one=
's
head, a sound body, and work to do, is not so bad. Such things form the who=
le
of G. Selden's cheerful aim. His spirit is alight within me. I will walk ov=
er
and talk to Bolter." Bolter was a farmer whose struggle to make
ends meet was almost too much for him. Holdings whose owners, either through
neglect or lack of money, have failed to do their duty as landlords in the
matter of repairs of farmhouses, outbuildings, fences, and other things,
gradually fall into poor hands. Resourceful and prosperous farmers do not c=
are
to hold lands under unprosperous landlords. There were farms lying vacant on
the Mount Dunstan estate, there were others whose tenants were uncertain re=
nt payers
or slipshod workers or dishonest in small ways. Waste or sale of the fertil=
iser
which should have been given to the soil as its due, neglect in the case of
things whose decay meant depreciation of property and expense to the landlo=
rd,
were dishonesties. But Mount Dunstan knew that if he turned out Thorn and
Fittle, whom no watching could wholly frustrate in their tricks, Under Mount
Farm and Oakfield Rise would stand empty for many a year. But for his pover=
ty
Bolter would have been a good tenant enough. He was in trouble now because,
though his hops promised well, he faced difficulties in the matter of
"pickers." Last year he had not been able to pay satisfactory pri=
ces
in return for labour, and as a result the prospect of securing good workers=
was
an unpromising one. The hordes of men, women, and children who
flock year after year to the hop-growing districts know each other. They le=
arn
also which may be called the good neighbourhoods and which the bad; the gar=
dens
whose holders are considered satisfactory as masters, and those who are und=
esirable.
They know by experience or report where the best "huts" are provi=
ded,
where tents are supplied, and where one must get along as one can. Generally the regular flocks are under a
"captain," who gathers his followers each season, manages them an=
d looks
after their interests and their employers'. In some cases the same captain
brings his regiment to the same gardens year after year, and ends by counti=
ng
himself as of the soil and almost of the family of his employer. Each hard,
thick-fogged winter they fight through in their East End courts and streets,
they look forward to the open-air weeks spent between long, narrow green gr=
oves
of tall garlanded poles, whose wreathings hang thick with fresh and
pungent-scented hop clusters. Children play "'oppin" in dingy roo=
ms and
alleys, and talk to each other of days when the sun shone hot and birds were
singing and flowers smelling sweet in the hedgerows; of others when the rain
streamed down and made mud of the soft earth, and yet there was pleasure in=
the
gipsying life, and high cheer in the fire of sticks built in the field by s=
ome
bold spirit, who hung over it a tin kettle to boil for tea. They never forg=
ot
the gentry they had caught sight of riding or driving by on the road, the
parson who came to talk, and the occasional groups of ladies from the
"great house" who came into the gardens to walk about and look at=
the
bins and ask queer questions in their gentry-sounding voices. They never kn=
ew
anything, and they always seemed to be entertained. Sometimes there were
enterprising, laughing ones, who asked to be shown how to strip the hops in=
to
the bins, and after being shown played at the work for a little while, taki=
ng
off their gloves and showing white fingers with rings on. They always looke=
d as
if they had just been washed, and as if all of their clothes were fresh from
the tub, and when anyone stood near them it was observable that they smelt
nice. Generally they gave pennies to the children before they left the gard=
en,
and sometimes shillings to the women. The hop picking was, in fact, a wonde=
rful
blend of work and holiday combined. Mount Dunstan had liked the
"hopping" from his first memories of it. He could recall his
sensations of welcoming a renewal of interesting things when, season after
season, he had begun to mark the early stragglers on the road. The straggle=
rs
were not of the class gathered under captains. They were derelicts--tramps =
who
spent their summers on the highways and their winters in such workhouses as
would take them in; tinkers, who differ from the tramps only because someti=
mes
they owned a rickety cart full of strange household goods and drunken
tenth-hand perambulators piled with dirty bundles and babies, these last
propelled by robust or worn-out, slatternly women, who sat by the small
roadside fire stirring the battered pot or tending the battered kettle, when
resting time had come and food must be cooked. Gipsies there were who had
cooking fires also, and hobbled horses cropping the grass. Now and then
appeared a grand one, who was rumoured to be a Lee and therefore royal, and=
who
came and lived regally in a gaily painted caravan. During the late summer w=
eeks
one began to see slouching figures tramping along the high road at interval=
s.
These were men who were old, men who were middle-aged and some who were you=
ng,
all of them more or less dust-grimed, weather-beaten, or ragged. Occasional=
ly
one was to be seen in heavy beery slumber under the hedgerow, or lying on t=
he
grass smoking lazily, or with painful thrift cobbling up a hole in a garmen=
t.
Such as these were drifting in early that they might be on the ground when
pickers were wanted. They were the forerunners of the regular army. On his walk to West Ways, the farm Bolter
lived on, Mount Dunstan passed two or three of these strays. They were the
usual flotsam and jetsam, but on the roadside near a hop garden he came upo=
n a
group of an aspect so unusual that it attracted his attention. Its unusualn=
ess
consisted in its air of exceeding bustling cheerfulness. It was a domestic
group of the most luckless type, and ragged, dirty, and worn by an evidently
long tramp, might well have been expected to look forlorn, discouraged, and=
out
of spirits. A slouching father of five children, one plainly but a few weeks
old, and slung in a dirty shawl at its mother's breast, an unhealthy looking
slattern mother, two ancient perambulators, one piled with dingy bundles and
cooking utensils, the seven-year-old eldest girl unpacking things and keepi=
ng
an eye at the same time on the two youngest, who were neither of them old
enough to be steady on their feet, the six-year-old gleefully aiding the
slouching father to build the wayside fire. The mother sat upon the grass
nursing her baby and staring about her with an expression at once stupefied=
and
illuminated by some temporary bliss. Even the slouching father was grinning=
, as
if good luck had befallen him, and the two youngest were tumbling about with
squeals of good cheer. This was not the humour in which such a group usually
dropped wearily on the grass at the wayside to eat its meagre and uninviting
meal and rest its dragging limbs. As he drew near, Mount Dunstan saw that at
the woman's side there stood a basket full of food and a can full of milk.<=
o:p> Ordinarily he would have passed on, but,
perhaps because of the human glow the morning had brought him, he stopped a=
nd
spoke. "Have you come for the hopping?"=
he
asked. The man touched his forehead, apparently n=
ot
conscious that the grin was yet on his face. "Yes, sir," he answered. "How far have you walked?" "A good fifty miles since we started,
sir. It took us a good bit. We was pretty done up when we stopped here. But
we've 'ad a wonderful piece of good luck." And his grin broadened
immensely. "I am glad to hear that," said M=
ount
Dunstan. The good luck was plainly of a nature to have excited them greatly.
Chance good luck did not happen to people like themselves. They were in the
state of mind which in their class can only be relieved by talk. The woman
broke in, her weak mouth and chin quite unsteady. "Seems like it can't be true, sir,&qu=
ot;
she said. "I'd only just come out of the Union--after this one,"
signifying the new baby at her breast. "I wasn't fit to drag along day
after day. We 'ad to stop 'ere 'cos I was near fainting away." "She looked fair white when she sat
down," put in the man. "Like she was goin' off." "And that very minute," said the
woman, "a young lady came by on 'orseback, an' the minute she sees me =
she
stops her 'orse an' gets down." "I never seen nothing like the quick =
way
she done it," said the husband. "Sharp, like she was a soldier un=
der
order. Down an' give the bridle to the groom an' comes over." "And kneels down," the woman took
him up, "right by me an' says, 'What's the matter? What can I do?' an'
finds out in two minutes an' sends to the farm for some brandy an' all this
basketful of stuff," jerking her head towards the treasure at her side.
"An' gives 'IM," with another jerk towards her mate, "money
enough to 'elp us along till I'm fair on my feet. That quick it was--that q=
uick,"
passing her hand over her forehead, "as if it wasn't for the basket,&q=
uot;
with a nervous, half-hysteric giggle, "I wouldn't believe but what it =
was
a dream--I wouldn't." "She was a very kind young lady,"
said Mount Dunstan, "and you were in luck." He gave a few coppers to the children and
strode on his way. The glow was hot in his heart, and he held his head high=
. "She has gone by," he said.
"She has gone by." He knew he should find her at West Ways Fa=
rm,
and he did so. Slim and straight as a young birch tree, and elate with her =
ride
in the morning air, she stood silhouetted in her black habit against the
ancient whitewashed brick porch as she talked to Bolter. "I have been drinking a glass of milk=
and
asking questions about hops," she said, giving him her hand bare of gl=
ove.
"Until this year I have never seen a hop garden or a hop picker."=
After the exchange of a few words Bolter
respectfully melted away and left them together. "It was such a wonderful day that I
wanted to be out under the sky for a long time--to ride a long way," s=
he
explained. "I have been looking at hop gardens as I rode. I have watch=
ed
them all the summer--from the time when there was only a little thing with =
two
or three pale green leaves looking imploringly all the way up to the top of
each immensely tall hop pole, from its place in the earth at the bottom of
it--as if it was saying over and over again, under its breath, 'Can I get up
there? Can I get up? Can I do it in time? Can I do it in time?' Yes, that w=
as what
they were saying, the little bold things. I have watched them ever since,
putting out tendrils and taking hold of the poles and pulling and climbing =
like
little acrobats. And curling round and unfolding leaves and more leaves, un=
til
at last they threw them out as if they were beginning to boast that they co=
uld
climb up into the blue of the sky if the summer were long enough. And now, =
look
at them!" her hand waved towards the great gardens. "Forests of t=
hem,
cool green pathways and avenues with leaf canopies over them." "You have seen it all," he said.
"You do see things, don't you? A few hundred yards down the road I pas=
sed
something you had seen. I knew it was you who had seen it, though the poor
wretches had not heard your name." She hesitated a moment, then stooped down =
and
took up in her hand a bit of pebbled earth from the pathway. There was stor=
m in
the blue of her eyes as she held it out for him to look at as it lay on the
bare rose-flesh of her palm. "See," she said, "see, it is
like that--what we give. It is like that." And she tossed the earth aw=
ay. "It does not seem like that to those
others." "No, thank God, it does not. But to o=
ne's
self it is the mere luxury of self-indulgence, and the realisation of it
sometimes tempts one to be even a trifle morbid. Don't you see," a sud=
den
thrill in her voice startled him, "they are on the roadside everywhere=
all
over the world." "Yes. All over the world." "Once when I was a child of ten I rea=
d a
magazine article about the suffering millions and the monstrously rich, who
were obviously to blame for every starved sob and cry. It almost drove me o=
ut
of my childish senses. I went to my father and threw myself into his arms i=
n a
violent fit of crying. I clung to him and sobbed out, 'Let us give it all a=
way;
let us give it all away and be like other people!'" "What did he say?" "He said we could never be quite like
other people. We had a certain load to carry along the highway. It was the
thing the whole world wanted and which we ourselves wanted as much as the r=
est,
and we could not sanely throw it away. It was my first lesson in political
economy and I abhorred it. I was a passionate child and beat furiously agai=
nst
the stone walls enclosing present suffering. It was horrible to know that t=
hey
could not be torn down. I cried out, 'When I see anyone who is miserable by=
the
roadside I shall stop and give him everything he wants--everything!' I was =
ten
years old, and thought it could be done." "But you stop by the roadside even
now." "Yes. That one can do." "You are two strong creatures and you
draw each other," Penzance had said. "Perhaps you drew each other
across seas. Who knows?" Coming to West Ways on a chance errand he =
had,
as it were, found her awaiting him on the threshold. On her part she had
certainly not anticipated seeing him there, but--when one rides far afield =
in
the sun there are roads towards which one turns as if answering a summoning=
call,
and as her horse had obeyed a certain touch of the rein at a certain point =
her
cheek had felt momentarily hot. Until later, when the "picking" =
had
fairly begun, the kilns would not be at work; but there was some interest e=
ven
now in going over the ground for the first time. "I have never been inside an oast
house," she said; "Bolter is going to show me his, and explain te=
chnicalities." "May I come with you?" he asked.=
There was a change in him. Something had
lighted in his eyes since the day before, when he had told her his story of=
Red
Godwyn. She wondered what it was. They went together over the place, escort=
ed
by Bolter. They looked into the great circular ovens, on whose floors the h=
ops
would be laid for drying, they mounted ladder-like steps to the upper room
where, when dried, the same hops would lie in soft, light piles, until push=
ed with
wooden shovels into the long "pokes" to be pressed and packed int=
o a
solid marketable mass. Bolter was allowed to explain the technicalities, bu=
t it
was plain that Mount Dunstan was familiar with all of them, and it was he w=
ho,
with a sentence here and there, gave her the colour of things. "When it is being done there is nearly
always outside a touch of the sharp sweetness of early autumn," he said
"The sun slanting through the little window falls on the pale yellow
heaps, and there is a pungent scent of hops in the air which is rather
intoxicating." "I am coming later to see the entire
process," she answered. It was a mere matter of seeing common thin=
gs
together and exchanging common speech concerning them, but each was so stro=
ngly
conscious of the other that no sentence could seem wholly impersonal. There=
are
times when the whole world is personal to a mood whose intensity seems a re=
ason
for all things. Words are of small moment when the mere sound of a voice ma=
kes
an unreasonable joy. "There was that touch of sharp autumn=
sweetness
in the air yesterday morning," she said. "And the chaplets of bri=
ony
berries that look as if they had been thrown over the hedges are beginning =
to
change to scarlet here and there. The wild rose-haws are reddening, and so =
are
the clusters of berries on the thorn trees and bushes." "There are millions of them," Mo=
unt
Dunstan said, "and in a few weeks' time they will look like bunches of
crimson coral. When the sun shines on them they will be wonderful to see.&q=
uot; What was there in such speeches as these to
draw any two nearer and nearer to each other as they walked side by side--to
fill the morning air with an intensity of life, to seem to cause the world =
to
drop away and become as nothing? As they had been isolated during their wal=
tz
in the crowded ballroom at Dunholm Castle, so they were isolated now. When =
they
stood in the narrow green groves of the hop garden, talking simply of the
placing of the bins and the stripping and measuring of the vines, there mig=
ht
have been no human thing within a hundred miles--within a thousand. For the
first time his height and strength conveyed to her an impression of physical
beauty. His walk and bearing gave her pleasure. When he turned his red-brown
eyes upon her suddenly she was conscious that she liked their colour, their
shape, the power of the look in them. On his part, he--for the twentieth
time--found himself newly moved by the dower nature had bestowed on her. Had
the world ever held before a woman creature so much to be longed for?--abno=
rmal
wealth, New York and Fifth Avenue notwithstanding, a man could only think of
folding arms round her and whispering in her lovely ear--follies, oaths,
prayers, gratitude. And yet as they went about together there =
was
growing in Betty Vanderpoel's mind a certain realisation. It grew in spite =
of
the recognition of the change in him--the new thing lighted in his eyes. Wh=
atsoever
he felt--if he felt anything--he would never allow himself speech. How could
he? In his place she could not speak herself. Because he was the strong thi=
ng
which drew her thoughts, he would not come to any woman only to cast at her
feet a burden which, in the nature of things, she must take up. And suddenly
she comprehended that the mere obstinate Briton in him--even apart from gre=
ater
things--had an immense attraction for her. As she liked now the red-brown
colour of his eyes and saw beauty in his rugged features, so she liked his
British stubbornness and the pride which would not be beaten. "It is the unconquerable thing, which
leads them in their battles and makes them bear any horror rather than give=
in.
They have taken half the world with it; they are like bulldogs and lions,&q=
uot;
she thought. "And--and I am glorying in it." "Do you know," said Mount Dunsta=
n,
"that sometimes you suddenly fling out the most magnificent flag of
colour--as if some splendid flame of thought had sent up a blaze?" "I hope it is not a habit," she
answered. "When one has a splendid flare of thought one should be mode=
st
about it." What was there worth recording in the whole
hour they spent together? Outwardly there had only been a chance meeting an=
d a
mere passing by. But each left something with the other and each learned
something; and the record made was deep. At last she was on her horse again, on the
road outside the white gate. "This morning has been so much to the
good," he said. "I had thought that perhaps we might scarcely meet
again this year. I shall become absorbed in hops and you will no doubt go a=
way.
You will make visits or go to the Riviera--or to New York for the winter?&q=
uot; "I do not know yet. But at least I sh=
all
stay to watch the thorn trees load themselves with coral." To herself =
she
was saying: "He means to keep away. I shall not see him." As she rode off Mount Dunstan stood for a =
few
moments, not moving from his place. At a short distance from the farmhouse =
gate
a side lane opened upon the highway, and as she cantered in its direction a
horseman turned in from it--a man who was young and well dressed and who sat
well a spirited animal. He came out upon the road almost face to face with =
Miss
Vanderpoel, and from where he stood Mount Dunstan could see his delighted s=
mile
as he lifted his hat in salute. It was Lord Westholt, and what more natural
than that after an exchange of greetings the two should ride together on th=
eir
way! For nearly three miles their homeward road would be the same. But in a breath's space Mount Dunstan real=
ised
a certain truth--a simple, elemental thing. All the exaltation of the morni=
ng
swooped and fell as a bird seems to swoop and fall through space. It was al=
l over
and done with, and he understood it. His normal awakening in the morning, t=
he
physical and mental elation of the first clear hours, the spring of his foo=
t as
he had trod the road, had all had but one meaning. In some occult way the
hypnotic talk of the night before had formed itself into a reality, fantast=
ic
and unreasoning as it had been. Some insistent inner consciousness had seiz=
ed
upon and believed it in spite of him and had set all his waking being in tu=
ne
to it. That was the explanation of his undue spirits and hope. If Penzance =
had
spoken a truth he would have had a natural, sane right to feel all this and
more. But the truth was that he, in his guise--was one of those who are
"on the roadside everywhere--all over the world." Poetically
figurative as the thing sounded, it was prosaic fact. So, still hearing the distant sounds of the
hoofs beating in cheerful diminuendo on the roadway, he turned about and we=
nt
back to talk to Bolter. CHAPTER XXXVII - CLOSED CORRIDORS=
span> To spend one's days perforce in an enormous
house alone is a thing likely to play unholy tricks with a man's mind and l=
ead
it to gloomy workings. To know the existence of a hundred or so of closed d=
oors
shut on the darkness of unoccupied rooms; to be conscious of flights of
unmounted stairs, of stretches of untrodden corridors, of unending walls, f=
rom
which the pictured eyes of long dead men and women stare, as if seeing thin=
gs
which human eyes behold not--is an eerie and unwholesome thing. Mount Dunst=
an
slept in a large four-post bed in a chamber in which he might have died or =
been
murdered a score of times without being able to communicate with the remote
servants' quarters below stairs, where lay the one man and one woman who
attended him. When he came late to his room and prepared for sleep by the l=
ight
of two flickering candles the silence of the dead in tombs was about him; b=
ut it
was only a more profound and insistent thing than the silence of the day,
because it was the silence of the night, which is a presence. He used to te=
ll
himself with secret smiles at the fact that at certain times the fantasy was
half believable--that there were things which walked about softly at
night--things which did not want to be dead. He himself had picked them out
from among the pictures in the gallery--pretty, light, petulant women;
adventurous-eyed, full-blooded, eager men. His theory was that they hated t=
heir
stone coffins, and fought their way back through the grey mists to try to t=
alk
and make love and to be seen of warm things which were alive. But it was no=
t to
be done, because they had no bodies and no voices, and when they beat upon
closed doors they would not open. Still they came back--came back. And
sometimes there was a rustle and a sweep through the air in a passage, or a
creak, or a sense of waiting which was almost a sound. "Perhaps some of them have gone when =
they
have been as I am," he had said one black night, when he had sat in his
room staring at the floor. "If a man was dragged out when he had not L=
IVED
a day, he would come back I should come back if--God! A man COULD not be
dragged away--like THIS!" And to sit alone and think of it was an aw=
ful
and a lonely thing--a lonely thing. But loneliness was nothing new, only that =
in
these months his had strangely intensified itself. This, though he was not
aware of it, was because the soul and body which were the completing parts =
of
him were within reach--and without it. When he went down to breakfast he sa=
t singly
at his table, round which twenty people might have laughed and talked. Betw=
een
the dining-room and the library he spent his days when he was not out of do=
ors.
Since he could not afford servants, the many other rooms must be kept close=
d.
It was a ghastly and melancholy thing to make, as he must sometimes, a sort=
of
precautionary visit to the state apartments. He was the last Mount Dunstan,=
and
he would never see them opened again for use, but so long as he lived under=
the
roof he might by prevision check, in a measure, the too rapid encroachments=
of
decay. To have a leak stopped here, a nail driven or a support put there,
seemed decent things to do. "Whom am I doing it for?" he sai=
d to
Mr. Penzance. "I am doing it for myself--because I cannot help it. The
place seems to me like some gorgeous old warrior come to the end of his day=
s It
has stood the war of things for century after century--the war of things. I=
t is
going now I am all that is left to it. It is all I have. So I patch it up w=
hen
I can afford it, with a crutch or a splint and a bandage." Late in the afternoon of the day on which =
Miss
Vanderpoel rode away from West Ways with Lord Westholt, a stealthy and dark=
ly
purple cloud rose, lifting its ominous bulk against a chrysoprase and pink
horizon. It was the kind of cloud which speaks of but one thing to those who
watch clouds, or even casually consider them. So Lady Anstruthers felt some=
surprise
when she saw Sir Nigel mount his horse before the stone steps and ride away=
, as
it were, into the very heart of the coming storm. "Nigel will be caught in the rain,&qu=
ot;
she said to her sister. "I wonder why he goes out now. It would be bet=
ter
to wait until to-morrow." But Sir Nigel did not think so. He had
calculated matters with some nicety. He was not exactly on such terms with
Mount Dunstan as would make a casual call seem an entirely natural thing, a=
nd
he wished to drop in upon him for a casual call and in an unpremeditated
manner. He meant to reach the Mount about the time the storm broke, under w=
hich
circumstance nothing could bear more lightly an air of being unpremeditated
than to take refuge in a chance passing. Mount Dunstan was in the library. He had s=
at
smoking his pipe while he watched the purple cloud roll up and spread itsel=
f,
blotting out the chrysoprase and pink and blue, and when the branches of the
trees began to toss about he had looked on with pleasure as the rush of big
rain drops came down and pelted things. It was a fine storm, and there were=
some
imposing claps of thunder and jagged flashes of lightning. As one splendid
rattle shook the air he was surprised to hear a summons at the great hall d=
oor.
Who on earth could be turning up at this time? His man Reeve announced the
arrival a few moments later, and it was Sir Nigel Anstruthers. He had, he
explained, been riding through the village when the deluge descended, and it
had occurred to him to turn in at the park gates and ask a temporary shelte=
r.
Mount Dunstan received him with sufficient courtesy. His appearance was not=
a
thing to rejoice over, but it could be endured. Whisky and soda and a smoke
would serve to pass the hour, if the storm lasted so long. Conversation was not the easiest thing in =
the
world under the circumstances, but Sir Nigel led the way steadily after he =
had
taken his seat and accepted the hospitalities offered. What a place it
was--this! He had been struck for the hundredth time with the impressivenes=
s of
the mass of it, the sweep of the park and the splendid grouping of the timb=
er,
as he had ridden up the avenue. There was no other place like it in the cou=
nty.
Was there another like it in England? "Not in its case, I hope," Mount
Dunstan said. There were a few seconds of silence. The r=
ain
poured down in splashing sheets and was swept in rattling gusts against the
window panes. "What the place needs is--an
heiress," Anstruthers observed in the tone of a practical man. "I
believe I have heard that your views of things are such that she should
preferably NOT be an American." Mount Dunstan did not smile, though he
slightly showed his teeth. "When I am driven to the wall," =
he
answered, "I may not be fastidious as to nationality." Nigel Anstruthers' manner was not a bad on=
e.
He chose that tone of casual openness which, while it does not wholly commit
itself, may be regarded as suggestive of the amiable half confidence of
speeches made as "man to man." "My own opportunity of studying the g=
enus
American heiress within my own gates is a first-class one. I find that it k=
nows
what it wants and that its intention is to get it." A short laugh broke
from him as he flicked the ash from his cigar on to the small bronze recept=
acle
at his elbow. "It is not many years since it would have been difficult=
for
a girl to be frank enough to say, 'When I marry I shall ask something in
exchange for what I have to give.'" "There are not many who have as much =
to
give," said Mount Dunstan coolly. "True," with a slight shrug.
"You are thinking that men are glad enough to take a girl like that--e=
ven
one who has not a shape like Diana's and eyes like the sea. Yes, by
George," softly, and narrowing his lids, "she IS a handsome
creature." Mount Dunstan did not attempt to refute the
statement, and Anstruthers laughed low again. "It is an asset she knows the value of
quite clearly. That is the interesting part of it. She has inherited the
far-seeing commercial mind. She does not object to admitting it. She educat=
ed
herself in delightful cold blood that she might be prepared for the largest
prize appearing upon the horizon. She held things in view when she was a ch=
ild
at school, and obviously attacked her French, German, and Italian conjugati=
ons
with a twelve-year-old eye on the future." Mount Dunstan leaning back carelessly in h=
is
chair, laughed--as it seemed--with him. Internally he was saying that the m=
an
was a liar who might always be trusted to lie, but he knew with shamed fury
that the lies were doing something to his soul--rolling dark vapours over i=
t--stinging
him, dragging away props, and making him feel they had been foolish things =
to
lean on. This can always be done with a man in love who has slight foundati=
on
for hope. For some mysterious and occult reason civilisation has elected to
treat the strange and great passion as if it were an unholy and indecent th=
ing,
whose dominion over him proper social training prevents any man from admitt=
ing
openly. In passing through its cruelest phases he must bear himself as if he
were immune, and this being the custom, he may be called upon to endure muc=
h without
the relief of striking out with manly blows. An enemy guessing his case and
possessing the infernal gift whose joy is to dishearten and do hurt with
courteous despitefulness, may plant a poisoned arrow here and there with
neatness and fine touch, while his bound victim can, with decency, neither
start, nor utter brave howls, nor guard himself, but must sit still and lis=
ten,
hospitably supplying smoke and drink and being careful not to make an ass of
himself. Therefore Mount Dunstan pushed the cigars
nearer to his visitor and waved his hand hospitably towards the whisky and
soda. There was no reason, in fact, why Anstruthers--or any one indeed, but
Penzance, should suspect that he had become somewhat mad in secret. The man=
's
talk was marked merely by the lightly disparaging malice which was rarely t=
o be
missed from any speech of his which touched on others. Yet it might have be=
en a
thing arranged beforehand, to suggest adroitly either lies or truth which w=
ould
make a man see every sickeningly good reason for feeling that in this conte=
st
he did not count for a man at all. "It has all been pretty obvious,"
said Sir Nigel. "There is a sort of cynicism in the openness of the si=
ege.
My impression is that almost every youngster who has met her has taken a sh=
ot.
Tommy Alanby scrambling up from his knees in one of the rose-gardens was a
satisfying sight. His much-talked-of-passion for Jane Lithcom was temporari=
ly
in abeyance." The rain swirled in a torrent against the
window, and casually glancing outside at the tossing gardens he went on. "She is enjoying herself. Why not? She
has the spirit of the huntress. I don't think she talks nonsense about
friendship to the captives of her bow and spear. She knows she can always g=
et
what she wants. A girl like that MUST have an arrogance of mind. And she is=
not
a young saint. She is one of the women born with THE LOOK in her eyes. I ow=
n I
should not like to be in the place of any primeval poor brute who really we=
nt
mad over her--and counted her millions as so much dirt." Mount Dunstan answered with a shrug of his=
big
shoulders: "Apparently he would seem as remote f=
rom
the reason of to-day as the men who lived on the land when Hengist and Horsa
came--or when Caesar landed at Deal." "He would seem as remote to her,"
with a shrug also. "I should not like to contend that his point of view
would not interest her or that she would particularly discourage him. Her e=
yes
would call him--without malice or intention, no doubt, but your early Briton
ceorl or earl would be as well understood by her. Your New York beauty who =
has
lived in the market place knows principally the prices of things." He was not ill pleased with himself. He was
putting it well and getting rather even with her. If this fellow with his s=
hut
mouth had a sore spot hidden anywhere he was giving him "to think.&quo=
t;
And he would find himself thinking, while, whatsoever he thought, he would =
be
obliged to continue to keep his ugly mouth shut. The great idea was to say
things WITHOUT saying them, to set your hearer's mind to saying them for yo=
u. "What strikes one most is a sort of
commercial brilliance in her," taking up his thread again after a
smilingly reflective pause. "It quite exhilarates one by its novelty.
There's spice in it. We English have not a look-in when we are dealing with
Americans, and yet France calls us a nation of shopkeepers. My impression is
that their women take little inventories of every house they enter, of every
man they meet. I heard her once speaking to my wife about this place, as if=
she
had lived in it. She spoke of the closed windows and the state of the
gardens--of broken fountains and fallen arches. She evidently deplored the =
deterioration
of things which represented capital. She has inventoried Dunholm, no doubt.
That will give Westholt a chance. But she will do nothing until after her n=
ext
year's season in London--that I'd swear. I look forward to next year. It wi=
ll
be worth watching. She has been training my wife. A sister who has married =
an
Englishman and has at least spent some years of her life in England has a
certain established air. When she is presented one knows she will be a sens=
ation.
After that----" he hesitated a moment, smiling not too pleasantly. "After that," said Mount Dunstan,
"the Deluge." "Exactly. The Deluge which usually sw=
eeps
girls off their feet--but it will not sweep her off hers. She will stand qu=
ite
firm in the flood and lose sight of nothing of importance which floats
past." Mount Dunstan took him up. He was sick of
hearing the fellow's voice. "There will be a good many things,&qu=
ot;
he said; "there will be great personages and small ones, pomps and
vanities, glittering things and heavy ones." "When she sees what she wants," =
said
Anstruthers, "she will hold out her hand, knowing it will come to her.=
The
things which drown will not disturb her. I once made the blunder of suggest=
ing
that she might need protection against the importunate--as if she had been =
an
English girl. It was an idiotic thing to do." "Because?" Mount Dunstan for the
moment had lost his head. Anstruthers had maddeningly paused. "She answered that if it became neces=
sary
she might perhaps be able to protect herself. She was as cool and frank as a
boy. No air pince about it--merely consciousness of being able to put thing=
s in
their right places. Made a mere male relative feel like a fool." "When ARE things in their right
places?" To his credit be it spoken, Mount Dunstan managed to say it a=
s if
in the mere putting together of idle words. What man likes to be reminded of
his right place! No man wants to be put in his right place. There is always
another place which seems more desirable. "She knows--if we others do not. I
suppose my right place is at Stornham, conducting myself as the brother-in-=
law
of a fair American should. I suppose yours is here--shut up among your clos=
ed
corridors and locked doors. There must be a lot of them in a house like thi=
s.
Don't you sometimes feel it too large for you?" "Always," answered Mount Dunstan=
. The fact that he added nothing else and me=
t a
rapid side glance with unmoving red-brown eyes gazing out from under rugged
brows, perhaps irritated Anstruthers. He had been rather enjoying himself, =
but
he had not enjoyed himself enough. There was no denying that his plaything =
had not
openly flinched. Plainly he was not good at flinching. Anstruthers wondered=
how
far a man might go. He tried again. "She likes the place, though she has a
natural disdain for its condition. That is practical American. Things which=
are
going to pieces because money is not spent upon them--mere money, of which =
all
the people who count for anything have so much--are inevitably rather disda=
ined.
They are 'out of it.' But she likes the estate." As he watched Mount
Dunstan he felt sure he had got it at last--the right thing. "If you w=
ere
a duke with fifty thousand a year," with a distinctly nasty, amicably
humorous, faint laugh, "she would--by the Lord, I believe, she would t=
ake
it over--and you with it." Mount Dunstan got up. In his rough walking
tweeds he looked over-big--and heavy--and perilous. For two seconds Nigel
Anstruthers would not have been surprised if he had without warning slapped=
his
face, or knocked him over, or whirled him out of his chair and kicked him. =
He
would not have liked it, but--for two seconds--it would have been no surpri=
se.
In fact, he instinctively braced his not too firm muscles. But nothing of t=
he
sort occurred. During the two seconds--perhaps three--Mount Dunstan stood s=
till
and looked down at him. The brief space at an end, he walked over to the he=
arth
and stood with his back to the big fireplace. "You don't like her," he said, a=
nd
his manner was that of a man dealing with a matter of fact. "Why do you
talk about her?" He had got away again--quite away. An ugly flush shot over Anstruthers' face.
There was one more thing to say--whether it was idiotic to say it or not.
Things can always be denied afterwards, should denial appear necessary--and=
for
the moment his special devil possessed him. "I do not like her!" And his mou=
th
twisted. "Do I not? I am not an old woman. I am a man--like others. I
chance to like her--too much." There was a short silence. Mount Dunstan b=
roke
it. "Then," he remarked, "you h=
ad
better emigrate to some country with a climate which suits you. I should say
that England--for the present--does not." "I shall stay where I am," answe=
red
Anstruthers, with a slight hoarseness of voice, which made it necessary for=
him
to clear his throat. "I shall stay where she is. I will have that
satisfaction, at least. She does not mind. I am only a racketty, middle-age=
d brother-in-law,
and she can take care of herself. As I told you, she has the spirit of the =
huntress." "Look here," said Mount Dunstan,
quite without haste, and with an iron civility. "I am going to take the
liberty of suggesting something. If this thing is true, it would be as well=
not
to talk about it." "As well for me--or for her?" and
there was a serene significance in the query. Mount Dunstan thought a few seconds. "I confess," he said slowly, and=
he
planted his fine blow between the eyes well and with directness. "I
confess that it would not have occurred to me to ask you to do anything or
refrain from doing it for her sake." "Thank you. Perhaps you are right. One
learns that one must protect one's self. I shall not talk--neither will you=
. I
know that. I was a fool to let it out. The storm is over. I must ride
home." He rose from his seat and stood smiling. "It would smash up
things nicely if the new beauty's appearance in the great world were preced=
ed
by chatter of the unseemly affection of some adorer of ill repute. Unfairly
enough it is always the woman who is hurt." "Unless," said Mount Dunstan
civilly, "there should arise the poor, primeval brute, in his neolithic
wrath, to seize on the man to blame, and break every bone and sinew in his
damned body." "The newspapers would enjoy that more
than she would," answered Sir Nigel. "She does not like the
newspapers. They are too ready to disparage the multi-millionaire, and cack=
le
about members of his family." The unhidden hatred which still professed =
to
hide itself in the depths of their pupils, as they regarded each other, had=
its
birth in a passion as elemental as the quakings of the earth, or the rage of
two lions in a desert, lashing their flanks in the blazing sun. It was well
that at this moment they should part ways. Sir Nigel's horse being brought, he went on
the way which was his. "It was a mistake to say what I
did," he said before going. "I ought to have held my tongue. But =
I am
under the same roof with her. At any rate, that is a privilege no other man
shares with me." He rode off smartly, his horse's hoofs
splashing in the rain pools left in the avenue after the storm. He was not =
so
sure after all that he had made a mistake, and for the moment he was not in=
the
mood to care whether he had made one or not. His agreeable smile showed its=
elf
as he thought of the obstinate, proud brute he had left behind, sitting alo=
ne among
his shut doors and closed corridors. They had not shaken hands either at
meeting or parting. Queer thing it was--the kind of enmity a man could feel=
for
another when he was upset by a woman. It was amusing enough that it should =
be
she who was upsetting him after all these years--impudent little Betty, with
the ferocious manner. CHAPTER XXXVIII - AT SHANDY'S On a late-summer evening in New York the
atmosphere surrounding a certain corner table at Shandy's cheap restaurant =
in
Fourteenth Street was stirred by a sense of excitement. The corner table in question was the favou=
rite
meeting place of a group of young men of the G. Selden type, who usually to=
ok
possession of it at dinner time--having decided that Shandy's supplied more
decent food for fifty cents, or even for twenty-five, than was to be found =
at
other places of its order. Shandy's was "about all right," they s=
aid
to each other, and patronised it accordingly, three or four of them general=
ly dining
together, with a friendly and adroit manipulation of "portions" a=
nd
"half portions" which enabled them to add variety to their bill o=
f fare. The street outside was lighted, the tide of
passers-by was less full and more leisurely in its movements than it was du=
ring
the seething, working hours of daylight, but the electric cars swung past e=
ach
other with whiz and clang of bell almost unceasingly, their sound being
swelled, at short intervals, by the roar and rumbling rattle of the trains
dashing by on the elevated railroad. This, however, to the frequenters of S=
handy's,
was the usual accompaniment of every-day New York life and was regarded as a
rather cheerful sort of thing. This evening the four claimants of the
favourite corner table had met together earlier than usual. Jem Belter, who
"hammered" a typewriter at Schwab's Brewery, Tom Wetherbee, who w=
as
"in a downtown office," Bert Johnson, who was "out for the
Delkoff," and Nick Baumgarten, who having for some time "beaten&q=
uot;
certain streets as assistant salesman for the same illustrious machine, had
been recently elevated to a "territory" of his own, and was there=
fore
in high spirits. "Say!" he said. "Let's give=
him
a fine dinner. We can make it between us. Beefsteak and mushrooms, and pota=
toes
hashed brown. He likes them. Good old G. S. I shall be right glad to see hi=
m.
Hope foreign travel has not given him the swell head." "Don't believe it's hurt him a bit. H=
is
letter didn't sound like it. Little Georgie ain't a fool," said Jem
Belter. Tom Wetherbee was looking over the letter
referred to. It had been written to the four conjointly, towards the
termination of Selden's visit to Mr. Penzance. The young man was not an ard=
ent
or fluent correspondent; but Tom Wetherbee was chuckling as he read the
epistle. "Say, boys," he said, "this=
big
thing he's keeping back to tell us when he sees us is all right, but what t=
akes
me is old George paying a visit to a parson. He ain't no Young Men's Christ=
ian
Association." Bert
Johnson leaned forward, and looked at the address on the letter paper. "Mount Dunstan Vicarage," he read
aloud. "That looks pretty swell, doesn't it?" with a laugh.
"Say, fellows, you know Jepson at the office, the chap that prides him=
self
on reading such a lot? He said it reminded him of the names of places in
English novels. That Johnny's the biggest snob you ever set your tooth into.
When I told him about the lord fellow that owns the castle, and that George
seemed to have seen him, he nearly fell over himself. Never had any use for
George before, but just you watch him make up to him when he sees him
next." People were dropping in and taking seats at
the tables. They were all of one class. Young men who lived in hall bedroom=
s.
Young women who worked in shops or offices, a couple here and there, who, l=
iving
far uptown, had come to Shandy's to dinner, that they might go to cheap sea=
ts
in some theatre afterwards. In the latter case, the girls wore their best h=
ats,
had bright eyes, and cheeks lightly flushed by their sense of festivity. Tw=
o or
three were very pretty in their thin summer dresses and flowered or feather=
ed
head gear, tilted at picturesque angles over their thick hair. When each one
entered the eyes of the young men at the corner table followed her with
curiosity and interest, but the glances at her escort were always of a
disparaging nature. "There's a beaut!" said Nick
Baumgarten. "Get onto that pink stuff on her hat, will you. She done it
because it's just the colour of her cheeks." They all looked, and the girl was aware of=
it,
and began to laugh and talk coquettishly to the young man who was her
companion. "I wonder where she got Clarence?&quo=
t;
said Jem Belter in sarcastic allusion to her escort. "The things those
lookers have fastened on to them gets ME." "If it was one of US, now," said
Bert Johnson. Upon which they broke into simultaneous good-natured laughter=
. "It's queer, isn't it," young
Baumgarten put in, "how a fellow always feels sore when he sees another
fellow with a peach like that? It's just straight human nature, I guess.&qu=
ot; The door swung open to admit a newcomer, at
the sight of whom Jem Belter exclaimed joyously: "Good old Georgie! He=
re
he is, fellows! Get on to his glad rags." "Glad rags" is supposed to buoya=
ntly
describe such attire as, by its freshness or elegance of style, is rendered=
a
suitable adornment for festive occasions or loftier leisure moments. "=
Glad
rags" may mean evening dress, when a young gentleman's wardrobe can as=
pire
to splendour so marked, but it also applies to one's best and latest-purcha=
sed
garb, in contradistinction to the less ornamental habiliments worn every da=
y, and
designated as "office clothes." G. Selden's economies had not enabled him =
to
give himself into the hands of a Bond Street tailor, but a careful study of=
cut
and material, as spread before the eye in elegant coloured illustrations in=
the
windows of respectable shops in less ambitious quarters, had resulted in th=
e purchase
of a well-made suit of smart English cut. He had a nice young figure, and
looked extremely neat and tremendously new and clean, so much so, indeed, t=
hat
several persons glanced at him a little admiringly as he was met half way to
the corner table by his friends. "Hello, old chap! Glad to see you. Wh=
at
sort of a voyage? How did you leave the royal family? Glad to get back?&quo=
t; They all greeted him at once, shaking hands
and slapping him on the back, as they hustled him gleefully back to the cor=
ner
table and made him sit down. "Say, garsong," said Nick Baumga=
rten
to their favourite waiter, who came at once in answer to his summons,
"let's have a porterhouse steak, half the size of this table, and with
plenty of mushrooms and potatoes hashed brown. Here's Mr. Selden just retur=
ned
from visiting at Windsor Castle, and if we don't treat him well, he'll look
down on us." G. Selden grinned. "How have you been
getting on, Sam?" he said, nodding cheerfully to the man. They were old
and tried friends. Sam knew all about the days when a fellow could not come
into Shandy's at all, or must satisfy his strong young hunger with a bowl o=
f soup,
or coffee and a roll. Sam did his best for them in the matter of the size of
portions, and they did their good-natured utmost for him in the affair of t=
he pooled
tip. "Been getting on as well as can be
expected," Sam grinned back. "Hope you had a fine time, Mr.
Selden?" "Fine! I should smile! Fine wasn't in
it," answered Selden. "But I'm looking forward to a Shandy
porterhouse steak, all the same." "Did they give you a better one in the
Strawnd?" asked Baumgarten, in what he believed to be a correct Cockney
accent. "You bet they didn't," said Seld=
en.
"Shandy's takes a lot of beating." That last is English. The people at the other tables cast
involuntary glances at them. Their eager, hearty young pleasure in the
festivity of the occasion was a healthy thing to see. As they sat round the
corner table, they produced the effect of gathering close about G. Selden. =
They
concentrated their combined attention upon him, Belter and Johnson leaning
forward on their folded arms, to watch him as he talked. "Billy Page came back in August, look=
ing
pretty bum," Nick Baumgarten began. "He'd been painting gay Paree
brick red, and he'd spent more money than he'd meant to, and that wasn't ha=
lf
enough. Landed dead broke. He said he'd had a great time, but he'd come home
with rather a dark brown taste in his mouth, that he'd like to get rid
of." "He thought you were a fool to go off
cycling into the country," put in Wetherbee, "but I told him I
guessed that was where he was 'way off. I believed you'd had the best time =
of
the two of you." "Boys," said Selden, "I had=
the
time of my life." He said it almost solemnly, and laid his hand on the
table. "It was like one of those yarns Bert tells us. Half the time I
didn't believe it, and half the time I was ashamed of myself to think it was
all happening to me and none of your fellows were in it." "Oh, well," said Jem Belter,
"luck chases some fellows, anyhow. Look at Nick, there." "Well," Selden summed the whole
thing up, "I just FELL into it where it was so deep that I had to stri=
ke
out all I knew how to keep from drowning." "Tell us the whole thing," Nick
Baumgarten put in; "from beginning to end. Your letter didn't give
anything away." "A letter would have spoiled it. I ca=
n't
write letters anyhow. I wanted to wait till I got right here with you fello=
ws
round where I could answer questions. First off," with the deliberation
befitting such an opening, "I've sold machines enough to pay my expens=
es,
and leave some over." "You have? Gee whiz! Say, give us your
prescription. Glad I know you, Georgy!" "And who do you suppose bought the fi=
rst
three?" At this point, it was he who leaned forward upon the table--his
climax being a thing to concentrate upon. "Reuben S. Vanderpoel's
daughter--Miss Bettina! And, boys, she gave me a letter to Reuben S., himse=
lf,
and here it is." He produced a flat leather pocketbook and =
took
an envelope from an inner flap, laying it before them on the tablecloth. His
knowledge that they would not have believed him if he had not brought his p=
roof
was founded on everyday facts. They would not have doubted his veracity, bu=
t the
possibility of such delirious good fortune. What they would have believed w=
ould
have been that he was playing a hilarious joke on them. Jokes of this kind,=
but
not of this proportion, were common entertainments. Their first impulse had been towards an
outburst of laughter, but even before he produced his letter a certain trut=
hful
seriousness in his look had startled them. When he laid the envelope down e=
ach
man caught his breath. It could not be denied that Jem Belter turned pale w=
ith
emotion. Jem had never been one of the lucky ones. "She let me read it," said G.
Selden, taking the letter from its envelope with great care. "And I sa=
id
to her: 'Miss Vanderpoel, would you let me just show that to the boys the f=
irst
night I go to Shandy's?' I knew she'd tell me if it wasn't all right to do =
it.
She'd know I'd want to be told. And she just laughed and said: 'I don't min=
d at
all. I like "the boys." Here is a message to them. "Good luc=
k to
you all."'" "She said that?" from Nick
Baumgarten. "Yes, she did, and she meant it. Look=
at
this." This was the letter. It was quite short, a=
nd
written in a clear, definite hand. "DEAR
FATHER: This will be brought to you by Mr. G. Selden, of whom I have writte=
n to
you. Please be good to him. "Affectionately, "BETTY." Each
young man read it in turn. None of them said anything just at first. A kind=
of
awe had descended upon them--not in the least awe of Vanderpoel, who, with
other multi-millionaires, were served up each week with cheerful neighbourly
comment or equally neighbourly disrespect, in huge Sunday papers read
throughout the land--but awe of the unearthly luck which had fallen without
warning to good old G. S., who lived like the rest of them in a hall bedroo=
m on
ten per, earned by tramping the streets for the Delkoff. "That girl," said G. Selden grav=
ely,
"that girl is a winner from Winnersville. I take off my hat to her. If
it's the scheme that some people's got to have millions, and others have go=
t to
sell Delkoffs, that girl's one of those that's entitled to the millions. It=
's
all right she should have 'em. There's no kick coming from me." Nick Baumgarten was the first to resume wh=
olly
normal condition of mind. "Well, I guess after you've told us a=
bout
her there'll be no kick coming from any of us. Of course there's something
about you that royal families cry for, and they won't be happy till they ge=
t.
All of us boys knows that. But what we want to find out is how you worked i=
t so
that they saw the kind of pearl-studded hairpin you were." "Worked it!" Selden answered.
"I didn't work it. I've got a good bit of nerve, but I never should ha=
ve
had enough to invent what happened--just HAPPENED. I broke my leg falling o=
ff
my bike, and fell right into a whole bunch of them--earls and countesses and
viscounts and Vanderpoels. And it was Miss Vanderpoel who saw me first lyin=
g on
the ground. And I was in Stornham Court where Lady Anstruthers lives--and s=
he
used to be Miss Rosalie Vanderpoel." "Boys," said Bert Johnson, with
friendly disgust, "he's been up to his neck in 'em." "Cheer up. The worst is yet to
come," chaffed Tom Wetherbee. Never had such a dinner taken place at the
corner table, or, in fact, at any other table at Shandy's. Sam brought beef=
steaks,
which were princely, mushrooms, and hashed brown potatoes in portions whose=
generosity
reached the heart. Sam was on good terms with Shandy's carver, and had work=
ed
upon his nobler feelings. Steins of lager beer were ventured upon. There was
hearty satisfying of fine hungers. Two of the party had eaten nothing but o=
ne
"Quick Lunch" throughout the day, one of them because he was shor=
t of
time, the other for economy's sake, because he was short of money. The meal=
was
a splendid thing. The telling of the story could not be wholly checked by t=
he
eating of food. It advanced between mouthfuls, questions being asked and
details given in answers. Shandy's became more crowded, as the hour advance=
d.
People all over the room cast interested looks at the party at the corner t=
able,
enjoying itself so hugely. Groups sitting at the tables nearest to it found
themselves excited by the things they heard. "That young fellow in the new suit has
just come back from Europe," said a man to his wife and daughter. &quo=
t;He
seems to have had a good time." "Papa," the daughter leaned forw=
ard,
and spoke in a low voice, "I heard him say 'Lord Mount Dunstan said La=
dy
Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel were at the garden party.' Who do you suppo=
se
he is?" "Well, he's a nice young fellow, and =
he
has English clothes on, but he doesn't look like one of the Four Hundred. W=
ill
you have pie or vanilla ice cream, Bessy?" Bessy--who chose vanilla ice cream--lost a=
ll
knowledge of its flavour in her absorption in the conversation at the next =
table,
which she could not have avoided hearing, even if she had wished. "She bent over the bed and laughed--j=
ust
like any other nice girl--and she said, 'You are at Stornham Court, which
belongs to Sir Nigel Anstruthers. Lady Anstruthers is my sister. I am Miss
Vanderpoel.' And, boys, she used to come and talk to me every day." "George," said Nick Baumgarten,
"you take about seventy-five bottles of Warner's Safe Cure, and rub
yourself all over with St. Jacob's Oil. Luck like that ain't HEALTHY!"=
. . . . . Mr. Vanderpoel, sitting in his study, wore=
the
interestedly grave look of a man thinking of absorbing things. He had just
given orders that a young man who would call in the course of the evening
should be brought to him at once, and he was incidentally considering this
young man, as he reflected upon matters recalled to his mind by his impendi=
ng arrival.
They were matters he had thought of with gradually increasing seriousness f=
or
some months, and they had, at first, been the result of the letters from St=
ornham,
which each "steamer day" brought. They had been of immense intere=
st
to him--these letters. He would have found them absorbing as a study, even =
if
he had not deeply loved Betty. He read in them things she did not state in
words, and they set him thinking. He was not suspected by men like himself of
concealing an imagination beneath the trained steadiness of his exterior, b=
ut
he possessed more than the world knew, and it singularly combined itself wi=
th
powers of logical deduction. If he had been with his daughter, he would
have seen, day by day, where her thoughts were leading her, and in what
direction she was developing, but, at a distance of three thousand miles, he
found himself asking questions, and endeavouring to reach conclusions. His
affection for Betty was the central emotion of his existence. He had never =
told
himself that he had outgrown the kind and pretty creature he had married in=
his
early youth, and certainly his tender care for her and pleasure in her simp=
le
goodness had never wavered, but Betty had given him a companionship which h=
ad
counted greatly in the sum of his happiness. Because imagination was not
suspected in him, no one knew what she stood for in his life. He had no son=
; he
stood at the head of a great house, so to speak--the American parallel of w=
hat
a great house is in non-republican countries. The power of it counted for g=
reat
things, not in America alone, but throughout the world. As international
intimacies increased, the influence of such houses might end in aiding in t=
he making
of history. Enormous constantly increasing wealth and huge financial schemes
could not confine their influence, but must reach far. The man whose hand h=
eld
the lever controlling them was doing well when he thought of them gravely. =
Such
a man had to do with more than his own mere life and living. This man had
confronted many problems as the years had passed. He had seen men like hims=
elf
die, leaving behind them the force they had controlled, and he had seen this
force--controlled no longer--let loose upon the world, sometimes a power of
evil, sometimes scattering itself aimlessly into nothingness and folly, whi=
ch
wrought harm. He was not an ambitious man, but--perhaps because he was not =
only
a man of thought, but a Vanderpoel of the blood of the first Reuben--these =
were
things he did not contemplate without restlessness. When Rosy had gone away=
and
seemed lost to them, he had been glad when he had seen Betty growing, day by
day, into a strong thing. Feminine though she was, she sometimes suggested =
to
him the son who might have been his, but was not. As the closeness of their
companionship increased with her years, his admiration for her grew with his
love. Power left in her hands must work for the advancement of things, and
would not be idly disseminated--if no antagonistic influence wrought against
her. He had found himself reflecting that, after all was said, the marriage=
of
such a girl had a sort of parallel in that of some young royal creature, wh=
ose
union might make or mar things, which must be considered. The man who must
inevitably strongly colour her whole being, and vitally mark her life, woul=
d,
in a sense, lay his hand upon the lever also. If he brought sorrow and diso=
rder
with him, the lever would not move steadily. Fortunes such as his grow rapi=
dly,
and he was a richer man by millions than he had been when Rosalie had marri=
ed
Nigel Anstruthers. The memory of that marriage had been a painful thing to =
him,
even before he had known the whole truth of its results. The man had been a
common adventurer and scoundrel, despite the facts of good birth and the ai=
r of
decent breeding. If a man who was as much a scoundrel, but cleverer--it wou=
ld
be necessary that he should be much cleverer--made the best of himself to
Betty----! It was folly to think one could guess what a woman--or a man,
either, for that matter--would love. He knew Betty, but no man knows the th=
ing
which comes, as it were, in the dark and claims its own--whether for good or
evil. He had lived long enough to see beautiful, strong-spirited creatures =
do
strange things, follow strange gods, swept away into seas of pain by strange
waves. "Even Betty," he had said to
himself, now and then. "Even my Betty. Good God--who knows!" Because of this, he had read each letter w=
ith
keen eyes. They were long letters, full of detail and colour, because she k=
new
he enjoyed them. She had a delightful touch. He sometimes felt as if they
walked the English lanes together. His intimacy with her neighbours, and he=
r neighbourhood,
was one of his relaxations. He found himself thinking of old Doby and Mrs.
Welden, as a sort of soporific measure, when he lay awake at night. She had
sent photographs of Stornham, of Dunholm Castle, and of Dole, and had even
found an old engraving of Lady Alanby in her youth. Her evident liking for =
the
Dunholms had pleased him. They were people whose dignity and admirableness =
were
part of general knowledge. Lord Westholt was plainly a young man of many
attractions. If the two were drawn to each other--and what more natural--all
would be well. He wondered if it would be Westholt. But his love quickened a
sagacity which needed no stimulus. He said to himself in time that, though =
she liked
and admired Westholt, she went no farther. That others paid court to her he
could guess without being told. He had seen the effect she had produced when
she had been at home, and also an unexpected letter to his wife from Milly
Bowen had revealed many things. Milly, having noted Mrs. Vanderpoel's eager
anxiety to hear direct news of Lady Anstruthers, was not the person to let =
fall
from her hand a useful thread of connection. She had written quite at lengt=
h,
managing adroitly to convey all that she had seen, and all that she had hea=
rd.
She had been making a visit within driving distance of Stornham, and had had
the pleasure of meeting both Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel at various
parties. She was so sure that Mrs. Vanderpoel would like to hear how well L=
ady
Anstruthers was looking, that she ventured to write. Betty's effect upon the
county was made quite clear, as also was the interested expectation of her =
appearance
in town next season. Mr. Vanderpoel, perhaps, gathered more from the letter
than his wife did. In her mind, relieved happiness and consternation were
mingled. "Do you think, Reuben, that Betty will
marry that Lord Westholt?" she rather faltered. "He seems very ni=
ce,
but I would rather she married an American. I should feel as if I had no gi=
rls
at all, if they both lived in England." "Lady Bowen gives him a good
character," her husband said, smiling. "But if anything untoward
happens, Annie, you shall have a house of your own half way between Dunholm
Castle and Stornham Court." When he had begun to decide that Lord West=
holt
did not seem to be the man Fate was veering towards, he not unnaturally cas=
t a
mental eye over such other persons as the letters mentioned. At exactly what
period his thought first dwelt a shade anxiously on Mount Dunstan he could =
not
have told, but he at length became conscious that it so dwelt. He had begun=
by
feeling an interest in his story, and had asked questions about him, becaus=
e a
situation such as his suggested query to a man of affairs. Thus, it had been
natural that the letters should speak of him. What she had written had reca=
lled
to him certain rumours of the disgraceful old scandal. Yes, they had been a=
bad
lot. He arranged to put a casual-sounding question or so to certain persons=
who
knew English society well. What he gathered was not encouraging. The presen=
t Lord
Mount Dunstan was considered rather a surly brute, and lived a mysterious s=
ort
of life which might cover many things. It was bad blood, and people were
naturally shy of it. Of course, the man was a pauper, and his place a barra=
ck
falling to ruin. There had been something rather shady in his going to Amer=
ica
or Australia a few years ago. Good looking? Well, so few people had seen
him. The lady, who was speaking, had heard that he was one of those big, ra=
ther
lumpy men, and had an ill-tempered expression. She always gave a wide berth=
to
a man who looked nasty-tempered. One or two other persons who had spoken of=
him
had conveyed to Mr. Vanderpoel about the same amount of vaguely unpromising
information. The episode of G. Selden had been interesting enough, with its
suggestions of picturesque contrasts and combinations. Betty's touch had ma=
de
the junior salesman attracting. It was a good type this, of a young fellow =
who,
battling with the discouragements of a hard life, still did not lose his
amazing good cheer and patience, and found healthy sleep and honest waking,
even in the hall bedroom. He had consented to Betty's request that he would=
see
him, partly because he was inclined to like what he had heard, and partly f=
or a
reason which Betty did not suspect. By extraordinary chance G. Selden had s=
een Mount
Dunstan and his surroundings at close range. Mr. Vanderpoel had liked what =
he
had gathered of Mount Dunstan's attitude towards a personality so singularly
exotic to himself. Crude, uneducated, and slangy, the junior salesman was n=
ot
in any degree a fool. To an American father with a daughter like Betty, the
summing-up of a normal, nice-natured, common young denizen of the United
States, fresh from contact with the effete, might be subtly instructive, and
well worth hearing, if it was unconsciously expressed. Mr. Vanderpoel thoug=
ht
he knew how, after he had overcome his visitor's first awkwardness--if he
chanced to be self-conscious--he could lead him to talk. What he hoped to do
was to make him forget himself and begin to talk to him as he had talked to=
Betty,
to ingenuously reveal impressions and points of view. Young men of his clea=
n,
rudimentary type were very definite about the things they liked and dislike=
d,
and could be trusted to reveal admiration, or lack of it, without absolute
intention or actual statement. Being elemental and undismayed, they saw thi=
ngs
cleared of the mists of social prejudice and modification. Yes, he felt he
should be glad to hear of Lord Mount Dunstan and the Mount Dunstan estate f=
rom
G. Selden in a happy moment of unawareness. Why was it that it happened to be Mount
Dunstan he was desirous to hear of? Well, the absolute reason for that he c=
ould
not have explained, either. He had asked himself questions on the subject m=
ore
than once. There was no well-founded reason, perhaps. If Betty's letters had
spoken of Mount Dunstan and his home, they had also described Lord Westholt=
and
Dunholm Castle. Of these two men she had certainly spoken more fully than of
others. Of Mount Dunstan she had had more to relate through the incident of=
G.
Selden. He smiled as he realised the importance of the figure of G. Selden.=
It
was Selden and his broken leg the two men had ridden over from Mount Dunsta=
n to
visit. But for Selden, Betty might not have met Mount Dunstan again. He was
reason enough for all she had said. And yet----! Perhaps, between Betty and
himself there existed the thing which impresses and communicates without wo=
rds.
Perhaps, because their affection was unusual, they realised each other's
emotions. The half-defined anxiety he felt now was not a new thing, but he
confessed to himself that it had been spurred a little by the letter the la=
st steamer
had brought him. It was NOT Lord Westholt, it definitely appeared. He had a=
sked
her to be his wife, and she had declined his proposal. "I could not have LIKED a man any more
without being in love with him," she wrote. "I LIKE him more than=
I
can say--so much, indeed, that I feel a little depressed by my certainty th=
at I
do not love him." If she had loved him, the whole matter wou=
ld
have been simplified. If the other man had drawn her, the thing would not be
simple. Her father foresaw all the complications--and he did not want
complications for Betty. Yet emotions were perverse and irresistible things,
and the stronger the creature swayed by them, the more enormous their power=
. But,
as he sat in his easy chair and thought over it all, the one feeling
predominant in his mind was that nothing mattered but Betty--nothing really
mattered but Betty. In the meantime G. Selden was walking up F=
ifth
Avenue, at once touched and exhilarated by the stir about him and his sense=
of
home-coming. It was pretty good to be in little old New York again. The hur=
ried
pace of the life about him stimulated his young blood. There were no street
cars in Fifth Avenue, but there were carriages, waggons, carts, motors, all=
pantingly
hurried, and fretting and struggling when the crowded state of the thorough=
fare
held them back. The beautifully dressed women in the carriages wore no light
air of being at leisure. It was evident that they were going to keep
engagements, to do things, to achieve objects. "Something doing. Something doing,&qu=
ot;
was his cheerful self-congratulatory thought. He had spent his life in the
midst of it, he liked it, and it welcomed him back. The appointment he was on his way to keep
thrilled him into an uplifted mood. Once or twice a half-nervous chuckle br=
oke
from him as he tried to realise that he had been given the chance which a y=
ear
ago had seemed so impossible that its mere incredibleness had made it a nat=
ural
subject for jokes. He was going to call on Reuben S. Vanderpoel, and he was=
going
because Reuben S. had made an appointment with him. He wore his London suit of clothes and he =
felt
that he looked pretty decent. He could only do his best in the matter of
bearing. He always thought that, so long as a fellow didn't get
"chesty" and kept his head from swelling, he was all right. Of co=
urse
he had never been in one of these swell Fifth Avenue houses, and he felt a =
bit
nervous--but Miss Vanderpoel would have told her father what sort of fellow=
he
was, and her father was likely to be something like herself. The house, whi=
ch
had been built since Lady Anstruthers' marriage, was well "up-town,&qu=
ot;
and was big and imposing. When a manservant opened the front door, the squa=
re hall
looked very splendid to Selden. It was full of light, and of rich furniture,
which was like the stuff he had seen in one or two special shop windows in
Fifth Avenue--places where they sold magnificent gilded or carven coffers a=
nd vases,
pieces of tapestry and marvellous embroideries, antiquities from foreign
palaces. Though it was quite different, it was as swell in its way as the h=
ouse
at Mount Dunstan, and there were gleams of pictures on the walls that looked
fine, and no mistake. He was expected. The man led him across the
hall to Mr. Vanderpoel's room. After he had announced his name he closed the
door quietly and went away. Mr. Vanderpoel rose from an armchair to come
forward to meet his visitor. He was tall and straight--Betty had inherited =
her
slender height from him. His well-balanced face suggested the relationship =
between
them. He had a steady mouth, and eyes which looked as if they saw much and =
far. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Selden,&qu=
ot;
he said, shaking hands with him. "You have seen my daughters, and can =
tell
me how they are. Miss Vanderpoel has written to me of you several times.&qu=
ot; He asked him to sit down, and as he took h=
is
chair Selden felt that he had been right in telling himself that Reuben S.
Vanderpoel would be somehow like his girl. She was a girl, and he was an
elderly man of business, but they were like each other. There was the same =
kind
of straight way of doing things, and the same straight-seeing look in both =
of
them. It was queer how natural things seemed, wh=
en
they really happened to a fellow. Here he was sitting in a big leather chair
and opposite to him in its fellow sat Reuben S. Vanderpoel, looking at him =
with
friendly eyes. And it seemed all right, too--not as if he had managed to
"butt in," and would find himself politely fired out directly. He
might have been one of the Four Hundred making a call. Reuben S. knew how to
make a man feel easy, and no mistake. This G. Selden observed at once, thou=
gh he
had, in fact, no knowledge of the practical tact which dealt with him. He f=
ound
himself answering questions about Lady Anstruthers and her sister, which le=
d to
the opening up of other subjects. He did not realise that he began to expre=
ss
ingenuous opinions and describe things. His listener's interest led him on,=
a
question here, a rather pleased laugh there, were encouraging. He had enjoy=
ed
himself so much during his stay in England, and had felt his experiences so
greatly to be rejoiced over, that they were easy to talk of at any time--in
fact, it was even a trifle difficult not to talk of them--but, stimulated by
the look which rested on him, by the deft word and ready smile, words flowed
readily and without the restraint of self-consciousness. "When you think that all of it sort of
began with a robin, it's queer enough," he said. "But for that ro=
bin
I shouldn't be here, sir," with a boyish laugh. "And he was an
English robin--a little fellow not half the size of the kind that hops about
Central Park." "Let me hear about that," said M=
r.
Vanderpoel. It was a good story, and he told it well,
though in his own junior salesman phrasing. He began with his bicycle ride =
into
the green country, his spin over the fine roads, his rest under the hedge
during the shower, and then the song of the robin perched among the fresh w=
et leafage,
his feathers puffed out, his red young satin-glossed breast pulsating and
swelling. His words were colloquial enough, but they called up the picture.=
"Everything sort of glittering with t=
he
sunshine on the wet drops, and things smelling good, like they do after
rain--leaves, and grass, and good earth. I tell you it made a fellow feel a=
s if
the whole world was his brother. And when Mr. Rob. lit on that twig and swe=
lled
his red breast as if he knew the whole thing was his, and began to let them=
notes
out, calling for his lady friend to come and go halves with him, I just had=
to
laugh and speak to him, and that was when Lord Mount Dunstan heard me and
jumped over the hedge. He'd been listening, too." The expression Reuben S. Vanderpoel wore m=
ade
it an agreeable thing to talk--to go on. He evidently cared to hear. So Sel=
den
did his best, and enjoyed himself in doing it. His style made for realism a=
nd
brought things clearly before one. The big-built man in the rough and shabb=
y shooting
clothes, his way when he dropped into the grass to sit beside the stranger =
and
talk, certain meanings in his words which conveyed to Vanderpoel what had n=
ot
been conveyed to G. Selden. Yes, the man carried a heaviness about with him=
and
hated the burden. Selden quite unconsciously brought him out strongly. "I don't know whether I'm the kind of
fellow who is always making breaks," he said, with his boy's laugh aga=
in,
"but if I am, I never made a worse one than when I asked him straight =
if
he was out of a job, and on the tramp. It showed what a nice fellow he was =
that
he didn't get hot about it. Some fellows would. He only laughed--sort of
short--and said his job had been more than he could handle, and he was afra=
id
he was down and out." Mr. Vanderpoel was conscious that so far he
was somewhat attracted by this central figure. G. Selden was also proving
satisfactory in the matter of revealing his excellently simple views of per=
sons
and things. "The only time he got mad was when I
wouldn't believe him when he told me who he was. I was a bit hot in the col=
lar
myself. I'd felt sorry for him, because I thought he was a chap like myself,
and he was up against it. I know what that is, and I'd wanted to jolly him
along a bit. When he said his name was Mount Dunstan, and the place belonge=
d to
him, I guessed he thought he was making a joke. So I got on my wheel and st=
arted
off, and then he got mad for keeps. He said he wasn't such a damned fool as=
he
looked, and what he'd said was true, and I could go and be hanged." Reuben S. Vanderpoel laughed. He liked tha=
t.
It sounded like decent British hot temper, which he had often found accompa=
nied
honest British decencies. He liked other things, as the story procee=
ded.
The picture of the huge house with the shut windows, made him slightly
restless. The concealed imagination, combined with the financier's resentme=
nt
of dormant interests, disturbed him. That which had attracted Selden in the=
Reverend
Lewis Penzance strongly attracted himself. Also, a man was a good deal to be
judged by his friends. The man who lived alone in the midst of stately
desolateness and held as his chief intimate a high-bred and gentle-minded
scholar of ripe years, gave, in doing this, certain evidence which did not =
tell
against him. The whole situation meant something a splendid, vivid-minded y=
oung
creature might be moved by--might be allured by, even despite herself. There was something fantastic in the odd
linking of incidents--Selden's chance view of Betty as she rode by, his next
day's sudden resolve to turn back and go to Stornham, his accident, all that
followed seemed, if one were fanciful--part of a scheme prearranged "When I came to myself," G. Seld=
en
said, "I felt like that fellow in the Shakespeare play that they dress=
up
and put to bed in the palace when he's drunk. I thought I'd gone off my hea=
d.
And then Miss Vanderpoel came." He paused a moment and looked down on =
the
carpet, thinking. "Gee whiz! It WAS queer," he said. Betty Vanderpoel's father could almost hear
her voice as the rest was told. He knew how her laugh had sounded, and what=
her
presence must have been to the young fellow. His delightful, human, always
satisfying Betty! Through this odd trick of fortune, Mount
Dunstan had begun to see her. Since, through the unfair endowment of Nature=
--that
it was not wholly fair he had often told himself--she was all the things th=
at
desire could yearn for, there were many chances that when a man saw her he =
must
long to see her again, and there were the same chances that such an one as =
Mount
Dunstan might long also, and, if Fate was against him, long with a bitter
strength. Selden was not aware that he had spoken more fully of Mount Dunst=
an
and his place than of other things. That this had been the case, had been
because Mr. Vanderpoel had intended it should be so. He had subtly drawn out
and encouraged a detailed account of the time spent at Mount Dunstan vicara=
ge.
It was easily encouraged. Selden's affectionate admiration for the vicar led
him on to enthusiasm. The quiet house and garden, the old books, the aftern=
oon
tea under the copper beech, and the long talks of old things, which had bee=
n so
new to the young New Yorker, had plainly made a mark upon his life, not lik=
ely to
be erased even by the rush of after years. "The way he knew history was what got
me," he said. "And the way you got interested in it, when he talk=
ed.
It wasn't just HISTORY, like you learn at school, and forget, and never see=
the
use of, anyhow. It was things about men, just like yourself--hustling for a
living in their way, just as we're hustling in Broadway. Most of it was
fighting, and there are mounds scattered about that are the remains of their
forts and camps. Roman camps, some of them. He took me to see them. He had a
little old pony chaise we trundled about in, and he'd draw up and we'd sit =
and talk.
'There were men here on this very spot,' he'd say, 'looking out for attack,
eating, drinking, cooking their food, polishing their weapons, laughing, and
shouting--MEN--Selden, fifty-five years before Christ was born--and sometim=
es
the New Testament times seem to us so far away that they are half a dream.'
That was the kind of thing he'd say, and I'd sometimes feel as if I heard t=
he
Romans shouting. The country about there was full of queer places, and both=
he
and Lord Dunstan knew more about them than I know about Twenty-third
Street." "You saw Lord Mount Dunstan often?&qu=
ot;
Mr. Vanderpoel suggested. "Every day, sir. And the more I saw h=
im,
the more I got to like him. He's all right. But it's hard luck to be fixed =
as
he is--that's stone-cold truth. What's a man to do? The money he ought to h=
ave
to keep up his place was spent before he was born. His father and his eldes=
t brother
were a bum lot, and his grandfather and great-grandfather were fools. He ca=
n't
sell the place, and he wouldn't if he could. Mr. Penzance was so fond of him
that sometimes he'd say things. But," hastily, "perhaps I'm talki=
ng
too much." "You happen to be talking about quest=
ions
I have been greatly interested in. I have thought a good deal at times of t=
he
position of the holders of large estates they cannot afford to keep up. This
special instance is a case in point." G. Selden felt himself in luck again. Reub=
en
S., quite evidently, found his subject worthy of undivided attention. Selden
had not heartily liked Lord Mount Dunstan, and lived in the atmosphere
surrounding him, looking about him with sharp young New York eyes, without
learning a good deal. He had seen the practical hardship of the
situation, and laid it bare. "What Mr. Penzance says is that he's =
like
the men that built things in the beginning--fought for them--fought Romans =
and
Saxons and Normans--perhaps the whole lot at different times. I used to lik=
e to
get Mr. Penzance to tell stories about the Mount Dunstans. They were splend=
id.
It must be pretty fine to look back about a thousand years and know your fo=
lks
have been something. All the same its pretty fierce to have to stand alone =
at
the end of it, not able to help yourself, because some of your relations we=
re
crazy fools. I don't wonder he feels mad." "Does he?" Mr. Vanderpoel inquir=
ed. "He's straight," said G. Selden
sympathetically. "He's all right. But only money can help him, and he's
got none, so he has to stand and stare at things falling to pieces. And--we=
ll,
I tell you, Mr. Vanderpoel, he LOVES that place--he's crazy about it. And h=
e's
proud--I don't mean he's got the swell-head, because he hasn't--but he's ju=
st
proud. Now, for instance, he hasn't any use for men like himself that marry
just for money. He's seen a lot of it, and it's made him sick. He's not tha=
t kind." He had been asked and had answered a good =
many
questions before he went away, but each had dropped into the talk so
incidentally that he had not recognised them as queries. He did not know th=
at
Lord Mount Dunstan stood out a clearly defined figure in Mr. Vanderpoel's m=
ind,
a figure to be reflected upon, and one not without its attraction. "Miss Vanderpoel tells me," Mr.
Vanderpoel said, when the interview was drawing to a close, "that you =
are
an agent for the Delkoff typewriter." G. Selden flushed slightly. "Yes, sir," he answered, "b=
ut I
didn't----" "I hear that three machines are in us=
e on
the Stornham estate, and that they have proved satisfactory." "It's a good machine," said G.
Selden, his flush a little deeper. Mr. Vanderpoel smiled. "You are a business-like young man,&q=
uot;
he said, "and I have no doubt you have a catalogue in your pocket.&quo=
t; G. Selden was a business-like young man. He
gave Mr. Vanderpoel one serious look, and the catalogue was drawn forth. "It wouldn't be business, sir, for me=
to
be caught out without it," he said. "I shouldn't leave it behind =
if I
went to a funeral. A man's got to run no risks." "I should like to look at it." The thing had happened. It was not a dream.
Reuben S. Vanderpoel, clothed and in his right mind, had, without pressure
being exerted upon him, expressed his desire to look at the catalogue--to
examine it--to have it explained to him at length. He listened attentively, while G. Selden d=
id
his best. He asked a question now and then, or made a comment. His manner w=
as
that of a thoroughly composed man of business, but he was remembering what
Betty had told him of the "ten per," and a number of other things=
. He
saw the flush come and go under the still boyish skin, he observed that G. =
Selden's
hand was not wholly steady, though he was making an effort not to seem exci=
ted.
But he was excited. This actually meant--this thing so unimportant to
multi-millionaires--that he was having his "chance," and his young
fortunes were, perhaps, in the balance. "Yes," said Reuben S., when he h=
ad
finished, "it seems a good, up-to-date machine." "It's the best on the market," s=
aid
G. Selden, "out and out, the best." "I understand you are only junior
salesman?" "Yes, sir. Ten per and five dollars on
every machine I sell. If I had a territory, I should get ten." "Then," reflectively, "the
first thing is to get a territory." "Perhaps I shall get one in time, if I
keep at it," said Selden courageously. "It is a good machine. I like it,&quo=
t;
said Mr. Vanderpoel. "I can see a good many places where it could be u=
sed.
Perhaps, if you make it known at your office that when you are given a good
territory, I shall give preference to the Delkoff over other typewriting
machines, it might--eh?" A light broke out upon G. Selden's
countenance--a light radiant and magnificent. He caught his breath. A desir=
e to
shout--to yell--to whoop, as when in the society of "the boys," w=
as
barely conquered in time. "Mr. Vanderpoel," he said, stand=
ing
up, "I--Mr. Vanderpoel--sir--I feel as if I was having a pipe dream. I=
'm
not, am I?" "No," answered Mr. Vanderpoel,
"you are not. I like you, Mr. Selden. My daughter liked you. I do not =
mean
to lose sight of you. We will begin, however, with the territory, and the
Delkoff. I don't think there will be any difficulty about it." . . . . . Ten minutes later G. Selden was walking do=
wn
Fifth Avenue, wondering if there was any chance of his being arrested by a
policeman upon the charge that he was reeling, instead of walking steadily.=
He
hoped he should get back to the hall bedroom safely. Nick Baumgarten and Je=
m Bolter
both "roomed" in the house with him. He could tell them both. It =
was
Jem who had made up the yarn about one of them saving Reuben S. Vanderpoel's
life. There had been no life-saving, but the thing had come true. "But, if it hadn't been for Lord Mount
Dunstan," he said, thinking it over excitedly, "I should never ha=
ve
seen Miss Vanderpoel, and, if it hadn't been for Miss Vanderpoel, I should
never have got next to Reuben S. in my life. Both sides of the Atlantic Oce=
an
got busy to do a good turn to Little Willie. Hully gee!" In his study Mr. Vanderpoel was rereading
Betty's letters. He felt that he had gained a certain knowledge of Lord Mou=
nt
Dunstan. CHAPTER XXXIX - ON THE MARSHES THE marshes stretched mellow in the autumn
sun, sheep wandered about, nibbling contentedly, or lay down to rest in gro=
ups,
the sky reflecting itself in the narrow dykes gave a blue colour to the wat=
er,
a scent of the sea was in the air as one breathed it, flocks of plover rose,
now and then, crying softly. Betty, walking with her dog, had passed a hero=
n standing
at the edge of a pool. From her first discovery of them, she had =
been
attracted by the marshes with their English suggestion of the Roman Campagn=
a,
their broad expanse of level land spread out to the sun and wind, the thous=
ands
of white sheep dotted or clustered as far as eye could reach, the hues of t=
he marsh
grass and the plants growing thick at the borders of the strips of water. I=
ts beauty
was all its own and curiously aloof from the softly-wooded, undulating world
about it. Driving or walking along the high road--the road the Romans had b=
uilt
to London town long centuries ago--on either side of one were meadows, farm=
s,
scattered cottages, and hop gardens, but beyond and below stretched the mar=
sh
land, golden and grey, and always alluring one by its silence. "I never pass it without wanting to g=
o to
it--to take solitary walks over it, to be one of the spots on it as the she=
ep
are. It seems as if, lying there under the blue sky or the low grey clouds =
with
all the world held at bay by mere space and stillness, they must feel somet=
hing
we know nothing of. I want to go and find out what it is." This she had once said to Mount Dunstan. So she had fallen into the habit of walking
there with her dog at her side as her sole companion, for having need for t=
ime
and space for thought, she had found them in the silence and aloofness. Life had been a vivid and pleasurable thin=
g to
her, as far as she could look back upon it. She began to realise that she m=
ust
have been very happy, because she had never found herself desiring existence
other than such as had come to her day by day. Except for her passionate
childish regret at Rosy's marriage, she had experienced no painful feeling.=
In
fact, she had faced no hurt in her life, and certainly had been confronted =
by
no limitations. Arguing that girls in their teens usually fall in love, her
father had occasionally wondered that she passed through no little episodes=
of
sentiment, but the fact was that her interests had been larger and more
numerous than the interests of girls generally are, and her affectionate
intimacy with himself had left no such small vacant spaces as are frequently
filled by unimportant young emotions. Because she was a logical creature, a=
nd
had watched life and those living it with clear and interested eyes, she had
not been blind to the path which had marked itself before her during the
summer's growth and waning. She had not, at first, perhaps, known exactly w=
hen things
began to change for her--when the clarity of her mind began to be disturbed.
She had thought in the beginning--as people have a habit of doing--that an
instance--a problem--a situation had attracted her attention because it was
absorbing enough to think over. Her view of the matter had been that as the
same thing would have interested her father, it had interested herself. But
from the morning when she had been conscious of the sudden fury roused in h=
er
by Nigel Anstruthers' ugly sneer at Mount Dunstan, she had better understood
the thing which had come upon her. Day by day it had increased and gathered
power, and she realised with a certain sense of impatience that she had not=
in
any degree understood it when she had seen and wondered at its effect on ot=
her
women. Each day had been like a wave encroaching farther upon the shore she
stood upon. At the outset a certain ignoble pride--she knew it ignoble--fil=
led
her with rebellion. She had seen so much of this kind of situation, and had
heard so much of the general comment. People had learned how to sneer becau=
se
experience had taught them. If she gave them cause, why should they not sne=
er
at her as at things? She recalled what she had herself thought of such
things--the folly of them, the obviousness--the almost deserved disaster. S=
he
had arrogated to herself judgment of women--and men--who might, yes, who mi=
ght
have stood upon their strip of sand, as she stood, with the waves creeping =
in,
each one higher, stronger, and more engulfing than the last. There might ha=
ve been
those among them who also had knowledge of that sudden deadly joy at the si=
ght
of one face, at the drop of one voice. When that wave submerged one's pulsi=
ng
being, what had the world to do with one--how could one hear and think of w=
hat
its speech might be? Its voice clamoured too far off. As she walked across the marsh she was
thinking this first phase over. She had reached a new one, and at first she
looked back with a faint, even rather hard, smile. She walked straight ahea=
d,
her mastiff, Roland, padding along heavily close at her side. How still and
wide and golden it was; how the cry of plover and lifting trill of skylark
assured one that one was wholly encircled by solitude and space which were =
more
enclosing than any walls! She was going to the mounds to which Mr. Penzance=
had
trundled G. Selden in the pony chaise, when he had given him the marvellous
hour which had brought Roman camp and Roman legions to life again. Up on the
largest hillock one could sit enthroned, resting chin in hand and looking o=
ut
under level lids at the unstirring, softly-living loveliness of the marsh-l=
and
world. So she was presently seated, with her heavy-limbed Roland at her fee=
t.
She had come here to try to put things clearly to herself, to plan with such
reason as she could control. She had begun to be unhappy, she had begun--wi=
th
some unfairness--to look back upon the Betty Vanderpoel of the past as an
unwittingly self-sufficient young woman, to find herself suddenly entangled=
by
things, even to know a touch of desperateness. "Not to take a remnant from the ducal
bargain counter," she was saying mentally. That was why her smile was a
little hard. What if the remnant from the ducal bargain counter had prejudi=
ces
of his own? "If he were passionately--passionatel=
y in
love with me," she said, with red staining her cheeks, "he would =
not
come--he would not come--he would not come. And, because of that, he is mor=
e to
me--MORE! And more he will become every day--and the more strongly he will =
hold
me. And there we stand." Roland lifted his fine head from his paws,
and, holding it erect on a stiff, strong neck, stared at her in obvious
inquiry. She put out her hand and tenderly patted him. "He will have none of me," she s=
aid.
"He will have none of me." And she faintly smiled, but the next
instant shook her head a little haughtily, and, having done so, looked down
with an altered expression upon the cloth of her skirt, because she had sha=
ken
upon it, from the extravagant lashes, two clear drops. It was not the result of chance that she h=
ad
seen nothing of him for weeks. She had not attempted to persuade herself of
that. Twice he had declined an invitation to Stornham, and once he had ridd=
en
past her on the road when he might have stopped to exchange greetings, or h=
ave ridden
on by her side. He did not mean to seem to desire, ever so lightly, to be
counted as in the lists. Whether he was drawn by any liking for her or not,=
it
was plain he had determined on this. If she were to go away now, they would nev=
er
meet again. Their ways in this world would part forever. She would not know=
how
long it took to break him utterly--if such a man could be broken. If no mag=
ic
change took place in his fortunes--and what change could come?--the decay a=
bout
him would spread day by day. Stone walls last a long time, so the house wou=
ld
stand while every beauty and stateliness within it fell into ruin. Gardens
would become wildernesses, terraces and fountains crumble and be overgrown,
walls that were to-day leaning would fall with time. The years would pass, =
and
his youth with them; he would gradually change into an old man while he wat=
ched
the things he loved with passion die slowly and hard. How strange it was th=
at
lives should touch and pass on the ocean of Time, and nothing should
result--nothing at all! When she went on her way, it would be as if a ship
loaded with every aid of food and treasure had passed a boat in which a str=
ong
man tossed, starving to death, and had not even run up a flag. "But one cannot run up a flag," =
she
said, stroking Roland. "One cannot. There we stand." To her recognition of this deadlock of Fat=
e,
there had been adding the growing disturbance caused by yet another thing w=
hich
was increasingly troubling, increasingly difficult to face. Gradually, and at first with wonderful
naturalness of bearing, Nigel Anstruthers had managed to create for himself=
a
singular place in her everyday life. It had begun with a certain personalne=
ss
in his attitude, a personalness which was a thing to dislike, but almost
impossible openly to resent. Certainly, as a self-invited guest in his hous=
e,
she could scarcely protest against the amiability of his demeanour and his =
exterior
courtesy and attentiveness of manner in his conduct towards her. She had tr=
ied
to sweep away the objectionable quality in his bearing, by frankness, by
indifference, by entire lack of response, but she had remained conscious of=
its
increasing as a spider's web might increase as the spider spun it quietly o=
ver
one, throwing out threads so impalpable that one could not brush them away
because they were too slight to be seen. She was aware that in the first ye=
ars
of his married life he had alternately resented the scarcity of the invitat=
ions
sent them and rudely refused such as were received. Since he had returned to
find her at Stornham, he had insisted that no invitations should be decline=
d,
and had escorted his wife and herself wherever they went. What could have b=
een
conventionally more proper--what more improper than that he should have
persistently have remained at home? And yet there came a time when, as they
three drove together at night in the closed carriage, Betty was conscious t=
hat,
as he sat opposite to her in the dark, when he spoke, when he touched her in
arranging the robe over her, or opening or shutting the window, he subtly, =
but
persistently, conveyed that the personalness of his voice, look, and physic=
al
nearness was a sort of hideous confidence between them which they were clev=
erly
concealing from Rosalie and the outside world. When she rode about the country, he had a =
way
of appearing at some turning and making himself her companion, riding too
closely at her side, and assuming a noticeable air of being engaged in
meaningly confidential talk. Once, when he had been leaning towards her wit=
h an
audaciously tender manner, they had been passed by the Dunholm carriage, and
Lady Dunholm and the friend driving with her had evidently tried not to look
surprised. Lady Alanby, meeting them in the same way at another time, had p=
ut
up her glasses and stared in open disapproval. She might admire a strikingly
handsome American girl, but her favour would not last through any such vulg=
ar
silliness as flirtations with disgraceful brothers-in-law. When Betty strol=
led
about the park or the lanes, she much too often encountered Sir Nigel strol=
ling
also, and knew that he did not mean to allow her to rid herself of him. In
public, he made a point of keeping observably close to her, of hovering in =
her
vicinity and looking on at all she did with eyes she rebelled against findi=
ng fixed
on her each time she was obliged to turn in his direction. He had a fashion=
of
coming to her side and speaking in a dropped voice, which excluded others, =
as a
favoured lover might. She had seen both men and women glance at her in
half-embarrassment at their sudden sense of finding themselves slightly de
trop. She had said aloud to him on one such occasion--and she had said it w=
ith
smiling casualness for the benefit of Lady Alanby, to whom she had been
talking: "Don't alarm me by dropping your voic=
e,
Nigel. I am easily frightened--and Lady Alanby will think we are
conspirators." For an instant he was taken by surprise. He
had been pleased to believe that there was no way in which she could defend
herself, unless she would condescend to something stupidly like a scene. He
flushed and drew himself up. "I beg your pardon, my dear Betty,&qu=
ot;
he said, and walked away with the manner of an offended adorer, leaving her=
to
realise an odiously unpleasant truth--which is that there are incidents only
made more inexplicable by an effort to explain. She saw also that he was qu=
ite
aware of this, and that his offended departure was a brilliant inspiration,=
and
had left her, as it were, in the lurch. To have said to Lady Alanby: "=
My brother-in-law,
in whose house I am merely staying for my sister's sake, is trying to lead =
you
to believe that I allow him to make love to me," would have suggested
either folly or insanity on her own part. As it was--after a glance at Sir
Nigel's stiffly retreating back--Lady Alanby merely looked away with a whol=
ly
uninviting expression. When Betty spoke to him afterwards, haught=
ily
and with determination, he laughed. "My dearest girl," he said, &quo=
t;if
I watch you with interest and drop my voice when I get a chance to speak to
you, I only do what every other man does, and I do it because you are an
alluring young woman--which no one is more perfectly aware of than yourself.
Your pretence that you do not know you are alluring is the most captivating
thing about you. And what do you think of doing if I continue to offend you=
? Do
you propose to desert us--to leave poor Rosalie to sink back again into the
bundle of old clothes she was when you came? For Heaven's sake, don't do
that!" All that his words suggested took form bef=
ore
her vividly. How well he understood what he was saying. But she answered him
bravely. "No. I do not mean to do that."<=
o:p> He watched her for a few seconds. There was
curiosity in his eyes. "Don't make the mistake of imagining =
that
I will let my wife go with you to America," he said next. "She is=
as
far off from that as she was when I brought her to Stornham. I have told her
so. A man cannot tie his wife to the bedpost in these days, but he can make=
her
efforts to leave him so decidedly unpleasant that decent women prefer to st=
ay
at home and take what is coming. I have seen that often enough 'to bank on =
it,'
if I may quote your American friends." "Do you remember my once saying,"
Betty remarked, "that when a woman has been PROPERLY ill-treated the t=
ime
comes when nothing matters--nothing but release from the life she
loathes?" "Yes," he answered. "And to=
you
nothing would matter but--excuse my saying it--your own damnable, headstrong
pride. But Rosalie is different. Everything matters to her. And you will fi=
nd
it so, my dear girl." And that this was at least half true was
brought home to her by the fact that late the same night Rosy came to her w=
hite
with crying. "It is not your fault, Betty," s=
he
said. "Don't think that I think it is your fault, but he has been in my
room in one of those humours when he seems like a devil. He thinks you will=
go
back to America and try to take me with you. But, Betty, you must not think
about me. It will be better for you to go. I have seen you again. I have had
you for--for a time. You will be safer at home with father and mother."=
; Betty laid a hand on her shoulder and look=
ed
at her fixedly. "What is it, Rosy?" she said.
"What is it he does to you--that makes you like this?" "I don't know--but that he makes me f=
eel
that there is nothing but evil and lies in the world and nothing can help o=
ne
against them. Those things he says about everyone--men and women--things one
can't repeat--make me sick. And when I try to deny them, he laughs." "Does he say things about me?" B=
etty
inquired, very quietly, and suddenly Rosalie threw her arms round her. "Betty, darling," she cried,
"go home--go home. You must not stay here." "When I go, you will go with me,"
Betty answered. "I am not going back to mother without you." She made a collection of many facts before
their interview was at an end, and they parted for the night. Among the fir=
st
was that Nigel had prepared for certain possibilities as wise holders of a
fortress prepare for siege. A rather long sitting alone over whisky and soda
had, without making him loquacious, heated his blood in such a manner as led
him to be less subtle than usual. Drink did not make him drunk, but maligna=
nt, and
when a man is in the malignant mood, he forgets his cleverness. So he revea=
led
more than he absolutely intended. It was to be gathered that he did not mea=
n to
permit his wife to leave him, even for a visit; he would not allow himself =
to
be made ridiculous by such a thing. A man who could not control his wife wa=
s a
fool and deserved to be a laughing-stock. As Ughtred and his future inherit=
ance
seemed to have become of interest to his grandfather, and were to be well
nursed and taken care of, his intention was that the boy should remain under
his own supervision. He could amuse himself well enough at Stornham, now th=
at
it had been put in order, if it was kept up properly and he filled it with
people who did not bore him. There were people who did not bore him--plenty=
of
them. Rosalie would stay where she was and receive his guests. If she imagi=
ned
that the little episode of Ffolliott had been entirely dormant, she was
mistaken. He knew where the man was, and exactly how serious it would be to=
him
if scandal was stirred up. He had been at some trouble to find out. The fel=
low
had recently had the luck to fall into a very fine living. It had been best=
owed
on him by the old Duke of Broadmorlands, who was the most strait-laced old =
boy
in England. He had become so in his disgust at the light behaviour of the w=
ife
he had divorced in his early manhood. Nigel cackled gently as he detailed t=
hat,
by an agreeable coincidence, it happened that her Grace had suddenly become
filled with pious fervour--roused thereto by a good-looking locum
tenens--result, painful discoveries--the pair being now rumoured to be keep=
ing
a lodging-house together somewhere in Australia. A word to good old
Broadmorlands would produce the effect of a lighted match on a barrel of
gunpowder. It would be the end of Ffolliott. Neither would it be a good
introduction to Betty's first season in London, neither would it be enjoyed=
by
her mother, whom he remembered as a woman with primitive views of domestic
rectitude. He smiled the awful smile as he took out of his pocket the envel=
ope containing
the words his wife had written to Mr. Ffolliott, "Do not come to the
house. Meet me at Bartyon Wood." It did not take much to convince peop=
le,
if one managed things with decent forethought. The Brents, for instance, we=
re
fond neither of her nor of Betty, and they had never forgotten the question=
able
conduct of their locum tenens. Then, suddenly, he had changed his manner and
had sat down, laughing, and drawn Rosalie to his knee and kissed her--yes, =
he
had kissed her and told her not to look like a little fool or act like one.
Nothing unpleasant would happen if she behaved herself. Betty had improved =
her greatly,
and she had grown young and pretty again. She looked quite like a child
sometimes, now that her bones were covered and she dressed well. If she wan=
ted
to please him she could put her arms round his neck and kiss him, as he had
kissed her. "That is what has made you look
white," said Betty. "Yes. There is something about him th=
at
sometimes makes you feel as if the very blood in your veins turned white,&q=
uot;
answered Rosy--in a low voice, which the next moment rose. "Don't you
see--don't you see," she broke out, "that to displease him would =
be
like murdering Mr. Ffolliott--like murdering his mother and mine--and like
murdering Ughtred, because he would be killed by the shame of things--and b=
y being
taken from me. We have loved each other so much--so much. Don't you see?&qu=
ot; "I see all that rises up before
you," Betty said, "and I understand your feeling that you cannot =
save
yourself by bringing ruin upon an innocent man who helped you. I realise th=
at
one must have time to think it over. But, Rosy," a sudden ring in her
voice, "I tell you there is a way out--there is a way out! The end of =
the
misery is coming--and it will not be what he thinks." "You always believe----" began R=
osy. "I know," answered Betty. "I
know there are some things so bad that they cannot go on. They kill themsel=
ves
through their own evil. I KNOW! I KNOW! That is all." CHAPTER LX - "DON'T GO ON WITH THIS&q=
uot; Of these things, as of others, she had com=
e to
her solitude to think. She looked out over the marshes scarcely seeing the
wandering or resting sheep, scarcely hearing the crying plover, because so =
much
seemed to confront her, and she must look it all well in the face. She had =
fulfilled
the promise she had made to herself as a child. She had come in search of R=
osy,
she had found her as simple and loving of heart as she had ever been. The m=
ost
painful discoveries she had made had been concealed from her mother until t=
heir
aspect was modified. Mrs. Vanderpoel need now feel no shock at the sight of=
the
restored Rosy. Lady Anstruthers had been still young enough to respond both
physically and mentally to love, companionship, agreeable luxuries, and
stimulating interests. But for Nigel's antagonism there was now no reason w=
hy she
should not be taken home for a visit to her family, and her long-yearned-for
New York, no reason why her father and mother should not come to Stornham, =
and
thus establish the customary social relations between their daughter's home=
and
their own. That this seemed out of the question was owing to the fact that =
at
the outset of his married life Sir Nigel had allowed himself to commit erro=
rs
in tactics. A perverse egotism, not wholly normal in its rancour, had led h=
im
into deeds which he had begun to suspect of having cost him too much, even
before Betty herself had pointed out to him their unbusinesslike indiscreti=
on.
He had done things he could not undo, and now, to his mind, his only resour=
ce was
to treat them boldly as having been the proper results of decision founded =
on
sound judgment, which he had no desire to excuse. A sufficiently arrogant
loftiness of bearing would, he hoped, carry him through the matter. This Be=
tty
herself had guessed, but she had not realised that this loftiness of attitu=
de
was in danger of losing some of its effectiveness through his being
increasingly stung and spurred by circumstances and feelings connected with
herself, which were at once exasperating and at times almost overpowering.
When, in his mingled dislike and admiration, he had begun to study his
sister-in-law, and the half-amused weaving of the small plots which would m=
ake
things sufficiently unpleasant to be used as factors in her removal from th=
e scene,
if necessary, he had not calculated, ever so remotely, on the chance of that
madness besetting him which usually besets men only in their youth. He had
imagined no other results to himself than a subtly-exciting private
entertainment, such as would give spice to the dullness of virtuous life in=
the
country. But, despite himself and his intentions, he had found the situation
alter. His first uncertainty of himself had arisen at the Dunholm ball, whe=
n he
had suddenly realised that he was detesting men who, being young and free, =
were
at liberty to pay gallant court to the new beauty. Perhaps the most disturbing thing to him h=
ad
been his consciousness of his sudden leap of antagonism towards Mount Dunst=
an,
who, despite his obvious lack of chance, somehow especially roused in him t=
he
rage of warring male instinct. There had been admissions he had been forced=
, at
length, to make to himself. You could not, it appeared, live in the house w=
ith
a splendid creature like this one--with her brilliant eyes, her beauty of l=
ine
and movement before you every hour, her bloom, her proud fineness holding
themselves wholly in their own keeping--without there being the devil to pa=
y.
Lately he had sometimes gone hot and cold in realising that, having once to=
ld
himself that he might choose to decide to get rid of her, he now knew that =
the
mere thought of her sailing away of her own choice was maddening to him. Th=
ere
WAS the devil to pay! It sometimes brought back to him that hideous shakine=
ss
of nerve which had been a feature of his illness when he had been on the
Riviera with Teresita. Of all this Betty only knew the outward si=
gns
which, taken at their exterior significance, were detestable enough, and dr=
ove
her hard as she mentally dwelt on them in connection with other things. How
easy, if she stood alone, to defy his evil insolence to do its worst, and
leaving the place at an hour's notice, to sail away to protection, or, if s=
he
chose to remain in England, to surround herself with a bodyguard of the peo=
ple in
whose eyes his disrepute relegated a man such as Nigel Anstruthers to power=
less
nonentity. Alone, she could have smiled and turned her back upon him. But s=
he
was here to take care of Rosy. She occupied a position something like that =
of a
woman who remains with a man and endures outrage because she cannot leave h=
er
child. That thought, in itself, brought Ughtred to her mind. There was Ught=
red
to be considered as well as his mother. Ughtred's love for and faith in her
were deep and passionate things. He fed on her tenderness for him, and had
grown stronger because he spent hours of each day talking, reading, and dri=
ving
with her. The simple truth was that neither she nor Rosalie could desert
Ughtred, and so long as Nigel managed cleverly enough, the law would give t=
he
boy to his father. "You are obliged to prove things, you
know, in a court of law," he had said, as if with casual amiability, o=
n a
certain occasion. "Proving things is the devil. People lose their temp=
ers
and rush into rows which end in lawsuits, and then find they can prove noth=
ing.
If I were a villain," slightly showing his teeth in an agreeable
smile--"instead of a man of blameless life, I should go in only for th=
at
branch of my profession which could be exercised without leaving stupid
evidence behind." Since his return to Stornham the outward
decorum of his own conduct had entertained him and he had kept it up with an
increasing appreciation of its usefulness in the present situation. Whatsoe=
ver
happened in the end, it was the part of discretion to present to the rural
world about him an appearance of upright behaviour. He had even found it
amusing to go to church and also to occasionally make amiable calls at the
vicarage. It was not difficult, at such times, to refer delicately to his
regret that domestic discomfort had led him into the error of remaining much
away from Stornham. He knew that he had been even rather touching in his ex=
pression
of interest in the future of his son, and the necessity of the boy's being
protected from uncontrolled hysteric influences. And, in the years of Rosal=
ie's
unprotected wretchedness, he had taken excellent care that no "stupid
evidence" should be exposed to view. Of all this Betty was thinking and summing=
up
definitely, point after point. Where was the wise and practical course of
defence? The most unthinkable thing was that one could find one's self in a
position in which action seemed inhibited. What could one do? To send for h=
er
father would surely end the matter--but at what cost to Rosy, to Ughtred, t=
o Ffolliott,
before whom the fair path to dignified security had so newly opened itself?=
What
would be the effect of sudden confusion, anguish, and public humiliation up=
on
Rosalie's carefully rebuilt health and strength--upon her mother's new hope=
and
happiness? At moments it seemed as if almost all that had been done might be
undone. She was beset by such a moment now, and felt for the time, at least,
like a creature tied hand and foot while in full strength. Certainly she was not prepared for the eve=
nt
which happened. Roland stiffened his ears, and, beginning a rumbling growl,
ended it suddenly, realising it an unnecessary precaution. He knew the man walking up the incline of =
the
mound from the side behind them. So did Betty know him. It was Sir Nigel
looking rather glowering and pale and walking slowly. He had discovered whe=
re
she had meant to take refuge, and had probably ridden to some point where he
could leave his horse and follow her at the expense of taking a short cut w=
hich
saved walking. As he climbed the mound to join her, Betty
rose to her feet. "My dear girl," he said, "d=
on't
get up as if you meant to go away. It has cost me some exertion to find
you." "It will not cost you any exertion to
lose me," was her light answer. "I AM going away." He had reached her, and stood still before=
her
with scarcely a yard's distance between them. He was slightly out of breath=
and
even a trifle livid. He leaned on his stick and his look at her combined
leaping bad temper with something deeper. "Look here!" he broke out, "=
;why
do you make such a point of treating me like the devil?" Betty felt her heart give a hastened beat,=
not
of fear, but of repulsion. This was the mood and manner which subjugated
Rosalie. He had so raised his voice that two men in the distance, who might=
be
either labourers or sportsmen, hearing its high tone, glanced curiously tow=
ards
them. "Why do you ask me a question which is
totally absurd?" she said. "It is not absurd," he answered.
"I am speaking of facts, and I intend to come to some understanding ab=
out
them." For reply, after meeting his look a few
seconds, she simply turned her back and began to walk away. He followed and
overtook her. "I shall go with you, and I shall say
what I want to say," he persisted. "If you hasten your pace I sha=
ll
hasten mine. I cannot exactly see you running away from me across the marsh=
, screaming.
You wouldn't care to be rescued by those men over there who are watching us=
. I
should explain myself to them in terms neither you nor Rosalie would enjoy.
There! I knew Rosalie's name would pull you up. Good God! I wish I were a w=
eak fool
with a magnificent creature protecting me at all risks." If she had not had blood and fire in her
veins, she might have found it easy to answer calmly. But she had both, and
both leaped and beat furiously for a few seconds. It was only human that it
should be so. But she was more than a passionate girl of high and trenchant
spirit, and she had learned, even in the days at the French school, what he=
had
never been able to learn in his life--self-control. She held herself in as =
she
would have held in a horse of too great fire and action. She was actually a=
ble
to look--as the first Reuben Vanderpoel would have looked--at her capital of
resource. But it meant taut holding of the reins. "Will you tell me," she said,
stopping, "what it is you want?" "I want to talk to you. I want to tell
you truths you would rather be told here than on the high road, where people
are passing--or at Stornham, where the servants would overhear and Rosalie =
be
thrown into hysterics. You will NOT run screaming across the marsh, because=
I
should run screaming after you, and we should both look silly. Here is a ra=
ther
scraggy tree. Will you sit on the mound near it--for Rosalie's sake?"<=
o:p> "I will not sit down," replied
Betty, "but I will listen, because it is not a bad idea that I should
understand you. But to begin with, I will tell you something." She sto=
pped
beneath the tree and stood with her back against its trunk. "I pick up
things by noticing people closely, and I have realised that all your life y=
ou
have counted upon getting your own way because you saw that people--especia=
lly
women--have a horror of public scenes, and will submit to almost anything to
avoid them. That is true very often, but not always." Her eyes, which were well opened, were qui=
te
the blue of steel, and rested directly upon him. "I, for instance, wou=
ld
let you make a scene with me anywhere you chose--in Bond Street--in
Piccadilly--on the steps of Buckingham Palace, as I was getting out of my
carriage to attend a drawing-room--and you would gain nothing you wanted by=
it--nothing.
You may place entire confidence in that statement." He stared back at her, momentarily
half-magnetised, and then broke forth into a harsh half-laugh. "You are so damned handsome that noth=
ing
else matters. I'm hanged if it does!" and the words were an exclamatio=
n.
He drew still nearer to her, speaking with a sort of savagery. "Cannot=
you
see that you could do what you pleased with me? You are too magnificent a t=
hing
for a man to withstand. I have lost my head and gone to the devil through y=
ou.
That is what I came to say." In the few seconds of silence that followe=
d,
his breath came quickly again and he was even paler than before. "You came to me to say THAT?" as=
ked
Betty. "Yes--to say it before you drove me to
other things." Her gaze was for a moment even slightly
wondering. He presented the curious picture of a cynical man of the world, =
for
the time being ruled and impelled only by the most primitive instincts. To a
clear-headed modern young woman of the most powerful class, he--her sister'=
s husband--was
making threatening love as if he were a savage chief and she a savage beaut=
y of
his tribe. All that concerned him was that he should speak and she should
hear--that he should show her he was the stronger of the two. "Are you QUITE mad?" she said. "Not quite," he answered; "=
only
three parts--but I am beyond my own control. That is the best proof of what=
has
happened to me. You are an arrogant piece and you would defy me if you stood
alone, but you don't, and, by the Lord! I have reached a point where I will
make use of every lever I can lay my hand on--yourself, Rosalie, Ughtred,
Ffolliott--the whole lot of you!" The thing which was hardest upon her was h=
er
knowledge of her own strength--of what she might have allowed herself of
flaming words and instant action--but for the memory of Rosy's ghastly litt=
le
face, as it had looked when she cried out, "You must not think of me.
Betty, go home--go home!" She held the white desperation of it before =
her
mental vision and answered him even with a certain interested deliberatenes=
s. "Do you know," she inquired,
"that you are talking to me as though you were the villain in the
melodrama?" "There is an advantage in that,"=
he
answered, with an unholy smile. "If you repeat what I say, people will
only think that you are indulging in hysterical exaggeration. They don't
believe in the existence of melodrama in these days." The cynical, absolute knowledge of this
revealed so much that nerve was required to face it with steadiness. "True," she commented. "Now=
I
think I understand." "No, you don't," he burst forth.
"You have spent your life standing on a golden pedestal, being kowtowed
to, and you imagine yourself immune from difficulties because you think you=
can
pay your way out of anything. But you will find that you cannot pay your way
out of this--or rather you cannot pay Rosalie's way out of it." "I shall not try. Go on," said t=
he
girl. "What I do not understand, you must explain to me. Don't leave
anything unsaid." "Good God, what a woman you are!"=
; he
cried out bitterly. He had never seen such beauty in his life as he saw in =
her
as she stood with her straight young body flat against the tree. It was not=
a
matter of deep colour of eye, or high spirit of profile--but of something w=
hich
burned him. Still as she was, she looked like a flame. She made him feel ol=
d and
body-worn, and all the more senselessly furious. "I believe you hate me," he rage=
d.
"And I may thank my wife for that." Then he lost himself entirely.
"Why cannot you behave well to me? If you will behave well to me, Rosa=
lie
shall go her own way. If you even looked at me as you look at other men--but
you do not. There is always something under your lashes which watches me as=
if
I were a wild beast you were studying. Don't fancy yourself a dompteuse. I =
am
not your man. I swear to you that you don't know what you are dealing with.=
I
swear to you that if you play this game with me I will drag you two down if=
I drag
myself with you. I have nothing much to lose. You and your sister have
everything." "Go on," Betty said briefly. "Go on! Yes, I will go on. Rosalie and
Ffolliott I hold in the hollow of my hand. As for you--do you know that peo=
ple
are beginning to discuss you? Gossip is easily stirred in the country, where
people are so bored that they chatter in self-defence. I have been consider=
ed a
bad lot. I have become curiously attached to my sister-in-law. I am seen
hanging about her, hanging over her as we ride or walk alone together. An A=
merican
young woman is not like an English girl--she is used to seeing the marriage
ceremony juggled with. There's a trifle of prejudice against such young wom=
en
when they are too rich and too handsome. Don't look at me like that!" =
he
burst forth, with maddened sharpness, "I won't have it!" The girl was regarding him with the expres=
sion
he most resented--the reflection of a normal person watching an abnormal on=
e,
and studying his abnormality. "Do you know that you are raving?&quo=
t;
she said, with quiet curiosity--"raving?" Suddenly he sat down on the low mound near=
him,
and as he touched his forehead with his handkerchief, she saw that his hand
actually shook. "Yes," he answered, panting,
"but 'ware my ravings! They mean what they say." "You do yourself an injury when you g=
ive
way to them"--steadily, even with a touch of slow significance--"a
physical injury. I have noticed that more than once." He sprang to his feet again. Every drop of
blood left his face. For a second he looked as if he would strike her. His =
arm
actually flung itself out--and fell. "You devil!" he gasped. "You
count on that? You she-devil!" She left her tree and stood before him. "Listen to me," she said. "=
You
intimate that you have been laying melodramatic plots against me which will
injure my good name. That is rubbish. Let us leave it at that. You threaten
that you will break Rosy's heart and take her child from her, you say also =
that
you will wound and hurt my mother to her death and do your worst to ruin an=
honest
man----" "And, by God, I will!" he raged.
"And you cannot stop me, if----" "I do not know whether I can stop you=
or
not, though you may be sure I will try," she interrupted him, "but
that is not what I was going to say." She drew a step nearer, and there
was something in the intensity of her look which fascinated and held him fo=
r a
moment. She was curiously grave. "Nigel, I believe in certain things y=
ou
do not believe in. I believe black thoughts breed black ills to those who t=
hink
them. It is not a new idea. There is an old Oriental proverb which says, 'C=
urses,
like chickens, come home to roost.' I believe also that the worst--the very
worst CANNOT be done to those who think steadily--steadily--only of the bes=
t.
To you that is merely superstition to be laughed at. That is a matter of
opinion. But--don't go on with this thing--DON'T GO ON WITH IT. Stop and th=
ink
it over." He stared at her furiously--tried to laugh
outright, and failed because the look in her eyes was so odd in its strength
and stillness. "You think you can lay some weird spe=
ll
upon me," he jeered sardonically. "No, I don't," she answered. &qu=
ot;I
could not if I would. It is no affair of mine. It is your affair only--and
there is nothing weird about it. Don't go on, I tell you. Think better of
it." She turned about without further speech, a=
nd
walked away from him with light swiftness over the marsh. Oddly enough, he =
did
not even attempt to follow her. He felt a little weak--perhaps because a
certain thing she had said had brought back to him a familiar touch of the
horrors. She had the eyes of a falcon under the odd, soft shade of the
extraordinary lashes. She had seen what he thought no one but himself had
realised. Having watched her retreating figure for a few seconds, he sat
down--as suddenly as before--on the mound near the tree. "Oh, damn her!" he said, his damp
forehead on his hands. "Damn the whole universe!" . . . . . When Betty and Roland reached Stornham, the
wicker-work pony chaise from the vicarage stood before the stone entrance
steps. The drawing-room door was open, and Mrs. Brent was standing near it =
saying
some last words to Lady Anstruthers before leaving the house, after a visit=
evidently
made with an object. This Betty gathered from the solemnity of her manner.<=
o:p> "Betty," said Lady Anstruthers,
catching sight of her, "do come in for a moment." When Betty entered, both her sister and Mr=
s.
Brent looked at her questioningly. "You look a little pale and tired, Mi=
ss
Vanderpoel," Mrs. Brent said, rather as if in haste to be the first to
speak. "I hope you are not at all unwell. We need all our strength jus=
t now.
I have brought the most painful news. Malignant typhoid fever has broken out
among the hop pickers on the Mount Dunstan estate. Some poor creature was
evidently sickening for it when he came from London. Three people died last=
night." CHAPTER XLI - SHE WOULD DO SOMETHING Sir Nigel's face was not a good thing to s=
ee
when he appeared at the dinner table in the evening. As he took his seat the
two footmen glanced quickly at each other, and the butler at the sideboard
furtively thrust out his underlip. Not a man or woman in the household but =
had
learned the signal denoting the moment when no service would please, no wor=
d or
movement be unobjectionable. Lady Anstruthers' face unconsciously assumed i=
ts
propitiatory expression, and she glanced at her sister more than once when
Betty was unaware that she did so. Until the soup had been removed, Sir Nigel
scarcely spoke, merely making curt replies to any casual remark. This was o=
ne
of his simple and most engaging methods of at once enjoying an ill-humour a=
nd making
his wife feel that she was in some way to blame for it. "Mount Dunstan is in a deucedly
unpleasant position," he condescended at last. "I should not care=
to
stand in his shoes." He had not returned to the Court until lat=
e in
the afternoon, but having heard in the village the rumour of the outbreak of
fever, he had made inquiries and gathered detail. "You are thinking of the outbreak of
typhoid among the hop pickers?" said Lady Anstruthers. "Mrs. Brent
thinks it threatens to be very serious." "An epidemic, without a doubt," =
he
answered. "In a wretched unsanitary place like Dunstan village, the
wretches will die like flies." "What will be done?" inquired Be=
tty. He gave her one of the unpleasant personal
glances and laughed derisively. "Done? The county authorities, who ca=
ll
themselves 'guardians,' will be frightened to death and will potter about a=
nd
fuss like old women, and profess to examine and protect and lay restriction=
s,
but everyone will manage to keep at a discreet distance, and the thing will=
run
riot and do its worst. As far as one can see, there seems no reason why the
whole place should not be swept away. No doubt Mount Dunstan has wisely tak=
en to
his heels already." "I think that, on the contrary, there
would be much doubt of that," Betty said. "He would stay and do w=
hat
he could." Sir Nigel shrugged his shoulders. "Would he? I think you'll find he wou=
ld
not." "Mrs. Brent tells me," Rosalie b=
roke
in somewhat hurriedly, "that the huts for the hoppers are in the worst
possible condition. They are so dilapidated that the rain pours into them.
There is no proper shelter for the people who are ill, and Lord Mount Dunst=
an
cannot afford to take care of them." "But he WILL--he WILL," broke fo=
rth
Betty. Her head lifted itself and she spoke almost as if through her small,
shut teeth. A wave of intense belief--high, proud, and obstinate, swept thr=
ough
her. It was a feeling so strong and vibrant that she felt as if Mount Dunst=
an
himself must be reached and upborne by it--as if he himself must hear her.<=
o:p> Rosalie looked at her half-startled, and, =
for
the moment held fascinated by the sudden force rising in her and by the
splendid spark of light under her lids. She was reminded of the fierce litt=
le
Betty of long ago, with her delicate, indomitable small face and the spirit
which even at nine years old had somehow seemed so strong and straitly keen=
of
sight that one had known it might always be trusted. Actually, in one way, =
she had
not changed. She saw the truth of things. The next instant, however, inadve=
rtently
glancing towards her husband, she caught her breath quickly. Across his
heavy-featured face had shot the sudden gleam of a new expression. It was a=
s if
he had at the moment recognised something which filled him with a rush of f=
ury
he himself was not prepared for. That he did not wish it to be seen she kne=
w by
his manner. There was a brief silence in which it passed away. He spoke aft=
er
it, with disagreeable precision. "He has had an enormous effect on
you--that man," he said to Betty. He spoke clearly so that she might have the
pleasure of being certain that the menservants heard. They were close to the
table, handing fruit--professing to be automatons, eyes down, faces express=
ing
nothing, but as quick of hearing as it is said that blind men are. He knew =
that
if he had been in her place and a thing as insultingly significant had been
said to him, he should promptly have hurled the nearest object--plate,
wineglass, or decanter--in the face of the speaker. He knew, too, that women
cannot hurl projectiles without looking like viragos and fools. The
weakly-feminine might burst into tears or into a silly rage and leave the
table. There was a distinct breath's space of pause, and Betty, cutting a
cluster from a bunch of hothouse grapes presented by the footman at her sid=
e,
answered as clearly as he had spoken himself. "He is strong enough to produce an ef=
fect
on anyone," she said. "I think you feel that yourself. He is a man
who will not be beaten in the end. Fortune will give him some good thing.&q=
uot; "He is a fellow who knows well enough=
on
which hand of him good things lie," he said. "He will take all th=
at
offers itself." "Why not?" Betty said impartiall=
y. "There must be no riding or driving in
the neighbourhood of the place," he said next. "I will have no ri=
sks
run." He turned and addressed the butler. "Jennings, tell the
servants that those are my orders." He sat over his wine but a short time that
evening, and when he joined his wife and sister-in-law in the drawing-room =
he
went at once to Betty. In fact, he was in the condition when a man cannot k=
eep
away from a woman, but must invent some reason for reaching her whether it =
is fatuous
or plausible. "What I said to Jennings was an order=
to
you as well as to the people below stairs. I know you are particularly fond=
of
riding in the direction of Mount Dunstan. You are in my care so long as you=
are
in my house." "Orders are not necessary," Betty
replied. "The day is past when one rushed to smooth pillows and give t=
he
wrong medicine when one's friends were ill. If one is not a properly-trained
nurse, it is wiser not to risk being very much in the way." He spoke over her shoulder, dropping his
voice, though Lady Anstruthers sat apart, appearing to read. "Don't think I am fool enough not to
understand. You have yourself under magnificent control, but a woman
passionately in love cannot keep a certain look out of her eyes." He was standing on the hearth. Betty swung
herself lightly round, facing him squarely. Her full look was splendid. "If it is there--let it stay," s=
he
said. "I would not keep it out of my eyes if I could, and, you are rig=
ht,
I could not if I would--if it is there. If it is--let it stay." The daring, throbbing, human truth of her =
made
his brain whirl. To a man young and clean and fit to count as in the lists,=
to
have heard her say the thing of a rival would have been hard enough, but ba=
se,
degenerate, and of the world behind her day, to hear it while frenzied for =
her,
was intolerable. And it was Mount Dunstan she bore herself so highly for. W=
hether
melodrama is out of date or not there are, occasionally, some fine melodram=
atic
touches in the enmities of to-day. "You think you will reach him," =
he
persisted. "You think you will help him in some way. You will not let =
the
thing alone." "Excuse my mentioning that whatsoever=
I
take the liberty of doing will encroach on no right of yours," she sai=
d. But, alone in her room, after she went
upstairs, the face reflecting itself in the mirror was pale and its black b=
rows
were drawn together. She sat down at the dressing-table, and,
seeing the paled face, drew the black brows closer, confronting a complicat=
ing
truth. "If I were free to take Rosalie and
Ughtred home to-morrow," she thought, "I could not bear to go. I
should suffer too much." She was suffering now. The strong longing =
in
her heart was like a physical pain. No word or look of this one man had giv=
en her
proof that his thoughts turned to her, and yet it was intolerable--intolera=
ble--that
in his hour of stress and need they were as wholly apart as if worlds rolled
between them. At any dire moment it was mere nature that she should give
herself in help and support. If, on the night at sea, when they had first
spoken to each other, the ship had gone down, she knew that they two, stran=
gers
though they were, would have worked side by side among the frantic people, =
and
have been among the last to take to the boats. How did she know? Only becau=
se,
he being he, and she being she, it must have been so in accordance with the=
laws
ruling entities. And now he stood facing a calamity almost as terrible--and=
she
with full hands sat still. She had seen the hop pickers' huts and had
recognised their condition. Mere brick sheds in which the pickers slept upon
bundles of hay or straw in their best days; in their decay they did not even
provide shelter. In fine weather the hop gatherers slept well enough in the=
m,
cooking their food in gypsy-fashion in the open. When the rain descended, it
must run down walls and drip through the holes in the roofs in streams whic=
h would
soak clothes and bedding. The worst that Nigel and Mrs. Brent had implied w=
as
true. Illness of any order, under such circumstances, would have small chan=
ce
of recovery, but malignant typhoid without shelter, without proper nourishm=
ent
or nursing, had not one chance in a million. And he--this one man--stood al=
one
in the midst of the tragedy--responsible and helpless. He would feel himself
responsible as she herself would, if she were in his place. She was conscio=
us
that suddenly the event of the afternoon--the interview upon the marshes, h=
ad receded
until it had become an almost unmeaning incident. What did the degenerate,
melodramatic folly matter----! She had restlessly left her chair before t=
he
dressing-table, and was walking to and fro. She paused and stood looking do=
wn
at the carpet, though she scarcely saw it. "Nothing matters but one thing--one
person," she owned to herself aloud. "I suppose it is always like
this. Rosy, Ughtred, even father and mother--everyone seems less near than =
they
were. It is too strong--too strong. It is----" the words dropped slowly
from her lips, "the strongest thing--in the world." She lifted her face and threw out her hand=
s, a
lovely young half-sad smile curling the deep corners of her mouth.
"Sometimes one feels so disdained," she said--"so disdained =
with
all one's power. Perhaps I am an unwanted thing." But even in this case there were aids one
might make an effort to give. She went to her writing-table and sat thinking
for some time. Afterwards she began to write letters. Three or four were
addressed to London--one was to Mr. Penzance. . . . . . Mount Dunstan and his vicar were walking
through the village to the vicarage. They had been to the hop pickers' huts=
to
see the people who were ill of the fever. Both of them noticed that cottage
doors and windows were shut, and that here and there alarmed faces looked o=
ut
from behind latticed panes. "They are in a panic of fear," M=
ount
Dunstan said, "and by way of safeguard they shut out every breath of a=
ir
and stifle indoors. Something must be done." Catching the eye of a woman who was peering
over her short white dimity blind, he beckoned to her authoritatively. She =
came
to the door and hesitated there, curtsying nervously. Mount Dunstan spoke to her across the hedg=
e. "You need not come out to me, Mrs.
Binner. You may stay where you are," he said. "Are you obeying the
orders given by the Guardians?" "Yes, my lord. Yes, my lord," wi=
th
more curtsys. "Your health is very much in your own
hands," he added. "You must keep your cottage and your
children cleaner than you have ever kept them before, and you must use the
disinfectant I sent you. Keep away from the huts, and open your windows. If=
you
don't open them, I shall come and do it for you. Bad air is infection itsel=
f.
Do you understand?" "Yes, my lord. Thank your lordship.&q=
uot; "Go in and open your windows now, and
tell your neighbours to do the same. If anyone is ill let me know at once. =
The
vicar and I will do our best for everyone." By that time curiosity had overcome fear, =
and
other cottage doors had opened. Mount Dunstan passed down the row and said a
few words to each woman or man who looked out. Questions were asked anxious=
ly
and he answered them. That he was personally unafraid was comfortingly plai=
n, and
the mere sight of him was, on the whole, an unexplainable support. "We heard said your lordship was going
away," put in a stout mother with a heavy child on her arm, a slight
testiness scarcely concealed by respectful good-manners. She was a matron w=
ith
a temper, and that a Mount Dunstan should avoid responsibilities seemed hig=
hly
credible. "I shall stay where I am," Mount
Dunstan answered. "My place is here." They believed him, Mount Dunstan though he
was. It could not be said that they were fond of him, but gradually it had =
been
borne in upon them that his word was to be relied on, though his manner was
unalluring and they knew he was too poor to do his duty by them or his esta=
te.
As he walked away with the vicar, windows were opened, and in one or two un=
tidy
cottages a sudden flourishing of mops and brooms began. There was dark trouble in Mount Dunstan's
face. In the huts they had left two men stiff on their straw, and two women=
and
a child in a state of collapse. Added to these were others stricken helples=
s. A
number of workers in the hop gardens, on realising the danger threatening t=
hem,
had gathered together bundles and children, and, leaving the harvest behind,
had gone on the tramp again. Those who remained were the weaker or less
cautious, or were held by some tie to those who were already ill of the fev=
er.
The village doctor was an old man who had spent his blameless life in bring=
ing
little cottagers into the world, attending their measles and whooping cough=
s,
and their father's and grandfather's rheumatics. He had never faced a villa=
ge
crisis in the course of his seventy-five years, and was aghast and flurried
with fright. His methods remained those of his youth, and were marked chief=
ly
by a readiness to prescribe calomel in any emergency. A younger and stronger
man was needed, as well as a man of more modern training. But even the most=
brilliant
practitioner of the hour could not have provided shelter and nourishment, a=
nd
without them his skill would have counted as nothing. For three weeks there=
had
been no rain, which was a condition of the barometer not likely to last.
Already grey clouds were gathering and obscuring the blueness of the sky. The vicar glanced upwards anxiously. "When it comes," he said,
"there will be a downpour, and a persistent one." "Yes," Mount Dunstan answered. He had lain awake thinking throughout the
night. How was a man to sleep! It was as Betty Vanderpoel had known it would
be. He, who--beggar though he might be--was the lord of the land, was the m=
an
to face the strait of these poor workers on the land, as his own. Some acti=
on
must be taken. What action? As he walked by his friend's side from the huts
where the dead men lay it revealed itself that he saw his way. They were going to the vicarage to consult=
a
medical book, but on the way there they passed a part of the park where,
through a break in the timber the huge, white, blind-faced house stood on v=
iew.
Mount Dunstan laid his hand on Mr. Penzance's shoulder and stopped him, "Look there!" he said. "THE=
RE
are weather-tight rooms enough." A startled expression showed itself on the
vicar's face. "For what?" he exclaimed "For a hospital," brusquely &quo=
t;I
can give them one thing, at least--shelter." "It is a very remarkable thing to thi=
nk
of doing," Mr. Penzance said. "It is not so remarkable as that
labourers on my land should die at my gate because I cannot give them decent
roofs to cover them. There is a roof that will shield them from the weather.
They shall be brought to the Mount." The vicar was silent a moment, and a flush=
of
sympathy warmed his face. "You are quite right, Fergus," he
said, "entirely right." "Let us go to your study and plan how=
it
shall be done," Mount Dunstan said. As they walked towards the vicarage, he we=
nt
on talking. "When I lie awake at night, there is =
one
thread which always winds itself through my thoughts whatsoever they are. I
don't find that I can disentangle it. It connects itself with Reuben S.
Vanderpoel's daughter. You would know that without my telling you. If you h=
ad
ever struggled with an insane passion----" "It is not insane, I repeat," pu=
t in
Penzance unflinchingly. "Thank you--whether you are right or
wrong," answered Mount Dunstan, striding by his side. "When I am
awake, she is as much a part of my existence as my breath itself. When I th=
ink
things over, I find that I am asking myself if her thoughts would be like m=
ine.
She is a creature of action. Last night, as I lay awake, I said to myself, =
'She
would DO something. What would she do?' She would not be held back by fear =
of comment
or convention. She would look about her for the utilisable, and she would f=
ind
it somewhere and use it. I began to sum up the village resources and found
nothing--until my thoughts led me to my own house. There it stood--empty and
useless. If it were hers, and she stood in my place, she would make it usef=
ul.
So I decided." "You are quite right," Mr. Penza=
nce
said again. They spent an hour in his library at the
vicarage, arranging practical methods for transforming the great ballroom i=
nto a
sort of hospital ward. It could be done by the removal of pieces of furnitu=
re
from the many unused bedrooms. There was also the transportation of the
patients from the huts to be provided for. But, when all this was planned o=
ut, each
found himself looking at the other with an unspoken thought in his mind. Mo=
unt
Dunstan first expressed it. "As far as I can gather, the safety of
typhoid fever patients depends almost entirely on scientific nursing, and t=
he
caution with which even liquid nourishment is given. The woman whose husband
died this morning told me that he had seemed better in the night, and had a=
sked
for something to eat. She gave him a piece of bread and a slice of cold bac=
on,
because he told her he fancied it. I could not explain to her, as she sat
sobbing over him, that she had probably killed him. When we have patients in
our ward, what shall we feed them on, and who will know how to nurse them? =
They
do not know how to nurse each other, and the women in the village would not=
run
the risk of undertaking to help us." But, even before he had left the house, the
problem was solved for them. The solving of it lay in the note Miss Vanderp=
oel
had written the night before at Stornham. When it was brought to him Mr. Penzance
glanced up from certain calculations he was making upon a sheet of note-pap=
er.
The accumulating difficulties made him look worn and tired. He opened the n=
ote
and read it gravely, and then as gravely, though with a change of expressio=
n, handed
it to Mount Dunstan. "Yes, she is a creature of action. She
has heard and understood at once, and she has done something. It is immense=
ly
practical--it is fine--it--it is lovable." "Do you mind my keeping it?" Mou=
nt
Dunstan asked, after he had read it. "Keep it by all means," the vicar
answered. "It is worth keeping." But it was quite brief. She had heard of t=
he
outbreak of fever among the hop pickers, and asked to be allowed to give he=
lp
to the people who were suffering. They would need prompt aid. She chanced to
know something of the requirements of such cases, and had written to London=
for
certain supplies which would be sent to them at once. She had also written =
for nurses,
who would be needed above all else. Might she ask Mr. Penzance to kindly ca=
ll
upon her for any further assistance required. "Tell her we are deeply grateful,&quo=
t;
said Mount Dunstan, "and that she has given us greater help than she
knows." "Why not answer her note yourself?&qu=
ot;
Penzance suggested. Mount Dunstan shook his head. "No," he said shortly.
"No." CHAPTER XLII - IN THE BALLROOM Though Dunstan village was cut off, by its
misfortune, from its usual intercourse with its neighbours, in some mystic
manner villages even at twenty miles' distance learned all it did and suffe=
red,
feared or hoped. It did not hope greatly, the rustic habit of mind tending
towards a discouraged outlook, and cherishing the drama of impending calami=
ty. As
far as Yangford and Marling inmates of cottages and farmhouses were incline=
d to
think it probable that Dunstan would be "swep away," and rumours =
of
spreading death and disaster were popular. Tread, the advanced blacksmith at
Stornham, having heard in his by-gone, better days of the Great Plague of
London, was greatly in demand as a narrator of illuminating anecdotes at The
Clock Inn. Among the parties gathered at the large ho=
uses
Mount Dunstan himself was much talked of. If he had been a popular man, he
might have become a sort of hero; as he was not popular, he was merely a
subject for discussion. The fever-stricken patients had been carried in car=
ts
to the Mount and given beds in the ballroom, which had been made into a tem=
porary
ward. Nurses and supplies had been sent for from London, and two energetic
young doctors had taken the place of old Dr. Fenwick, who had been frighten=
ed
and overworked into an attack of bronchitis which confined him to his bed.
Where the money came from, which must be spent every day under such
circumstances, it was difficult to say. To the simply conservative of mind,=
the
idea of filling one's house with dirty East End hop pickers infected with
typhoid seemed too radical. Surely he could have done something less
extraordinary. Would everybody be expected to turn their houses into hospit=
als
in case of village epidemics, now that he had established a precedent? But
there were people who approved, and were warm in their sympathy with him. At
the first dinner party where the matter was made the subject of argument, t=
he
beautiful Miss Vanderpoel, who was present, listened silently to the talk w=
ith
such brilliant eyes that Lord Dunholm, who was in an elderly way her staunch
admirer, spoke to her across the table: "Tell us what YOU think of it, Miss
Vanderpoel," he suggested. She did not hesitate at all. "I like it," she answered, in her
clear, well-heard voice. "I like it better than anything I have ever
heard." "So do I," said old Lady Alanby
shortly. "I should never have done it myself--but I like it just as you
do." "I knew you would, Lady Alanby,"
said the girl. "And you, too, Lord Dunholm." "I
like it so much that I shall write and ask if I cannot be of assistance,&qu=
ot;
Lord Dunholm answered. Betty was glad to hear this. Only quicknes=
s of
thought prevented her from the error of saying, "Thank you," as if
the matter were personal to herself. If Mount Dunstan was restive under the
obviousness of the fact that help was so sorely needed, he might feel less =
so
if her offer was only one among others. "It seems rather the duty of the
neighbourhood to show some interest," put in Lady Alanby. "I shall
write to him myself. He is evidently of a new order of Mount Dunstan. It's =
to
be hoped he won't take the fever himself, and die of it He ought to marry s=
ome
handsome, well-behaved girl, and re-found the family." Nigel Anstruthers spoke from his side of t=
he
table, leaning slightly forward. "He won't if he does not take better =
care
of himself. He passed me on the road two days ago, riding like a lunatic. He
looks frightfully ill--yellow and drawn and lined. He has not lived the lif=
e to
prepare him for settling down to a fight with typhoid fever. He would be do=
ne for
if he caught the infection." "I beg your pardon," said Lord
Dunholm, with quiet decision. "Unprejudiced inquiry proves that his li=
fe
has been entirely respectable. As Lady Alanby says, he seems to be of a new
order of Mount Dunstan." "No doubt you are right," said S=
ir
Nigel suavely. "He looked ill, notwithstanding." "As to looking ill," remarked La=
dy
Alanby to Lord Dunholm, who sat near her, "that man looks as if he was
going to pieces pretty rapidly himself, and unprejudiced inquiry would not
prove that his past had nothing to do with it." Betty wondered if her brother-in-law were
lying. It was generally safest to argue that he was. But the fever burned h=
igh
at Mount Dunstan, and she knew by instinct what its owner was giving of the
strength of his body and brain. A young, unmarried woman cannot go about,
however, making anxious inquiries concerning the welfare of a man who has m=
ade
no advance towards her. She must wait for the chance which brings news. . . . . . The fever, having ill-cared for and habitu=
ally
ill fed bodies to work upon, wrought fiercely, despite the energy of the two
young doctors and the trained nurses. There were many dark hours in the
ballroom ward, hours filled with groans and wild ravings. The floating
Terpsichorean goddesses upon the lofty ceiling gazed down with wondering ey=
es
at haggard faces and plucking hands which sometimes, behind the screen drawn
round their beds, ceased to look feverish, and grew paler and stiller, until
they moved no more. But, at least, none had died through want of shelter and
care. The supplies needed came from London each day. Lord Dunholm had sent a
generous cheque to the aid of the sufferers, and so, also, had old Lady Ala=
nby,
but Miss Vanderpoel, consulting medical authorities and hospitals, learned
exactly what was required, and necessities were forwarded daily in their mo=
st
easily utilisable form. "You generously told me to ask you for
anything we found we required," Mr. Penzance wrote to her in his note =
of
thanks. "My dear and kind young lady, you leave nothing to ask for. Our
doctors, who are young and enthusiastic, are filled with delight in the
completeness of the resources placed in their hands." She had, in fact, gone to London to consul=
t an
eminent physician, who was an authority of world-wide reputation. Like the =
head
of the legal firm of Townlinson & Sheppard, he had experienced a new
sensation in the visit paid him by an indubitably modern young beauty, who
wasted no word, and whose eyes, while he answered her amazingly clear
questions, were as intelligently intent as those of an ardent and serious y=
oung
medical student. What a surgical nurse she would have made! It seemed almos=
t a
pity that she evidently belonged to a class the members of which are rich e=
nough
to undertake the charge of entire epidemics, but who do not usually give
themselves to such work, especially when they are young and astonishing in =
the
matter of looks. In addition to the work they did in the
ballroom ward, Mount Dunstan and the vicar found much to do among the
villagers. Ignorance and alarm combined to create dangers, even where they
might not have been feared. Daily instruction and inspection of the cottages
and their inmates was required. The knowledge that they were under control =
and
supervision was a support to the frightened people and prevented their laps=
ing into
careless habits. Also, there began to develop among them a secret dependence
upon, and desire to please "his lordship," as the existing circum=
stances
drew him nearer to them, and unconsciously they were attracted and dominate=
d by
his strength. The strong man carries his power with him, and, when Mount
Dunstan entered a cottage and talked to its inmates, the anxious wife or
surlily depressed husband was conscious of feeling a certain sense of secur=
ity.
It had been a queer enough thing, this he had done--bundling the infected
hoppers out of their leaking huts and carrying them up to the Mount itself =
for
shelter and care. At the most, gentlefolk generally gave soup or blankets o=
r hospital
tickets, and left the rest to luck, but, "gentry-way" or not, a m=
an
who did a thing like that would be likely to do other things, if they were
needed, and gave folk a feeling of being safer than ordinary soup and blank=
ets
and hospital tickets could make them. But "where did the money come from?&q=
uot;
was asked during the first days. Beds and doctors, nurses and medicine, fine
brandy and unlimited fowls for broth did not come up from London without be=
ing
paid for. Pounds and pounds a day must be paid out to get the things that w=
ere
delivered "regular" in hampers and boxes. The women talked to one
another over their garden palings, the men argued together over their beer =
at
the public house. Was he running into more debt? But even the village knew =
that
Mount Dunstan credit had been exhausted long ago, and there had been no mon=
ey
at the Mount within the memory of man, so to speak. One morning the matron with the sharp temp=
er
found out the truth, though the outburst of gratitude to Mount Dunstan which
resulted in her enlightenment, was entirely spontaneous and without intenti=
on.
Her doubt of his Mount Dunstan blood had grown into a sturdy liking even for
his short speech and his often drawn-down brows. "We've got more to thank your lordship
for than common help," she said. "God Almighty knows where we'd a=
ll
ha' been but for what you've done. Those poor souls you've nursed and
fed----" "I've not done it," he broke in
promptly. "You're mistaken; I could not have done it. How could I?&quo=
t; "Well," exclaimed the matron
frankly, "we WAS wondering where things came from." "You might well wonder. Have any of y=
ou
seen Lady Anstruthers' sister, Miss Vanderpoel, ride through the village? S=
he
used sometimes to ride this way. If you saw her you will remember it.' "The 'Merican young lady!" in
ejaculatory delight. "My word, yes! A fine young woman with black hair?
That rich, they say, as millions won't cover it." "They won't," grimly. "Lord
Dunholm and Lady Alanby of Dole kindly sent cheques to help us, but the Ame=
rican
young lady was first on the field. She sent both doctors and nurses, and has
supplied us with food and medicine every day. As you say, Mrs. Brown, God
Almighty knows what would have become of us, but for what she has done.&quo=
t; Mrs. Brown had listened with rather open
mouth. She caught her breath heartily, as a sort of approving exclamation.<=
o:p> "God bless her!" she broke out.
"Girls isn't generally like that. Their heads is too full of finery. G=
od
bless her, 'Merican or no 'Merican! That's what I say." Mount Dunstan's red-brown eyes looked as if
she had pleased him. "That's what I say, too," he
answered. "God bless her!" There was not a day which passed in which =
he
did not involuntarily say the words to himself again and again. She had been
wrong when she had said in her musings that they were as far apart as if wo=
rlds
rolled between them. Something stronger than sight or speech drew them toge=
ther.
The thread which wove itself through his thoughts grew stronger and stronge=
r.
The first day her gifts arrived and he walked about the ballroom ward direc=
ting
the placing of hospital cots and hospital aids and comforts, the spirit of =
her
thought and intelligence, the individuality and cleverness of all her metho=
ds,
brought her so vividly before him that it was almost as if she walked by his
side, as if they spoke together, as if she said, "I have tried to thin=
k of
everything. I want you to miss nothing. Have I helped you? Tell me if there=
is
anything more." The thing which moved and stirred him was his knowledg=
e that
when he had thought of her she had also been thinking of him, or of what de=
eply
concerned him. When he had said to himself, tossing on his pillow, "Wh=
at
would she DO?" she had been planning in such a way as answered his
question. Each morning, when the day's supplies arrived, it was as if he had
received a message from her. As the people in the cottages felt the pow=
er
of his temperament and depended upon him, so, also, did the patients in the
ballroom ward. The feeling had existed from the outset and increased daily.=
The
doctors and nurses told one another that his passing through the room was l=
ike
the administering of a tonic. Patients who were weak and making no effort, =
were
lifted upon the strong wave of his will and carried onward towards the shor=
e of
greater courage and strength. Young Doctor Thwaite met him when he came =
in
one morning, and spoke in a low voice: "There is a young man behind the scre=
en
there who is very low," he said. "He had an internal haemorrhage
towards morning, and has lost his pluck. He has a wife and three children. =
We
have been doing our best for him with hot-water bottles and stimulants, but=
he
has not the courage to help us. You have an extraordinary effect on them al=
l,
Lord Mount Dunstan. When they are depressed, they always ask when you are
coming in, and this man--Patton, his name is--has asked for you several tim=
es. Upon
my word, I believe you might set him going again." Mount Dunstan walked to the bed, and, going
behind the screen, stood looking down at the young fellow lying breathing
pantingly. His eyes were closed as he laboured, and his pinched white nostr=
ils
drew themselves in and puffed out at each breath. A nurse on the other side=
of
the cot had just surrounded him with fresh hot-water bottles. Suddenly the sunken eyelids flew open, and=
the
eyes met Mount Dunstan's in imploring anxiousness. "Here I am, Patton," Mount Dunst=
an
said. "You need not speak." But he must speak. Here was the strength h=
is
sinking soul had longed for. "Cruel bad--goin' fast--m' lord,"=
; he
panted. Mount Dunstan made a sign to the nurse, who
gave him a chair. He sat down close to the bed, and took the bloodless hand=
in
his own. "No," he said, "you are not
going. You'll stay here. I will see to that." The poor fellow smiled wanly. Vague yearni=
ngs
had led him sometimes, in the past, to wander into chapels or stop and list=
en
to street preachers, and orthodox platitudes came back to him. "God's--will," he trailed out. "It's nothing of the sort. It's God's
will that you pull yourself together. A man with a wife and three children =
has
no right to slip out." A yearning look flickered in the lad's
eyes--he was scarcely more than a lad, having married at seventeen, and had=
a
child each year. "She's--a good--girl." "Keep that in your mind while you fig=
ht
this out," said Mount Dunstan. "Say it over to yourself each time=
you
feel yourself letting go. Hold on to it. I am going to fight it out with yo=
u. I
shall sit here and take care of you all day--all night, if necessary. The
doctor and the nurse will tell me what to do. Your hand is warmer already. =
Shut
your eyes." He did not leave the bedside until the mid=
dle
of the night. By that time the worst was over. He had ac=
ted
throughout the hours under the direction of nurse and doctor. No one but hi=
mself
had touched the patient. When Patton's eyes were open, they rested on him w=
ith
a weird growing belief. He begged his lordship to hold his hand, and was un=
easy
when he laid it down. "Keeps--me--up," he whispered. "He pours something into them--vigour=
--magnetic
power--life. He's like a charged battery," Dr. Thwaite said to his
co-workers. "He sat down by Patton just in time. It sets one to
thinking." Having saved Patton, he must save others. =
When
a man or woman sank, or had increased fever, they believed that he alone co=
uld
give them help. In delirium patients cried out for him. He found himself do=
ing
hard work, but he did not flinch from it. The adoration for him became a so=
rt
of passion. Haggard faces lighted up into life at the sound of his footstep,
and heavy heads turned longingly on their pillows as he passed by. In the
winter days to come there would be many an hour's talk in East End courts a=
nd
alleys of the queer time when a score or more of them had lain in the great
room with the dancing and floating goddesses looking down at them from the
high, painted ceiling, and the swell, who was a lord, walking about among t=
hem,
working for them as the nurses did, and sitting by some of them through awf=
ul
hours, sometimes holding burning or slackening and chilling hands with a gr=
ip
whose steadiness seemed to hold them back from the brink of the abyss they =
were
slipping into. The mere ignorantly childish desire to do his prowess credit=
and
to play him fair saved more than one man and woman from going out with the
tide. "It is the first time in my life that=
I
have fairly counted among men. It's the first time I have known human
affection, other than yours, Penzance. They want me, these people; they are
better for the sight of me. It is a new experience, and it is good for a ma=
n's
soul," he said. CHAPTER XLIII - HIS CHANCE=
a> Betty walked much alone upon the marshes w=
ith
Roland at her side. At intervals she heard from Mr. Penzance, but his notes
were necessarily brief, and at other times she could only rely upon report =
for
news of what was occurring at Mount Dunstan. Lord Mount Dunstan's almost mi=
litary
supervision of and command over his villagers had certainly saved them from=
the
horrors of an uncontrollable epidemic; his decision and energy had filled t=
he
alarmed Guardians with respect and this respect had begun to be shared by m=
any
other persons. A man as prompt in action, and as faithful to such
responsibilities as many men might have found plausible reasons enough for
shirking, inevitably assumed a certain dignity of aspect, when all was said=
and
done. Lord Dunholm was most clear in his expressions of opinion concerning =
him.
Lady Alanby of Dole made a practice of speaking of him in public frequently,
always with admiring approval, and in that final manner of hers, to whose a=
uthority
her neighbours had so long submitted. It began to be accepted as a fact tha=
t he
was a new development of his race--as her ladyship had put it, "A new
order of Mount Dunstan." The story of his power over the stricken
people, and of their passionate affection and admiration for him, was one
likely to spread far, and be immensely popular. The drama of certain incide=
nts
appealed greatly to the rustic mind, and by cottage firesides he was
represented with rapturous awe, as raising men, women, and children from the
dead, by the mere miracle of touch. Mrs. Welden and old Doby revelled in
thrilling, almost Biblical, versions of current anecdotes, when Betty paid =
her visits
to them. "It's like the Scripture, wot he done=
for
that young man as the last breath had gone out of him, an' him lyin' stiffe=
ning
fast. 'Young man, arise,' he says. 'The Lord Almighty calls. You've got a y=
oung
wife an' three children to take care of. Take up your bed an' walk.' Not as=
he wanted
him to carry his bed anywheres, but it was a manner of speaking. An' up the
young man got. An' a sensible way," said old Mrs. Welden frankly,
"for the Lord to look at it--for I must say, miss, if I was struck down
for it, though I s'pose it's only my sinful ignorance--that there's times w=
hen
the Lord seems to think no more of sweepin' away a steady eighteen-shillin'=
a
week, and p'raps seven in family, an' one at the breast, an' another on the
way--than if it was nothin'. But likely enough, eighteen shillin' a week an'
confinements does seem paltry to the Maker of 'eaven an' earth." But, to the girl walking over the marshlan=
d,
the humanness of the things she heard gave to her the sense of nearness--of
being almost within sight and sound--which Mount Dunstan himself had felt, =
when
each day was filled with the result of her thought of the needs of the poor
souls thrown by fate into his hands. In these days, after listening to old =
Mrs.
Welden's anecdotes, through which she gathered the simpler truth of things,
Betty was able to construct for herself a less Scriptural version of what s=
he
had heard. She was glad--glad in his sitting by a bedside and holding a hand
which lay in his hot or cold, but always trusting to something which his st=
rong
body and strong soul gave without stint. There would be no restraint there.
Yes, he was kind--kind--kind --with the kindness a woman loves, and which s=
he,
of all women, loved most. Sometimes she would sit upon some mound, and, whi=
le
her eyes seemed to rest on the yellowing marsh and its birds and pools, they
saw other things, and their colour grew deep and dark as the marsh water be=
tween
the rushes. The time was pressing when a change in her
life must come. She frequently asked herself if what she saw in Nigel
Anstruthers' face was the normal thinking of a sane man, which he himself c=
ould
control. There had been moments when she had seriously doubted it. He was
haggard, aging and restless. Sometimes he--always as if by chance--followed=
her
as she went from one room to another, and would seat himself and fix his
miserable eyes upon her for so long a time that it seemed he must be
unconscious of what he was doing. Then he would appear suddenly to recollect
himself and would start up with a muttered exclamation, and stalk out of the
room. He spent long hours riding or driving alone about the country or
wandering wretchedly through the Park and gardens. Once he went up to town,
and, after a few days' absence, came back looking more haggard than before,=
and
wearing a hunted look in his eyes. He had gone to see a physician, and, aft=
er
having seen him, he had tried to lose himself in a plunge into deep and tur=
bid
enough waters; but he found that he had even lost the taste of high flavour=
s,
for which he had once had an epicurean palate. The effort had ended in his
being overpowered again by his horrors--the horrors in which he found himse=
lf staring
at that end of things when no pleasure had spice, no debauchery the sting of
life, and men, such as he, stood upon the shore of time shuddering and naked
souls, watching the great tide, bearing its treasures, recede forever, and
leave them to the cold and hideous dark. During one day of his stay in town=
he
had seen Teresita, who had at first stared half frightened by the change she
saw in him, and then had told him truths he could have wrung her neck for
putting into words. "You look an old man," she said,
with the foreign accent he had once found deliciously amusing, but which now
seemed to add a sting. "And somesing is eating you op. You are mad in =
lofe
with some beautiful one who will not look at you. I haf seen it in mans bef=
ore.
It is she who eats you op--your evil thinkings of her. It serve you right. =
Your
eyes look mad." He himself, at times, suspected that they =
did,
and cursed himself because he could not keep cool. It was part of his horro=
rs
that he knew his internal furies were worse than folly, and yet he could not
restrain them. The creeping suspicion that this was only the result of the
simple fact that he had never tried to restrain any tendency of his own was=
maddening.
His nervous system was a wreck. He drank a great deal of whisky to keep him=
self
"straight" during the day, and he rose many times during his black
waking hours in the night to drink more because he obstinately refused to g=
ive
up the hope that, if he drank enough, it would make him sleep. As through t=
he
thoughts of Mount Dunstan, who was a clean and healthy human being, there r=
an
one thread which would not disentangle itself, so there ran through his
unwholesome thinking a thread which burned like fire. His secret ravings wo=
uld
not have been good to hear. His passion was more than half hatred, and a de=
sire
for vengeance, for the chance to re-assert his own power, to prove himself =
master,
to get the better in one way or another of this arrogant young outsider and=
her
high-handed pride. The condition of his mind was so far from normal that he
failed to see that the things he said to himself, the plans he laid, were
grotesque in their folly. The old cruel dominance of the man over the woman
thing, which had seemed the mere natural working of the law among men of his
race in centuries past, was awake in him, amid the limitations of modern da=
ys. "My God," he said to himself more
than once, "I would like to have had her in my hands a few hundred yea=
rs ago.
Women were kept in their places, then." He was even frenzied enough to think over =
what
he would have done, if such a thing had been--of her utter helplessness aga=
inst
that which raged in him--of the grey thickness of the walls where he might =
have
held and wrought his will upon her--insult, torment, death. His alcohol-exc=
ited
brain ran riot--but, when it did its foolish worst, he was baffled by one
thing. "Damn her!" he found himself cry=
ing
out. "If I had hung her up and cut her into strips she would have died
staring at me with her big eyes--without uttering a sound." There was a long reach between his imagini=
ngs
and the time he lived in. America had not been discovered in those decent d=
ays,
and now a man could not beat even his own wife, or spend her money, without
being meddled with by fools. He was thinking of a New York young woman of t=
he nineteenth
century who could actually do as she hanged pleased, and who pleased to be
damned high and mighty. For that reason in itself it was incumbent upon a m=
an
to get even with her in one way or another. High and mightiness was not the
hardest thing to reach. It offered a good aim. His temper when he returned to Stornham wa=
s of
the order which in past years had set Rosalie and her child shuddering and =
had
sent the servants about the house with pale or sullen faces. Betty's presen=
ce
had the odd effect of restraining him, and he even told her so with sneerin=
g resentment. "There would be the devil to pay if y=
ou
were not here," he said. "You keep me in order, by Jove! I can't =
work
up steam properly when you watch me." He himself knew that it was likely that so=
me
change would take place. She would not stay at Stornham and she would not l=
eave
his wife and child alone with him again. It would be like her to hold her
tongue until she was ready with her infernal plans and could spring them on=
him.
Her letters to her father had probably prepared him for such action as such=
a
man would be likely to take. He could guess what it would be. They were free
and easy enough in America in their dealings with the marriage tie. Their i=
dea
would doubtless be a divorce with custody of the child. He wondered a little
that they had remained quiet so long. There had been American shrewdness in=
her
coming boldly to Stornham to look over the ground herself and actually set =
the
place in order. It did not present itself to his mind that what she had done
had been no part of a scheme, but the mere result of her temperament and
training. He told himself that it had been planned beforehand and carried o=
ut
in hard-headed commercial American fashion as a matter of business. The thi=
ng
which most enraged him was the implied cool, practical realisation of the f=
act
that he, as inheritor of an entailed estate, was but owner in charge, and n=
ot
young enough to be regarded as an insurmountable obstacle to their plans. He
could not undo the greater part of what had been done, and they were
calculating, he argued, that his would not be likely to be a long life, and
if--if anything happened--Stornham would be Ughtred's and the whole vulgar =
lot
of them would come over and take possession and swagger about the place as =
if
they had been born on it. As to divorce or separation--if they took that li=
ne,
he would at least give them a good run for their money. They would wish they
had let sleeping dogs lie before the thing was over. The right kind of lawy=
er could
bully Rosalie into saying anything he chose on the witness-stand. There was=
not
much limit to the evidence a man could bring if he was experienced enough t=
o be
circumstantial, and knew whom he was dealing with. The very fact that the
little fool could be made to appear to have been so sly and sanctimonious w=
ould
stir the gall of any jury of men. His own condoning the matter for the sake=
of
his sensitive boy, deformed by his mother's unrestrained and violent hyster=
ia
before his birth, would go a long way. Let them get their divorce, they wou=
ld
have paid for it, the whole lot of them, the beautiful Miss Vanderpoel and =
all.
Such a story as the newspapers would revel in would not be a recommendation=
to
Englishmen of unsmirched reputation. Then his exultation would suddenly dro=
p as
his mental excitement produced its effect of inevitable physical fatigue. E=
ven
if he made them pay for getting their own way, what would happen to himself
afterwards? No morbid vanity of self-bolstering could make the outlook anyt=
hing
but unpromising. If he had not had such diabolical luck in his few investme=
nts
he could have lived his own life. As it was, old Vanderpoel would possibly
condescend to make him some insufficient allowance because Rosalie would wi=
sh
that it might be done, and he would be expected to drag out to the end the =
kind
of life a man pensioned by his wife's relatives inevitably does. If he
attempted to live in the country he should blow out his brains. When his
depression was at its worst, he saw himself aging and shabby, rambling about
from one cheap Continental town to another, blackballed by good clubs,
cold-shouldered even by the Teresitas, cut off from society by his limited
means and the stories his wife's friends would spread. He ground his teeth =
when
he thought of Betty. Her splendid vitality had done something to life for
him--had given it savour. When he had come upon her in the avenue his blood=
had
stirred, even though it had been maliciously, and there had been spice in h=
is
very resentment of her presence. And she would go away. He would not be lik=
ely
to see her again if his wife broke with him; she would be swept out of his
days. It was hideous to think of, and his rage would overpower him and his
nerves go to pieces again. "What are you going to do?" he b=
roke
forth suddenly one evening, when he found himself temporarily alone with he=
r.
"You are going to do something. I see it in your eyes." He had been for some time watching her from
behind his newspaper, while she, with an unread book upon her lap, had, in
fact, been thinking deeply and putting to herself serious questions. Her answer made him stir rather uncomforta=
bly. "I am going to write to my father to =
ask
him to come to England." So this was what she had been preparing to
spring upon him. He laughed insolently. "To ask him to come here?" "With your permission." "With mine? Does an American
father-in-law wait for permission?" "Is there any practical reason why you
should prefer that he should NOT come?" He left his seat and walked over to her. "Yes. Your sending for him is a
declaration of war." "It need not be so. Why should it?&qu=
ot; "In this case I happen to be aware th=
at
it is. The choice is your own, I suppose," with ready bravado, "t=
hat
you and he are prepared to face the consequences. But is Rosalie, and is yo=
ur
mother?" "My father is a business man and will
know what can be done. He will know what is worth doing," she answered,
without noticing his question. "But," she added the words slowly,
"I have been making up my mind--before I write to him--to say somethin=
g to
you--to ask you a question." He made a mock sentimental gesture. "To ask me to spare my wife, to 'reme=
mber
that she is the mother of my child'?" She passed over that also. "To ask you if there is no possible w=
ay
in which all this unhappiness can be ended decently." "The only decent way of ending it wou=
ld
be that there should be no further interference. Let Rosalie supply the dec=
ency
by showing me the consideration due from a wife to her husband. The place h=
as
been put in order. It was not for my benefit, and I have no money to keep it
up. Let Rosalie be provided with means to do it." As he spoke the words he realised that he =
had opened
a way for embarrassing comment. He expected her to remind him that Rosalie =
had
not come to him without money. But she said nothing about the matter. She n=
ever
said the things he expected to hear. "You do not want Rosalie for your
wife," she went on "but you could treat her courteously without
loving her. You could allow her the privileges other men's wives are allowe=
d.
You need not separate her from her family. You could allow her father and
mother to come to her and leave her free to go to them sometimes. Will you =
not
agree to that? Will you not let her live peaceably in her own simple way? S=
he
is very gentle and humble and would ask nothing more." "She is a fool!" he exclaimed
furiously. "A fool! She will stay where she is and do as I tell her.&q=
uot; "You knew what she was when you marri=
ed
her. She was simple and girlish and pretended to be nothing she was not. You
chose to marry her and take her from the people who loved her. You broke her
spirit and her heart. You would have killed her if I had not come in time to
prevent it." "I will kill her yet if you leave
her," his folly made him say. "You are talking like a feudal lord
holding the power of life and death in his hands," she said. "Pow=
er
like that is ancient history. You can hurt no one who has friends--without
being punished." It was the old story. She filled him with =
the
desire to shake or disturb her at any cost, and he did his utmost. If she w=
as
proposing to make terms with him, he would show her whether he would accept
them or not. He let her hear all he had said to himself in his worst
moments--all that he had argued concerning what she and her people would do,
and what his own actions would be--all his intention to make them pay the u=
ttermost
farthing in humiliation if he could not frustrate them. His methods would be
definite enough. He had not watched his wife and Ffolliott for weeks to no =
end.
He had known what he was dealing with. He had put other people upon the tra=
ck
and they would testify for him. He poured forth unspeakable statements and
intimations, going, as usual, further than he had known he should go when he
began. Under the spur of excitement his imagination served him well. At las=
t he
paused. "Well," he put it to her, "=
what
have you to say?" "I?" with the remote intent curi=
osity
growing in her eyes. "I have nothing to say. I am leaving you to say
things." "You will, of course, try to
deny----" he insisted. "No, I shall not. Why should I?"=
"You may assume your air of magnifice=
nce,
but I am dealing with uncomfortable factors." He stopped in spite of
himself, and then burst forth in a new order of rage. "You are trying =
some
confounded experiment on me. What is it?" She rose from her chair to go out of the r=
oom,
and stood a moment holding her book half open in her hand. "Yes. I suppose it might be called an
experiment," was her answer. "Perhaps it was a mistake. I wanted =
to
make quite sure of something." "Of what?" "I did not want to leave anything und=
one.
I did not want to believe that any man could exist who had not one touch of
decent feeling to redeem him. It did not seem human." White dints showed themselves about his
nostrils. "Well, you have found one," he
cried. "You have a lashing tongue, by God, when you choose to let it g=
o.
But I could teach you a good many things, my girl. And before I have done y=
ou
will have learned most of them." But though he threw himself into a chair a=
nd
laughed aloud as she left him, he knew that his arrogance and bullying were
proving poor weapons, though they had done him good service all his life. A=
nd
he knew, too, that it was mere simple truth that, as a result of the
intellectual, ethical vagaries he scathingly derided--she had actually been
giving him a sort of chance to retrieve himself, and that if he had been
another sort of man he might have taken it. It was cold enough for fires in halls and
bedrooms, and Lady Anstruthers often sat over hers and watched the glowing =
bed
of coals with a fixed thoughtfulness of look. She was so sitting when her
sister went to her room to talk to her, and she looked up questioningly when
the door closed and Betty came towards her. "You have come to tell me
something," she said. A slight shade of anxiousness showed itsel=
f in
her eyes, and Betty sat down by her and took her hand. She had come because
what she knew was that Rosalie must be prepared for any step taken, and the
time had arrived when she must not be allowed to remain in ignorance even o=
f things
it would be unpleasant to put into words. "Yes," she answered. "I wan=
t to
talk to you about something I have decided to do. I think I must write to
father and ask him to come to us." Rosalie turned white, but though her lips
parted as if she were going to speak, she said nothing. "Do not be frightened," Betty sa=
id.
"I believe it is the only thing to do." "I know! I know!" Betty went on, holding the hand a little
closer. "When I came here you were too weak physically to be able to f=
ace
even the thought of a struggle. I saw that. I was afraid it must come in the
end, but I knew that at that time you could not bear it. It would have kill=
ed
you and might have killed mother, if I had not waited; and until you were
stronger, I knew I must wait and reason coolly about you--about everything.=
" "I used to guess--sometimes," sa=
id
Lady Anstruthers. "I can tell you about it now. You are=
not
as you were then," Betty said. "I did not know Nigel at first, an=
d I
felt I ought to see more of him. I wanted to make sure that my child hatred=
of
him did not make me unfair. I even tried to hope that when he came back and
found the place in order and things going well, he might recognise the wisd=
om
of behaving with decent kindness to you. If he had done that I knew father
would have provided for you both, though he would not have left him the opp=
ortunity
to do again what he did before. No business man would allow such a thing as
that. But as time has gone by I have seen I was mistaken in hoping for a
respectable compromise. Even if he were given a free hand he would not chan=
ge.
And now----" She hesitated, feeling it difficult to choose such words =
as
would not be too unpleasant. How was she to tell Rosy of the ugly, morbid
situation which made ordinary passiveness impossible. "Now there is a
reason----" she began again. To her surprise and relief it was Rosalie =
who
ended for her. She spoke with the painful courage which strong affection gi=
ves
a weak thing. Her face was pale no longer, but slightly reddened, and she
lifted the hand which held hers and kissed it. "You shall not say it," she inte=
rrupted
her. "I will. There is a reason now why you cannot stay here--why you
shall not stay here. That was why I begged you to go. You must go, even if I
stay behind alone." Never had the beautiful Miss Vanderpoel's =
eyes
worn so fully their look of being bluebells under water. That this timid
creature should so stand at bay to defend her was more moving than anything
else could have been. "Thank you, Rosy--thank you," she
answered. "But you shall not be left alone. You must go, too. There is=
no
other way. Difficulties will be made for us, but we must face them. Father =
will
see the situation from a practical man's standpoint. Men know the things ot=
her
men cannot do. Women don't. Generally they know nothing about the law and c=
an
be bullied into feeling that it is dangerous and compromising to inquire in=
to
it. Nigel has always seen that it was easy to manage women. A strong busine=
ss
man who has more exact legal information than he has himself will be a new
factor to deal with. And he cannot make objectionable love to him. It is
because he knows these things that he says that my sending for father will =
be a
declaration of war." "Did he say that?" a little
breathlessly. "Yes,
and I told him that it need not be so. But he would not listen." "And you are sure father will come?&q=
uot; "I am sure. In a week or two he will =
be
here." Lady Anstruthers' lips shook, her eyes lif=
ted
themselves to Betty's in a touchingly distressed appeal. Had her momentary
courage fled beyond recall? If so, that would be the worst coming to the wo=
rst,
indeed. Yet it was not ordinary fear which expressed itself in her face, bu=
t a deeper
piteousness, a sudden hopeless pain, baffling because it seemed a new emoti=
on,
or perhaps the upheaval of an old one long and carefully hidden. "You will be brave?" Betty appea=
led
to her. "You will not give way, Rosy?" "Yes, I must be brave--I am not ill n=
ow.
I must not fail you--I won't, Betty, but----" She slipped upon the floor and dropped her
face upon the girl's knee, sobbing. Betty bent over her, putting her arms round
the heaving shoulders, and pleading with her to speak. Was there something =
more
to be told, something she did not know? "Yes, yes. Oh, I ought to have told y=
ou
long ago--but I have always been afraid and ashamed. It has made everything=
so
much worse. I was afraid you would not understand and would think me
wicked--wicked." It was Betty who now lost a shade of colou=
r.
But she held the slim little body closer and kissed her sister's cheek. "What have you been afraid and ashame=
d to
tell me? Do not be ashamed any more. You must not hide anything, no matter =
what
it is, Rosy. I shall understand." "I know I must not hide anything, now
that all is over and father is coming. It is--it is about Mr. Ffolliott.&qu=
ot; "Mr. Ffolliott?" repeated Betty =
quite
softly. Lady Anstruthers' face, lifted with desper=
ate
effort, was like a weeping child's. So much so in its tear-wet simpleness a=
nd
utter lack of any effort at concealment, that after one quick look at it
Betty's hastened pulses ceased to beat at double-quick time. "Tell me, dear," she almost
whispered. "Mr. Ffolliott himself does not know-=
-and
I could not help it. He was kind to me when I was dying of unkindness. You
don't know what it was like to be drowning in loneliness and misery, and to=
see
one good hand stretched out to help you. Before he went away--oh, Betty, I =
know
it was awful because I was married!--I began to care for him very much, and=
I have
cared for him ever since. I cannot stop myself caring, even though I am
terrified." Betty kissed her again with a passion of
tender pity. Poor little, simple Rosy, too! The tide had crept around her a=
lso,
and had swept her off her feet, tossing her upon its surf like a wisp of
seaweed and bearing her each day farther from firm shore. "Do not be terrified," she said.
"You need only be afraid if--if you had told him." "He will never know--never. Once in t=
he
middle of the night," there was anguish in the delicate face, pure
anguish, "a strange loud cry wakened me, and it was I myself who had c=
ried
out--because in my sleep it had come home to me that the years would go on =
and
on, and at last some day he would die and go out of the world--and I should=
die
and go out of the world. And he would never know--even KNOW." Betty's clasp of her loosened and she sat =
very
still, looking straight before her into some unseen place. "Yes," she said involuntarily.
"Yes, I know--I know--I know." Lady Anstruthers fell back a little to gaz=
e at
her. "YOU know? YOU know?" she breath=
ed.
"Betty?" But Betty at first did not speak. Her love=
ly
eyes dwelt on the far-away place. "Betty," whispered Rosy, "do
you know what you have said?" The lovely eyes turned slowly towards her,=
and
the soft corners of Betty's mouth deepened in a curious unsteadiness. "Yes. I did not intend to say it. But=
it
is true. I know--I know--I know. Do not ask me how." Rosalie flung her arms round her waist and=
for
a moment hid her face. "YOU! YOU!" she murmured, but
stopped herself almost as she uttered the exclamation. "I will not ask
you," she said when she spoke again. "But now I shall not be so
ashamed. You are a beauty and wonderful, and I am not; but if you KNOW, that
makes us almost the same. You will understand why I broke down. It was beca=
use
I could not bear to think of what will happen. I shall be saved and taken h=
ome,
but Nigel will wreak revenge on HIM. And I shall be the shame that is put u=
pon
him--only because he was kind--KIND. When father comes it will all begin.&q=
uot;
She wrung her hands, becoming almost hysterical. "Hush," said Betty. "Hush! A
man like that CANNOT be hurt, even by a man like Nigel. There is a way
out--there IS. Oh, Rosy, we must BELIEVE it." She soothed and caressed her and led her o=
n to
relieving her long locked-up misery by speech. It was easy to see the ways =
in
which her feeling had made her life harder to bear. She was as inexperience=
d as
a girl, and had accused herself cruelly. When Nigel had tormented her with =
evil,
carefully chosen taunts, she had felt half guilty and had coloured scarlet =
or
turned pale, afraid to meet his sneeringly smiling face. She had tried to
forget the kind voice, the kindly, understanding eyes, and had blamed herse=
lf
as a criminal because she could not. "I had nothing else to remember--but
unhappiness--and it seemed as if I could not help but remember HIM," s=
he
said as simply as the Rosy who had left New York at nineteen might have said
it. "I was afraid to trust myself to speak his name. When Nigel made
insulting speeches I could not answer him, and he used to say that women who
had adventures should train their faces not to betray them every time they =
were
looked at. "Oh!" broke from Betty's lips, a=
nd
she stood up on the hearth and threw out her hands. "I wish that for o=
ne
day I might be a man--and your brother instead of your sister!" "Why?" Betty smiled strangely--a smile which was =
not
amused--which was perhaps not a smile at all. Her voice as she answered was=
at
once low and tense. "Because, then I should know what to =
do.
When a male creature cannot be reached through manhood or decency or shame,
there is one way in which he can be punished. A man--a real man--should take
him by his throat and lash him with a whip--while others look on--lash him
until he howls aloud like a dog." She had not expected to say it, but she had
said it. Lady Anstruthers looked at her fascinated, and then she covered her
face with her hands, huddling herself in a heap as she knelt on the rug,
looking singularly small and frail. "Betty," she said presently, in a
new, awful little voice, "I--I will tell you something. I never though=
t I
should dare to tell anyone alive. I have shuddered at it myself. There have
been days--awful, helpless days, when I was sure there was no hope for me in
all the world--when deep down in my soul I understood what women felt when =
they
MURDERED people--crept to them in their wicked sleep and STRUCK them again-=
-and
again--and again. Like that!" She sat up suddenly, as if she did not k=
now
what she was doing, and uncovering her little ghastly face struck downward
three fierce times at nothingness--but as if it were not nothingness, and a=
s if
she held something in her hand. There was horror in it--Betty sprang at the
hand and caught it. "No! no!" she cried out. "P=
oor
little Rosy! Darling little Rosy! No! no! no!" That instant Lady Anstruthers looked up at=
her
shocked and awake. She was Rosy again, and clung to her, holding to her dre=
ss,
piteous and panting. "No! no!" she said. "When it
came to me in the night--it was always in the night--I used to get out of b=
ed
and pray that it might never, never come again, and that I might be
forgiven--just forgiven. It was too horrible that I should even UNDERSTAND =
it
so well." A woeful, wry little smile twisted her mouth. "I was not
brave enough to have done it. I could never have DONE it, Betty; but the
thought was there--it was there! I used to think it had made a black mark o=
n my
soul." . . . . . The letter took long to write. It led a
consecutive story up to the point where it culminated in a situation which
presented itself as no longer to be dealt with by means at hand. Parts of t=
he
story previous letters had related, though some of them it had not seemed
absolutely necessary to relate in detail. Now they must be made clear, and
Betty made them so. "Because you trusted me you made me t=
rust
myself," was one of the things she wrote. "For some time I felt t=
hat
it was best to fight for my own hand without troubling you. I hoped perhaps=
I
might be able to lead things to a decorous sort of issue. I saw that secret=
ly
Rosy hoped and prayed that it might be possible. She gave up expecting
happiness before she was twenty, and mere decent peace would have seemed he=
aven
to her, if she could have been allowed sometimes to see those she loved and=
longed
for. Now that I must give up my hope--which was perhaps a rather foolish
one--and now that I cannot remain at Stornham, she would have no defence at=
all
if she were left alone. Her condition would be more hopeless than before,
because Nigel would never forget that we had tried to rescue her and had
failed. If I were a man, or if I were very much older, I need not be actual=
ly
driven away, but as it is I think that you must come and take the matter in=
to
your own hands." She had remained in her sister's room until
long after midnight, and by the time the American letter was completed and
sealed, a pale touch of dawning light was showing itself. She rose, and goi=
ng
to the window drew the blind up and looked out. The looking out made her op=
en
the window, and when she had done so she stood feeling the almost unearthly=
freshness
of the morning about her. The mystery of the first faint light was almost
unearthly, too. Trees and shrubs were beginning to take form and outline
themselves against the still pallor of the dawn. Before long the waking of =
the
birds would begin--a brief chirping note here and there breaking the silence
and warning the world with faint insistence that it had begun to live again=
and
must bestir itself. She had got out of her bed sometimes on a summer mornin=
g to
watch the beauty of it, to see the flowers gradually reveal their colour to=
the
eye, to hear the warmly nesting things begin their joyous day. There were f=
ewer
bird sounds now, and the garden beds were autumnal. But how beautiful it al=
l was!
How wonderful life in such a place might be if flowers and birds and sweep =
of
sward, and mass of stately, broad-branched trees, were parts of the home one
loved and which surely would in its own way love one in return. But soon all
this phase of life would be over. Rosalie, once safe at home, would look ba=
ck,
remembering the place with a shudder. As Ughtred grew older the passing of
years would dim miserable child memories, and when his inheritance fell to =
him
he might return to see it with happier eyes. She began to picture to herself
Rosy's voyage in the ship which would carry her across the Atlantic to her
mother and the scenes connected in her mind only with a girl's happiness. W=
hatsoever
happened before it took place, the voyage would be made in the end. And Ros=
alie
would be like a creature in a dream--a heavenly, unbelievable dream. Betty
could imagine how she would look wrapped up and sitting in her steamer chai=
r,
gazing out with rapturous eyes upon the racing waves. "She will be happy," she thought.
"But I shall not. No, I shall not." She drew in the morning air and unconsciou=
sly
turned towards the place where, across the rising and falling lands and beh=
ind
the trees, she knew the great white house stood far away, with watchers' li=
ghts
showing dimly behind the line of ballroom windows. "I do not know how such a thing could=
be!
I do not know how such a thing could be!" she said. "It COULD
not." And she lifted a high head, not even asking herself what remote
sense in her being so obstinately defied and threw down the glove to Fate.<=
o:p> Sounds gain a curious distinctness and mea=
ning
in the hour of the break of the dawn; in such an hour they seem even more
significant than sounds heard in the dead of night. When she had gone to the
window she had fancied that she heard something in the corridor outside her
door, but when she had listened there had been only silence. Now there was
sound again--that of a softly moved slippered foot. She went to the room's =
centre
and waited. Yes, certainly something had stirred in the passage. She went to
the door itself. The dragging step had hesitated--stopped. Could it be Rosa=
lie
who had come to her for something. For one second her impulse was to open t=
he
door herself; the next, she had changed her mind with a sense of shock. Som=
eone
had actually touched the handle and very delicately turned it. It was not
pleasant to stand looking at it and see it turn. She heard a low, evidently
unintentionally uttered exclamation, and she turned away, and with no attem=
pt
at softening the sound of her footsteps walked across the room, hot with
passionate disgust. As well as if she had flung the door open, she knew who=
stood
outside. It was Nigel Anstruthers, haggard and unseemly, with burned-out,
sleepless eyes and bitten lip. Bad and mad as she had at last seen the
situation to be, it was uglier and more desperate than she could well know.=
CHAPTER XLV - THE PASSING BELL The following morning Sir Nigel did not ap=
pear
at the breakfast table. He breakfasted in his own room, and it became known
throughout the household that he had suddenly decided to go away, and his m=
an
was packing for the journey. What the journey or the reason for its being t=
aken
happened to be were things not explained to anyone but Lady Anstruthers, at=
the
door of whose dressing room he appeared without warning, just as she was
leaving it. Rosalie started when she found herself
confronting him. His eyes looked hot and hollow with feverish sleeplessness=
. "You look ill," she exclaimed
involuntarily. "You look as if you had not slept." "Thank you. You always encourage a ma=
n. I
am not in the habit of sleeping much," he answered. "I am going a=
way
for my health. It is as well you should know. I am going to look up old
Broadmorlands. I want to know exactly where he is, in case it becomes neces=
sary
for me to see him. I also require some trifling data connected with Ffollio=
tt.
If your father is coming, it will be as well to be able to lay my hands on =
things.
You can explain to Betty. Good-morning." He waited for no reply, but
wheeled about and left her. Betty herself wore a changed face when she
came down. A cloud had passed over her blooming, as clouds pass over a morn=
ing
sky and dim it. Rosalie asked herself if she had not noticed something like
this before. She began to think she had. Yes, she was sure that at intervals
there had been moments when she had glanced at the brilliant face with an
uneasy and yet half-unrealising sense of looking at a glowing light tempora=
rily
waning. The feeling had been unrealisable, because it was not to be explain=
ed.
Betty was never ill, she was never low-spirited, she was never out of humou=
r or
afraid of things--that was why it was so wonderful to live with her. But--y=
es,
it was true--there had been days when the strong, fine light of her had wan=
ed.
Lady Anstruthers' comprehension of it arose now from her memory of the look=
she
had seen the night before in the eyes which suddenly had gazed straight bef=
ore her,
as into an unknown place. "Yes, I know--I know--I know!" A=
nd
the tone in the girl's voice had been one Rosy had not heard before. Slight wonder--if you KNEW--at any outward
change which showed itself, though in your own most desperate despite. It w=
ould
be so even with Betty, who, in her sister's eyes, was unlike any other
creature. But perhaps it would be better to make no comment. To make comment
would be almost like asking the question she had been forbidden to ask. While the servants were in the room during
breakfast they talked of common things, resorting even to the weather and t=
he
news of the village. Afterwards they passed into the morning room together,=
and
Betty put her arm around Rosalie and kissed her. "Nigel has suddenly gone away, I
hear," she said. "Do you know where he has gone?" "He came to my dressing-room to tell
me." Betty felt the whole slim body stiffen itself with a determinatio=
n to
seem calm. "He said he was going to find out where the old Duke of
Broadmorlands was staying at present." "There is some forethought in that,&q=
uot;
was Betty's answer. "He is not on such terms with the Duke that he can
expect to be received as a casual visitor. It will require apt contrivance =
to
arrange an interview. I wonder if he will be able to accomplish it?" "Yes, he will," said Lady
Anstruthers. "I think he can always contrive things like that." S=
he
hesitated a moment, and then added: "He said also that he wished to fi=
nd
out certain things about Mr. Ffolliott--'trifling data,' he called it--that=
he
might be able to lay his hands on things if father came. He told me to expl=
ain
to you." "That was intended for a taunt--but i=
t's
a warning," Betty said, thinking the thing over. "We are rather l=
ike
ladies left alone to defend a besieged castle. He wished us to feel that.&q=
uot;
She tightened her enclosing arm. "But we stand together--together. We
shall not fail each other. We can face siege until father comes." "You wrote to him last night?" "A long letter, which I wish him to
receive before he sails. He might decide to act upon it before leaving New
York, to advise with some legal authority he knows and trusts, to prepare o=
ur
mother in some way--to do some wise thing we cannot foresee the value of. He
has known the outline of the story, but not exact details--particularly rec=
ent
ones. I have held back nothing it was necessary he should know. I am going =
out
to post the letter myself. I shall send a cable asking him to prepare to co=
me
to us after he has reflected on what I have written." Rosalie was very quiet, but when, having l=
eft
the room to prepare to go to the village, Betty came back to say a last wor=
d,
her sister came to her and laid her hand on her arm. "I have been so weak and trodden upon=
for
years that it would not be natural for you to quite trust me," she sai=
d.
"But I won't fail you, Betty--I won't." The winter was drawing in, the last autumn
days were short and often grey and dreary; the wind had swept the leaves fr=
om
the trees and scattered them over park lands and lanes, where they lay a
mellow-hued, rustling carpet, shifting with each chill breeze that blew. The
berried briony garlands clung to the bared hedges, and here and there flare=
d scarlet,
still holding their red defiantly until hard frosts should come to shrivel =
and
blacken them. The rare hours of sunshine were amber hours instead of golden=
. As she passed through the park gate Betty =
was
thinking of the first morning on which she had walked down the village stre=
et
between the irregular rows of red-tiled cottages with the ragged little
enclosing gardens. Then the air and sunshine had been of the just awakening=
spring,
now the sky was brightly cold, and through the small-paned windows she caug=
ht
glimpses of fireglow. A bent old man walking very slowly, leaning upon two
sticks, had a red-brown woollen muffler wrapped round his neck. Seeing her,=
he
stopped and shuffled the two sticks into one hand that he might leave the o=
ther
free to touch his wrinkled forehead stiffly, his face stretching into a slow
smile as she stopped to speak to him. "Good-morning, Marlow," he said.
"How is the rheumatism to-day?" He was a deaf old man, whose conversation =
was
carried on principally by guesswork, and it was easy for him to gather that
when her ladyship's handsome young sister had given him greeting she had not
forgotten to inquire respecting the "rheumatics," which formed the
greater part of existence. "Mornin', miss--mornin'," he
answered in the high, cracked voice of rural ancientry. "Winter be nig=
h,
an' they damp days be full of rheumatiz. 'T'int easy to get about on my old
legs, but I be main thankful for they warm things you sent, miss. This
'ere," fumbling at his red-brown muffler proudly, "'tis a comfort=
on
windy days, so 'tis, and warmth be a good thing to a man when he be goin' d=
own
hill in years." "All of you who are not able to earn =
your
own fires shall be warm this winter," her ladyship's handsome sister s=
aid,
speaking closer to his ear. "You shall all be warm. Don't be afraid of=
the
cold days coming." He shuffled his sticks and touched his
forehead again, looking up at her admiringly and chuckling. "'T'will be a new tale for Stornham
village," he cackled. "'T'will be a new tale. Thank ye, miss. Tha=
nk
ye." As she nodded smilingly and passed on, she
heard him cackling still under his breath as he hobbled on his slow way,
comforted and elate. How almost shamefully easy it was; a few loads of coal=
and
faggots here and there, a few blankets and warm garments whose cost counted=
for
so little when one's hands were full, could change a gruesome village winter
into a season during which labour-stiffened and broken old things, closing =
their
cottage doors, could draw their chairs round the hearth and hover luxurious=
ly
over the red glow, which in its comforting fashion of seeming to have
understanding of the dull dreams in old eyes, was more to be loved than any
human friend. But she had not needed her passing speech =
with
Marlow to stimulate realisation of how much she had learned to care for the
mere living among these people, to whom she seemed to have begun to belong,=
and
whose comfortably lighting faces when they met her showed that they knew he=
r to
be one who might be turned to in any hour of trouble or dismay. The centuri=
es
which had trained them to depend upon their "betters" had taught =
the
slowest of them to judge with keen sight those who were to be trusted, not
alone as power and wealth holders, but as creatures humanly upright and mer=
ciful
with their kind. "Workin' folk allus knows gentry,&quo=
t;
old Doby had once shrilled to her. "Gentry's gentry, an' us knows 'em
wheresoever they be. Better'n they know theirselves. So us do!" Yes, they knew. And though they accepted m=
any
things as being merely their natural rights, they gave an unsentimental
affection and appreciation in return. The patriarchal note in the life was
lovable to her. Each creature she passed was a sort of friend who seemed al=
most
of her own blood. It had come to that. This particular existence was more
satisfying to her than any other, more heart-filling and warmly complete. "Though I am only an impostor," =
she
thought; "I was born in Fifth Avenue; yet since I have known this I sh=
all
be quite happy in no other place than an English village, with a Norman chu=
rch
tower looking down upon it and rows of little gardens with spears of white =
and
blue lupins and Canterbury bells standing guard before cottage doors."=
And Rosalie--on the evening of that first
strange day when she had come upon her piteous figure among the heather und=
er
the trees near the lake--Rosalie had held her arm with a hot little hand and
had said feverishly: "If I could hear the roar of Broadway
again! Do the stages rattle as they used to, Betty? I can't help hoping that
they do." She carried her letter to the post and sto=
pped
to talk a few minutes with the postmaster, who transacted his official busi=
ness
in a small shop where sides of bacon and hams hung suspended from the ceili=
ng, while
groceries, flannels, dress prints, and glass bottles of sweet stuff filled =
the
shelves. "Mr. Tewson's" was the central point of Stornham in a
commercial sense. The establishment had also certain social qualifications.=
Mr. Tewson knew the secrets of all hearts
within the village radius, also the secrets of all constitutions. He knew by
some occult means who had been "taken bad," or who had "take=
n a
turn," and was aware at once when anyone was "sinkin' fast."
With such differences of opinion as occasionally arose between the vicar and
his churchwardens he was immediately familiar. The history of the fever amo=
ng
the hop pickers at Dunstan village he had been able to relate in detail from
the moment of its outbreak. It was he who had first dramatically revealed t=
he
truth of the action Miss Vanderpoel had taken in the matter, which revelati=
on
had aroused such enthusiasm as had filled The Clock Inn to overflowing and =
given
an impetus to the sale of beer. Tread, it was said, had even made a speech
which he had ended with vague but excellent intentions by proposing the joi=
nt
healths of her ladyship's sister and the "President of America." =
Mr.
Tewson was always glad to see Miss Vanderpoel cross his threshold. This was=
not
alone because she represented the custom of the Court, which since her arri=
val
had meant large regular orders and large bills promptly paid, but that she
brought with her an exotic atmosphere of interest and excitement. He had mentioned to friends that somehow a
talk with her made him feel "set up for the day." Betty was not at
all sure that he did not prepare and hoard up choice remarks or bits of
information as openings to conversation. This morning he had thrilling news for her=
and
began with it at once. "Dr. Fenwick at Stornham is very low,
miss," he said. "He's very low, you'll be sorry to hear. The worry
about the fever upset him terrible and his bronchitis took him bad. He's an=
old
man, you know." Miss Vanderpoel was very sorry to hear it.=
It
was quite in the natural order of things that she should ask other questions
about Dunstan village and the Mount, and she asked several. The fever was dying out and pale convalesc=
ents
were sometimes seen in the village or strolling about the park. His lordship
was taking care of the people and doing his best for them until they should=
be
strong enough to return to their homes. "But he's very strict about making it
plain that it's you, miss, they have to thank for what he does." "That is not quite just," said M=
iss
Vanderpoel. "He and Mr. Penzance fought on the field. I only supplied =
some
of the ammunition." "The county doesn't think of him as it
did even a year ago, miss," said Tewson rather smugly. "He was ve=
ry
ill thought of then among the gentry. It's wonderful the change that's come
about. If he should fall ill there'll be a deal of sympathy." "I hope there is no question of his
falling ill," said Miss Vanderpoel. Mr. Tewson lowered his voice confidentiall=
y.
This was really his most valuable item of news. "Well, miss," he admitted, "=
;I
have heard that he's been looking very bad for a good bit, and it was told =
me
quite private, because the doctors and the vicar don't want the people to be
upset by hearing it--that for a week he's not been well enough to make his
rounds." "Oh!" The exclamation was a faint
one, but it was an exclamation. "I hope that means nothing really
serious," Miss Vanderpoel added. "Everyone will hope so." "Yes, miss," said Mr. Tewson, de=
ftly
twisting the string round the package he was tying up for her. "A sad
reward it would be if he lost his life after doing all he has done. A sad
reward! But there'd be a good deal of sympathy." The small package contained trifles of sew=
ing
and knitting materials she was going to take to Mrs. Welden, and she held o=
ut
her hand for it. She knew she did not smile quite naturally as she said her
good-morning to Tewson. She went out into the pale amber sunshine and stood=
a
few moments, glad to find herself bathed in it again. She suddenly needed a=
ir
and light. "A sad reward!" Sometimes people were not rewarded. Br=
ave men
were shot dead on the battlefield when they were doing brave things; brave
physicians and nurses died of the plagues they faithfully wrestled with. He=
re
were dread and pain confronting her--Betty Vanderpoel--and while almost
everyone else seemed to have faced them, she was wholly unused to their
appalling clutch. What a life hers had been--that in looking back over it s=
he
should realise that she had never been touched by anything like this before!
There came back to her the look of almost awed wonder in G. Selden's honest
eyes when he said: "What it must be to be you--just YOU!" He had =
been
thinking only of the millions and of the freedom from all everyday anxieties
the millions gave. She smiled faintly as the thought crossed her brain. The
millions! The rolling up of them year by year, because millions were breede=
rs!
The newspaper stories of them--the wonder at and belief in their power! It =
was
all going on just as before, and yet here stood a Vanderpoel in an English =
village
street, of no more worth as far as power to aid herself went than Joe Buttl=
e's
girl with the thick waist and round red cheeks. Jenny Buttle would have
believed that her ladyship's rich American sister could do anything she cho=
se,
open any door, command any presence, sweep aside any obstacle with a wave of
her hand. But of the two, Jenny Buttle's path would have laid straighter be=
fore
her. If she had had "a young man" who had fallen ill she would ha=
ve
been free if his mother had cherished no objection to their "walking
out"--to spend all her spare hours in his cottage, making gruel and
poultices, crying until her nose and eyes were red, and pouring forth her h=
opes
and fears to any neighbour who came in or out or hung over the dividing gar=
den
hedge. If the patient died, the deeper her mourning and the louder her sobs=
at
his funeral the more respectable and deserving of sympathy and admiration w=
ould
Jenny Buttle have been counted. Her ladyship's rich American sister had no
"young man"; she had not at any time been asked to "walk out=
."
Even in the dark days of the fever, each of which had carried thought and
action of hers to the scene of trouble, there had reigned unbroken silence,
except for the vicar's notes of warm and appreciative gratitude. "You are very obstinate, Fergus,"
Mr. Penzance had said. And Mount Dunstan had shaken his head fier=
cely
and answered: "Don't speak to me about it. Only
obstinacy will save me from behaving like--other blackguards." Mr. Penzance, carefully polishing his
eyeglasses as he watched him, was not sparing in his comment. "That is pure folly," he said,
"pure bull-necked, stubborn folly, charging with its head down. Before=
it
has done with you it will have made you suffer quite enough." "Be sure of that," Mount Dunstan=
had
said, setting his teeth, as he sat in his chair clasping his hands behind h=
is
head and glowering into space. Mr. Penzance quietly, speculatively, looked
him over, and reflected aloud--or, so it sounded. "It is a big-boned and big-muscled
characteristic, but there are things which are stronger. Some one minute wi=
ll
arrive--just one minute--which will be stronger. One of those moments when =
the
mysteries of the universe are at work." "Don't speak to me like that, I tell
you!" Mount Dunstan broke out passionately. And he sprang up and march=
ed
out of the room like an angry man. Miss Vanderpoel did not go to Mrs. Welden's
cottage at once, but walked past its door down the lane, where there were no
more cottages, but only hedges and fields on either side of her. "Not =
well
enough to make his rounds" might mean much or little. It might mean a
temporary breakdown from overfatigue or a sickening for deadly illness. She
looked at a group of cropping sheep in a field and at a flock of rooks which
had just alighted near it with cawing and flapping of wings. She kept her e=
yes
on them merely to steady herself. The thoughts she had brought out with her=
had
grown heavier and were horribly difficult to control. One must not allow on=
e's
self to believe the worst will come--one must not allow it. She always held this rule before herself, =
and
now she was not holding it steadily. There was nothing to do. She could wri=
te a
mere note of inquiry to Mr. Penzance, but that was all. She could only walk=
up
and down the lanes and think--whether he lay dying or not. She could do not=
hing,
even if a day came when she knew that a pit had been dug in the clay and he=
had
been lowered into it with creaking ropes, and the clods shovelled back upon=
him
where he lay still--never having told her that he was glad that her being h=
ad
turned to him and her heart cried aloud his name. She recalled with curious
distinctness the effect of the steady toll of the church bell--the
"passing bell." She could hear it as she had heard it the
first time it fell upon her ear, and she had inquired what it meant. Why did
they call it the "passing bell"? All had passed before it began to
toll--all had passed. If it tolled at Dunstan and the pit was dug in the
churchyard before her father came, would he see, the moment they met, that
something had befallen her--that the Betty he had known was changed--gone? =
Yes,
he would see. Affection such as his always saw. Then he would sit alone with
her in some quiet room and talk to her, and she would tell him the strange
thing that had happened. He would understand--perhaps better than she. She stopped abruptly in her walk and stood
still. The hand holding her package was quite cold. This was what one must =
not
allow one's self. But how the thoughts had raced through her brain! She tur=
ned
and hastened her steps towards Mrs. Welden's cottage. In Mrs. Welden's tiny back yard there stoo=
d a
"coal lodge" suited to the size of the domicile and already stack=
ed
with a full winter's supply of coal. Therefore the well-polished and cleanly
little grate in the living-room was bright with fire. Old Doby, who had tottered round the corne=
r to
pay his fellow gossip a visit, was sitting by it, and old Mrs. Welden, clea=
n as
to cap and apron and small purple shoulder shawl, had evidently been allayi=
ng
his natural anxiety as to the conduct of foreign sovereigns by reading in a
loud voice the "print" under the pictures in an illustrated paper=
. This occupation had, however, been interru=
pted
a few moments before Miss Vanderpoel's arrival. Mrs. Bester, the neighbour =
in
the next cottage, had stepped in with her youngest on her hip and was talki=
ng breathlessly.
She paused to drop her curtsy as Betty entered, and old Doby stood up and m=
ade
his salute with a trembling hand, "She'll know," he said. "Ge=
ntry
knows the ins an' outs of gentry fust. She'll know the rights." "What has happened?" Mrs. Bester unexpectedly burst into tears.
There was an element in the female villagers' temperament which Betty had f=
ound
was frequently unexpected in its breaking forth. "He's down, miss," she said.
"He's down with it crool bad. There'll be no savin' of him--none."=
; Betty laid her package of sewing cotton and
knitting wool quietly on the blue and white checked tablecloth. "Who--is he?" she asked. "His lordship--and him just saved all
Dunstan parish from death--to go like this!" In Stornham village and in all others of t=
he
neighbourhood the feminine attitude towards Mount Dunstan had been one of
strongly emotional admiration. The thwarted female longing for romance--the
desire for drama and a hero had been fed by him. A fine, big young man, one
that had been "spoke ill of" and regarded as an outcast, had sudd=
enly
turned the tables on fortune and made himself the central figure of the cou=
nty,
the talk of gentry in their grand houses, of cottage women on their doorste=
ps,
and labourers stopping to speak to each other by the roadside. Magic stories
had been told of him, beflowered with dramatic detail. No incident could ha=
ve
been related to his credit which would not have been believed and improved
upon. Shut up in his village working among his people and unseen by outside=
rs,
he had become a popular idol. Any scrap of news of him--any rumour, true or
untrue, was seized upon and excitedly spread abroad. Therefore Mrs. Bester =
wept
as she talked, and, if the truth must be told, enjoyed the situation. She w=
as
the first to tell the story to her ladyship's sister herself, as well as to
Mrs. Welden and old Doby. "It's Tom as brought it in," she
said. "He's my brother, miss, an' he's one of the ringers. He heard it
from Jem Wesgate, an' he heard it at Toomy's farm. They've been keepin' it =
hid
at the Mount because the people that's ill hangs on his lordship so that the
doctors daren't let them know the truth. They've been told he had to go to
London an' may come back any day. What Tom was sayin', miss, was that we'd =
all
know when it was over, for we'd hear the church bell toll here same as it'd=
toll
at Dunstan, because they ringers have talked it over an' they're goin' to t=
alk
it over to-day with the other parishes--Yangford an' Meltham an' Dunholm an'
them. Tom says Stornham ringers met just now at The Clock an' said that for=
a
man that's stood by labouring folk like he has, toll they will, an' so ought
the other parishes, same as if he was royalty, for he's made himself nearer.
They'll toll the minute they hear it, miss. Lord help us!" with a fresh
outburst of crying. "It don't seem like it's fair as it should be. Whe=
n we
hear the bell toll, miss----" "Don't!" said her ladyship's
handsome sister suddenly. "Please don't say it again." She sat down by the table, and resting her
elbows on the blue and white checked cloth, covered her face with her hands.
She did not speak at all. In this tiny room, with these two old souls who l=
oved
her, she need not explain. She sat quite still, and Mrs. Welden after looki=
ng
at her for a few seconds was prompted by some sublimely simple intuition, a=
nd gently
sidled Mrs. Bester and her youngest into the little kitchen, where the copp=
er
was. "Her helpin' him like she did, makes =
it
come near," she whispered. "Dessay it seems as if he was a'most l=
ike
a relation." Old Doby sat and looked at his goddess. In=
his
slowly moving old brain stirred far-off memories like long-dead things stri=
ving
to come to life. He did not know what they were, but they wakened his dim e=
yes
to a new seeing of the slim young shape leaning a little forward, the soft
cloud of hair, the fair beauty of the cheek. He had not seen anything like =
it
in his youth, but--it was Youth itself, and so was that which the ringers w=
ere
so soon to toll for; and for some remote and unformed reason, to his scores=
of
years they were pitiful and should be cheered. He bent forward himself and =
put
out his ancient, veined and knotted, gnarled and trembling hand, to timorou=
sly
touch the arm of her he worshipped and adored. "God bless ye!" he said, his hig=
h,
cracked voice even more shrill and thin than usual. "God bless ye!&quo=
t;
And as she let her hands slip down, and, turning, gently looked at him, he
nodded to her speakingly, because out of the dimness of his being, some par=
t of
Nature's working had strangely answered and understood. On her way back to the Court her eyes saw =
only
the white road before her feet as she walked. She did not lift them until s=
he
found herself passing the lych-gate at the entrance to the churchyard. Then
suddenly she looked up at the square grey stone tower where the bells hung,=
and
from which they called the village to church, or chimed for weddings--or ga=
ve
slowly forth to the silent air one heavy, regular stroke after another. She
looked and shuddered, and spoke aloud with a curious, passionate imploring,
like a child's. "Oh, don't toll! Don't toll! You must
not! You cannot!" Terror had sprung upon her, and her heart was being =
torn
in two in her breast. That was surely what it seemed like--this agonising a=
che
of fear. Now from hour to hour she would be waiting and listening to each s=
ound
borne on the air. Her thought would be a possession she could not escape. W=
hen she
spoke or was spoken to, she would be listening--when she was silent every e=
cho
would hold terror, when she slept--if sleep should come to her--her hearing
would be awake, and she would be listening--listening even then. It was not
Betty Vanderpoel who was walking along the white road, but another creature=
--a
girl whose brain was full of abnormal thought, and whose whole being made
passionate outcry against the thing which was being slowly forced upon her.=
If
the bell tolled--suddenly, the whole world would be swept clean of life--em=
pty and
clean. If the bell tolled. Before the entrance of the Court she saw, =
as
she approached it, the vicarage pony carriage, standing as it had stood on =
the
day she had returned from her walk on the marshes. She felt it quite natural
that it should be there. Mrs. Brent always seized upon any fragment of news=
, and
having seized on something now, she had not been able to resist the excitem=
ent
of bringing it to Lady Anstruthers and her sister. She was in the drawing-room with Rosalie, =
and
was full of her subject and the emotion suitable to the occasion. She had e=
ven
attained a certain modified dampness of handkerchief. Rosalie's handkerchie=
f, however,
was not damp. She had not even attempted to use it, but sat still, her eyes
brimming with tears, which, when she saw Betty, brimmed over and slipped
helplessly down her cheeks. "Betty!" she exclaimed, and got =
up
and went towards her, "I believe you have heard." "In the village, I heard
something--yes," Betty answered, and after giving greeting to Mrs. Bre=
nt,
she led her sister back to her chair, and sat near her. This--the thought leaped upon her--was the
kind of situation she must be prepared to be equal to. In the presence of t=
hese
who knew nothing, she must bear herself as if there was nothing to be known=
. No
one but herself had the slightest knowledge of what the past months had bro=
ught
to her--no one in the world. If the bell tolled, no one in the world but her
father ever would know. She had no excuse for emotion. None had been given =
to
her. The kind of thing it was proper that she should say and do now, in the
presence of Mrs. Brent, it would be proper and decent that she should say a=
nd
do in all other cases. She must comport herself as Betty Vanderpoel would if
she were moved only by ordinary human sympathy and regret. "We must remember that we have only
excited rumour to depend upon," she said. "Lord Mount Dunstan has
kept his village under almost military law. He has put it into quarantine. =
No
one is allowed to leave it, so there can be no direct source of information.
One cannot be sure of the entire truth of what one hears. Often it is
exaggerated cottage talk. The whole neighbourhood is wrought up to a fever =
heat
of excited sympathy. And villagers like the drama of things." Mrs. Brent looked at her admiringly, it be=
ing
her fixed habit to admire Miss Vanderpoel, and all such as Providence had s=
et
above her. "Oh, how wise you are, Miss
Vanderpoel!" she exclaimed, even devoutly. "It is so nice of you =
to
be calm and logical when everybody else is so upset. You are quite right ab=
out
villagers enjoying the dramatic side of troubles. They always do. And perha=
ps
things are not so bad as they say. I ought not to have let myself believe t=
he
worst. But I quite broke down under the ringers--I was so touched." "The ringers?" faltered Lady
Anstruthers "The leader came to the vicar to tell=
him
they wanted permission to toll--if they heard tolling at Dunstan. Weaver's
family lives within hearing of Dunstan church bells, and one of his boys is=
to
run across the fields and bring the news to Stornham. And it was most touch=
ing,
Miss Vanderpoel. They feel, in their rustic way, that Lord Mount Dunstan has
not been treated fairly in the past. And now he seems to them a hero and a
martyr--or like a great soldier who has died fighting." "Who MAY die fighting," broke fr=
om
Miss Vanderpoel sharply. "Who--who may----" Mrs. Brent
corrected herself, "though Heaven grant he will not. But it was the
ringers who made me feel as if all really was over. Thank you, Miss Vanderp=
oel,
thank you for being so practical and--and cool." "It WAS touching," said Lady
Anstruthers, her eyes brimming over again. "And what the villagers fee=
l is
true. It goes to one's heart," in a little outburst. "People have
been unkind to him! And he has been lonely in that great empty place--he has
been lonely. And if he is dying to-day, he is lonely even as he dies--even =
as
he dies." Betty drew a deep breath. For one moment t=
here
seemed to rise before her vision of a huge room, whose stately size made its
bareness a more desolate thing. And Mr. Penzance bent low over the bed. She
tore her thought away from it. "No! No!" she cried out in low,
passionate protest. "There will be love and yearning all about him
everywhere. The villagers who are waiting--the poor things he has worked
for--the very ringers themselves, are all pouring forth the same thoughts. =
He
will feel even ours--ours too! His soul cannot be lonely." A few minutes earlier, Mrs. Brent had been
saying to herself inwardly: "She has not much heart after all, you
know." Now she looked at her in amazement. The blue bells were under water in
truth--drenched and drowned. And yet as the girl stood up before her, she
looked taller--more the magnificent Miss Vanderpoel than ever--though she
expressed a new meaning. "There is one thing the villagers can=
do
for him," she said. "One thing we can all do. The bell has not to=
lled
yet. There is a service for those who are--in peril. If the vicar will call=
the
people to the church, we can all kneel down there--and ask to be heard. The
vicar will do that I am sure--and the people will join him with all their
hearts." Mrs. Brent was overwhelmed. "Dear, dear, Miss Vanderpoel!" s=
he
exclaimed. "THAT is touching, indeed it is! And so right and so proper=
. I
will drive back to the village at once. The vicar's distress is as great as
mine. You think of everything. The service for the sick and dying. How
right--how right!" With a sense of an increase of value in
herself, the vicar, and the vicarage, she hastened back to the pony carriag=
e,
but in the hall she seized Betty's hand emotionally. "I cannot tell you how much I am touc=
hed
by this," she murmured. "I did not know you were--were a religious
girl, my dear." Betty answered with grave politeness. "In times of great pain and terror,&q=
uot;
she said, "I think almost everybody is religious--a little. If that is=
the
right word." There was no ringing of the ordinary call =
to
service. In less than an hour's time people began to come out of their cott=
ages
and wend their way towards the church. No one had put on his or her Sunday
clothes. The women had hastily rolled down their sleeves, thrown off their
aprons, and donned everyday bonnets and shawls. The men were in their
corduroys, as they had come in from the fields, and the children wore their=
pinafores.
As if by magic, the news had flown from house to house, and each one who had
heard it had left his or her work without a moment's hesitation. They said =
but
little as they made their way to the church. Betty, walking with her sister,
was struck by the fact that there were more of them than formed the usual
Sunday morning congregation. They were doing no perfunctory duty. The men's
faces were heavily moved, most of the women wiped their eyes at intervals, =
and
the children looked awed. There was a suggestion of hurried movement in the
step of each--as if no time must be lost--as if they must begin their appea=
l at
once. Betty saw old Doby tottering along stiffly, with his granddaughter an=
d Mrs.
Welden on either side of him. Marlow, on his two sticks, was to be seen mov=
ing
slowly, but steadily. Within the ancient stone walls, stiff old
knees bent themselves with care, and faces were covered devoutly by
work-hardened hands. As she passed through the churchyard Betty knew that e=
yes
followed her affectionately, and that the touching of foreheads and droppin=
g of
curtsies expressed a special sympathy. In each mind she was connected with =
the
man they came to pray for--with the work he had done--with the danger he was
in. It was vaguely felt that if his life ended, a bereavement would have fa=
llen
upon her. This the girl knew. The vicar lifted his bowed head and began =
his
service. Every man, woman and child before him responded aloud and with a
curious fervour--not in decorous fear of seeming to thrust themselves before
the throne, making too much of their petitions, in the presence of the gent=
ry.
Here and there sobs were to be heard. Lady Anstruthers followed the service=
timorously
and with tears. But Betty, kneeling at her side, by the round table in the
centre of the great square Stornham pew, which was like a room, bowed her h=
ead
upon her folded arms, and prayed her own intense, insistent prayer. "God in Heaven!" was her inward =
cry.
"God of all the worlds! Do not let him die. 'If ye ask anything in my =
name
that I will do.' Christ said it. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth--do not l=
et
him die! All the worlds are yours--all the power--listen to us--listen to u=
s.
Lord, I believe--help thou my unbelief. If this terror robs me of faith, an=
d I
pray madly--forgive, forgive me. Do not count it against me as sin. You mad=
e him.
He has suffered and been alone. It is not time--it is not time yet for him =
to
go. He has known no joy and no bright thing. Do not let him go out of the w=
arm
world like a blind man. Do not let him die. Perhaps this is not prayer, but
raging. Forgive--forgive! All power is gone from me. God of the worlds, and=
the
great winds, and the myriad stars--do not let him die!" She knew her thoughts were wild, but their
torrent bore her with them into a strange, great silence. She did not hear =
the
vicar's words, or the responses of the people. She was not within the grey
stone walls. She had been drawn away as into the darkness and stillness of =
the
night, and no soul but her own seemed near. Through the stillness and the d=
ark her
praying seemed to call and echo, clamouring again and again. It must reach
Something--it must be heard, because she cried so loud, though to the human
beings about her she seemed kneeling in silence. She went on and on, repeat=
ing
her words, changing them, ending and beginning again, pouring forth a flood=
of
appeal. She thought later that the flood must have been at its highest tide
when, singularly, it was stemmed. Without warning, a wave of awe passed over
her which strangely silenced her--and left her bowed and kneeling, but cryi=
ng
out no more. The darkness had become still, even as it had not been still
before. Suddenly she cowered as she knelt and held her breath. Something had
drawn a little near. No thoughts--no words--no cries were needed as the gre=
at
stillness grew and spread, and folded her being within it. She waited--only
waited. She did not know how long a time passed before she felt herself dra=
wn
back from the silent and shadowy places--awakening, as it were, to the soun=
ds
in the church. "Our Father," she began to say, =
as
simply as a child. "Our Father who art in Heaven--hallowed be thy
name." There was a stirring among the congregation, and sounds of feet=
, as
the people began to move down the aisle in reverent slowness. She caught ag=
ain
the occasional sound of a subdued sob. Rosalie gently touched her, and she
rose, following her out of the big pew and passing down the aisle after the
villagers. Outside the entrance the people waited as =
if
they wanted to see her again. Foreheads were touched as before, and eyes
followed her. She was to the general mind the centre of the drama, and
"the A'mighty" would do well to hear her. She had been doing his =
work
for him "same as his lordship." They did not expect her to smile =
at such
a time, when she returned their greetings, and she did not, but they said
afterwards, in their cottages, that "trouble or not she was a wonder f=
or
looks, that she was--Miss Vanderpoel." Rosalie slipped a hand through her arm, and
they walked home together, very close to each other. Now and then there was=
a
questioning in Rosy's look. But neither of them spoke once. On an oak table in the hall a letter from =
Mr.
Penzance was lying. It was brief, hurried, and anxious. The rumour that Mou=
nt
Dunstan had been ailing was true, and that they had felt they must conceal =
the
matter from the villagers was true also. For some baffling reason the fever=
had
not absolutely declared itself, but the young doctors were beset by grave
forebodings. In such cases the most serious symptoms might suddenly develop.
One never knew. Mr. Penzance was evidently torn by fears which he desperate=
ly
strove to suppress. But Betty could see the anguish on his fine old face, a=
nd
between the lines she read dread and warning not put into words. She believ=
ed
that, fearing the worst, he felt he must prepare her mind. "He has lived under a great strain for
months," he ended. "It began long before the outbreak of the feve=
r. I
am not strong under my sense of the cruelty of things--and I have never lov=
ed
him as I love him to-day." Betty took the letter to her room, and rea=
d it
two or three times. Because she had asked intelligent questions of the medi=
cal
authority she had consulted on her visit to London, she knew something of t=
he
fever and its habits. Even her unclerical knowledge was such as it was not =
well
to reflect upon. She refolded the letter and laid it aside. "I must not think. I must do somethin=
g.
It may prevent my listening," she said aloud to the silence of her roo=
m. She cast her eyes about her as if in searc=
h.
Upon her desk lay a notebook. She took it up and opened it. It contained li=
sts
of plants, of flower seeds, of bulbs, and shrubs. Each list was headed with=
an explanatory
note. "Yes, this will do," she said.
"I will go and talk to Kedgers." Kedgers and every man under him had been at
the service, but they had returned to their respective duties. Kedgers, giv=
ing
directions to some under gardeners who were clearing flower beds and prepar=
ing
them for their winter rest, turned to meet her as she approached. To Kedgers
the sight of her coming towards him on a garden path was a joyful thing. He=
had
done wonders, it is true, but if she had not stood by his side with inspira=
tion
as well as confidence, he knew that things might have "come out
different." "You was born a gardener, miss--born
one," he had said months ago. It was the time when flower beds must be
planned for the coming year. Her notebook was filled with memoranda of the
things they must talk about. It was good, normal, healthy work to do. T=
he
scent of the rich, damp, upturned mould was a good thing to inhale. They wa=
lked
from one end to another, stood before clumps of shrubs, and studied bits of
wall. Here a mass of blue might grow, here low things of white and pale yel=
low.
A quickly-climbing rose would hang sheets of bloom over this dead tree. This
sheltered wall would hold warmth for a Marechal Niel. "You must take care of it all--even i=
f I
am not here next year," Miss Vanderpoel said. Kedgers' absorbed face changed. "Not here, miss," he exclaimed.
"You not here! Things wouldn't grow, miss." He checked himself, h=
is
weather-toughened skin reddening because he was afraid he had perhaps taken=
a
liberty. And then moving his hat uneasily on his head, he took another.
"But it's true enough," looking down on the gravel walk, "we=
--we
couldn't expect to keep you." She did not look as if she had noticed the
liberty, but she did not look quite like herself, Kedgers thought. If she h=
ad
been another young lady, and but for his established feeling that she was
somehow immune from all ills, he would have thought she had a headache, or =
was
low in her mind. She spent an hour or two with him, and
together they planned for the changing seasons of the year to come. How she
could keep her mind on a thing, and what a head she had for planning, and w=
hat
an eye for colour! But yes--there was something a bit wrong somehow. Now and
then she would stop and stand still for a moment, and suddenly it struck
Kedgers that she looked as if she were listening. "Did you think you heard something,
miss?" he asked her once when she paused and wore this look. "No," she answered, "no.&qu=
ot;
And drew him on quickly--almost as if she did not want him to hear what she=
had
seemed listening for. When she left him and went back to the hou=
se,
all the loveliness of spring, summer and autumn had been thought out and
provided for. Kedgers stood on the path and looked after her until she pass=
ed
through the terrace door. He chewed his lip uneasily. Then he remembered
something and felt a bit relieved. It was the service he remembered. "Ah! it's that that's upset her--and =
it's
natural, seeing how she's helped him and Dunstan village. It's only
natural." He chewed his lip again, and nodded his head in odd reflecti=
on.
"Ay! Ay!" he summed her up. "She's a great lady that--she's a
great lady--same as if she'd been born in a civilised land." During the rest of the day the look of
question in Rosalie's eyes changed in its nature. When her sister was near =
her
she found herself glancing at her with a new feeling. It was a growing feel=
ing,
which gradually became--anxiousness. Betty presented to her the aspect of o=
ne withdrawn
into some remote space. She was not living this day as her days were usually
lived. She did not sit still or stroll about the gardens quietly. The
consecutiveness of her action seemed broken. She did one thing after anothe=
r,
as if she must fill each moment. This was not her Betty. Lady Anstruthers
watched and thought until, in the end, a new pained fear began to creep slo=
wly
into her mind, and make her feel as if she were slightly trembling though h=
er
hands did not shake. She did not dare to allow herself to think the thing s=
he
knew she was on the brink of thinking. She thrust it away from her, and tri=
ed
not to think at all. Her Betty--her splendid Betty, whom nothing could
hurt--who could not be touched by any awful thing--her dear Betty! In the afternoon she saw her write notes
steadily for an hour, then she went out into the stables and visited the
horses, talked to the coachman and to her own groom. She was very kind to a
village boy who had been recently taken on as an additional assistant in the
stable, and who was rather frightened and shy. She knew his mother, who had=
a
large family, and she had, indeed, given the boy his place that he might be
trained under the great Mr. Buckham, who was coachman and head of the stabl=
es. She
said encouraging things which quite cheered him, and she spoke privately to=
Mr.
Buckham about him. Then she walked in the park a little, but not for long. =
When
she came back Rosalie was waiting for her. "I want to take a long drive," s=
he
said. "I feel restless. Will you come with me, Betty?" Yes, she w=
ould
go with her, so Buckham brought the landau with its pair of big horses, and
they rolled down the avenue, and into the smooth, white high road. He took =
them
far--past the great marshes, between miles of bared hedges, past farms and
scattered cottages. Sometimes he turned into lanes, where the hedges were
closer to each other, and where, here and there, they caught sight of new p=
oints
of view between trees. Betty was glad to feel Rosy's slim body near her sid=
e,
and she was conscious that it gradually seemed to draw closer and closer. T=
hen
Rosy's hand slipped into hers and held it softly on her lap. When they drove together in this way they =
were
usually both of them rather silent and quiet, but now Rosalie spoke of many
things--of Ughtred, of Nigel, of the Dunholms, of New York, and their father
and mother. "I want to talk because I'm nervous, I
think," she said half apologetically. "I do not want to sit still=
and
think too much--of father's coming. You don't mind my talking, do you,
Betty?" "No," Betty answered. "It is
good for you and for me." And she met the pressure of Rosy's hand half=
way. But Rosy was talking, not because she did =
not
want to sit still and think, but because she did not want Betty to do so. A=
nd
all the time she was trying to thrust away the thought growing in her mind.=
They spent the evening together in the
library, and Betty read aloud. She read a long time--until quite late. She
wished to tire herself as well as to force herself to stop listening. When they said good-night to each other Ro=
sy
clung to her as desperately as she had clung on the night after her arrival.
She kissed her again and again, and then hung her head and excused herself.=
"Forgive me for being--nervous. I'm
ashamed of myself," she said. "Perhaps in time I shall get over b=
eing
a coward." But she said nothing of the fact that she =
was
not a coward for herself, but through a slowly formulating and
struggled--against fear, which chilled her very heart, and which she could =
best
cover by a pretence of being a poltroon. She could not sleep when she went to bed. =
The
night seemed crowded with strange, terrified thoughts. They were all of Bet=
ty,
though sometimes she thought of her father's coming, of her mother in New Y=
ork,
and of Betty's steady working throughout the day. Sometimes she cried, twis=
ting
her hands together, and sometimes she dropped into a feverish sleep, and dr=
eamed
that she was watching Betty's face, yet was afraid to look at it. She awakened suddenly from one of these
dreams, and sat upright in bed to find the dawn breaking. She rose and thre=
w on
a dressing-gown, and went to her sister's room because she could not bear to
stay away. The door was not locked, and she pushed it
open gently. One of the windows had its blind drawn up, and looked like a p=
atch
of dull grey. Betty was standing upright near it. She was in her night-gown,
and a long black plait of hair hung over one shoulder heavily. She looked a=
ll black
and white in strong contrast. The grey light set her forth as a tall ghost.=
Lady Anstruthers slid forward, feeling a
tightness in her chest. "The dawn wakened me too," she s=
aid. "I have been waiting to see it
come," answered Betty. "It is going to be a dull, dreary day.&quo=
t; CHAPTER XLVII - "I HAVE NO WORD OR LO=
OK
TO REMEMBER" It was a dull and dreary day, as Betty had
foreseen it would be. Heavy rain clouds hung and threatened, and the atmosp=
here
was damp and chill. It was one of those days of the English autumn which sp=
eak
only of the end of things, bereaving one of the power to remember next year=
's
spring and summer, which, after all, must surely come. Sky is grey, trees a=
re grey,
dead leaves lie damp beneath the feet, sunlight and birds seem forgotten
things. All that has been sad and to be regretted or feared hangs heavy in =
the
air and sways all thought. In the passing of these hours there is no hope
anywhere. Betty appeared at breakfast in short dress and close hat. She wore
thick little boots, as if for walking. "I am going to make visits in the
village," she said. "I want a basket of good things to take with =
me.
Stourton's children need feeding after their measles. They looked very thin
when I saw them playing in the road yesterday." "Yes, dear," Rosalie answered.
"Mrs. Noakes shall prepare the basket. Good chicken broth, and jelly, =
and
nourishing things. Jennings," to the butler, "you know the kind of
basket Miss Vanderpoel wants. Speak to Mrs. Noakes, please." "Yes, my lady," Jennings knew the
kind of basket and so did Mrs. Noakes. Below stairs a strong sympathy with =
Miss
Vanderpoel's movements had developed. No one resented the preparation of
baskets. Somehow they were always managed, even if asked for at untimely ho=
urs. Betty was sitting silent, looking out into=
the
greyness of the autumn-smitten park. "Are--are you listening for anything,
Betty?" Lady Anstruthers asked rather falteringly. "You have a so=
rt
of listening look in your eyes." Betty came back to the room, as it were. "Have I," she said. "Yes, I
think I was listening for--something." And Rosalie did not ask her what she liste=
ned
for. She was afraid she knew. It was not only the Stourtons Betty visited
this morning. She passed from one cottage to another--to see old women, and=
old
men, as well as young ones, who for one reason or another needed help and
encouragement. By one bedside she read aloud; by another she sat and told
cheerful stories; she listened to talk in little kitchens, and in one house=
welcomed
a newborn thing. As she walked steadily over grey road and down grey lanes =
damp
mist rose and hung about her. And she did not walk alone. Fear walked with =
her,
and anguish, a grey ghost by her side. Once she found herself standing quite
still on a side path, covering her face with her hands. She filled every mo=
ment
of the morning, and walked until she was tired. Before she went home she ca=
lled
at the post office, and Mr. Tewson greeted her with a solemn face. He did n=
ot
wait to be questioned. "There's been no news to-day, miss, so
far," he said. "And that seems as if they might be so given up to
hard work at a dreadful time that there's been no chance for anything to get
out. When people's hanging over a man's bed at the end, it's as if everythi=
ng
stopped but that--that's stopping for all time." After luncheon the rain began to fall soft=
ly,
slowly, and with a suggestion of endlessness. It was a sort of mist itself,=
and
became a damp shadow among the bare branches of trees which soon began to d=
rip. "You have been walking about all morn=
ing,
and you are tired, dear," Lady Anstruthers said to her. "Won't yo=
u go
to your room and rest, Betty?" Yes, she would go to her room, she said. S=
ome
new books had arrived from London this morning, and she would look over the=
m.
She talked a little about her visits before she went, and when, as she talk=
ed,
Ughtred came over to her and stood close to her side holding her hand and
stroking it, she smiled at him sweetly--the smile he adored. He stroked the
hand and softly patted it, watching her wistfully. Suddenly he lifted it to=
his
lips, and kissed it again and again with a sort of passion. "I love you so much, Aunt Betty,"=
; he
cried. "We both love you so much. Something makes me love you to-day m=
ore
than ever I did before. It almost makes me cry. I love you so." She stooped swiftly and drew him into her =
arms
and kissed him close and hard. He held his head back a little and looked in=
to
the blue under her lashes. "I love your eyes," he said.
"Anyone would love your eyes, Aunt Betty. But what is the matter with
them? You are not crying at all, but--oh! what is the matter?" "No, I am not crying at all," she
said, and smiled--almost laughed. But after she had kissed him again she took
her books and went upstairs. She did not lie down, and she did not read
when she was alone in her room. She drew a long chair before the window and
watched the slow falling of the rain. There is nothing like it--that slow
weeping of the rain on an English autumn day. Soft and light though it was,=
the
park began to look sodden. The bare trees held out their branches like impl=
oring
arms, the brown garden beds were neat and bare. The same rain was drip-drip=
ping
at Mount Dunstan--upon the desolate great house--upon the village--upon the
mounds and ancient stone tombs in the churchyard, sinking into the
earth--sinking deep, sucked in by the clay beneath--the cold damp clay. She
shook herself shudderingly. Why should the thought come to her--the cold da=
mp
clay? She would not listen to it, she would think of New York, of its roari=
ng
streets and crash of sound, of the rush of fierce life there--of her father=
and
mother. She tried to force herself to call up pictures of Broadway, swarming
with crowds of black things, which, seen from the windows of its monstrous
buildings, seemed like swarms of ants, burst out of ant-hills, out of a
thousand ant-hills. She tried to remember shop windows, the things in them,=
the
throngs going by, and the throngs passing in and out of great, swinging gla=
ss
doors. She dragged up before her a vision of Rosalie, driving with her moth=
er
and herself, looking about her at the new buildings and changed streets,
flushed and made radiant by the accelerated pace and excitement of her belo=
ved New
York. But, oh, the slow, penetrating rainfall, and--the cold damp clay! She rose, making an involuntary sound which
was half a moan. The long mirror set between two windows showed her momenta=
rily
an awful young figure, throwing up its arms. Was that Betty Vanderpoel--tha=
t? "What does one do," she said,
"when the world comes to an end? What does one do?" All her days she had done things--there had
always been something to do. Now there was nothing. She went suddenly to her
bell and rang for her maid. The woman answered the summons at once. "Send word to the stable that I want
Childe Harold. I do not want Mason. I shall ride alone." "Yes, miss," Ambleston answered,
without any exterior sign of emotion. She was too well-trained a person to
express any shade of her internal amazement. After she had transmitted the
order to the proper manager she returned and changed her mistress's costume=
. She had contemplated her task, and was
standing behind Miss Vanderpoel's chair, putting the last touch to her veil,
when she became conscious of a slight stiffening of the neck which held so =
well
the handsome head, then the head slowly turned towards the window giving up=
on
the front park. Miss Vanderpoel was listening to something, listening so
intently that Ambleston felt that, for a few moments, she did not seem to b=
reathe.
The maid's hands fell from the veil, and she began to listen also. She had =
been
at the service the day before. Miss Vanderpoel rose from her chair slowly--=
very
slowly, and took a step forward. Then she stood still and listened again. "Open that window, if you please,&quo=
t;
she commanded--"as if a stone image was speaking"--Ambleston said
later. The window was thrown open, and for a few seconds they both stood st=
ill
again. When Miss Vanderpoel spoke, it was as if she had forgotten where she
was, or as if she were in a dream. "It is the ringers," she said.
"They are tolling the passing bell." The serving woman was soft of heart, and h=
ad
her feminine emotions. There had been much talk of this thing in the servan=
t's
hall. She turned upon Betty, and forgot all rules and training. "Oh, miss!" she cried. "He's
gone--he's gone! That good man--out of this hard world. Oh, miss, excuse
me--do!" And as she burst into wild tears, she ran out of the room. . . . . . Rosalie had been sitting in the morning ro=
om.
She also had striven to occupy herself with work. She had written to her
mother, she had read, she had embroidered, and then read again. What was Be=
tty
doing--what was she thinking now? She laid her book down in her lap, and
covering her face with her hands, breathed a desperate little prayer. That =
life
should be pain and emptiness to herself, seemed somehow natural since she h=
ad
married Nigel--but pain and emptiness for Betty--No! No! No! Not for Betty!
Piteous sorrow poured upon her like a flood. She did not know how the time
passed. She sat, huddled together in her chair, with hidden face. She could=
not
bear to look at the rain and ghost mist out of doors. Oh, if her mother were
only here, and she might speak to her! And as her loving tears broke forth
afresh, she heard the door open. "If you please, my lady--I beg your
pardon, my lady," as she started and uncovered her face. "What is it, Jennings?" The figure at the door was that of the
serious, elderly butler, and he wore a respectfully grave air. "As your ladyship is sitting in this
room, we thought it likely you would not hear, the windows being closed, an=
d we
felt sure, my lady, that you would wish to know----" Lady Anstruthers' hands shook as they clun=
g to
the arms of her chair. "To know----" she faltered.
"Hear what?" "The passing bell is tolling, my lady=
. It
has just begun. It is for Lord Mount Dunstan. There's not a dry eye downsta=
irs,
your ladyship, not one." He opened the windows, and she stood up.
Jennings quietly left the room. The slow, heavy knell struck ponderously on=
the
damp air, and she stood and shivered. A moment or two later she turned, because =
it
seemed as if she must. Betty, in her riding habit, was standing
motionless against the door, her wonderful eyes still as death, gazing at h=
er,
gazing in an awful, simple silence. Oh, what was the use of being afraid to sp=
eak
at such a time as this? In one moment Rosy was kneeling at her feet, clingi=
ng
about her knees, kissing her hands, the very cloth of her habit, and sobbing
aloud. "Oh, my darling--my love--my own Bett=
y! I
don't know--and I won't ask--but speak to me--speak just a word--my dearest
dear!" Betty raised her up and drew her within the
room, closing the door behind them. "Kind little Rosy," she said.
"I came to speak--because we two love each other. You need not ask, I =
will
tell you. That bell is tolling for the man who taught me--to KNOW. He never
spoke to me of love. I have not one word or look to remember. And now---- O=
h,
listen--listen! I have been listening since the morning of yesterday."=
It
was an awful thing--her white face, with all the flame of life swept out of=
it. "Don't listen--darling--darling!"
Rosy cried out in anguish. "Shut your ears--shut your ears!" And =
she
tried to throw her arms around the high black head, and stifle all sound wi=
th
her embrace. "I don't want to shut them," was=
the
answer. "All the unkindness and misery are over for him, I ought to th=
ank
God--but I don't. I shall hear--O Rosy, listen!--I shall hear that to the e=
nd
of my days." Rosy held her tight, and rocked and sobbed=
. "My Betty," she kept saying.
"My Betty," and she could say no more. What more was there to say=
? At
last Betty withdrew herself from her arms, and then Rosalie noticed for the
first time that she wore the habit. "Dearest," she whispered, "=
what
are you going to do?" "I was going to ride, and I am going =
to
do it still. I must do something. I shall ride a long, long way--and ride h=
ard.
You won't try to keep me, Rosy. You will understand." "Yes," biting her lip, and looki=
ng
at her with large, awed eyes, as she patted her arm with a hand that trembl=
ed.
"I would not hold you back, Betty, from anything in the world you chos=
e to
do." And with another long, clinging clasp of h=
er,
she let her go. Mason was standing by Childe Harold when s=
he
went down the broad steps. He also wore a look of repressed emotion, and st=
ood
with bared head bent, his eyes fixed on the gravel of the drive, listening =
to
the heavy strokes of the bell in the church tower, rather as if he were tak=
ing part
in some solemn ceremony. He mounted her silently, and after he had
given her the bridle, looked up, and spoke in a somewhat husky voice: "The order was that you did not want =
me,
miss? Was that correct?" "Yes, I wish to ride alone." "Yes, miss. Thank you, miss." Childe Harold was in good spirits. He held=
up
his head, and blew the breath through his delicate, dilated, red nostrils a=
s he
set out with his favourite sidling, dancing steps. Mason watched him down t=
he
avenue, saw the lodge keeper come out to open the gate, and curtsy as her l=
adyship's
sister passed through it. After that he went slowly back to the stables, and
sat in the harness-room a long time, staring at the floor, as the bell stru=
ck
ponderously on his ear. The woman who had opened the gate for her
Betty saw had red eyes. She knew why. "A year ago they all thought of him a=
s an
outcast. They would have believed any evil they had heard connected with his
name. Now, in every cottage, there is weeping--weeping. And he lies deaf and
dumb," was her thought. She did not wish to pass through the villa=
ge,
and turned down a side road, which would lead her to where she could cross =
the
marshes, and come upon lonely places. The more lonely, the better. Every few
moments she caught her breath with a hard short gasp. The slow rain fell up=
on her,
big round, crystal drops hung on the hedgerows, and dripped upon the grass
banks below them; the trees, wreathed with mist, were like waiting ghosts as
she passed them by; Childe Harold's hoof upon the road, made a hollow, lone=
ly
sound. A thought began to fill her brain, and make
insistent pressure upon it. She tried no more to thrust thought away. Those=
who
lay deaf and dumb, those for whom people wept--where were they when the wee=
ping
seemed to sound through all the world? How far had they gone? Was it far? C=
ould
they hear and could they see? If one plead with them aloud, could they draw
near to listen? Did they begin a long, long journey as soon as they had sli=
pped
away? The "wonder of the world," she had said, watching life swel=
ling
and bursting the seeds in Kedgers' hothouses! But this was a greater wonder
still, because of its awesomeness. This man had been, and who dare say he w=
as
not--even now? The strength of his great body, the look in his red-brown ey=
es,
the sound of his deep voice, the struggle, the meaning of him, where were t=
hey?
She heard herself followed by the hollow echo of Childe Harold's hoofs, as =
she
rode past copse and hedge, and wet spreading fields. She was this hour as he
had been a month ago. If, with some strange suddenness, this which was Betty
Vanderpoel, slipped from its body----She put her hand up to her forehead. It
was unthinkable that there would be no more. Where was he now--where was he=
now? This was the thought that filled her brain
cells to the exclusion of all others. Over the road, down through by-lanes,=
out
on the marshes. Where was he--where was he--WHERE? Childe Harold's hoofs be=
gan
to beat it out as a refrain. She heard nothing else. She did not know where=
she
was going and did not ask herself. She went down any road or lane which loo=
ked
empty of life, she took strange turnings, without caring; she did not know =
how
far she was afield. Where was he now--this hour--this moment--=
where
was he now? Did he know the rain, the greyness, the desolation of the world=
? Once she stopped her horse on the loneline=
ss
of the marsh land, and looked up at the low clouds about her, at the creepi=
ng
mist, the dank grass. It seemed a place in which a newly-released soul might
wander because it did not yet know its way. "If you should be near, and come to m=
e,
you will understand," her clear voice said gravely between the caught
breaths, "what I gave you was nothing to you--but you took it with you.
Perhaps you know without my telling you. I want you to know. When a man is
dead, everything melts away. I loved you. I wish you had loved me." CHAPTER XLVIII - THE MOMENT<=
/a> In the unnatural unbearableness of her
anguish, she lost sight of objects as she passed them, she lost all memory =
of
what she did. She did not know how long she had been out, or how far she had
ridden. When the thought of time or distance vaguely flitted across her min=
d,
it seemed that she had been riding for hours, and might have crossed one co=
unty
and entered another. She had long left familiar places behind. Riding throu=
gh
and inclosed by the mist, she, herself, might have been a wandering ghost, =
lost
in unknown places. Where was he now--where was he now? Afterwards she could not tell how or when =
it
was that she found herself becoming conscious of the evidences that her hor=
se
had been ridden too long and hard, and that he was worn out with fatigue. S=
he
did not know that she had ridden round and round over the marshes, and had
passed several times through the same lanes. Childe Harold, the sure of foo=
t, actually
stumbled, out of sheer weariness of limb. Perhaps it was this which brought=
her
back to earth, and led her to look around her with eyes which saw material
objects with comprehension. She had reached the lonely places, indeed and t=
he
evening was drawing on. She was at the edge of the marsh, and the land about
her was strange to her and desolate. At the side of a steep lane, overgrown
with grass, and seeming a mere cart-path, stood a deserted-looking, black a=
nd
white, timbered cottage, which was half a ruin. Close to it was a dripping
spinney, its trees forming a darkling background to the tumble-down house,
whose thatch was rotting into holes, and its walls sagging forward perilous=
ly. The
bit of garden about it was neglected and untidy, here and there windows were
broken, and stuffed with pieces of ragged garments. Altogether a sinister a=
nd
repellent place enough. She looked at it with heavy eyes. (Where w=
as
he now--where was he now?--This repeating itself in the far chambers of her
brain.) Her sight seemed dimmed, not only by the mist, but by a sinking
faintness which possessed her. She did not remember how little food she had
eaten during more than twenty-four hours. Her habit was heavy with moisture,
and clung to her body; she was conscious of a hot tremor passing over her, =
and
saw that her hands shook as they held the bridle on which they had lost the=
ir
grip. She had never fainted in her life, and she was not going to faint now=
--women
did not faint in these days--but she must reach the cottage and dismount, to
rest under shelter for a short time. No smoke was rising from the chimney, =
but
surely someone was living in the place, and could tell her where she was, a=
nd
give her at least water for herself and her horse. Poor beast! how wickedly=
she
must have been riding him, in her utter absorption in her thoughts. He was =
wet,
not alone with rain, but with sweat. He snorted out hot, smoking breaths. She spoke to him, and he moved forward at =
her
command. He was trembling too. Not more than two hundred yards, and she tur=
ned
him into the lane. But it was wet and slippery, and strewn with stones. His
trembling and her uncertain hold on the bridle combined to produce disaster=
. He
set his foot upon a stone which slid beneath it, he stumbled, and she could=
not
help him to recover, so he fell, and only by Heaven's mercy not upon her, w=
ith
his crushing, big-boned weight, and she was able to drag herself free of him
before he began to kick, in his humiliated efforts to rise. But he could not
rise, because he was hurt--and when she, herself, got up, she staggered, and
caught at the broken gate, because in her wrenching leap for safety she had
twisted her ankle, and for a moment was in cruel pain. When she recovered from her shock sufficie=
ntly
to be able to look at the cottage, she saw that it was more of a ruin than =
it
had seemed, even at a short distance. Its door hung open on broken hinges, =
no
smoke rose from the chimney, because there was no one within its walls to l=
ight
a fire. It was quite empty. Everything about the place lay in dead and utter
silence. In a normal mood she would have liked the mystery of the situation,
and would have set about planning her way out of her difficulty. But now her
mind made no effort, because normal interest in things had fallen away from
her. She might be twenty miles from Stornham, but the possible fact did not=
, at
the moment, seem to concern her. (Where is he now--where is he now?) Childe
Harold was trying to rise, despite his hurt, and his evident determination
touched her. He was too proud to lie in the mire. She limped to him, and tr=
ied
to steady him by his bridle. He was not badly injured, though plainly in pa=
in. "Poor boy, it was my fault," she
said to him as he at last struggled to his feet. "I did not know I was
doing it. Poor boy!" He turned a velvet dark eye upon her, and
nosed her forgivingly with a warm velvet muzzle, but it was plain that, for=
the
time, he was done for. They both moved haltingly to the broken gate, and Be=
tty
fastened him to a thorn tree near it, where he stood on three feet, his fine
head drooping. She pushed the gate open, and went into the
house through the door which hung on its hinges. Once inside, she stood sti=
ll
and looked about her. If there was silence and desolateness outside, there =
was
within the deserted place a stillness like the unresponse of death. It had =
been
long since anyone had lived in the cottage, but tramps or gipsies had at ti=
mes
passed through it. Dead, blackened embers lay on the hearth, a bundle of dr=
ied
grass which had been slept on was piled in the corner, an empty nail keg an=
d a
wooden box had been drawn before the big chimney place for some wanderer to=
sit
on when the black embers had been hot and red. Betty gave one glance around her and sat d=
own
upon the box standing on the bare hearth, her head sinking forward, her han=
ds
falling clasped between her knees, her eyes on the brick floor. "Where is he now?" broke from he=
r in
a loud whisper, whose sound was mechanical and hollow. "Where is he
now?" And she sat there without moving, while the
grey mist from the marshes crept close about the door and through it and st=
ole
about her feet. So she sat long--long--in a heavy, far-off
dream. Along the road a man was riding with a
lowering, fretted face. He had come across country on horseback, because to
travel by train meant wearisome stops and changes and endlessly slow
journeying, annoying beyond endurance to those who have not patience to spa=
re.
His ride would have been pleasant enough but for the slow mist-like rain. A=
lso
he had taken a wrong turning, because he did not know the roads he travelle=
d. The
last signpost he had passed, however, had given him his cue again, and he b=
egan
to feel something of security. Confound the rain! The best road was slippery
with it, and the haze of it made a man's mind feel befogged and lowered his
spirits horribly--discouraged him--would worry him into an ill humour even =
if
he had reason to be in a good one. As for him, he had no reason for
cheerfulness--he never had for the matter of that, and just now----! What w=
as
the matter with his horse? He was lifting his head and sniffing the damp air
restlessly, as if he scented or saw something. Beasts often seemed to have a
sort of second sight--horses particularly. What ailed him that he should prick up his
ears and snort after his sniffing the mist! Did he hear anything? Yes, he d=
id,
it seemed. He gave forth suddenly a loud shrill whinny, turning his head
towards a rough lane they were approaching, and immediately from the vicini=
ty
of a deserted-looking cottage behind a hedge came a sharp but mournful-soun=
ding
neigh in answer. "What horse is that?" said Nigel
Anstruthers, drawing in at the entrance to the lane and looking down it.
"There is a fine brute with a side-saddle on," he added sharply.
"He is waiting for someone. What is a woman doing there at this time? =
Is
it a rendezvous? A good place----" He broke off short and rode forward. "=
;I'm
hanged if it is not Childe Harold," he broke out, and he had no sooner
assured himself of the fact than he threw himself from his saddle, tethered=
his
horse and strode up the path to the broken-hinged door. He stood on the threshold and stared. What=
a
hole it was--what a hole! And there SHE sat--alone--eighteen or twenty miles
from home--on a turned-up box near the black embers, her hands clasped loos=
ely
between her knees, her face rather awful, her eyes staring at the floor, as=
if she
did not see it. "Where is he now?" he heard her
whisper to herself with soft weirdness. "Where is he now?" Sir Nigel stepped into the place and stood
before her. He had smiled with a wry unpleasantness when he had heard her
evidently unconscious words. "My good girl," he said, "I=
am
sure I do not know where he is--but it is very evident that he ought to be
here, since you have amiably put yourself to such trouble. It is fortunate =
for
you perhaps that I am here before him. What does this mean?" the quest=
ion
breaking from him with savage authority. He had dragged her back to earth. She sat
upright and recognised him with a hideous sense of shock, but he did not gi=
ve
her time to speak. His instinct of male fury leaped within him. "YOU!" he cried out. "It ta=
kes
a woman like you to come and hide herself in a place of this sort, like a
trolloping gipsy wench! It takes a New York millionairess or a Roman empres=
s or
one of Charles the Second's duchesses to plunge as deep as this. You, with =
your
golden pedestal--you, with your ostentatious airs and graces--you, with you=
r condescending
to give a man a chance to repent his sins and turn over a new leaf! Damn
it," rising to a sort of frenzy, "what are you doing waiting in a
hole like this--in this weather--at this hour--you--you!" The fool's flame leaped high enough to make
him start forward, as if to seize her by the shoulder and shake her. But she rose and stepped back to lean agai=
nst
the side of the chimney--to brace herself against it, so that she could sta=
nd
in her lame foot's despite. Every drop of blood had been swept from her fac=
e, and
her eyes looked immense. His coming was a good thing for her, though she did
not know it. It brought her back from unearthly places. All her child hatred
woke and blazed in her. Never had she hated a thing so, and it set her slow,
cold blood running like something molten. "Hold your tongue!" she said in a
clear, awful young voice of warning. "And take care not to touch me. If
you do--I have my whip here--I shall lash you across your mouth!" He broke into ribald laughter. A certain
sudden thought which had cut into him like a knife thrust into flesh drove =
him
on. "Do!" he cried. "I should l=
ike
to carry your mark back to Stornham--and tell people why it was given. I kn=
ow
who you are here for. Only such fellows ask such things of women. But he was
determined to be safe, if you hid in a ditch. You are here for Mount
Dunstan--and he has failed you!" But she only stood and stared at him, hold=
ing
her whip behind her, knowing that at any moment he might snatch it from her
hand. And she knew how poor a weapon it was. To strike out with it would on=
ly infuriate
him and make him a wild beast. And it was becoming an agony to stand upon h=
er
foot. And even if it had not been so--if she had been strong enough to make=
a
leap and dash past him, her horse stood outside disabled. Nigel Anstruthers' eyes ran over her from =
head
to foot, down the side of her mud-stained habit, while a curious light dawn=
ed
in them. "You have had a fall from your
horse," he exclaimed. "You are lame!" Then quickly, "Th=
at
was why Childe Harold was trembling and standing on three feet! By Jove!&qu=
ot; Then he sat down on the nail keg and began=
to
laugh. He laughed for a full minute, but she saw he did not take his eyes f=
rom
her. "You are in as unpleasant a situation=
as
a young woman can well be," he said, when he stopped. "You came t=
o a
dirty hole to be alone with a man who felt it safest not to keep his
appointment. Your horse stumbled and disabled himself and you. You are twen=
ty
miles from home in a deserted cottage in a lane no one passes down even in =
good
weather. You are frightened to death and you have given me even a better st=
ory
to play with than your sister gave me. By Jove!" His face was an unholy thing to look upon.=
The
situation and her powerlessness were exciting him. "No," she answered, keeping her =
eyes
on his, as she might have kept them on some wild animal's, "I am not
frightened to death." His ugly dark flush rose. "Well, if you are not," he said,
"don't tell me so. That kind of defiance is not your best line just no=
w. You
have been disdaining me from magnificent New York heights for some time. Do=
you
think that I am not enjoying this?" "I cannot imagine anyone else who wou=
ld
enjoy it so much." And she knew the answer was daring, but would have =
made
it if he had held a knife's point at her throat. He got up, and walking to the door drew it
back on its crazy hinges and managed to shut it close. There was a big wood=
en
bolt inside and he forced it into its socket. "Presently I shall go and put the hor=
ses
into the cowshed," he said. "If I leave them standing outside they
will attract attention. I do not intend to be disturbed by any gipsy tramp =
who
wants shelter. I have never had you quite to myself before." He sat down again and nursed his knee
gracefully. "And I have never seen you look as
attractive," biting his under lip in cynical enjoyment. "To-day's
adventure has roused your emotions and actually beautified you--which was n=
ot
necessary. I daresay you have been furious and have cried. Your eyes do not
look like mere eyes, but like splendid blue pools of tears. Perhaps I shall
make you cry sometime, my dear Betty." "No, you will not." "Don't tempt me. Women always cry when
men annoy them. They rage, but they cry as well." "I shall not." "It's true that most women would have
begun to cry before this. That is what stimulates me. You will swagger to t=
he
end. You put the devil into me. Half an hour ago I was jogging along the ro=
ad,
languid and bored to extinction. And now----" He laughed outright in
actual exultation. "By Jove!" he cried out. "Things like this
don't happen to a man in these dull days! There's no such luck going about.
We've gone back five hundred years, and we've taken New York with us."=
His
laugh shut off in the middle, and he got up to thrust his heavy, congested =
face
close to hers. "Here you are, as safe as if you were in a feudal castl=
e,
and here is your ancient enemy given his chance--given his chance. Do you
think, by the Lord, he is going to give it up? No. To quote your own words,=
'you
may place entire confidence in that.'" Exaggerated as it all was, somehow the
melodrama dropped away from it and left bare, simple, hideous fact for her =
to
confront. The evil in him had risen rampant and made him lose his head. He
might see his senseless folly to-morrow and know he must pay for it, but he
would not see it to-day. The place was not a feudal castle, but what he said
was insurmountable truth. A ruined cottage on the edge of miles of marsh la=
nd,
a seldom-trodden road, and night upon them! A wind was rising on the marshes
now, and making low, steady moan. Horrible things had happened to women bef=
ore,
one heard of them with shudders when they were recorded in the newspapers. =
Only
two days ago she had remembered that sometimes there seemed blunderings in =
the
great Scheme of things. Was all this real, or was she dreaming that she sto=
od
here at bay, her back against the chimney-wall, and this degenerate exulting
over her, while Rosy was waiting for her at Stornham--and at this very hour=
her
father was planning his journey across the Atlantic? "Why did you not behave yourself?&quo=
t;
demanded Nigel Anstruthers, shaking her by the shoulder. "Why did you =
not
realise that I should get even with you one day, as sure as you were woman =
and
I was man?" She did not shrink back, though the pupils=
of
her eyes dilated. Was it the wildest thing in the world which happened to
her--or was it not? Without warning--the sudden rush of a thought, immense =
and
strange, swept over her body and soul and possessed her--so possessed her t=
hat it
changed her pallor to white flame. It was actually Anstruthers who shrank b=
ack
a shade because, for the moment, she looked so near unearthly. "I am not afraid of you," she sa=
id,
in a clear, unshaken voice. "I am not afraid. Something is near me whi=
ch will
stand between us--something which DIED to-day." He almost gasped before the strangeness of=
it,
but caught back his breath and recovered himself. "Died to-day! That's recent enough,&q=
uot;
he jeered. "Let us hear about it. Who was it?" "It was Mount Dunstan," she flun=
g at
him. "The church-bells were tolling for him when I rode away. I could =
not
stay to hear them. It killed me--I loved him. You were right when you said =
it.
I loved him, though he never knew. I shall always love him--though he never
knew. He knows now. Those who died cannot go away when THAT is holding them.
They must stay. Because I loved him, he may be in this place. I call on
him----" raising her clear voice. "I call on him to stand between
us." He backed away from her, staring an evil, =
enraptured
stare. "What! There is that much temperament=
in
you?" he said. "That was what I half-suspected when I saw you fir=
st.
But you have hidden it well. Now it bursts forth in spite of you. Good Lord!
What luck--what luck!" He moved to the door and opened it. "I am a very modern man, and I enjoy =
this
to the utmost," he said. "What I like best is the melodrama of it=
--in
connection with Fifth Avenue. I am perfectly aware that you will not discuss
this incident in the future. You are a clever enough young woman to know th=
at
it will be more to your interest than to mine that it shall be kept exceedi=
ngly
quiet." The white fire had not died out of her and=
she
stood straight. "What I have called on will be near m=
e,
and will stand between us," she said. Old though it was, the door was massive and
heavy to lift. To open it cost him some muscular effort. "I am going to the horses now," =
he
explained before he dragged it back into its frame and shut her in. "I=
t is
safe enough to leave you here. You will stay where you are." He felt himself secure in leaving her beca=
use
he believed she could not move, and because his arrogance made it impossible
for him to count on strength and endurance greater than his own. Of enduran=
ce
he knew nothing and in his keen and cynical exultance his devil made a fool=
of him. As she heard him walk down the path to the
gate, Betty stood amazed at his lack of comprehension of her. "He thinks I will stay here. He
absolutely thinks I will wait until he comes back," she whispered to t=
he emptiness
of the bare room. Before he had arrived she had loosened her
boot, and now she stooped and touched her foot. "If I were safe at home I should thin=
k I
could not walk, but I can walk now--I can--I can--because I will bear the
pain." In such cottages there is always a door
opening outside from the little bricked kitchen, where the copper stands. S=
he
would reach that, and, passing through, would close it behind her. After th=
at
SOMETHING would tell her what to do--something would lead her. She put her lame foot upon the floor, and
rested some of her weight upon it--not all. A jagged pain shot up from it
through her whole side it seemed, and, for an instant, she swayed and ground
her teeth. "That is because it is the first
step," she said. "But if I am to be killed, I will die in the ope=
n--I
will die in the open." The second and third steps brought cold sw=
eat
out upon her, but she told herself that the fourth was not quite so unbeara=
ble,
and she stiffened her whole body, and muttered some words while she took a
fifth and sixth which carried her into the tiny back kitchen. "Father," she said. "Father,
think of me now--think of me! Rosy, love me--love me and pray that I may co=
me
home. You--you who have died, stand very near!" If her father ever held her safe in his ar=
ms
again--if she ever awoke from this nightmare, it would be a thing never to =
let
one's mind hark back to again--to shut out of memory with iron doors. The pain had shot up and down, and her
forehead was wet by the time she had reached the small back door. Was it lo=
cked
or bolted--was it? She put her hand gently upon the latch and lifted it wit=
hout
making any sound. Thank God Almighty, it was neither bolted nor locked, the
latch lifted, the door opened, and she slid through it into the shadow of t=
he grey
which was already almost the darkness of night. Thank God for that, too. She flattened herself against the outside =
wall
and listened. He was having difficulty in managing Childe Harold, who snort=
ed
and pulled back, offended and made rebellious by his savagely impatient han=
d.
Good Childe Harold, good boy! She could see the massed outline of the trees=
of
the spinney. If she could bear this long enough to get there--even if she
crawled part of the way. Then it darted through her mind that he would guess
that she would be sure to make for its cover, and that he would go there fi=
rst
to search. "Father, think for me--you were so qu=
ick
to think!" her brain cried out for her, as if she was speaking to one =
who
could physically hear. She almost feared she had spoken aloud, and
the thought which flashed upon her like lightning seemed to be an answer gi=
ven.
He would be convinced that she would at once try to get away from the house=
. If
she kept near it--somewhere--somewhere quite close, and let him search the =
spinney,
she might get away to its cover after he gave up the search and came back. =
The
jagged pain had settled in a sort of impossible anguish, and once or twice =
she
felt sick. But she would die in the open--and she knew Rosalie was frighten=
ed
by her absence, and was praying for her. Prayers counted and, yet, they had=
all
prayed yesterday. "If I were not very strong, I should
faint," she thought. "But I have been strong all my life. That gr=
eat
French doctor--I have forgotten his name--said that I had the physique to
endure anything." She said these things that she might gain
steadiness and convince herself that she was not merely living through a
nightmare. Twice she moved her foot suddenly because she found herself in a
momentary respite from pain, beginning to believe that the thing was a
nightmare--that nothing mattered--because she would wake up presently--so s=
he
need not try to hide. "But in a nightmare one has no pain. =
It
is real and I must go somewhere," she said, after the foot was moved. =
Where
could she go? She had not looked at the place as she rode up. She had only =
half-consciously
seen the spinney. Nigel was swearing at the horses. Having got Childe Harold
into the shed, there seemed to be nothing to fasten his bridle to. And he h=
ad
yet to bring his own horse in and secure him. She must get away somewhere
before the delay was over. How dark it was growing! Thank God for that
again! What was the rather high, dark object she could trace in the dimness
near the hedge? It was sharply pointed, is if it were a narrow tent. Her he=
art
began to beat like a drum as she recalled something. It was the shape of the
sort of wigwam structure made of hop poles, after they were taken from the =
fields.
If there was space between it and the hedge--even a narrow space--and she c=
ould
crouch there? Nigel was furious because Childe Harold was backing, plunging,
and snorting dangerously. She halted forward, shutting her teeth in her
terrible pain. She could scarcely see, and did not recognise that near the
wigwam was a pile of hop poles laid on top of each other horizontally. It w=
as
not quite as high as the hedge whose dark background prevented its being se=
en.
Only a few steps more. No, she was awake--in a nightmare one felt only terr=
or,
not pain. "YOU, WHO DIED TO-DAY," she
murmured. She saw the horizontal poles too late. One=
of
them had rolled from its place and lay on the ground, and she trod on it, w=
as
thrown forward against the heap, and, in her blind effort to recover hersel=
f,
slipped and fell into a narrow, grassed hollow behind it, clutching at the =
hedge.
The great French doctor had not been quite right. For the first time in her
life she felt herself sinking into bottomless darkness--which was what happ=
ened
to people when they fainted. When she opened her eyes she could see
nothing, because on one side of her rose the low mass of the hop poles, and=
on
the other was the long-untrimmed hedge, which had thrown out a thick,
sheltering growth and curved above her like a penthouse. Was she awakening,
after all? No, because the pain was awakening with her, and she could hear,
what seemed at first to be quite loud sounds. She could not have been
unconscious long, for she almost immediately recognised that they were the =
echo
of a man's hurried footsteps upon the bare wooden stairway, leading to the
bedrooms in the empty house. Having secured the horses, Nigel had returned =
to
the cottage, and, finding her gone had rushed to the upper floor in search =
of
her. He was calling her name angrily, his voice resounding in the emptiness=
of
the rooms. "Betty; don't play the fool with
me!" She cautiously drew herself further under
cover, making sure that no end of her habit remained in sight. The overgrow=
th
of the hedge was her salvation. If she had seen the spot by daylight, she w=
ould
not have thought it a possible place of concealment. Once she had read an account of a woman's
frantic flight from a murderer who was hunting her to her death, while she
slipped from one poor hiding place to another, sometimes crouching behind w=
alls
or bushes, sometimes lying flat in long grass, once wading waist-deep throu=
gh a
stream, and at last finding a miserable little fastness, where she hid
shivering for hours, until her enemy gave up his search. One never felt the
reality of such histories, but there was actually a sort of parallel in thi=
s.
Mad and crude things were let loose, and the world of ordinary life seemed =
thousands
of miles away. She held her breath, for he was leaving the
house by the front door. She heard his footsteps on the bricked path, and t=
hen
in the lane. He went to the road, and the sound of his feet died away for a=
few
moments. Then she heard them returning--he was back in the lane--on the bri=
ck
path, and stood listening or, perhaps, reflecting. He muttered something ex=
clamatory,
and she heard a match struck, and shortly afterwards he moved across the ga=
rden
patch towards the little spinney. He had thought of it, as she had believed=
he
would. He would not think of this place, and in the end he might get tired =
or
awakened to a sense of his lurid folly, and realise that it would be safer =
for
him to go back to Stornham with some clever lie, trusting to his belief that
there existed no girl but would shrink from telling such a story in connect=
ion
with a man who would brazenly deny it with contemptuous dramatic detail. If=
he
would but decide on this, she would be safe--and it would be so like him th=
at she
dared to hope. But, if he did not, she would lie close, even if she must wa=
it
until morning, when some labourer's cart would surely pass, and she would h=
ear
it jolting, and drag herself out, and call aloud in such a way that no man
could be deaf. There was more room under her hedge than she had thought, and
she found that she could sit up, by clasping her knees and bending her head,
while she listened to every sound, even to the rustle of the grass in the w=
ind
sweeping across the marsh. She moved very gradually and slowly, and h=
ad
just settled into utter motionlessness when she realised that he was coming
back through the garden--the straggling currant and gooseberry bushes were
being trampled through. "Betty, go home," Rosalie had
pleaded. "Go home--go home." And she had refused, because she cou=
ld
not desert her. She held her breath and pressed her hand
against her side, because her heart beat, as it seemed to her, with an actu=
al
sound. He moved with unsteady steps from one point to another, more than on=
ce
he stumbled, and his angry oath reached her; at last he was so near her hid=
ing
place that his short hard breathing was a distinct sound. A moment later he=
spoke,
raising his voice, which fact brought to her a rush of relief, through its
signifying that he had not even guessed her nearness. "My dear Betty," he said, "=
you
have the pluck of the devil, but circumstances are too much for you. You are
not on the road, and I have been through the spinney. Mere logic convinces =
me
that you cannot be far away. You may as well give the thing up. It will be
better for you." "You who died to-day--do not leave
me," was Betty's inward cry, and she dropped her face on her knees. "I am not a pleasant-tempered fellow,=
as
you know, and I am losing my hold on myself. The wind is blowing the mist a=
way,
and there will be a moon. I shall find you, my good girl, in half an hour's
time--and then we shall be jolly well even." She had not dropped her whip, and she held=
it
tight. If, when the moonlight revealed the pile of hop poles to him, he
suspected and sprang at them to tear them away, she would be given strength=
to
make one spring, even in her agony, and she would strike at his eyes--awful=
ly, without
one touch of compunction--she would strike--strike. There was a brief silence, and then a match
was struck again, and almost immediately she inhaled the fragrance of an
excellent cigar. "I am going to have a comfortable smo=
ke
and stroll about--always within sight and hearing. I daresay you are watchi=
ng
me, and wondering what will happen when I discover you, I can tell you what
will happen. You are not a hysterical girl, but you will go into hysterics-=
-and
no one will hear you." (All the power of her--body and soul--in o=
ne
leap on him and then a lash that would cut to the bone. And it was not a
nightmare--and Rosy was at Stornham, and her father looking over steamer li=
sts
and choosing his staterooms.) He walked about slowly, the scent of his c=
igar
floating behind him. She noticed, as she had done more than once before, th=
at
he seemed to slightly drag one foot, and she wondered why. The wind was blo=
wing
the mist away, and there was a faint growing of light. The moon was not ful=
l,
but young, and yet it would make a difference. But the upper part of the he=
dge
grew thick and close to the heap of wood, and, but for her fall, she would
never have dreamed of the refuge. She could only guess at his movements, but=
his
footsteps gave some clue. He was examining the ground in as far as the dark=
ness
would allow. He went into the shed and round about it, he opened the door of
the tiny coal lodge, and looked again into the small back kitchen. He came =
near--nearer--so
near once that, bending sidewise, she could have put out a hand and touched
him. He stood quite still, then made a step or so away, stood still again, =
and
burst into a laugh once more. "Oh, you are here, are you?" he
said. "You are a fine big girl to be able to crowd yourself into a pla=
ce
like that!" Hot and cold dew stood out on her forehead=
and
made her hair damp as she held her whip hard. "Come out, my dear!" alluringly.
"It is not too soon. Or do you prefer that I should assist you?"<=
o:p> Her heart stood quite still--quite. He was
standing by the wigwam of hop poles and thought she had hidden herself insi=
de
it. Her place under the hedge he had not even glanced at. She knew he bent down and thrust his arm i=
nto
the wigwam, for his fury at the result expressed itself plainly enough. Tha=
t he
had made a fool of himself was worse to him than all else. He actually whee=
led
about and strode away to the house. Because minutes seemed hours, she thought =
he
was gone long, but he was not away for twenty minutes. He had, in fact, gone
into the bare front room again, and sitting upon the box near the hearth, l=
et
his head drop in his hands and remained in this position thinking. In the e=
nd
he got up and went out to the shed where he had left the horses. Betty was feeling that before long she mig=
ht
find herself making that strange swoop into the darkness of space again, and
that it did not matter much, as one apparently lay quite still when one was=
unconscious--when
she heard that one horse was being led out into the lane. What did that mea=
n?
Had he got tired of the chase--as the other man did--and was he going away
because discomfort and fatigue had cooled and disgusted him--perhaps even m=
ade
him feel that he was playing the part of a sensational idiot who was laying
himself open to derision? That would be like him, too. Presently she heard his footsteps once mor=
e,
but he did not come as near her as before--in fact, he stood at some yards'
distance when he stopped and spoke--in quite a new manner. "Betty," his tone was even cynic=
ally
cool, "I shall stalk you no more. The chase is at an end. I think I ha=
ve
taken all out of you I intended to. Perhaps it was a bad joke and was carri=
ed
too far. I wanted to prove to you that there were circumstances which might=
be
too much even for a young woman from New York. I have done it. Do you suppo=
se I
am such a fool as to bring myself within reach of the law? I am going away =
and will
send assistance to you from the next house I pass. I have left some matches=
and
a few broken sticks on the hearth in the cottage. Be a sensible girl. Limp =
in
there and build yourself a fire as soon as you hear me gallop away. You mus=
t be
chilled through. Now I am going." He tramped across the bit of garden, down =
the
brick path, mounted his horse and put it to a gallop at once. Clack, clack,
clack--clacking fainter and fainter into the distance--and he was gone. When she realised that the thing was true,=
the
effect upon her of her sense of relief was that the growing likelihood of a
second swoop into darkness died away, but one curious sob lifted her chest =
as
she leaned back against the rough growth behind her. As she changed her
position for a better one she felt the jagged pain again and knew that in t=
he tenseness
of her terror she had actually for some time felt next to nothing of her hu=
rt.
She had not even been cold, for the hedge behind and over her and the barri=
cade
before had protected her from both wind and rain. The grass beneath her was=
not
damp for the same reason. The weary thought rose in her mind that she might
even lie down and sleep. But she pulled herself together and told herself t=
hat
this was like the temptation of believing in the nightmare. He was gone, and
she had a respite--but was it to be anything more? She did not make any att=
empt
to leave her place of concealment, remembering the strange things she had l=
earned
in watching him, and the strange terror in which Rosalie lived. "One never knows what he will do next=
; I
will not stir," she said through her teeth. "No, I will not stir =
from
here." And she did not, but sat still, while the =
pain
came back to her body and the anguish to her heart--and sometimes such
heaviness that her head dropped forward upon her knees again, and she fell =
into
a stupefied half-doze. From one such doze she awakened with a sta=
rt,
hearing a slight click of the gate. After it, there were several seconds of
dead silence. It was the slightness of the click which was startling--if it=
had
not been caused by the wind, it had been caused by someone's having cautiou=
sly moved
it--and this someone wishing to make a soundless approach had immediately s=
tood
still and was waiting. There was only one person who would do that. By this
time, the mist being blown away, the light of the moon began to make a grow=
ing
clearness. She lifted her hand and delicately held aside a few twigs that s=
he
might look out. She had been quite right in deciding not to
move. Nigel Anstruthers had come back, and after his pause turned, and avoi=
ding
the brick path, stole over the grass to the cottage door. His going had mer=
ely
been an inspiration to trap her, and the wood and matches had been intended=
to make
a beacon light for him. That was like him, as well. His horse he had left d=
own
the road. But the relief of his absence had been good
for her, and she was able to check the shuddering fit which threatened her =
for
a moment. The next, her ears awoke to a new sound. Something was stumbling
heavily about the patch of garden--some animal. A cropping of grass, a snor=
ting
breath, and more stumbling hoofs, and she knew that Childe Harold had manag=
ed to
loosen his bridle and limp out of the shed. The mere sense of his nearness
seemed a sort of protection. He had limped and stumbled to the front pa=
rt
of the garden before Nigel heard him. When he did hear, he came out of the
house in the humour of a man the inflaming of whose mood has been cumulativ=
e;
Childe Harold's temper also was not to be trifled with. He threw up his hea=
d,
swinging the bridle out of reach; he snorted, and even reared with an ugly =
lashing
of his forefeet. "Good boy!" whispered Betty.
"Do not let him take you--do not!" If he remained where he was he would attra=
ct
attention if anyone passed by. "Fight, Childe Harold, be as vicious as=
you
choose--do not allow yourself to be dragged back." And fight he did, with an ugliness of temp=
er
he had never shown before--with snortings and tossed head and lashed--out
heels, as if he knew he was fighting to gain time and with a purpose. But in the midst of the struggle Nigel
Anstruthers stopped suddenly. He had stumbled again, and risen raging and
stained with damp earth. Now he stood still, panting for breath--as still a=
s he
had stood after the click of the gate. Was he--listening? What was he liste=
ning
to? Had she moved in her excitement, and was it possible he had caught the
sound? No, he was listening to something else. Far up the road it echoed, b=
ut
coming nearer every moment, and very fast. Another horse--a big one--gallop=
ing
hard. Whosoever it was would pass this place; it could only be a man--God g=
rant
that he would not go by so quickly that his attention would not be arrested=
by
a shriek! Cry out she must--and if he did not hear and went galloping on his
way she would have betrayed herself and be lost. She bit off a groan by biting her lip. "You who died to-day--now--now!"=
Nearer and nearer. No human creature could
pass by a thing like this--it would not be possible. And Childe Harold, bac=
king
and fighting, scented the other horse and neighed fiercely and high. The ri=
der
was slackening his pace; he was near the lane. He had turned into it and
stopped. Now for her one frantic cry--but before she could gather power to =
give
it forth, the man who had stopped had flung himself from his saddle and was=
inside
the garden speaking. A big voice and a clear one, with a ringing tone of
authority. "What are you doing here? And what is=
the
matter with Miss Vanderpoel's horse?" it called out. Now there was danger of the swoop into the
darkness--great danger--though she clutched at the hedge that she might feel
its thorns and hold herself to the earth. "YOU!" Nigel Anstruthers cried o=
ut.
"You!" and flung forth a shout of laughter. "Where is she?" fiercely. "=
Lady
Anstruthers is terrified. We have been searching for hours. Only just now I
heard on the marsh that she had been seen to ride this way. Where is she, I
say?" A strong, angry, earthly voice--not part of
the melodrama--not part of a dream, but a voice she knew, and whose sound
caused her heart to leap to her throat, while she trembled from head to foo=
t,
and a light, cold dampness broke forth on her skin. Something had been a
dream--her wild, desolate ride--the slew tolling; for the voice which comma=
nded
with such human fierceness was that of the man for whom the heavy bell had
struck forth from the church tower. Sir Nigel recovered himself brilliantly. N=
ot
that he did not recognise that he had been a fool again and was in a nasty
place; but it was not for the first time in his life, and he had learned ho=
w to
brazen himself out of nasty places. "My dear Mount Dunstan," he answ=
ered
with tolerant irritation, "I have been having a devil of a time with
female hysterics. She heard the bell toll and ran away with the idea that it
was for you, and paid you the compliment of losing her head. I came on her =
here
when she had ridden her horse half to death and they had both come a croppe=
r.
Confound women's hysterics! I could do nothing with her. When I left her fo=
r a moment
she ran away and hid herself. She is concealed somewhere on the place or has
limped off on to the marsh. I wish some New York millionairess would work
herself into hysteria on my humble account." "Those are lies," Mount Dunstan
answered--"every damned one of them!" He wheeled around to look about him, attra=
cted
by a sound, and in the clearing moonlight saw a figure approaching which mi=
ght
have risen from the earth, so far as he could guess where it had come from.=
He
strode over to it, and it was Betty Vanderpoel, holding her whip in a clenc=
hed hand
and showing to his eagerness such hunted face and eyes as were barely human=
. He
caught her unsteadiness to support it, and felt her fingers clutch at the t=
weed
of his coatsleeve and move there as if the mere feeling of its rough texture
brought heavenly comfort to her and gave her strength. "Yes, they are lies, Lord Mount
Dunstan," she panted. "He said that he meant to get what he called
'even' with me. He told me I could not get away from him and that no one wo=
uld
hear me if I cried out for help. I have hidden like some hunted animal.&quo=
t;
Her shaking voice broke, and she held the cloth of his sleeve tightly.
"You are alive--alive!" with a sudden sweet wildness. "But i=
t is
true the bell tolled! While I was crouching in the dark I called to you--who
died to-day--to stand between us!" The man absolutely shuddered from head to
foot. "I was alive, and you see I heard you=
and
came," he answered hoarsely. He lifted her in his arms and carried her =
into
the cottage. Her cheek felt the enrapturing roughness of his tweed shoulder=
as
he did it. He laid her down on the couch of hay and turned away. "Don't move," he said. "I w=
ill
come back. You are safe." If there had been more light she would have
seen that his jaw was set like a bulldog's, and there was a red spark in his
eyes--a fearsome one. But though she did not clearly see, she KNEW, and the
nearness of the last hours swept away all relenting. Nigel Anstruthers having discreetly waited
until the two had passed into the house, and feeling that a man would be an
idiot who did not remove himself from an atmosphere so highly charged, was
making his way toward the lane and was, indeed, halfway through the gate wh=
en
heavy feet were behind him and a grip of ugly strength wrenched him backwar=
d. "Your horse is cropping the grass whe=
re
you left him, but you are not going to him," said a singularly meaning
voice. "You are coming with me." Anstruthers endeavoured to convince himself
that he did not at that moment turn deadly sick and that the brute would not
make an ass of himself. "Don't be a bally fool!" he cried
out, trying to tear himself free. The muscular hand on his shoulder being
reinforced by another, which clutched his collar, dragged him back, stumbli=
ng
ignominiously through the gooseberry bushes towards the cart-shed. Betty ly=
ing
upon her bed of hay heard the scuffling, mingled with raging and gasping
curses. Childe Harold, lifting his head from his cropping of the grass, loo=
ked
after the violently jerking figures and snorted slightly, snuffing with dil=
ated
red nostrils. As a war horse scenting blood and battle, he was excited. When Mount Dunstan got his captive into the
shed the blood which had surged in Red Godwyn's veins was up and leaping.
Anstruthers, his collar held by a hand with fingers of iron, writhed about =
and
turned a livid, ghastly face upon his captor. "You have twice my strength and half =
my
age, you beast and devil!" he foamed in a half shriek, and poured forth
frightful blasphemies. "That counts between man and man, but=
not
between vermin and executioner," gave back Mount Dunstan. The heavy whip, flung upward, whistled down
through the air, cutting through cloth and linen as though it would cut thr=
ough
flesh to bone. "By God!" shrieked the writhing
thing he held, leaping like a man who has been shot. "Don't do that ag=
ain!
DAMN you!" as the unswerving lash cut down again--again. What followed would not be good to describ=
e.
Betty through the open door heard wild and awful things--and more than once=
a
sound as if a dog were howling. When the thing was over, one of the two--h=
is
clothes cut to ribbons, his torn white linen exposed, lay, a writhing, hudd=
led
worm, hiccoughing frenzied sobs upon the earth in a corner of the cart-shed.
The other man stood over him, breathless and white, but singularly exalted.=
"You won't want your horse to-night,
because you can't use him," he said. "I shall put Miss Vanderpoel=
's
saddle upon him and ride with her back to Stornham. You think you are cut to
pieces, but you are not, and you'll get over it. I'll ask you to mark, howe=
ver,
that if you open your foul mouth to insinuate lies concerning either Lady
Anstruthers or her sister I will do this thing again in public some day--on=
the
steps of your club--and do it more thoroughly." He walked into the cottage soon afterwards
looking, to Betty Vanderpoel's eyes, pale and exceptionally big, and also m=
ore
a man than it is often given even to the most virile male creature to look-=
-and
he walked to the side of her resting place and stood there looking down. "I thought I heard a dog howl," =
she
said. "You did hear a dog howl," he an=
swered.
He said no other word, and she asked no further question. She knew what he =
had
done, and he was well aware that she knew it. There was a long, strangely tense silence.=
The
light of the moon was growing. She made at first no effort to rise, but lay
still and looked up at him from under splendid lifted lashes, while his own
gaze fell into the depth of hers like a plummet into a deep pool. This
continued for almost a full minute, when he turned quickly away and walked =
to
the hearth, indrawing a heavy breath. He could not endure that which beset him; =
it
was unbearable, because her eyes had maddeningly seemed to ask him some wis=
tful
question. Why did she let her loveliness so call to him. She was not a trif=
ler
who could play with meanings. Perhaps she did not know what her power was. =
Sometimes
he could believe that beautiful women did not. In a few moments, almost before he could r=
each
her, she was rising, and when she got up she supported herself against the =
open
door, standing in the moonlight. If he was pale, she was pale also, and her
large eyes would not move from his face, so drawing him that he could not k=
eep
away from her. "Listen," he broke out suddenly.
"Penzance told me--warned me--that some time a moment would come which
would be stronger than all else in a man--than all else in the world. It has
come now. Let me take you home." "Than what else?" she said slowl=
y,
and became even paler than before. He strove to release himself from the
possession of the moment, and in his struggle answered with a sort of savag=
ery. "Than scruple--than power--even than a
man's determination and decent pride." "Are you proud?" she half whispe=
red
quite brokenly. "I am not--since I waited for the ringing of the church
bell--since I heard it toll. After that the world was empty--and it was as
empty of decent pride as of everything else. There was nothing left. I was =
the
humblest broken thing on earth." "You!" he gasped. "Do you k=
now
I think I shall go mad directly perhaps it is happening now. YOU were humbl=
e and
broken--your world was empty! Because----?" "Look at me, Lord Mount Dunstan,"
and the sweetest voice in the world was a tender, wild little cry to him.
"Oh LOOK at me!" He caught her out-thrown hands and looked =
down
into the beautiful passionate soul of her. The moment had come, and the tid=
al
wave rising to its height swept all the common earth away when, with a sava=
ge
sob, he caught and held her close and hard against that which thudded racin=
g in
his breast. And they stood and swayed together, folded=
in
each other's arms, while the wind from the marshes lifted its voice like an
exulting human thing as it swept about them. CHAPTER XLIX - AT STORNHAM AND AT
BROADMORLANDS The exulting wind had swept the clouds awa=
y,
and the moon rode in a dark blue sea of sky, making the night light purely
clear, when they drew a little apart, that they might better see the
wonderfulness in each other's faces. It was so mysteriously great a thing t=
hat
they felt near to awe. "I fought too long. I wore out my bod=
y's
endurance, and now I am quaking like a boy. Red Godwyn did not begin his wo=
oing
like this. Forgive me," Mount Dunstan said at last. "Do you know," with lovely tremb=
ling
lips and voice, "that for long--long--you have been unkind to me?"=
; It was merely human that he should swiftly
enfold her again, and answer with his lips against her cheek. "Unkind! Unkind! Oh, the heavenly wom=
an's
sweetness of your telling me so--the heavenly sweetness of it!" he
exclaimed passionately and low. "And I was one of those who are 'by the
roadside everywhere,' an unkempt, raging beggar, who might not decently ask=
you
for a crust." "It was all wrong--wrong!" she
whispered back to him, and he poured forth the tenderest, fierce words of
confession and prayer, and she listened, drinking them in, with now and the=
n a
soft sob pressed against the roughness of the enrapturing tweed. For a space
they had both forgotten her hurt, because there are other things than terror
which hypnotise pain. Mount Dunstan was to be praised for remembering it fi=
rst.
He must take her back to Stornham and her sister without further delay. "I will put your saddle on Anstruther=
s'
horse, or mine, and lift you to your seat. There is a farmhouse about two m=
iles
away, where I will take you first for food and warmth. Perhaps it would be =
well
for you to stay there to rest for an hour or so, and I will send a message =
to
Lady Anstruthers." "I will go to the place, and eat and
drink what you advise," she answered. "But I beg you to take me b=
ack
to Rosalie without delay. I feel that I must see her." "I feel that I must see her, too,&quo=
t;
he said. "But for her--God bless her!" he added, after his sudden
pause. Betty knew that the exclamation meant stro=
ng
feeling, and that somehow in the past hours Rosalie had awakened it. But it=
was
only when, after their refreshment at the farm, they had taken horse again =
and
were riding homeward together, that she heard from him what had passed betw=
een
them. "All that has led to this may seem the
merest chance," he said. "But surely a strange thing has come abo=
ut.
I know that without understanding it." He leaned over and touched her
hand. "You, who are Life--without understanding I ride here beside you,
believing that you brought me back." "I tried--I tried! With all my streng=
th,
I tried." "After I had seen your sister to-day,=
I
guessed--I knew. But not at first. I was not ill of the fever, as excited
rumour had it; but I was ill, and the doctors and the vicar were alarmed. I=
had
fought too long, and I was giving up, as I have seen the poor fellows in the
ballroom give up. If they were not dragged back they slipped out of one's
hands. If the fever had developed, all would have been over quickly. I knew=
the
doctors feared that, and I am ashamed to say I was glad of it. But, yesterd=
ay,
in the morning, when I was letting myself go with a morbid pleasure in the
luxurious relief of it--something reached me--some slow rising call to effo=
rt
and life." She turned towards him in her saddle,
listening, her lips parted. "I did not even ask myself what was
happening, but I began to be conscious of being drawn back, and to long
intensely to see you again. I was gradually filled with a restless feeling =
that
you were near me, and that, though I could not physically hear your voice, =
you
were surely CALLING to me. It was the thing which could not be--but it was-=
-and
because of it I could not let myself drift." "I did call you! I was on my knees in=
the
church asking to be forgiven if I prayed mad prayers--but praying the same
thing over and over. The villagers were kneeling there, too. They crowded i=
n,
leaving everything else. You are their hero, and they were in deep
earnest." His look was gravely pondering. His life h=
ad
not made a mystic of him--it was Penzance who was the mystic--but he felt
himself perplexed by mysteriously suggestive thought. "I was brought back--I was brought
back," he said. "In the afternoon I fell asleep and slept profoun=
dly
until the morning. When I awoke, I realised that I was a remade man. The
doctors were almost awed when I first spoke to them. Old Dr. Fenwick died
later, and, after I had heard about it, the church bell was tolled. It was
heard at Weaver's farmhouse, and, as everybody had been excitedly waiting f=
or
the sound, it conveyed but one idea to them--and the boy was sent racing ac=
ross
the fields to Stornham village. Dearest! Dearest!" he exclaimed. She had bowed her head and burst into
passionate sobbing. Because she was not of the women who wept, her moment's
passion was strong and bitter. "It need not have been!" she shu=
ddered.
"One cannot bear it--because it need not have been!" "Stop your horse a moment," he s=
aid,
reining in his own, while, with burning eyes and swelling throat, he held a=
nd
steadied her. But he did not know that neither her sister nor her father ha=
d ever
seen her in such mood, and that she had never so seen herself. "You shall not remember it," he =
said
to her. "I will not," she answered,
recovering herself. "But for one moment all the awful hours rushed bac=
k.
Tell me the rest." "We did not know that the blunder had
been made until a messenger from Dole rode over to inquire and bring messag=
es
of condolence. Then we understood what had occurred and I own a sort of fre=
nzy
seized me. I knew I must see you, and, though the doctors were horribly
nervous, they dare not hold me back. The day before it would not have been
believed that I could leave my room. You were crying out to me, and though I
did not know, I was answering, body and soul. Penzance knew I must have my =
way
when I spoke to him--mad as it seemed. When I rode through Stornham village,
more than one woman screamed at sight of me. I shall not be able to blot ou=
t of
my mind your sister's face. She will tell you what we said to each other. I
rode away from the Court quite half mad----" his voice became very gen=
tle,
"because of something she had told me in the first wild moments."=
Lady Anstruthers had spent the night moving
restlessly from one room to another, and had not been to bed when they rode
side by side up the avenue in the early morning sunlight. An under keeper,
crossing the park a few hundred yards above them, after one glance, dashed
across the sward to the courtyard and the servants' hall. The news flashed =
electrically
through the house, and Rosalie, like a small ghost, came out upon the steps=
as
they reined in. Though her lips moved, she could not speak aloud, as she
watched Mount Dunstan lift her sister from her horse. "Childe Harold stumbled and I hurt my
foot," said Betty, trying to be calm. "I knew he would find you!" Rosa=
lie
answered quite faintly. "I knew you would!" turning to Mount Duns=
tan,
adoring him with all the meaning of her small paled face. She would have been afraid of her memory of
what she had said in the strange scene which had taken place before them a =
few
hours ago, but almost before either of the two spoke she knew that a great =
gulf
had been crossed in some one inevitable, though unforeseen, leap. How it ha=
d been
taken, when or where, did not in the least matter, when she clung to Betty =
and
Betty clung to her. After a few moments of moved and reverent
waiting, the admirable Jennings stepped forward and addressed her in lowered
voice. "There's been little sleep in the vil=
lage
this night, my lady," he murmured earnestly. "I promised they sho=
uld
have a sign, with your permission. If the flag was run up--they're all look=
ing
out, and they'd know." "Run it up, Jennings," Lady
Anstruthers answered, "at once." When it ran up the staff on the tower and
fluttered out in gay answering to the morning breeze, children in the villa=
ge
began to run about shouting, men and women appeared at cottage doors, and m=
ore
than one cap was thrown up in the air. But old Doby and Mrs. Welden, who had
been waiting for hours, standing by Mrs. Welden's gate, caught each other's=
dry,
trembling old hands and began to cry. The Broadmorlands divorce scandal, having =
made
conversation during a season quite forty years before Miss Vanderpoel appea=
red
at Stornham Court, had been laid upon a lower shelf and buried beneath other
stories long enough to be forgotten. Only one individual had not forgotten =
it, and
he was the Duke of Broadmorlands himself, in whose mind it remained hideous=
ly
clear. He had been a young man, honestly and much in love when it first
revealed itself to him, and for a few months he had even thought it might e=
nd
by being his death, notwithstanding that he was strong and in first-rate
physical condition. He had been a fine, hearty young man of clean and rather
dignified life, though he was not understood to be brilliant of mind. Priva=
tely
he had ideals connected with his rank and name which he was not fluent enou=
gh
clearly to express. After he had realised that he should not die of the pub=
lic humiliation
and disgrace, which seemed to point him out as having been the kind of gull=
ible
fool it is scarcely possible to avoid laughing at--or, so it seemed to him =
in
his heart-seared frenzy--he thought it not improbable that he should go mad=
. He
was harried so by memories of lovely little soft ways of Edith's (his wife's
name was Edith), of the pretty sound of her laugh, and of her innocent, gir=
lish
habit of kneeling down by her bedside every night and morning to say her
prayers. This had so touched him that he had sometimes knelt down to say hi=
s, too,
saying to her, with slight awkward boyishness, that a fellow who had a sort=
of
angel for his wife ought to do his best to believe in the things she believ=
ed
in. "And all the time----!" a devil =
who
laughed used to snigger in his ear over and over again, until it was almost
like the ticking of a clock during the worst months, when it did not seem
probable that a man could feel his brain whirling like a Catherine wheel ni=
ght
and day, and still manage to hold on and not reach the point of howling and
shrieking and dashing his skull against wails and furniture. But that passed in time, and he told himse=
lf
that he passed with it. Since then he had lived chiefly at Broadmorlands
Castle, and was spoken of as a man who had become religious, which was not
true, but, having reached the decision that religion was good for most peop=
le,
he paid a good deal of attention to his church and schools, and was rigorou=
s in
the matter of curates. He had passed seventy now, and was somewhat
despotic and haughty, because a man who is a Duke and does not go out into =
the
world to rub against men of his own class and others, but lives altogether =
on a
great and splendid estate, saluted by every creature he meets, and universa=
lly obeyed
and counted before all else, is not unlikely to forget that he is a quite
ordinary human being, and not a sort of monarch. He had done his best to forget Edith, who =
had
soon died of being a shady curate's wife in Australia, but he had not been =
able
to encompass it. He used, occasionally, to dream she was kneeling by the be=
d in
her childish nightgown saying her prayers aloud, and would waken crying--as=
he
had cried in those awful young days. Against social immorality or village l=
ight-mindedness
he was relentlessly savage. He allowed for no palliating or exonerating fac=
ts.
He began to see red when he heard of or saw lightness in a married woman, a=
nd
the outside world frequently said that this characteristic bordered on
monomania. Nigel Anstruthers, having met him once or
twice, had at first been much amused by him, and had even, by giving him an
adroitly careful lead, managed to guide him into an expression of opinion. =
The
Duke, who had heard men of his class discussed, did not in the least like h=
im, notwithstanding
his sympathetic suavity of manner and his air of being intelligently impres=
sed
by what he heard. Not long afterwards, however, it transpired that the aged
rector of Broadmorlands having died, the living had been given to Ffolliott,
and, hearing it, Sir Nigel was not slow to conjecture that quite decently
utilisable tools would lie ready to his hand if circumstances pressed; this
point of view, it will be seen, being not illogical. A man who had not been=
a
sort of hermit would have heard enough of him to be put on his guard, and o=
ne
who was a man of the world, looking normally on existence, would have reaso=
ned
coolly, and declined to concern himself about what was not his affair. But =
a parallel
might be drawn between Broadmorlands and some old lion wounded sorely in his
youth and left to drag his unhealed torment through the years of age. On one
subject he had no point of view but his own, and could be roused to fury al=
most
senseless by wholly inadequately supported facts. He presented exactly the
material required--and that in mass. About the time the flag was run up on the
tower at Stornham Court a carter, driving whistling on the road near the
deserted cottage, was hailed by a man who was walking slowly a few yards ah=
ead
of him. The carter thought that he was a tramp, as his clothes were plainly=
in bad
case, which seeing, his answer was an unceremonious grunt, and it certainly=
did
not occur to him to touch his forehead. A minute later, however, he "g=
ot a
start," as he related afterwards. The tramp was a gentleman whose ridi=
ng
costume was torn and muddied, and who looked "gashly," though he =
spoke
with the manner and authority which Binns, the carter, recognised as that of
one of the "gentry" addressing a day-labourer. "How far is it from here to Medham?&q=
uot;
he inquired. "Medham be about four mile, sir,"
was the answer. "I be carryin' these 'taters there to market." "I want to get there. I have met with=
an
accident. My horse took fright at a pheasant starting up rocketting under h=
is
nose. He threw me into a hedge and bolted. I'm badly enough bruised to want=
to
reach a town and see a doctor. Can you give me a lift?" "That I will, sir, ready enough,"
making room on the seat beside him. "You be bruised bad, sir," he
said sympathetically, as his passenger climbed to his place, with a twisted
face and uttering blasphemies under his breath. "Damned badly," he answered.
"No bones broken, however." "That cut on your cheek and neck'll n=
eed
plasterin', sir." "That's a scratch. Thorn bush,"
curtly. Sympathy was plainly not welcome. In fact
Binns was soon of the opinion that here was an ugly customer, gentleman or =
no
gentleman. A jolting cart was, however, not the best place for a man who se=
emed
sore from head to foot, and done for out and out. He sat and ground his tee=
th,
as he clung to the rough seat in the attempt to steady himself. He became m=
ore
and more "gashly," and a certain awful light in his eyes alarmed =
the
carter by leaping up at every jolt. Binns was glad when he left him at Medh=
am
Arms, and felt he had earned the half-sovereign handed to him. Four days Anstruthers lay in bed in a room=
at
the Inn. No one saw him but the man who brought him food. He did not send f=
or a
doctor, because he did not wish to see one. He sent for such remedies as we=
re
needed by a man who had been bruised by a fall from his horse. He made no
remark which could be considered explanatory, after he had said irritably t=
hat a
man was a fool to go loitering along on a nervous brute who needed watching.
Whatsoever happened was his own damned fault. Through hours of day and night he lay star=
ing
at the whitewashed beams or the blue roses on the wall paper. They were long
hours, and filled with things not pleasant enough to dwell on in detail.
Physical misery which made a man writhe at times was not the worst part of
them. There were a thousand things less endurable. More than once he foamed=
at
the mouth, and recognised that he gibbered like a madman. There was but one memory which saved him f=
rom
feeling that this was the very end of things. That was the memory of
Broadmorlands. While a man had a weapon left, even though it could not save
him, he might pay up with it--get almost even. The whole Vanderpoel lot cou=
ld
be plunged neck deep in a morass which would leave mud enough sticking to t=
hem,
even if their money helped them to prevent its entirely closing over their =
heads.
He could attend to that, and, after he had set it well going, he could get =
out.
There were India, South Africa, Australia--a dozen places that would do. And
then he would remember Betty Vanderpoel, and curse horribly under the bed
clothes. It was the memory of Betty which outdid all others in its power to
torment. On the morning of the fifth day the Duke of
Broadmorlands received a note, which he read with somewhat annoyed curiosit=
y. A
certain Sir Nigel Anstruthers, whom it appeared he ought to be able to reca=
ll,
was in the neighbourhood, and wished to see him on a parochial matter of
interest. "Parochial matter" was vague, and so was the Duke's
recollection of the man who addressed him. If his memory served him rightly=
, he
had met him in a country house in Somersetshire, and had heard that he was =
the acquaintance
of the disreputable eldest son. What could a person of that sort have to sa=
y of
parochial matters? The Duke considered, and then, in obedience to a rigorous
conscience, decided that one ought, perhaps, to give him half an hour. There was that in the intruder's aspect, w=
hen
he arrived in the afternoon, which produced somewhat the effect of shock. In
the first place, a man in his unconcealable physical condition had no right=
to
be out of his bed. Though he plainly refused to admit the fact, his manner =
of
bearing himself erect, and even with a certain touch of cool swagger, was, =
it
was evident, achieved only by determined effort. He looked like a man who h=
ad
not yet recovered from some evil fever. Since the meeting in Somersetshire =
he
had aged more than the year warranted. Despite his obstinate fight with him=
self
it was obvious that he was horribly shaky. A disagreeable scratch or cut,
running from cheek to neck, did not improve his personal appearance. He pleased his host no more than he had
pleased him at their first encounter; he, in fact, repelled him strongly, by
suggesting a degree of abnormality of mood which was smoothed over by an
attempt at entire normality of manner. The Duke did not present an approach=
able
front as, after Anstruthers had taken a chair, he sat and examined him with
bright blue old eyes set deep on either side of a dominant nose and framed =
over
by white eyebrows. No, Nigel Anstruthers summed him up, it would not be eas=
y to
open the matter with the old fool. He held himself magnificently aloof, with
that lack of modernity in his sense of place which, even at this late day,
sometimes expressed itself here and there in the manner of the feudal survi=
val. "I am afraid you have been ill,"=
with
rigid civility. "A man feels rather an outsider in
confessing he has let his horse throw him into a hedge. It was my own fault
entirely. I allowed myself to forget that I was riding a dangerously nervous
brute. I was thinking of a painful and absorbing subject. I was badly bruis=
ed
and scratched, but that was all." "What did your doctor say?" "That I was in luck not to have broke=
n my
neck." "You had better have a glass of
wine," touching a bell. "You do not look equal to any exertion.&q=
uot; In gathering himself together, Sir Nigel f=
elt
he was forced to use enormous effort. It had cost him a gruesome physical
struggle to endure the drive over to Broadmorlands, though it was only a few
miles from Medham. There had been something unnatural in the exertion neces=
sary
to sit upright and keep his mind decently clear. That was the worst of it. =
The
fever and raging hours of the past days and nights had so shaken him that he
had become exhausted, and his brain was not alert. He was not thinking rapi=
dly,
and several times he had lost sight of a point it was important to remember=
. He
grew hot and cold and knew his hands and voice shook, as he answered. But,
perhaps--he felt desperately--signs of emotion were not bad. "I am not quite equal to exertion,&qu=
ot;
he began slowly. "But a man cannot lie on his bed while some things are
undone--a MAN cannot." As the old Duke sat upright, the blue eyes
under his bent brows were startled, as well as curious. Was the man going o=
ut
of his mind about something? He looked rather like it, with the dampness
starting out on his haggard face, and the ugly look suddenly stamped there.=
The
fact was that the insensate fury which had possessed and torn Anstruthers a=
s he
had writhed in his inn bedroom had sprung upon him again in full force, and=
his
weakness could not control it, though it would have been wiser to hold it in
check. He also felt frightfully ill, which filled him with despair, and,
through this fact, he lost sight of the effect he produced, as he stood up,
shaking all over. "I come to you because you are the one
man who can most easily understand the thing I have been concealing for a g=
ood
many years." The Duke was irritated. Confound the
objectionable idiot, what did he mean by taking that intimate tone with a m=
an
who was not prepared to concern himself in his affairs? "Excuse me," he said, holding up=
an
authoritative hand, "are you going to make a confession? I don't like =
such
things. I prefer to be excused. Personal confidences are not parochial
matters." "This one is." And Sir Nigel was
sickeningly conscious that he was putting the statement rashly, while at the
same time all better words escaped him. "It is as much a parochial
matter," losing all hold on his wits and stammering, "as was--as
was--the affair of--your wife." It was the Duke who stood up now, scarlet =
with
anger. He sprang from his chair as if he had been a young man in whom some
insult had struck blazing fire. "You--you dare!" he shouted.
"You insolent blackguard! You force your way in here and
dare--dare----!" And he clenched his fist, wildly shaking it. Nigel Anstruthers, staggering on his uncer=
tain
feet, would have shouted also, but could not, though he tried, and he heard=
his
own voice come forth brokenly. "Yes, I dare! I--your--my
own--my----!" Swaying and tottering, he swung round to t=
he
chair he had left, and fell into it, even while the old Duke, who stood rag=
ing
before him, started back in outraged amazement. What was the fellow doing? =
Was
he making faces at him? The drawn malignant mouth and muscles suggested it.=
Was
he a lunatic, indeed? But the sense of disgusted outrage changed all at onc=
e to
horror, as, with a countenance still more hideously livid and twisted, his
visitor slid helplessly from his seat and lay a huddling heap of clothes on=
the
floor. CHAPTER L - THE PRIMEVAL THING When Mr. Vanderpoel landed in England his =
wife
was with him. This quiet-faced woman, who was known to be on her way to join
her daughter in England, was much discussed, envied, and glanced at, when s=
he promenaded
the deck with her husband, or sat in her chair softly wrapped in wonderful
furs. Gradually, during the past months, she had been told certain modified
truths connected with her elder daughter's marriage. They had been painful
truths, but had been so softened and expurgated of their worst features tha=
t it
had been possible to bear them, when one realised that they did not, at lea=
st,
mean that Rosy had forgotten or ceased to love her mother and father, or wi=
sh
to visit her home. The steady clearness of foresight and readiness of resou=
rce
which were often spoken of as being specially characteristic of Reuben S.
Vanderpoel, were all required, and employed with great tenderness, in the
management of this situation. As little as it was possible that his wife sh=
ould
know, was the utmost she must hear and be hurt by. Unless ensuing events co=
mpelled
further revelations, the rest of it should be kept from her. As further
protection, her husband had frankly asked her to content herself with a deg=
ree
of limited information. "I have meant all our lives, Annie, to
keep from you the unpleasant things a woman need not be troubled with,"=
; he
had said. "I promised myself I would when you were a girl. I knew you
would face things, if I needed your help, but you were a gentle little soul,
like Rosy, and I never intended that you should bear what was useless.
Anstruthers was a blackguard, and girls of all nations have married blackgu=
ards
before. When you have Rosy safe at home, and know nothing can hurt her agai=
n, you
both may feel you would like to talk it over. Till then we won't go into
detail. You trust me, I know, when I tell you that you shall hold Rosy in y=
our
arms very soon. We may have something of a fight, but there can only be one=
end
to it in a country as decent as England. Anstruthers isn't exactly what I
should call an Englishman. Men rather like him are to be found in two or th=
ree
places." His good-looking, shrewd, elderly face lighted with a fine sm=
ile.
"My handsome Betty has saved us a good deal by carrying out her fiftee=
n-year-old
plan of going to find her sister," he ended. Before they landed they had decided that M=
rs.
Vanderpoel should be comfortably established in a hotel in London, and that
after this was arranged, her husband should go to Stornham Court alone. If =
Sir
Nigel could be induced to listen to logic, Rosalie, her child, and Betty sh=
ould
come at once to town. "And, if he won't listen to logic,&qu=
ot;
added Mr. Vanderpoel, with a dry composure, "they shall come just the
same, my dear." And his wife put her arms round his neck and kissed him
because she knew what he said was quite true, and she admired him--as she h=
ad
always done--greatly. But when the pilot came on board and there
began to stir in the ship the agreeable and exciting bustle of the delivery=
of
letters and welcoming telegrams, among Mr. Vanderpoel's many yellow envelop=
es
he opened one the contents of which caused him to stand still for some
moments--so still, indeed, that some of the bystanders began to touch each
other's elbows and whisper. He certainly read the message two or three time=
s before
he folded it up, returned it to its receptacle, and walked gravely to his
wife's sitting-room. "Reuben!" she exclaimed, after h=
er
first look at him, "have you bad news? Oh, I hope not!" He came and sat down quietly beside her,
taking her hand. "Don't be frightened, Annie, my
dear," he said. "I have just been reminded of a verse in the
Bible--about vengeance not belonging to mere human beings. Nigel Anstruthers
has had a stroke of paralysis, and it is not his first. Apparently, even if=
he
lies on his back for some months thinking of harm, he won't be able to do i=
t.
He is finished." When he was carried by the express train
through the country, he saw all that Betty had seen, though the summer had
passed, and there were neither green trees nor hedges. He knew all that the
long letters had meant of stirred emotion and affection, and he was strongly
moved, though his mind was full of many things. There were the farmhouses, =
the
square-towered churches, the red-pointed hop oasts, and the village childre=
n.
How distinctly she had made him see them! His Betty--his splendid Betty! His
heart beat at the thought of seeing her high, young black head, and holding=
her
safe in his arms again. Safe! He resented having used the word, because the=
re
was a shock in seeming to admit the possibility that anything in the univer=
se
could do wrong to her. Yet one man had been villain enough to mean her harm,
and to threaten her with it. He slightly shuddered as he thought of how the=
man
was finished--done for. The train began to puff more loudly, as it
slackened its pace. It was drawing near to a rustic little station, and, as=
it
passed in, he saw a carriage standing outside, waiting on the road, and a
footman in a long coat, glancing into each window as the train went by. Two=
or
three country people were watching it intently. Miss Vanderpoel's father was
coming up from London on it. The stationmaster rushed to open the carriage
door, and the footman hastened forward, but a tall lovely thing in grey was
opposite the step as Mr. Vanderpoel descended it to the platform. She did n=
ot
recognise the presence of any other human being than himself. For the moment
she seemed to forget even the broad-shouldered man who had plainly come with
her. As Reuben S. Vanderpoel folded her in his arms, she folded him and kis=
sed
him as he was not sure she had ever kissed him before. "My splendid Betty! My own fine
girl!" he said. And when she cried out "Father!
Father!" she bent and kissed the breast of his coat. He knew who the big young man was before s=
he
turned to present him. "This is Lord Mount Dunstan,
father," she said. "Since Nigel was brought home, he has been very
good to us." Reuben S. Vanderpoel looked well into the
man's eyes, as he shook hands with him warmly, and this was what he said to
himself: "Yes, she's safe. This is quite safe.=
It
is to be trusted with the whole thing." Not many days after her husband's arrival =
at
Stornham Court, Mrs. Vanderpoel travelled down from London, and, during her=
journey,
scarcely saw the wintry hedges and bare trees, because, as she sat in her c=
ushioned
corner of the railway carriage, she was inwardly offering up gentle,
pathetically ardent prayers of gratitude. She was the woman who prays, and =
the
many sad petitions of the past years were being answered at last. She was b=
eing
allowed to go to Rosy--whatsoever happened, she could never be really parted
from her girl again. She asked pardon many times because she had not been a=
ble
to be really sorry when she had heard of her son-in-law's desperate conditi=
on.
She could feel pity for him in his awful case, she told herself, but she co=
uld
not wish for the thing which perhaps she ought to wish for. She had confided
this to her husband with innocent, penitent tears, and he had stroked her
cheek, which had always been his comforting way since they had been young t=
hings
together. "My dear," he said, "if a t=
iger
with hydrophobia were loose among a lot of decent people--or indecent ones,=
for
the matter of that--you would not feel it your duty to be very sorry if, in
springing on a group of them, he impaled himself on an iron fence. Don't
reproach yourself too much." And, though the realism of the picture he
presented was such as to make her exclaim, "No! No!" there were s=
till
occasional moments when she breathed a request for pardon if she was hard of
heart--this softest of creatures human. It was arranged by the two who best knew a=
nd
loved her that her meeting with Rosalie should have no spectators, and that
their first hour together should be wholly unbroken in upon. "You have not seen each other for so
long," Betty said, when, on her arrival, she led her at once to the
morning-room where Rosy waited, pale with joy, but when the door was opened,
though the two figures were swept into each other's arms by one wild, tremu=
lous
rush of movement, there were no sounds to be heard, only caught breaths, un=
til
the door had closed again. The talks which took place between Mr.
Vanderpoel and Lord Mount Dunstan were many and long, and were of absorbing
interest to both. Each presented to the other a new world, and a type of wh=
ich
his previous knowledge had been but incomplete. "I wonder," Mr. Vanderpoel said,=
in
the course of one of them, "if my world appeals to you as yours appeal=
s to
me. Naturally, from your standpoint, it scarcely seems probable. Perhaps the
up-building of large financial schemes presupposes a certain degree of
imagination. I am becoming a romantic New York man of business, and I revel=
in
it. Kedgers, for instance," with the smile which, somehow, suggested
Betty, "Kedgers and the Lilium Giganteum, Mrs. Welden and old Doby
threaten to develop into quite necessary factors in the scheme of happiness.
What Betty has felt is even more comprehensible than it seemed at first.&qu=
ot; They walked and rode together about the
countryside; when Mount Dunstan itself was swept clean of danger, and only a
few convalescents lingered to be taken care of in the huge ballroom, they s=
pent
many days in going over the estate. The desolate beauty of it appealed to a=
nd
touched Mr. Vanderpoel, as it had appealed to and touched his daughter, and,
also, wakened in him much new and curious delight. But Mount Dunstan, with =
a touch
of his old obstinacy, insisted that he should ignore the beauty, and look c=
losely
at less admirable things. "You must see the worst of this,"=
; he
said. "You must understand that I can put no good face upon things, th=
at I
offer nothing, because I have nothing to offer." If he had not been swept through and throu=
gh
by a powerful and rapturous passion, he would have detested and abhorred th=
ese
days of deliberate proud laying bare of the nakedness of the land. But in t=
he
hours he spent with Betty Vanderpoel the passion gave him knowledge of the =
things
which, being elemental, do not concern themselves with pride and obstinacy,=
and
do not remember them. Too much had ended, and too much begun, to leave spac=
e or
thought for poor things. In their eyes, when they were together, and even w=
hen
they were apart, dwelt a glow which was deeply moving to those who, looking=
on,
were sufficiently profound of thought to understand. Watching the two walking slowly side by si=
de
down the leafless avenue on a crystal winter day, Mr. Vanderpoel conversed =
with
the vicar, whom he greatly liked. "A young man of the name of Selden,&q=
uot;
he remarked, "told me more of this than he knew." "G. Selden," said the vicar, with
affectionate smiling. "He is not aware that he was largely concerned in
the matter. In fact, without G. Selden, I do not know how, exactly, we shou=
ld
have got on. How is he, nice fellow?" "Extremely well, and in these days in=
my
employ. He is of the honest, indefatigable stuff which makes its way."=
His own smiles, as he watched the two tall
figures in the distance, settled into an expression of speculative absorpti=
on,
because he was reflecting upon profoundly interesting matters. "There is a great primeval thing which
sometimes--not often, only sometimes--occurs to two people," he went o=
n.
"When it leaps into being, it is well if it is not thwarted, or done to
death. It has happened to my girl and Mount Dunstan. If they had been two y=
oung
tinkers by the roadside, they would have come together, and defied their
beggary. As it is, I recognise, as I sit here, that the outcome of what is =
to
be may reach far, and open up broad new ways." "Yes," said the vicar. "She
will live here and fill a strong man's life with wonderful human happiness-=
-her
splendid children will be born here, and among them will be those who lead =
the
van and make history." . . . . . For some time Nigel Anstruthers lay in his
room at Stornham Court, surrounded by all of aid and luxury that wealth and
exalted medical science could gather about him. Sometimes he lay a livid
unconscious mask, sometimes his nurses and doctors knew that in his hollow =
eyes
there was the light of a raging half reason, and they saw that he struggled=
to
utter coherent sounds which they might comprehend. This he never accomplish=
ed,
and one day, in the midst of such an effort, he was stricken dumb again, an=
d soon
afterwards sank into stillness and died. And the Shuttle in the hand of Fate, throu=
gh
every hour of every day, and through the slow, deep breathing of all the si=
lent
nights, weaves to and fro--to and fro--drawing with it the threads of human
life and thought which strengthen its web: and trace the figures of its yet
vague and uncompleted design.