The Shuttle

F >> Frances Hodgson Burnett >> The Shuttle


They went from gardens to greenhouses, from greenhouses to stables, and
he was on the watch for the moment when she would 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, but
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 anything 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 always 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 vagueness. "Really, I am afraid I did not hear
of it. My poor wife has her own little 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-invalidism. 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 said, "with your 'She has taken me out.'
When I glanced at the magnificent array 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 our existence. But
charming Americans--of your order--arouse amiable emotions."

"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 jocular courtesy.

"No, you are not," he answered.

"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 opening in her armour--at least
of a joint in it. For he saw, near her ear, a deepening warmth. That was
it. She was quick-witted, and she hid somewhere a hot pride.

"I confess, however," he proceeded cheerfully, "that notwithstanding my
own experience of the habits of the 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----?" suggested 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 hand 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 she
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 sprang 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, rather slowly,
one--two--three--even four campanula stems before she stood upright
again.

As for Nigel Anstruthers--he went on talking 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 present himself as a
pretendant is an insolence he should be kicked for."

Betty arranged her campanulas carefully. There was no exterior reason
why she should draw sword in Lord Mount Dunstan's defence. He had
certainly not seemed to expect anything intimately interested from
her. His manner she had generally felt to be rather restrained. But one
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 kick him? Is this partisanship? I
hope not. Am I to understand," he added with 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 father, 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
you."

"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 young
men, are as disinterested as they were some years ago. Each has begun to
learn what the other has to give."

"I think that is true," commented Betty.

"In some cases there is a good deal to be exchanged on both sides. You
have a great deal to give, and should get exchange worth accepting. A
beggared estate and a tainted title are not good enough."

"That is businesslike," Betty made 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 despair 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 youth,
wit, and beauty were rendered impotent by a greatness of fortune whose
proportions 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, whose cost was writ large in plain figures, what
girl, with blood in her veins, could endure it long without wincing?
This girl had undue, and, as he regarded such 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 shall be able to protect myself,"
she said.

"Ah!" regretfully, "I am afraid I have annoyed you--and that you need
protection more than you suspect." 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 intimating that my admirers do not love
me for myself alone."

He paused, also, and, narrowing his eyes again, 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 without comment.

"Shall we go back to the house now?" 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 that she would
prefer to be alone.

"I must write some letters to catch the 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 paper towards her and took
up the pen, but the next moment she laid it down and gave a slight push
to the paper. As she did so she realised that her hand trembled.

"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 ought 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 insult 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 true,
something abominable about him, something which made his words more
abominable than they would have been if another man had uttered
them--but, though it was inevitable 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 malignity 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 hot 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 Dunholm 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 guests, 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 great personages indeed, and to be bidden to meet them implied
a selection flattering 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 what 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 popular in
the county; no one had yearned for the society of the Dowager Lady
Anstruthers, even in her youth; and a not too well-favoured young man
with an ill-favoured 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 his 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 splendours
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 return, 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 Dunholm Castle for the ball, doesn't
it?"

Her husband tossed the card aside on the table.

"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 beautiful 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 swollen 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 shock 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."

"What!" said Anstruthers, staring 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." Still in amazement at her own boldness,
but somehow learning something as she went on.

He walked over to her side, and stood before her.

"Look here, Rosalie," he said. "You have been taking lessons from your
sister. She is a beauty and young 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 fine 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 invitation in her hand. He
was quick enough, however, to turn to greet her with a shrug of his
shoulders.

"I am being favoured with a little scene 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, easy 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 saying 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 times. What IS the
resource in these dull days of law and order--and policemen?"

"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. "It 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."

"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 things 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 clearness, "at any moment you wished--as far away as you liked."

"You seem to forget," still feeling that convincing loftiness was not
easy, "that when a man leaves his wife, or she deserts him, it is she
who is likely to be called upon to bear the onus 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 sense of fair play
among the people who really count. The Dunholms, for instance, have
it markedly. In America it is the men who force women to take to their
heels who are deucedly unpopular. The Americans' sense of fair play is
their most English quality. It was brought over in ships by the first
colonists--like the pieces of fine solid old furniture, one even now
sees, here and there, in houses in Virginia."

"But the fact remains," said Nigel, 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 not 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 can 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 answered. "But I will ask him."

He was startled by a sudden feeling that she might be capable of it.

"Oh, come now," he said, "that 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 personal matter," she remarked. "Where do
the domestic difficulties come in?"

He stared at her a few seconds with the look 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 heel 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 himself 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 Betty 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 sister 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 during 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 one
individual. This individual was Mount Dunstan, whom it did not seem easy
for him to leave 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 with 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 interfered with hot young fury in a matter in
which the pair had specially wished to avoid 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, clumsy 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 question
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 stand, 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 chose 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 person 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 not
had dignity of position. He would not be held cheap in this matter, at
least. But 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-looking, 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 domination 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
particularly 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--support--aggrandisement--in referring to the ill case of the
Mount Dunstan estate, in relating illustrative 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 should be a
young person of much simplicity, who would not be alarmed or chilled by
the 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 certain points should be--as it were
inadvertently--brought before her.

Miss Vanderpoel was really rather fine, people said to each other
afterwards, when she entered the ballroom at Dunholm Castle 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 by 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 clever a girl not to realise the situation clearly,
they said to each other. She had 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 reluctant 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 remarked
that, on her part, she felt that a too great reserve verged upon
secretiveness, which was not a desirable girlish quality.