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 aside, 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 she submitted to it, Betty felt rather cold. After the conjugal greeting he turned to Ughtred.
“You look remarkably well,” he said.
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 during the last three months had done much for Lady Anstruthers’ nerves. She had the 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 done here. Remembering the worn rugs and the bald-headed tiger, he lifted his brows. 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 managed 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 was annoying to be robbed of.
The drawing-room was fresh, brightly charming, and full of flowers. Betty was standing before an open window with her sister. 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 this very amazing. I have been looking out of my window on to the gardens.”
“It is Betty who has done it all,” 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 conversational and asked many questions, professing a natural interest in what had been done. 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 owned 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 she 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 enjoyed 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 self 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 was 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 said 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 been 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 into 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?”
“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 admire 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 were 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. That 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,” Lady Anstruthers confessed, more than half reluctantly. “And then he got 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 accompany 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 him, 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 interests. In this case it was t
o 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 material benefit. And it could only be helped by his comprehending clearly what he had 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 haughty indifference—if your love-making had produced its proper effect—when it was necessary to lure or drive or trick them into submission. Women should be made useful in one way or another. Little fool as she was, Rosalie had been useful. He had, after all was said and done, had some comparatively easy years as the 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 their presence. A great bore,
of course, but they could not have spent their entire 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 temper, 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 thought 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 walk.
The first was to touch with dignified pathos 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 deformed in such a manner. The delicate reserve with which he managed to convey his fear 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 realised 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 was 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 would 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 grows 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 is at all like–-” He checked himself with a slight movement of his shoulders. “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 looked at him, smiling faintly. But her answer was quite mild and soft.
“Do not deprive me of compliments because I am a mere American,” she said. “I am very fond of them, and respond 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 and 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 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.
The Shuttle: By Frances Hodgson Burnett Page 38
