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The Shuttle Chapter 5 - On Both Sides of the Atlantic · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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Speaker 1: CHAPTER V. ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC In the
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Speaker 1: course of twelve years the shuttle had woven steadily, and
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Speaker 1: its movements lubricated by time and custom with increasing rapidity.
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Speaker 1: Threads of commerce it caught up and shot to and
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Speaker 1: fro with threads of literature and art, threads of life
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Speaker 1: drawn from one shore to the other and back again,
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Speaker 1: until they were bound in the fabric of its weaving.
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Speaker 1: Coldness there had been between both lands, broad divergence of
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Speaker 1: taste and thought, argument across seas, sometimes resentment, but the
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Speaker 1: web in fate's hands broadened and strengthened and held fast.
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Speaker 1: Coldness faintly warmed despite itself. Taste and thought, drawn into
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Speaker 1: nearer contact, reflecting upon their divergences, grew into tolerance, and
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Speaker 1: the knowledge that the diverging, seen more clearly, was not
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Speaker 1: so broad. Argument, coming within speaking distance, reasoned itself to
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Speaker 1: logical and practical conclusions. Problems which had stirred anger began
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Speaker 1: to find solutions. Books in the first place did perhaps
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Speaker 1: more than all else. Cheap pirated editions of English works,
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Speaker 1: much quarrelled over by authors and publishers, being scattered over
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Speaker 1: the land, brought before American eyes soft home-like pictures of
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Speaker 1: places which were, after all, were said and done, the
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Speaker 1: homes of those who read of them. at least in
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Speaker 1: the sense of having been the birthplaces of fathers or grandfathers.
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Speaker 1: Some subtle, far-reaching power of nature caused a stirring of
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Speaker 1: the blood, a vague and expressed yearning and lingering over
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Speaker 1: pages which depicted sweet green lanes, broad acres rich with
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Speaker 1: centuries of nourishment and care, grey church towers, red roofs,
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Speaker 1: and village children playing before cottage doors. None of these
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Speaker 1: things were new to those who pondered over them, Kinsmen
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Speaker 1: had dwelt on memories of them in their fireside talk,
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Speaker 1: and their children had seen them in fancy and in dreams.
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Speaker 1: Old grievances, having had time to fade away and take
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Speaker 1: on less poignant colour, the stirring of the blood stirred
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Speaker 1: also imaginations, and wakened something akin to homesickness, though no
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Speaker 1: man called the feeling by its name. And this, perhaps,
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Speaker 1: was the strongest cord the shuttle wove, and was the
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Speaker 1: true meaning of its power. Being drawn by it, americans
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Speaker 1: in increasing numbers turned their faces toward the older land
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Speaker 1: gradually it was discovered that it was the simplest affair
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Speaker 1: in the world to drive down to the wharves and
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Speaker 1: take a steamer which landed one after a more or
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Speaker 1: less interesting voyage in liverpool or at some other convenient
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Speaker 1: port from there one went to london or paris or
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Speaker 1: rome in fact whithersoever one's fancy guided but first or
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Speaker 1: last it always led the traveller to the treading of
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Speaker 1: green velvet english turf and once standing on such velvet,
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Speaker 1: both men and women, looking about them, felt despite themselves
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Speaker 1: the strange old thrill, which some of them half resented,
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Speaker 1: and some warmly loved. In the course of twelve years,
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Speaker 1: a length of time which will transform a little girl
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Speaker 1: wearing a short frock into a young woman wearing a
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Speaker 1: long one, the pace of life and the ordering of
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Speaker 1: society may become so altered as to appear amazing when
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Speaker 1: one finds time to reflect on the subject, but one
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Speaker 1: does not often find time. Changes occur so gradually that
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Speaker 1: one scarcely observes them, or so swiftly that they take
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Speaker 1: the form of a kind of amazed shock which one
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Speaker 1: gets over as quickly as one experiences it and realises
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Speaker 1: that its cause is already a fixed fact. In the
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Speaker 1: United States of America, which have not yet acquired the
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Speaker 1: serene sense of conservative self-satisfaction and repose which centuries of
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Speaker 1: age may bestow, the spirit of life itself is the
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Speaker 1: aspiration for change. Ambition itself only means the insistence on change.
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Speaker 1: Each day is to be better than yesterday, fuller of plans,
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Speaker 1: of briskness, of initiative. Each today demands of tomorrow new men,
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Speaker 1: new minds, new work. A today which has not launched
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Speaker 1: new ships, explored new countries, constructed new buildings, added stories
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Speaker 1: to old ones, may consider itself a failure, unworthy even
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Speaker 1: of being consigned to the limbo of respectable yesterdays. Such
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Speaker 1: a country lives by leaps and bounds, and the ten
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Speaker 1: years which followed the marriage of Reuben Vanderpool's eldest daughter
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Speaker 1: made many such bounds and leaps. There were years which
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Speaker 1: initiated and established international social relations in a manner which
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Speaker 1: caused them to incorporate themselves with the history of both countries.
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Speaker 1: As America discovered Europe, that continent discovered America. American beauties
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Speaker 1: began to appear in English drawing-rooms and continental salons. They
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Speaker 1: were presented at court and commented on in the row
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Speaker 1: and the bois. Their little transatlantic tricks of speech and
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Speaker 1: their mows were repeated with gusto. It became understood that
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Speaker 1: they were amusing and amazing. Americans came in as the
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Speaker 1: heroes and heroines of novels and stories. Punch delighted in
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Speaker 1: them vastly. Shopkeepers and hotel proprietors stocked, furnished, and provisioned
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Speaker 1: for them. They spent money enormously, and were singularly indifferent
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Speaker 1: at the outset under imposition. They came over in a
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Speaker 1: manner as epoch-making, though less warlike than that of William
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Speaker 1: the Conqueror. International marriages ceased to be a novelty. As
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Speaker 1: Bettina Vanderpool grew up, she grew up, so to speak,
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Speaker 1: in the midst of them. She saw her country, its people,
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Speaker 1: its newspapers, its literature, innocently rejoiced by the alliances its
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Speaker 1: charming young women contracted with foreign rank. She saw it affectionately,
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Speaker 1: gleefully rubbing its hands over its duchesses, its countesses, its maladies.
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Speaker 1: the American eagle spread its wings and flapped them sometimes
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Speaker 1: a trifle over this new but so natural and inevitable
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Speaker 1: triumph of its virgins. It was, of course, only American
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Speaker 1: that such things should happen. America ruled the universe, and
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Speaker 1: its women ruled America, bullying it a little, prettily perhaps.
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Speaker 1: What could be more a matter of course than that
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Speaker 1: American women, being aided by adoring fathers, brothers, and husbands,
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Speaker 1: sumptuously to ship themselves to other lands, should begin to
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Speaker 1: rule these lands also. Betty, in her growing up, heard
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Speaker 1: all this intimated. At twelve years old, though she had
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Speaker 1: detested Rosalie's marriage, she had rather liked to hear people
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Speaker 1: talk of the picturesqueness of places like Stornham Court, and
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Speaker 1: of the life led by women of rank in their
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Speaker 1: houses in town and country. Such talk nearly always involved
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Speaker 1: the description of things and people whose colour and tone
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Speaker 1: had only reached her through the medium of books, most
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Speaker 1: frequently fiction. She was, however, of an unusually observing mind
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Speaker 1: even as a child, and the time came when she
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Speaker 1: realised that the national bird spread its wings less proudly
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Speaker 1: when the subject of international matches was touched upon, and
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Speaker 1: even at such times showed signs of restlessness. Now and
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Speaker 1: then things had not turned out as they appeared to promise.
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Speaker 1: Two or three seemingly brilliant unions had resulted in disaster—
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Speaker 1: She had not understood all the details the newspapers cheerfully provided,
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Speaker 1: but it was clear to her that more than one
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Speaker 1: previously envied young woman had had practical reasons for discovering
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Speaker 1: that she had made an astonishingly bad bargain. This being
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Speaker 1: the case, she used frequently to ponder over the case
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Speaker 1: of Rosie, Rosie who had been swept away from them
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Speaker 1: and swallowed up, as it seemed, by the other and
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Speaker 1: older world. She was in certain ways a silent child,
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Speaker 1: and no one but herself knew how little she had
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Speaker 1: forgotten Rosie, how often she pondered over her, how sometimes
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Speaker 1: she had lain awake in the night and puzzled outlines
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Speaker 1: of argument concerning her and things which might be true.
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Speaker 1: The one grief of poor Mrs. Vanderpool's life had been
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Speaker 1: the apparent estrangement of her eldest child. After her first
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Speaker 1: six months in England, Lady Anstruthers' letters had become fewer
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Speaker 1: and further between, and had given so little information connected
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Speaker 1: with herself that affectionate curiosity became discouraged. sir nigel's brief
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Speaker 1: and rare epistles revealed so little desire for any relationship
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Speaker 1: with his wife's family that gradually rosy's image seemed to
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Speaker 1: fade into far distance and become fainter with the passing
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Speaker 1: of each month it seemed almost an incredible thing when
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Speaker 1: they allowed themselves to think of it but no member
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Speaker 1: of the family had ever been to stornham court two
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Speaker 1: or three efforts to arrange a visit had been made
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Speaker 1: but on each occasion had failed through some apparently accidental
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Speaker 1: cause Once Lady Anstruthers had been away, once a letter
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Speaker 1: had seemingly failed to reach her, once her children had
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Speaker 1: had scarlet fever, and the orders of the physicians in
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Speaker 1: attendance had been stringent in regard to visitors, even relatives
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Speaker 1: who did not fare conjugation. If she had been living
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Speaker 1: in New York and her children had been ill, I
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Speaker 1: should have been with her all the time, poor Mrs.
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Speaker 1: Vanderpool had said with tears. Rosie's changed awfully somehow. Her
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Speaker 1: letters don't sound a bit like she used to. It
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Speaker 1: seems as if she just doesn't care to see her
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Speaker 1: mother and father. Betty had frowned a good deal and
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Speaker 1: thought intensely in secret. She did not believe that Rosie
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Speaker 1: was ashamed of her relations. She remembered, however, it is true,
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Speaker 1: that Clara Newell, who had been a schoolmate, had become
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Speaker 1: very superfine and indifferent to her family after her marriage
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Speaker 1: to an aristocratic and learned German. Hers had been one
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Speaker 1: of the successful alliances and after living a few years
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Speaker 1: in Berlin she had quite looked down upon New Yorkers,
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Speaker 1: and had made herself exceedingly unpopular during her one brief
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Speaker 1: visit to her relatives. She seemed to think her father
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Speaker 1: and mother undignified and uncultivated, and she disapproved entirely of
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Speaker 1: her sister's dress and bearing. She said that they had
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Speaker 1: no distinction of manner, and that all their interests were
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Speaker 1: frivolous and unenlightened. But Clara always was a conceited girl,
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Speaker 1: thought Betty. She was always patronising people, and Rosie was
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Speaker 1: only pretty and sweet. She always said herself that she
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Speaker 1: had no brains, but she had a heart. After the
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Speaker 1: lapse of a few years there had been no further
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Speaker 1: discussion of plans for visiting Stornham. Rosalie had become so
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Speaker 1: remote as to appear almost unreachable. She had been presented
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Speaker 1: at court, she had had three children, the Dowager Lady
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Speaker 1: Anstruthers had died. Once she had written to her father
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Speaker 1: to ask for a large sum of money, which he
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Speaker 1: had sent to her because she seemed to want it
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Speaker 1: very much. She required it to pay off certain debts
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Speaker 1: on the estate, and spoke touchingly of her boy who
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Speaker 1: would inherit it. He's a delicate boy, father, she wrote,
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Speaker 1: and I don't want the estate to come to him burdened.
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Speaker 1: When she received the money she wrote gratefully of the
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Speaker 1: generosity shown her, but she spoke very vaguely of the
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Speaker 1: prospect of their seeing each other in the future. It
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Speaker 1: was as if she felt her own remoteness even more
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Speaker 1: than they felt it themselves. In the meantime Bettina had
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Speaker 1: been taken to France and placed at school there. The
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Speaker 1: resulting experience was an enlightening one, far more illuminating to
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Speaker 1: the quick-witted American child than it would have been to
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Speaker 1: an English, French, or German one who would not have
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Speaker 1: had so much to learn, and probably would not have
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Speaker 1: been so quick at the learning. Betty Vanderpool knew nothing
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Speaker 1: which was not American, and only vaguely a few things
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Speaker 1: which were not of New York. She had lived in
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Speaker 1: Fifth Avenue, attended school in a numbered street near her
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Speaker 1: own home, played in and been driven around Central Park.
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Speaker 1: She had spent the hot months of the summer in
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Speaker 1: places up the Hudson or on Long Island, and such
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Speaker 1: resorts of pleasure. She had believed implicitly in all she
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Speaker 1: saw and knew. She had been surrounded by wealth and
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Speaker 1: decent good nature throughout her existence, and had enjoyed her
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Speaker 1: life far too much to admit of any doubt that
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Speaker 1: America was the most perfect country in the world, Americans
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Speaker 1: the cleverest and most amusing people, and that other nations
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Speaker 1: were a little out of it, and consequently sufficiently scant
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Speaker 1: of resource to render pity without condemnation a natural sentiment
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Speaker 1: in connection with one's occasional thoughts of them. but hers
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Speaker 1: was a mentality by no means ordinary inheritance in her
11:50
Speaker 1: nature had combined with circumstances as it has a habit
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Speaker 1: of doing in all human beings but in her case
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Speaker 1: the combinations were unusual and produced a result somewhat remarkable
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Speaker 1: The quality of brains, which in the first Reuben Vanderpool
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Speaker 1: had expressed itself in the marvellously successful planning and carrying
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Speaker 1: to their ends of commercial and financial schemes, the absolute
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Speaker 1: genius of penetration and calculation of the sordid and uneducated
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Speaker 1: little trader in skins and barter of goods, having filtered
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Speaker 1: through two generations of gradual education and refinement of existence,
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Speaker 1: which was no longer that of the mere trader, had
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Speaker 1: been transformed in the great-granddaughter into keen, clear sight, level-headed perceptiveness,
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Speaker 1: and a logical sense of values. As the first Reuben
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Speaker 1: had known by instinct the values of pelts and lands,
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Speaker 1: Bettina knew by instinct the value of qualities, of brains,
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Speaker 1: of hearts, of circumstances, and the incidents which affect them.
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Speaker 1: She was as unaware of the significance of her great
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Speaker 1: possession as were those around her. Nevertheless, it was an
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Speaker 1: unerring thing. As a mere child, unformed and uneducated by life,
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Speaker 1: She had not been one of the small creatures to
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Speaker 1: be deceived or flattered.' She' s an awfully smart little thing,
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Speaker 1: that Betty,' her New York aunts and cousins often remarked.'
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Speaker 1: She seems to see what people mean. It doesn't matter
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Speaker 1: what they say. She likes people you would not expect
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Speaker 1: her to like, and then again she sometimes doesn't care
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Speaker 1: the least for people who are thought awfully attractive.' As
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Speaker 1: has been already intimated, the child was crude enough and
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Speaker 1: not particularly well bred, but her small brain had always
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Speaker 1: been at work and each day of her life recorded
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Speaker 1: for her valuable impressions. The page of her young mind
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Speaker 1: had ceased to be a blank much earlier than is usual.
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Speaker 1: The comparing of these impressions with such as she received
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Speaker 1: when her life in the French school was new afforded
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Speaker 1: her active mental exercise. She began with natural secret indignation
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Speaker 1: and rebellion. There was no other American pupil in the
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Speaker 1: establishment besides herself, but for the fact that the name
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Speaker 1: of Vanderpool represented wealth so enormous that as to amount
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Speaker 1: to a sort of rank in itself, Bettina would not
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Speaker 1: have been received. The proprietress of the institution had gravely
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Speaker 1: disquieting doubts of the propriety of America. Her pupils were
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Speaker 1: not accustomed to freedom of opinions and customs. An American
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Speaker 1: child might either consciously or unconsciously introduce them. As this
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Speaker 1: must be guarded against, Betty's first few months at the
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Speaker 1: school were not agreeable to her. She was supervised and
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Speaker 1: expurgated as it were, Special sisters were told off to
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Speaker 1: converse and walk with her, and she soon perceived that
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Speaker 1: conversations were not only French lessons in disguise, but were
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Speaker 1: lectures on ethics, morals, and good manners, imperfectly concealed by
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Speaker 1: the mask and domino of amiable entertainment. She translated into English,
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Speaker 1: after the following manner, the facts her swift young perceptions gathered.
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Speaker 1: There were things it was so inelegant to say that
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Speaker 1: only the most impossible person said them. There were things
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Speaker 1: it was so inexcusable to do that when done their
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Speaker 1: inexcusability assumed the proportions of a crime. There were movements, expressions,
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Speaker 1: points of view, which one must avoid as one would
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Speaker 1: avoid the plague. And they were all things, acts, expressions,
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Speaker 1: attitudes of mind, which Bettina had been familiar with from
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Speaker 1: her infancy, and which she was well aware were considered
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Speaker 1: almost entirely harmless and unobjectionable in New York, in her
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Speaker 1: beloved New York, which was the centre of the world,
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Speaker 1: which was bigger, richer, gayer, more admirable— than any other
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Speaker 1: city known upon the earth. If she had not so
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Speaker 1: loved it, if she had ever dreamed of the existence
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Speaker 1: of any other place as being absolutely necessary, she would
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Speaker 1: not have felt the thing so bitterly. But it seemed
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Speaker 1: to her that all these amiable diatribes in exquisite French
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Speaker 1: were directed at her New York, and it must be
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Speaker 1: admitted that she was humiliated and enraged. It was a personal,
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Speaker 1: indeed a family matter. her father, her mother, her relatives
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Speaker 1: and friends, were all in some degree exactly the kind
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Speaker 1: of persons whose speech, habits and opinions she must conscientiously avoid.
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Speaker 1: But for the instinct of summing up values, circumstances and intentions,
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Speaker 1: it is probable that she would have lost her head,
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Speaker 1: let loose her temper and her tongue, and have become insubordinate.
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Speaker 1: But the quickness of perception which had revealed practical potentialities
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Speaker 1: to old Reuben Vanderpool, revealed to her the value of
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Speaker 1: French which was perfectly fluent, a voice which was musical,
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Speaker 1: movements which were grace, manners which had a still beauty,
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Speaker 1: and comparing these things with others less charming, she listened
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Speaker 1: and restrained herself, learning, marking, and inwardly digesting with a
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Speaker 1: cleverness most enviable. Among her fellow pensionnaires she met with
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Speaker 1: discomforting illuminations which were fine discipline also, though if she
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Speaker 1: herself had been a less intellectual creature they might have
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Speaker 1: been embittering. Without doubt Betty, even at twelve years, was intellectual.
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Speaker 1: Hers was the practical working intellect that begins duty at
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Speaker 1: birth and does not lay down its tools because the
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Speaker 1: sun sets. The little and big girls who wrote their
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Speaker 1: exercises at her side did not deliberately enlighten her, but
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Speaker 1: she learned from them in vague ways that it was
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Speaker 1: not New York which was the centre of the earth,
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Speaker 1: but Paris or Berlin, Madrid, London or Rome. Paris and
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Speaker 1: London were perhaps more calmly positive of themselves than other capitals,
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Speaker 1: and were a little inclined to smile at the lack
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Speaker 1: of seriousness in other claims. but one strange fact was
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Speaker 1: more predominant than any other, and this was that New
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Speaker 1: York was not counted as a civilised centre at all,
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Speaker 1: it had no particular existence. Nobody expressed this rudely, in
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Speaker 1: fact it did not acquire the form of actual statement
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Speaker 1: at any time. It was merely revealed by amiable and
17:34
Speaker 1: ingenious unconsciousness of the circumstance that such a part of
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Speaker 1: the world expected to be regarded or referred to at all.
17:41
Speaker 1: Betty began early to realize that as her companions did
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Speaker 1: not talk of Timbuktu or Zanzibar, so they did not
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Speaker 1: talk of New York. Stockholm or Amsterdam seemed, despite their smallness,
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Speaker 1: to be considered. No one denied the presence of Zanzibar
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Speaker 1: on the map, but as it conveyed nothing more than
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Speaker 1: the impression of being a mere geographical fact, there was
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Speaker 1: no reason why one should dwell on it in conversation.
18:04
Speaker 1: Remembering all she had left behind— the crowded streets, the brilliant
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Speaker 1: shop windows, the buzz of individual people— There were moments
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Speaker 1: when Betty ground her strong little teeth. She wanted to
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Speaker 1: express all these things, to call out, to explain, and
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Speaker 1: command recognition for them. But her cleverness showed to her
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Speaker 1: that argument or protestation would be useless. She could not
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Speaker 1: make such hearers understand. There were girls whose interest in
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Speaker 1: America was founded on their impression that magnificent Indian chieftains
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Speaker 1: in blankets and feathers talked about the streets of the towns,
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Speaker 1: and that Betty's own thick black hair had been handed
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Speaker 1: down to her by some beautiful Minnehaha or Pocahontas. When
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Speaker 1: first she was approached by timid tentative questionings revealing this
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Speaker 1: point of view, Betty felt hot and answered with unamiable curtness. No,
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Speaker 1: there were no Red Indians in New York. There had
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Speaker 1: been no Red Indians in her family. She had neither
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Speaker 1: grandmothers nor aunts who were squaws, if they meant that.
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Speaker 1: She felt so scornfully, so disgustedly indignant at their benighted ignorance,
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Speaker 1: that she knew she behaved very well in saying so
19:08
Speaker 1: little in reply. She could have said so much, but
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Speaker 1: whatsoever she had said would have conveyed nothing to them,
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Speaker 1: so she thought it all out alone. She went over
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Speaker 1: the whole ground, and little realized how much she was
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Speaker 1: teaching herself, as she turned and tossed in her narrow,
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Speaker 1: spotlessly white bed at night, arguing, comparing, drawing deductions from
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Speaker 1: what she knew and did not know of the two continents.
19:31
Speaker 1: Her childish anger, combining itself with the practical alert brain
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Speaker 1: of Reuben Vanderpool I., developed in her a logical reasoning
19:38
Speaker 1: power which led her to arrive at many an excellent
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Speaker 1: and curiously mature conclusion. The result was finally educational, all
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Speaker 1: the more so that in her fevered desire for justification
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Speaker 1: of the things she loved, she began to read books
19:51
Speaker 1: such as little girls do not usually take interest in.
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Speaker 1: She found some difficulty in obtaining them at first, but
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Speaker 1: a letter or two written to her father obtained for
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Speaker 1: her permission to read what she chose. The third Reuben
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Speaker 1: Vanderpool was deeply fond of his younger daughter, and felt
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Speaker 1: in secret a profound admiration for her, which was saved
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Speaker 1: from becoming too obvious by the ever-present American sense of humour.'
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Speaker 1: Betty seems to be going in for politics,' he said,
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Speaker 1: after reading the letter containing her request and her first
20:20
Speaker 1: list of books.' She' s about as mad as she can
20:23
Speaker 1: be at the ignorance of the French girls about America
20:26
Speaker 1: and Americans. She wants to fill up on solid facts
20:29
Speaker 1: so she can come out strong in argument. She's got
20:32
Speaker 1: an understanding of the power of solid facts that would
20:35
Speaker 1: be a fortune to her if she were a man.'
20:38
Speaker 1: It was no doubt her understanding of the power of
20:40
Speaker 1: facts which led her to learn everything well and to
20:43
Speaker 1: develop in many directions. She began to dip into political
20:47
Speaker 1: and historical volumes because she was furious and wished to
20:50
Speaker 1: be able to refute idiocy. But she found herself continuing
20:54
Speaker 1: to read because she was interested in a way she
20:56
Speaker 1: had not expected. She began to see things. Once she
21:00
Speaker 1: made a remark which was prophetic. She made it in
21:03
Speaker 1: answer to a guileless observation concerning the gold mines with
21:06
Speaker 1: which Boston was supposed to be enriched.' You don't know
21:10
Speaker 1: anything about America, you others,' she said,' but you will know.''
21:13
Speaker 1: Do you think it will become the fashion to travel
21:17
Speaker 1: in America?' asked a German girl.' Perhaps,' said Betty,' but
21:22
Speaker 1: it isn't so much that you will go to America.'
21:24
Speaker 1: I believe it will come to you.' It' s like that, America.'
21:28
Speaker 1: It doesn't stand still.' It goes and gets what it wants.'
21:32
Speaker 1: She laughed as she ended, and so did the other girls.
21:35
Speaker 1: But in ten years' time, when they were young women,
21:37
Speaker 1: some of them married, some of them caught beauties, one
21:40
Speaker 1: of them recalled this speech to another, whom she encountered
21:43
Speaker 1: in an important house in St. Petersburg, the wife of
21:46
Speaker 1: the celebrated diplomat who was its owner, being an American woman.
21:51
Speaker 1: Bettina Vanderpool's education was a rather fine thing. She herself
21:55
Speaker 1: had more to do with it than girls usually have
21:57
Speaker 1: to do with their own training— and In a few months'
22:00
Speaker 1: time those in authority in the French school found that
22:03
Speaker 1: it was not necessary to supervise and expurgate her. She
22:06
Speaker 1: learned with an interested rapacity which was at once unusual
22:10
Speaker 1: and amazing, and she evidently did not learn from books alone.
22:14
Speaker 1: Her voice as an organ had been musical and full
22:17
Speaker 1: from babyhood. It began to modulate itself and to express
22:21
Speaker 1: things most voices are incapable of expressing. She had been
22:25
Speaker 1: so built by nature that the carriage of her head
22:27
Speaker 1: and limbs were good to behold. She acquired a harmony
22:30
Speaker 1: of movement which caused her to lose no shade of
22:33
Speaker 1: grace and spirit. Her eyes were full of thought, of
22:36
Speaker 1: speculation and intentness. She thinks a great deal, for one
22:40
Speaker 1: so young, was said of her frequently by one or
22:43
Speaker 1: the other of her teachers. One finally went further and added,
22:47
Speaker 1: She has genius. This was true, she had genius, but
22:51
Speaker 1: it was not specialised. It was not genius which expressed
22:54
Speaker 1: itself through any one art. It was a genius for life,
22:58
Speaker 1: for living herself, for aiding others to live, for vivifying
23:01
Speaker 1: mere existence. She herself was, however, aware only of an
23:05
Speaker 1: eagerness of temperament, a passion for seeing, doing, and gaining knowledge.
23:10
Speaker 1: Everything interested her, everybody was suggestive and more or less enlightening.
23:15
Speaker 1: Her relatives thought her original in her fancies. They called
23:19
Speaker 1: them fancies because she was so young. Fortunately for her
23:22
Speaker 1: there was no reason why she should not be gratified.
23:25
Speaker 1: Most girls preferred to spend their holidays on the continent.
23:28
Speaker 1: She elected to return to America every alternate year. She
23:32
Speaker 1: enjoyed the voyage, and she liked the entire change of
23:35
Speaker 1: atmosphere and people.' It makes me like both places more,'
23:39
Speaker 1: she said to her father when she was thirteen.' It
23:42
Speaker 1: makes me see things.' Her father discovered that she saw everything.
23:47
Speaker 1: She was the pleasure of his life. He was attracted
23:50
Speaker 1: greatly by the interest she exhibited in all orders of things.
23:53
Speaker 1: He saw her make bold, ingenious plunges into all waters,
23:57
Speaker 1: without any apparent consciousness that the scraps of knowledge she
24:00
Speaker 1: brought to the surface were unusual possessions for a schoolgirl.
24:04
Speaker 1: She had young views on the politics and commerce of
24:06
Speaker 1: different countries, as she had views on their literature. When
24:10
Speaker 1: Reuben Vanderpool swooped across the American continent on journeys of
24:14
Speaker 1: thousands of miles, taking her as a companion, he discovered
24:18
Speaker 1: that he actually placed a sort of confidence in her
24:20
Speaker 1: summing up of men and schemes. He took her to
24:24
Speaker 1: see mines and railroads and those who worked them, and
24:27
Speaker 1: he talked them over with her afterwards, half with a
24:29
Speaker 1: sense of humour, half with a sense of finding comfort
24:32
Speaker 1: in her intelligent comprehension of all he said. She enjoyed
24:36
Speaker 1: herself immensely, and gained a strong picturesqueness of character. After
24:41
Speaker 1: an American holiday, she used to return to France, Germany,
24:44
Speaker 1: or Italy, with a renewed zest of feelings for all
24:47
Speaker 1: things romantic and antique. After a few years in the
24:50
Speaker 1: French convent, She asked that she might be sent to Germany.'
24:53
Speaker 1: I' m gradually changing into a French girl,' she wrote to
24:57
Speaker 1: her father.' One morning I found I was thinking it
25:00
Speaker 1: would be nice to go into a convent, and another
25:03
Speaker 1: day I almost entirely agreed with one of the girls
25:06
Speaker 1: who was declaiming against her brother who had fallen in
25:09
Speaker 1: love with a Californian. You'd better take me away and
25:12
Speaker 1: send me to Germany.' Reuben Vanderpool laughed. He understood Betty
25:17
Speaker 1: much better than most of her relations did. He knew
25:20
Speaker 1: when seriousness underlay her jests, and his respects for her
25:23
Speaker 1: seriousness was great. He sent her to school in Germany.
25:28
Speaker 1: During the early years of her school days, Betty had
25:31
Speaker 1: observed that America appeared upon the whole to be regarded
25:34
Speaker 1: by her schoolfellows principally as a place to which the
25:37
Speaker 1: more unfortunate among the peasantry emigrated as steerage passengers when
25:41
Speaker 1: things could become no worse for them in their own country.
25:44
Speaker 1: The United States was not mentally detached from any other
25:47
Speaker 1: portion of the huge western continent, quite well-educated person, spoke
25:52
Speaker 1: casually of individuals having gone to America, as if there
25:55
Speaker 1: were no particular difference between Brazil and Massachusetts.' I wonder
26:01
Speaker 1: if you ever saw my cousin Gaston?' a French girl
26:04
Speaker 1: once asked her as they sat at their desks. He
26:06
Speaker 1: became very poor through ill-living. He was quite without money,
26:10
Speaker 1: and he went to America.'' To New York?' inquired Bettina.'
26:14
Speaker 1: I am not sure. The town is called Conception.'' That
26:18
Speaker 1: is not in the United States,' Betty answered disdainfully.' It' s
26:22
Speaker 1: in Chile.' She dragged her atlas towards her and found
26:25
Speaker 1: the place.' See,' she said,' it is thousands of miles
26:30
Speaker 1: from New York.' Her companion was a near-sighted, rather slow girl.
26:34
Speaker 1: She peered at the map, drawing a line with her
26:36
Speaker 1: finger from New York to Concepcion.' Yes, they are a
26:40
Speaker 1: great distance from one another,' she admitted,' but they are
26:43
Speaker 1: both in America.'' But not both in the United States,'
26:47
Speaker 1: cried Betty.' French girls always seem to think that North
26:50
Speaker 1: and South America are the same, that they are both
26:52
Speaker 1: the United States.'' Yes,' said the slow girl with deliberation,'
26:57
Speaker 1: we do make odd mistakes sometimes,' to which she added
27:01
Speaker 1: with entire innocence of any ironic intention,' but you Americans,
27:05
Speaker 1: you seem to feel the United States, your New York,
27:08
Speaker 1: to be all America.' Betty started a little and flushed.
27:13
Speaker 1: During a few minutes of rapid reflection she she sat
27:16
Speaker 1: bolt upright at her desk and looked straight before her.
27:19
Speaker 1: Her mentality was of the order which is capable of
27:22
Speaker 1: making discoveries concerning itself as well as concerning others. She
27:27
Speaker 1: had never thought of this view of the matter before,
27:29
Speaker 1: but it was quite true. To passionate young patriots, such
27:33
Speaker 1: as herself at least, that portion of the map covered
27:36
Speaker 1: by the United States was America. She suddenly saw also
27:40
Speaker 1: that to her New York had been America. Fifth Avenue, Broadway,
27:44
Speaker 1: Central Park, Even Tiffany's had been America. She laughed and
27:48
Speaker 1: reddened a shade as she put the atlas aside, having
27:51
Speaker 1: recorded a new idea. She had found out that it
27:54
Speaker 1: was not only Europeans who were local, which was a
27:57
Speaker 1: discovery of some importance to her fervid youth. Because she
28:01
Speaker 1: thought so often of Rosalie, her attention was, during the
28:04
Speaker 1: passing years, naturally attracted by the many things she heard
28:08
Speaker 1: of such marriages as were made by Americans with men
28:11
Speaker 1: of other countries than their own, She discovered that notwithstanding
28:15
Speaker 1: certain commercial views of matrimony, all foreigners who united themselves
28:19
Speaker 1: with American heiresses were not the entire brutes primitive prejudice
28:23
Speaker 1: might lead one to imagine. There were rather one-sided alliances
28:27
Speaker 1: which proved themselves far from happy. The cousin Gaston, for instance,
28:32
Speaker 1: brought home a bride, whose fortune rebuilt and refurnished his
28:36
Speaker 1: dilapidated chateau, and who ended by making of him a
28:39
Speaker 1: well-behaved and cheery country gentleman, not at all to be
28:42
Speaker 1: despised in his amiable, if like-minded, good nature and good spirits.
28:47
Speaker 1: His wife, fortunately, was not a young woman who yearned
28:50
Speaker 1: for sentiment. She was a nice-tempered, practical American girl, who
28:54
Speaker 1: adored French country life, and knew how to amuse and
28:57
Speaker 1: manage her husband. It was a genial sort of menage,
29:02
Speaker 1: and yet, though this was an undeniable fact, Bettina observed
29:05
Speaker 1: that when the union was spoken of, it was always
29:08
Speaker 1: referred to with a certain tone which conveyed, that though
29:11
Speaker 1: one did not exactly complain of its having been undesirable,
29:14
Speaker 1: it was not quite what Gaston might have expected. His
29:18
Speaker 1: wife had money and was good-natured, but there were limitations
29:21
Speaker 1: to one's appreciation of a marriage in which husband and
29:24
Speaker 1: wife were not on the same plane.' She' s an excellent
29:28
Speaker 1: person and has been good for Gaston,' said Bettina's friend.'
29:31
Speaker 1: We like her, but she is not— she is not—' She
29:35
Speaker 1: paused there, evidently seeing that the remark was unlucky. Bettina,
29:39
Speaker 1: who was still in short fox, took her up.' What
29:42
Speaker 1: is she not?' she asked.' Ah, it is difficult to
29:46
Speaker 1: explain to Americans.' It' s really not exactly a fault, but
29:50
Speaker 1: she is not of his world.'' But if he does
29:53
Speaker 1: not like that,' said Bettina coolly,' why did he let
29:56
Speaker 1: her buy him and pay for him?' It was young
29:59
Speaker 1: and brutal, but there were times when the business perspicuity
30:02
Speaker 1: of the first Reuben Vanderpool, combining with the fiery, wounded
30:06
Speaker 1: spirit of his young descendant, rendered Bettina brutal. She saw
30:10
Speaker 1: certain unadorned facts with unsparing young eyes, and wanted to
30:14
Speaker 1: state them. After her frocks were lengthened, she learned how
30:18
Speaker 1: to state them with more fineness of phrase, but even
30:21
Speaker 1: then she was sometimes still rather unsparing. In this case
30:25
Speaker 1: her companion, who was not fiery of temperament, only coloured
30:29
Speaker 1: slightly it was not quite that she answered gaston really
30:34
Speaker 1: is fond of her she amuses him and he says
30:37
Speaker 1: she is far cleverer than he is but there were
30:40
Speaker 1: unions less satisfactory and bettina had opportunities to reflect upon
30:44
Speaker 1: these also the english and continental papers did not give
30:49
Speaker 1: enthusiastic detailed descriptions of the marriages new york journals dwelt
30:53
Speaker 1: upon with such delight they were passed over with a
30:56
Speaker 1: paragraph When Betty heard them spoken of in France, Germany,
31:00
Speaker 1: or Italy, she observed that they were not, as a rule,
31:03
Speaker 1: spoken of respectfully. It seemed to her that the bridegrooms were,
31:07
Speaker 1: in conversation, treated by their equals with scant respect. It
31:11
Speaker 1: appeared that there had always been some extremely practical reason
31:15
Speaker 1: for the passion which had led them to the altar.
31:17
Speaker 1: One generally gathered that they or their estates were very
31:20
Speaker 1: much out at elbow, and frequently their characters were not
31:24
Speaker 1: considered admirable by their relatives and acquaintances. Some had been
31:28
Speaker 1: rather cold-shouldered in certain capitals on account of embarrassing little
31:32
Speaker 1: or big stories. Some had spent their patrimonies in riotous living.
31:37
Speaker 1: Those who had merely begun by coming into impoverished estates
31:40
Speaker 1: and had later attenuated their resources by comparatively decent follies
31:44
Speaker 1: were of the more desirable order. By the time she
31:48
Speaker 1: was nineteen, Bettina had felt the blood surge in her
31:51
Speaker 1: veins more than once, when she heard some comments on
31:54
Speaker 1: alliances over which she had seen her compatriots glow with
31:57
Speaker 1: affectionate delight.' It was time Ludlow married some girl with money,'
32:02
Speaker 1: she heard said of one such union.' He' s been playing
32:05
Speaker 1: the fool ever since he came into the estate. Horses
32:08
Speaker 1: and a lot of stupid women. He had come some
32:11
Speaker 1: awful croppers during the last ten years. Good enough-looking girl,
32:15
Speaker 1: they tell me. The American he's married. Tremendous lot of money.
32:19
Speaker 1: Couldn't have picked it up on this side.' English young
32:22
Speaker 1: women of fortune are not looking for that kind of thing.
32:25
Speaker 1: Poor old Billy wasn't good enough.' Bettina told the story
32:29
Speaker 1: to her father when they next met. She had grown
32:32
Speaker 1: into a tall young creature by this time. Her low,
32:35
Speaker 1: full voice was like a bell, and was capable of
32:38
Speaker 1: ringing forth some fine mellow tones of irony.' And in
32:42
Speaker 1: America we're pleased,' she said,' and flatter ourselves that we
32:46
Speaker 1: are receiving the proper tribute of adoration of our American
32:49
Speaker 1: wit and beauty.' We plume ourselves on our conquests.' Nobody,'
32:55
Speaker 1: said her father, and his reflective deliberation had meaning.' There
32:59
Speaker 1: are a lot of us who don't plume ourselves, particularly
33:02
Speaker 1: in these days. We are not as innocent as we
33:05
Speaker 1: are when this sort of thing began. We are not
33:07
Speaker 1: as innocent as we were when Rosie was married.' And
33:11
Speaker 1: he sighed and rubbed his forehead with the handle of
33:13
Speaker 1: his pen.' Not as innocent as we were when Rosie
33:16
Speaker 1: was married,' he repeated. Bettina went to him and slid
33:21
Speaker 1: her fine young arm around his neck. It was a long, slim,
33:24
Speaker 1: round arm with a wonderful power to caress in its curves.
33:28
Speaker 1: She kissed Vanderpool's lined cheek.' Have you had time to
33:32
Speaker 1: think much about Rosie?' she said.' I' ve not had time,
33:36
Speaker 1: but I've done it,' he answered.' Anything that hurts your
33:39
Speaker 1: mother hurts me.' Sometimes she begins to cry in her sleep,'
33:42
Speaker 1: and when I wake her she tells me she's been
33:45
Speaker 1: dreaming that she's seen Rosie.' I have had time to
33:48
Speaker 1: think of her, said Bettina. I've heard so much of
33:51
Speaker 1: these things. I was at school in Germany when Annie
33:55
Speaker 1: Butterfield and Baron von Steindahl were married. I heard it
33:58
Speaker 1: talked about there, and then my mother sent me some
34:01
Speaker 1: American papers. She laughed a little, and for a moment
34:04
Speaker 1: her laugh did not sound like a girl's. Well, it's
34:08
Speaker 1: turned out badly enough, her father commented. The papers had
34:12
Speaker 1: plenty to say about it later. There wasn't much he
34:15
Speaker 1: was too good to do to his wife, apparently. There
34:18
Speaker 1: was nothing too bad for him to do before he
34:20
Speaker 1: had a wife, said Bettina. He was black. It was
34:23
Speaker 1: an insolence that he should have dared to speak to
34:26
Speaker 1: Annie Butterfield. Somebody ought to have beaten him. He beat
34:30
Speaker 1: her instead. Yes, and I think his family thought it
34:33
Speaker 1: quite natural. They said that she was so vulgar and
34:37
Speaker 1: American that she exasperated Frederick beyond endurance. She was not Gaborin,
34:42
Speaker 1: that was it. She laughed her severe little laugh again.
34:46
Speaker 1: Perhaps we shall get tired in time, she added. I
34:49
Speaker 1: think we're learning. If it's made a matter of business
34:52
Speaker 1: quite open and above board, it will be fair. You know, father,
34:56
Speaker 1: you always said that I was businesslike. There was interested
35:00
Speaker 1: curiosity in Vanderpool's steady look at her. There were times
35:04
Speaker 1: when he felt that Betty's summing up of things was
35:07
Speaker 1: well worth listening to. He saw that now she was
35:10
Speaker 1: in one of her moods when it would pay one
35:12
Speaker 1: to hear her out. She held her chin up a little.
35:15
Speaker 1: and her face took on a fine stillness at once
35:17
Speaker 1: sweet and unrelenting. She was very good to look at
35:20
Speaker 1: in such moments.' Yes,' he answered,' you have a particularly
35:26
Speaker 1: level head for a girl.'' Well,' she went on,' what
35:30
Speaker 1: I see is that these things are not business, and
35:32
Speaker 1: they ought to be. If a man comes to a
35:35
Speaker 1: rich American girl and says,' I and my title are
35:38
Speaker 1: for sale, will you buy us?' If the girl is— is
35:42
Speaker 1: that kind of a girl and wants that kind of
35:44
Speaker 1: man—' She can look them both over and say, Yes,
35:47
Speaker 1: I will buy you, and it can be arranged. He
35:50
Speaker 1: will not return the money if he is unsatisfactory, but
35:53
Speaker 1: she cannot complain that she has been deceived. She can
35:57
Speaker 1: only complain of that when he pretends that he asks
36:00
Speaker 1: her to marry him because he wants her for his wife,
36:03
Speaker 1: because he would want her for his wife if she
36:05
Speaker 1: were as poor as himself. Let it be understood that
36:09
Speaker 1: he is property for sale. Let her make sure that
36:11
Speaker 1: he is the kind of property she wants to buy.
36:15
Speaker 1: than if, when they are married, he is brutal or impudent,
36:18
Speaker 1: or his people are brutal or impudent, she can say,'
36:21
Speaker 1: I will forfeit the purchase-money, but I will not forfeit myself.
36:25
Speaker 1: I will not stay with you.'' They would not like
36:29
Speaker 1: to hear you say that, Betty,' said her father, rubbing
36:32
Speaker 1: his chin reflectively.' No,' she answered,' neither the girl nor
36:36
Speaker 1: the man would like it, and it is their business,
36:39
Speaker 1: not mine. But it is practical and would prevent silly mistakes.'
36:44
Speaker 1: It would prevent the girls being laughed at. It is
36:47
Speaker 1: when they are flattered by the choice made of them
36:49
Speaker 1: that they are laughed at. No one can sneer at
36:52
Speaker 1: a man or woman for buying what they think they
36:54
Speaker 1: want and throwing it aside if it turns out a
36:56
Speaker 1: bad bargain. She had seated herself near her father. She
37:01
Speaker 1: rested her elbow slightly on the table and her chin
37:04
Speaker 1: in the hollow of her hand. She was a beautiful
37:07
Speaker 1: young creature. She had a soft curving mouth and a
37:10
Speaker 1: soft curving cheek which was warm rose. Taken in conjunction
37:14
Speaker 1: with those young charms, her next words had an air
37:17
Speaker 1: of incongruity.' You think I'm hard,' she said.' When I
37:22
Speaker 1: think of these things, I am hard as hard as nails.
37:26
Speaker 1: That is an Americanism, but it is a good expression.
37:30
Speaker 1: I am angry for America. If we are sordid and undignified,
37:34
Speaker 1: let us get what we pay for and make the
37:36
Speaker 1: others acknowledge that we have paid.' She did not smile,
37:40
Speaker 1: nor did her father. Mr. Vanderpool, on the contrary, sighed.
37:45
Speaker 1: He had a dreary suspicion that Rosie at least had
37:48
Speaker 1: not received what she had paid for, and he knew
37:50
Speaker 1: she had not been in the least aware that she
37:52
Speaker 1: had paid, or that she was expected to do so.
37:56
Speaker 1: Several times during the last few years he had thought
37:59
Speaker 1: that if he had not been so hard worked, if
38:01
Speaker 1: he had had time, he would have seriously investigated the
38:04
Speaker 1: case of Rosie. But who is not now aware that
38:07
Speaker 1: the profession of multi-millionaire does not allow of any swerving
38:11
Speaker 1: from duty or of any interest requiring leisure.' I wonder, Betty,'
38:15
Speaker 1: he said quite deliberately,' if you know how handsome you are?'' Yes,'
38:21
Speaker 1: answered Bettina,' I think so, and I am tall.' It
38:24
Speaker 1: is the fashion to be tall now.' It was early
38:27
Speaker 1: Victorian to be little.' The Queen brought in the dear
38:30
Speaker 1: little woman,' and now the type has gone out.'' They
38:35
Speaker 1: will come to look at you pretty soon,' said Vanderpool.'
38:37
Speaker 1: What shall you say then?' Aye, said Bettina, and her
38:42
Speaker 1: voice sounded particularly low and mellow. I have a little monomania, father.
38:48
Speaker 1: Some people have a monomania for one thing and some
38:51
Speaker 1: for another. Mine is for not taking a bargain from
38:54
Speaker 1: the ducal remnant counter. End of chapter 5