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The Shuttle Chapter 15 - The First Man · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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Speaker 1: CHAPTER XV. THE FIRST MAN The mystery of the apparently
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Speaker 1: occult methods of communication among the natives of India, between whom,
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Speaker 1: it is said, news flies by means too strange and
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Speaker 1: subtle to be humanly explainable, is no more difficult a
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Speaker 1: problem to solve than that of the lightning rapidity with
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Speaker 1: which a knowledge of the transpiring of any new local
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Speaker 1: event darts through the slowest, and as far as outward
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Speaker 1: signs go, the least communicative English village slumbering drowsily among
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Speaker 1: its pastures and trees. That which the hall or manor-house
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Speaker 1: believed last night, known only to the four walls of
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Speaker 1: its drawing-room, is discussed over the cottage breakfast-tables as though
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Speaker 1: presented in detail through the columns of the morning post.
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Speaker 1: The vicarage, the smithy, the post-office, the little provision-shop, are
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Speaker 1: instantaneously informed as if by magic of such incidents of
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Speaker 1: interest as occur. and are prepared to assist vicariously in
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Speaker 1: any future developments. Through what agency information is given no
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Speaker 1: one can tell, and indeed the agency is of small moment.
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Speaker 1: Facts of interest are perhaps like flights of swallows, and dart,
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Speaker 1: chattering from one red roof to another, proclaiming themselves aloud.
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Speaker 1: Nothing is so true as that in such villages they
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Speaker 1: are the property and innocent playthings of man, woman, and child,
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Speaker 1: providing conversation and drama otherwise likely to be lacked. When
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Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool walked through Stornham Village Street, she became aware
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Speaker 1: that she was an exciting object of interest. Faces appeared
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Speaker 1: at cottage windows. Women sauntered to doors. Men in the
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Speaker 1: taproom of the clock inn left beer mugs to cast
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Speaker 1: an eye on her. Children pushed open gates and stared
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Speaker 1: as they bobbed their curtsies. The young woman who kept
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Speaker 1: the shop left her counter and came out upon her
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Speaker 1: doorstep to pick up her straying baby and glance over
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Speaker 1: its shoulder at the face with the red mouth and
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Speaker 1: the mass of black hair rolled upward under a rough
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Speaker 1: blue straw hat. Everyone knew who this exotic-looking young lady was.
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Speaker 1: She had arrived yesterday from London, and a week ago
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Speaker 1: by means of a ship from far away America, from
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Speaker 1: the country in connection with which the rural mind curiously
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Speaker 1: mixed up large wages, great fortunes, and Indians. George Lunston,
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Speaker 1: having spent five years of his youth labouring heavily for
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Speaker 1: sixteen shillings a week, had gone to America, and had
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Speaker 1: earned there eight shillings a day. This was a well-known
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Speaker 1: and much-talked-over fact, and had elevated the western continent to
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Speaker 1: a position of trust and importance it had seriously lacked
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Speaker 1: before the emigration of Lunston. A place where a man
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Speaker 1: could earn eight shillings a day inspired interest as well
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Speaker 1: as confidence. When Sir Nigel's wife had arrived twelve years
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Speaker 1: ago as the new Lady Anstruthers, the story that she
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Speaker 1: herself had money had been verified by her fine clothes
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Speaker 1: and her way of handing out sovereigns in cases where
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Speaker 1: the rest of the gentry, if they gave at all,
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Speaker 1: would have bestowed tea and flannel or shillings. There had
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Speaker 1: been for a few months a period of unheard-of well-being
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Speaker 1: in Stornham village. Everyone remembered the hundred pounds the bride
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Speaker 1: had given to poor Wilson when his place had burned down.
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Speaker 1: But the village had of course learned, by its occult means,
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Speaker 1: that Sir Nigel and the Dowager had been angry, and
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Speaker 1: that there had been a quarrel. Afterwards her ladyship had
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Speaker 1: been dangerously ill, the baby had been born a hunchback,
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Speaker 1: and a year had passed before its mother had been
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Speaker 1: seen again. Since then she had been a changed creature,
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Speaker 1: She had lost her looks, and seemed to care for
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Speaker 1: nothing but the child. Stornham Village saw next to nothing
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Speaker 1: of her, and it certainly was not she who had
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Speaker 1: the dispensing of her fortune. Rumour said Sir Nigel lived
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Speaker 1: high in London and foreign parts, but there was no
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Speaker 1: high living at the court. Her ladyship's family had never
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Speaker 1: been near her, and belief in them and their wealth
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Speaker 1: almost ceased to exist. If they were rich, Stornham felt
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Speaker 1: that it was their business to mend roofs and windows,
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Speaker 1: and not allow chimneys and kitchen boilers to fall into ruin,
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Speaker 1: the simple leading article of faith being that even American
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Speaker 1: money belonged properly to England. As Miss Vanderpool walked at
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Speaker 1: a light swinging pace through the one village street, the
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Speaker 1: gazers felt with Kedgers that something new was passing and
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Speaker 1: stirring the atmosphere. She looked straight, and with a friendliness
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Speaker 1: somehow dominating, at the curious women. Her handsome eyes met
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Speaker 1: those of the men in a human questioning. she smiled
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Speaker 1: and nodded to the bobbing children. One of these, young
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Speaker 1: enough to be uncertain on its feet, in running to
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Speaker 1: join some others, stumbled and fell on the path before her.
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Speaker 1: Opening its mouth in the inevitable resultant roar, it was
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Speaker 1: shocked almost into silence by the tall young lady stooping
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Speaker 1: at once, picking it up and cheerfully dusting its pinafore.'
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Speaker 1: Don' t cry,' she said.' You' re not hurt, you know.' The
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Speaker 1: deep dimple near her mouth showed itself, and the laugh
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Speaker 1: in her eyes was so reassuring that the penny she
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Speaker 1: put into the grubby hand was less productive of effect
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Speaker 1: than her mere self. She walked on, leaving the group
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Speaker 1: staring after her breathless because of a sense of having
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Speaker 1: met with a wonderful adventure. The grand young lady with
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Speaker 1: the black hair and the blue hat and tall straight
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Speaker 1: body was the adventure. She left the same sense of
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Speaker 1: event with the village itself. They talked of her all
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Speaker 1: day over their garden palings, on their doorsteps, in the street,
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Speaker 1: of her looks, of her height, of the black rim
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Speaker 1: of lashes around her eyes, of the chance that she
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Speaker 1: might be rich and ready to give half-crowns and sovereigns,
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Speaker 1: of the America she had come from, and above all
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Speaker 1: of the reason for her coming. Betty swung with the light,
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Speaker 1: firm step of a good walker out on to the highway.
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Speaker 1: To walk upon the fine, smooth old Roman road was
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Speaker 1: a pleasure in itself, but she soon struck away from
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Speaker 1: it and went through lanes and byways, following sign-posts, because
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Speaker 1: she knew where she was going. Her walk was to
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Speaker 1: take her to Mount Dunstan and home again by another road.
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Speaker 1: In walking an objective point forms an interest, and what
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Speaker 1: she had heard of the estate from Rosalie was a
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Speaker 1: vague reason for her caring to see it. It was
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Speaker 1: another place like Stornham, once dignified and nobly representative of
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Speaker 1: fine things, now losing their meanings and values. Values and meanings,
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Speaker 1: other than mere signs of wealth and power, there had been.
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Speaker 1: Centuries ago strong creatures had planned and built it for
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Speaker 1: such reasons as strength has for planning and building. In
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Speaker 1: Bettina Vanderpool's imagination the first man held powerful and moving sway.
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Speaker 1: It was he whom she always saw. In history, as
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Speaker 1: a child at school, she had understood and drawn close
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Speaker 1: to him. There was always a first man behind all
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Speaker 1: that one saw or was told, one who was the fighter,
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Speaker 1: the human thing who snatched weapons and tools from stones
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Speaker 1: and trees, and wielded them in the carrying out of
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Speaker 1: the thought which was his possession and his strength. He
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Speaker 1: was the god made human. Others waited without knowledge of
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Speaker 1: their waiting for the signal he gave. A man like others,
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Speaker 1: with a man's body, hands, and limbs, and eyes, the
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Speaker 1: moving of a whole world was subtly altered by his birth.
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Speaker 1: One could not always trace him, but with stone axe
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Speaker 1: and spear-point he had won savage lands in savage ways,
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Speaker 1: and so ruled them that leaving them to other hands,
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Speaker 1: their march towards less savage life could not stay itself,
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Speaker 1: but must sweep on. Others of his kind, striking rude harps,
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Speaker 1: had so sung that the loud clearness of their wild
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Speaker 1: songs had rung through the ages, and echo still in
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Speaker 1: strains which are theirs, though voices of to-day repeat the
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Speaker 1: note of them. The first man, a Briton stained with
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Speaker 1: woad and hung with skins, had tilled the luscious greenness
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Speaker 1: of the lands richly rolling now within hedge-boundaries. The square
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Speaker 1: church towers rose, holding their slender corner spires above the trees,
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Speaker 1: as a result of the first man, Norman William. The
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Speaker 1: thought which held its place, the work which did not
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Speaker 1: pass away, had paid its first man wages. But beauties crumbling,
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Speaker 1: homes falling to waste, were bitter things. The first man,
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Speaker 1: who having won his splendid acres, had built his home
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Speaker 1: upon them, and reared his young, and passed his possession
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Speaker 1: on with a proud heart, seemed but ill-treated. Through centuries
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Speaker 1: the home had enriched itself, the acres had borne harvests,
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Speaker 1: the trees had grown and spread huge branches, full lives
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Speaker 1: had been lived within the embrace of the massive walls,
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Speaker 1: there had been loves and lives and marriages and births,
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Speaker 1: the breathings of them made warm and full the very air.
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Speaker 1: To Betty it seemed that the land itself would have
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Speaker 1: worn another face if it had not been trodden by
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Speaker 1: so many springing feet, if so many harvests had not
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Speaker 1: waved above it, if so many eyes had not looked
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Speaker 1: upon and loved it. She passed through variations of the
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Speaker 1: rural loveliness she had seen on her way from the
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Speaker 1: station to the court, and felt them grow in beauty
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Speaker 1: as she saw them again. She came at last to
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Speaker 1: a village somewhat larger than Stornham, and marked by the
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Speaker 1: signs of the lack of money-spending care which Stornham showed.
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Speaker 1: Just beyond its limits a big park gate opened on
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Speaker 1: to an avenue of massive trees. She stopped and looked
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Speaker 1: down it, but could see nothing but its curves, and
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Speaker 1: under the branches glimpses of a spacious sweep of park
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Speaker 1: with other trees standing in groups or alone on the sward.
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Speaker 1: The avenue was unswept and untended, and here and there
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Speaker 1: boughs broken off by wind. Storms lay upon it. She
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Speaker 1: turned to the road again and followed it, because it
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Speaker 1: enclosed the park and she wanted to see more of
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Speaker 1: its evident beauty. It was very beautiful. As she walked
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Speaker 1: on she saw it rolled into woods and deeps filled
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Speaker 1: with bracken, she saw stretches of hillocky fine-grassed rabbit-warren and
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Speaker 1: hollows holding shadowy pools. She caught the gleam of a
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Speaker 1: lake with swans sailing slowly upon it with curved necks.
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Speaker 1: There were wonderful lights and wonderful shadows and brooding stillness
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Speaker 1: which made her footfall upon the road a too material thing.
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Speaker 1: Suddenly she heard a stirring in the bracken a yard
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Speaker 1: or two away from her. Something was moving slowly among
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Speaker 1: the waving masses of huge fronds and caused them to
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Speaker 1: sway to and fro. It was an antlered stag who
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Speaker 1: rose from his bed in the midst of them and
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Speaker 1: with majestic deliberation got upon his feet and stood gazing
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Speaker 1: at her with a calmness of pose so splendid, and
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Speaker 1: a liquid darkness and lustre of eye so stilly and
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Speaker 1: fearlessly beautiful, that she caught her breath. He simply gazed
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Speaker 1: at her, as a great king might gaze at an intruder,
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Speaker 1: scarcely deigning wonder. As she had passed on her way,
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Speaker 1: Betty had seen that the enclosing park palings were decaying,
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Speaker 1: covered with lichen and falling at intervals. It had even
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Speaker 1: passed through her mind that here was one of the
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Speaker 1: demands for expenditure on a large estate, which limited resources
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Speaker 1: could not confront with composure. The deer-fence itself, a thing
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Speaker 1: of wire ten feet high to form an obstacle to leaps,
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Speaker 1: she had marked to be in such condition as to
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Speaker 1: threaten to become shortly a useless thing. Until this moment
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Speaker 1: she had seen no deer, but looking beyond the stag
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Speaker 1: and across the sward, she now saw groups near each other,'
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Speaker 1: Stags cropping or looking towards her with lifted heads 'dose
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Speaker 1: at a respectful but affectionate distance from them, 'some caring
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Speaker 1: for their fawns.' The stag who had risen near her'
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Speaker 1: had merely walked through a gap in the boundary' and
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Speaker 1: now stood free to go where he would.' He will
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Speaker 1: get away,' said Betty, knitting her black brows.' Ah, what
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Speaker 1: a shame!'' Even with the best intentions one could not
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Speaker 1: give chase to a stag.' She looked up and down
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Speaker 1: the road, but no one was within sight.' Her brows
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Speaker 1: continued to knit themselves, and her eyes ranged over the
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Speaker 1: park itself in the hope that some labourer on the estate,
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Speaker 1: some woodman or gamekeeper, might be about. It's no affair
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Speaker 1: of mine, she said, but it would be too bad
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Speaker 1: to let him get away, although what happens to stray
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Speaker 1: stags one doesn't exactly know. As she said it, she
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Speaker 1: caught sight of someone, a man in leggings and shabby
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Speaker 1: clothes and with a gun over his shoulder, evidently an underkeeper.
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Speaker 1: He was a big, rather rough-looking fellow, but as he
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Speaker 1: lurched out into the open from a wood, Betty saw
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Speaker 1: that she could reach him if she passed through a
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Speaker 1: narrow gate a few yards away and walked quickly. He
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Speaker 1: was slouching along, his head drooping and his broad shoulders
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Speaker 1: expressing the definite antipodes of good spirits. Betty studied his
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Speaker 1: back as she strode after him, her conclusion being that
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Speaker 1: he was perhaps not a good-humoured man to approach at
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Speaker 1: any time, and this was by ill-luck one of his
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Speaker 1: less fortunate hours.' Wait a moment, if you please.' Her clear,
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Speaker 1: mellow voice flung out after him when she was within
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Speaker 1: hearing distance.' I want to speak to you, Keeper.' He
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Speaker 1: turned with an air of far-from-pleased surprise. The afternoon sun
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Speaker 1: was in his eyes and made him scowl. For a
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Speaker 1: moment he did not see distinctly who was approaching him,
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Speaker 1: but he had at once recognized a certain cool tone
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Speaker 1: of command in the voice whose suddenness had roused him
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Speaker 1: from a black mood. A few steps brought them to
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Speaker 1: close quarters— and when he found himself looking into the
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Speaker 1: eyes of his pursuer he made a movement as if
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Speaker 1: to lift his cap then checking himself touched it keeper
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Speaker 1: fashion oh he said shortly miss vanderpoel beg pardon bettina
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Speaker 1: stood still a second she had her surprise also here
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Speaker 1: was the unexpected again the under-keeper was the red-haired second-class
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Speaker 1: passenger of the meridiana he did not look pleased to
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Speaker 1: see her and the suddenness of his appearance excluded the
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Speaker 1: possibility of her realising that upon the whole she was
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Speaker 1: at least not displeased to see him.' How do you do?'
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Speaker 1: she said, filling the remark fantastically conventional, but not being
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Speaker 1: inspired by any alternative.' I came to tell you that
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Speaker 1: one of the stags has got through a gap in
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Speaker 1: the fence.'' Damn!' she heard him say under his breath.
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Speaker 1: Aloud he said,' Thank you.'' He' s a splendid creature,' she said.'
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Speaker 1: I did not know what to do. I was glad
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Speaker 1: to see a keeper coming.' Thank you, he said again,
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Speaker 1: and stood towards the place where the stag still stood,
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Speaker 1: gazing up the road, as if reflecting as to whether
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Speaker 1: it allured him or not. Betty walked back more slowly,
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Speaker 1: watching him with interest. She wondered what he would find
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Speaker 1: it necessary to do. She heard him begin a low,
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Speaker 1: flute-like whistling, and then saw the antlered head turn towards him.
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Speaker 1: The woodland creature moved, but it was in his direction.
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Speaker 1: It had without doubt answered his call before, and knew
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Speaker 1: its meaning to be friendly. It went towards him, stretching
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Speaker 1: out a tender, sniffing nose, and he put his hand
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Speaker 1: in the pocket of his rough coat and gave it
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Speaker 1: something to eat. Afterwards he went to the gap in
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Speaker 1: the fence and drew the wires together, fastening them with
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Speaker 1: other wire which he also took out of the coat pocket.'
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Speaker 1: He' s not afraid of making himself useful,' thought Betty,' and
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Speaker 1: the animals know him. He's not as bad as he looks.'
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Speaker 1: She lingered a moment, watching him, and then walked towards
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Speaker 1: the gate through which she had entered. He glanced up
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Speaker 1: as she neared him.' I don't see your carriage,' he said.'
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Speaker 1: Your man is probably around the trees.'' I walked,' answered Betty.'
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Speaker 1: I had heard of this place and wanted to see it.'
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Speaker 1: He stood up, putting his wire back into his pocket.'
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Speaker 1: There' s not much to be seen from the road,' he said.'
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Speaker 1: Would you like to see more of it?' His manner
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Speaker 1: was civil enough, but not the correct one for a servant.
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Speaker 1: He did not say miss or touch his cap in
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Speaker 1: making the suggestion. Betty hesitated a moment.' Is the family
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Speaker 1: at home?' she inquired.' There is no family but his lordship.
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Speaker 1: He is off the place.'' Does he object to trespassers?''
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Speaker 1: Not if they are respectable and take no liberties.'' I
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Speaker 1: am respectable, and I shall not take liberties,' said Miss Vanderpool,
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Speaker 1: with a touch of hauteur. The truth was that she
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Speaker 1: had spent a sufficient number of years on the continent
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Speaker 1: to have become familiar with conventions which led her not
15:34
Speaker 1: to approve wholly of his bearing.' Perhaps he had lived
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Speaker 1: long enough in America to forget such conventions, and to
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Speaker 1: lack something which centuries of custom had decided should belong
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Speaker 1: to his class. A certain suggestion of rough force in
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Speaker 1: the man rather attracted her, and her slight distaste for
15:50
Speaker 1: his manner arose from the realisation that a gentleman's servant
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Speaker 1: who did not address his superior as was required by
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Speaker 1: custom was not doing his work in a finished way.
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Speaker 1: In his place she knew her own demeanour would have
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Speaker 1: been finished. If you are sure that Lord Mount Dunstan
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Speaker 1: would not object to my walking about, I should like
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Speaker 1: very much to see the gardens and the house, she said.
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Speaker 1: If you show them to me, shall I be interfering
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Speaker 1: with your duties? No, he answered, and then for the
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Speaker 1: first time rather glumly added, Miss. I am interested, she said,
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Speaker 1: as they crossed the grass together, because places like this
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Speaker 1: are quite new to me. I have never been in
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Speaker 1: England before. There are not many places like this, he answered.
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Speaker 1: not many as old and fine and not many as
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Speaker 1: nearly gone to ruin even stornham is not quite as
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Speaker 1: far gone it is far gone said miss vanderpoel i
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Speaker 1: am staying there with my sister lady anstruthers beg pardon
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Speaker 1: miss he said this time he touched his cap in
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Speaker 1: apology Enormous as the gulf between their positions was, he
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Speaker 1: knew that he had offered to take her over the
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Speaker 1: place because he was in a sense glad to see
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Speaker 1: her again. Why he was glad he did not profess
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Speaker 1: to know, or even to ask himself. Corsely speaking, it
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Speaker 1: might be because she was one of the handsomest young
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Speaker 1: women he had ever chanced to meet with, and while
17:11
Speaker 1: her youth was apparent in the rich red of her mouth,
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Speaker 1: the mass of her thick soft hair, and the splendid
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Speaker 1: blue of her eyes— There spoke in every line of
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Speaker 1: face and pose something intensely more interesting and compelling than girlhood. Also,
17:25
Speaker 1: since the night they had come together on the ship's
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Speaker 1: deck for an appalling moment, he had liked her better
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Speaker 1: and rebelled less against the unnatural wealth she represented. He
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Speaker 1: led her first to the wood from which he had
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Speaker 1: seen him emerge.' I will show you this first,' he explained.'
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Speaker 1: Keep your eyes on the ground until I tell you
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Speaker 1: to raise them.' Odd as this was, she obeyed. and
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Speaker 1: her lowered glance showed her that she was being guided
17:48
Speaker 1: along a narrow path between trees the light was mellow
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Speaker 1: golden green and birds were singing in the boughs above
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Speaker 1: her in a few minutes he stopped now look up
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Speaker 1: he said she uttered an exclamation when she did so
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Speaker 1: she was in a fairy dell thick with ferns and
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Speaker 1: at beautiful distances from each other incredibly splendid oaks spread
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Speaker 1: and almost trailed their lovely giant branches the glow shining
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Speaker 1: through and between them the shadows beneath them, their great
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Speaker 1: bowls and moss-covered roots, and the stately mellow distances revealed
18:20
Speaker 1: under their branches, the ancient wildness and richness which meant,
18:24
Speaker 1: after all, centuries of cultivation, made a picture in this
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Speaker 1: exact perfect moment of ripening afternoon sun of an almost
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Speaker 1: unbelievable beauty.' There is nothing lovelier,' he said in a
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Speaker 1: low voice,' in all England.' Bettina turned to look at
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Speaker 1: him because his tone was a curious one for a
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Speaker 1: man like himself. He was standing, resting on his gun,
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Speaker 1: and taking in the loveliness with a strange look in
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Speaker 1: his rugged face.' You— you love it?' she said.' Yes, but
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Speaker 1: with suggestion of stubborn reluctance in the admission. She was
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Speaker 1: rather moved.' Have you been keeper here long?' she asked.' No,
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Speaker 1: only a few years, but I've known the place all
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Speaker 1: my life.'' Does Lord Mount Dunstan love it?'' In his way, yes.'
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Speaker 1: He was plainly not disposed to talk of his master.
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Speaker 1: He was perhaps not on particularly good terms with him.
19:17
Speaker 1: He led her away and volunteered no further information. He was,
19:21
Speaker 1: upon the whole, uncommunicative. He did not once refer to
19:24
Speaker 1: the circumstance of their having met before. It was plain
19:28
Speaker 1: that he had no intention of presuming upon the fact
19:30
Speaker 1: that he, as a second-class passenger on a ship, had
19:34
Speaker 1: once been forced by accident to cross the barriers between
19:37
Speaker 1: himself and the saloon deck. he was stubbornly resolved to
19:40
Speaker 1: keep his place, so stubbornly that Bettina felt that to
19:43
Speaker 1: broach the subject herself would verge upon offence. But the
19:47
Speaker 1: golden ways through which he led her made the half
19:50
Speaker 1: one she knew she should never forget. They wandered through
19:53
Speaker 1: moss walks and alleys, through tangled shrubberies bursting into bloom
19:57
Speaker 1: beneath avenues of blossoming horse-chestnuts and scented limes, between thickets
20:02
Speaker 1: of budding red and white may and jungles of neglected rhododendrons,
20:06
Speaker 1: through sunken gardens and walled ones past terraces with broken
20:10
Speaker 1: balustrades of stone and fallen floras and dianas, past moss-grown
20:15
Speaker 1: fountains splashing in lovely corners, arches overgrown with yet unblooming
20:20
Speaker 1: roses crumbled in their time-stained beauty. Stillness brooded over it all,
20:25
Speaker 1: and they met no one. They scarcely broke the silence themselves.
20:29
Speaker 1: The man led the way as one who knew it
20:31
Speaker 1: by heart, and Bettina followed, not caring for speech herself,
20:35
Speaker 1: because the stillness seemed to add a spell of enchantment.
20:39
Speaker 1: what could one say to a stranger of such beauty
20:42
Speaker 1: so lost and given over to ruin and decay but
20:45
Speaker 1: oh she murmured once standing still with indrawn breath if
20:49
Speaker 1: it were mine if it were mine and she said
20:52
Speaker 1: the thing forgetting that her guide was a living creature
20:55
Speaker 1: and stood near afterwards her memories of it all seemed
20:59
Speaker 1: to her like the memories of a dream the lack
21:01
Speaker 1: of speech between herself and the man who led her
21:04
Speaker 1: his often averted face her own sense of the desertedness
21:07
Speaker 1: of each beauteous spot she passed through, the mossy paths
21:11
Speaker 1: which gave back no sound of footfalls as they walked,
21:14
Speaker 1: suggested one and all unreality. When at last they passed
21:17
Speaker 1: through a door half hidden in an ivied wall, and
21:20
Speaker 1: crossing a grassed bowling-green mounted a short flight of broken
21:23
Speaker 1: steps which led them to a point through which they
21:26
Speaker 1: saw the house through a break in the trees, this
21:29
Speaker 1: last was the final touch of all. It was a
21:32
Speaker 1: great place, stately in its masses of grey stone to
21:35
Speaker 1: which thick ivy clung. To Bettina it seemed that a
21:38
Speaker 1: hundred windows stared at her with closed, blind eyes. All
21:42
Speaker 1: were shuttered but two or three on the lower floors.
21:45
Speaker 1: Not one showed signs of life. The silent stone thing
21:48
Speaker 1: stood sightless among all of which it was dead master,
21:52
Speaker 1: rolling acres, great trees, lost gardens, and deserted groves. Oh!
21:57
Speaker 1: she sighed, oh! Her companion stood still and leaned upon
22:01
Speaker 1: his gun again, looking as he had looked before.' Some
22:05
Speaker 1: of it,' he said,' was here before the conquest. It
22:08
Speaker 1: belonged to Mount Dunstan's then.'' And only one of them
22:11
Speaker 1: is left,' she cried.' And it is like this.'' They
22:15
Speaker 1: have been a bad lot the last hundred years,' was
22:18
Speaker 1: the surly liberty of speech he took.' A bad lot.'
22:22
Speaker 1: It was not his place to speak in such manner
22:24
Speaker 1: of those of his master's house, and it was not
22:27
Speaker 1: the part of Miss Vanderpool to encourage him by response.
22:30
Speaker 1: She remained silent, standing perhaps a trifle more lightly erect,
22:34
Speaker 1: as she gazed at the rows of blind windows in silence.
22:38
Speaker 1: Neither of them uttered a word for some time, but
22:40
Speaker 1: at length Bettina roused herself. She had a six-mile walk
22:44
Speaker 1: before her, and must go.' I am very much obliged
22:48
Speaker 1: to you,' she began. and then paused a second. A
22:51
Speaker 1: curious hesitance came upon her, though she knew that under
22:54
Speaker 1: ordinary circumstances such hesitation would have been totally out of place.
22:59
Speaker 1: She had occupied the man's time for an hour or more.
23:02
Speaker 1: He was of the working class, and one must not
23:04
Speaker 1: be guilty of the error of imagining that a man
23:07
Speaker 1: who has work to do can justly spend his time
23:09
Speaker 1: in one's service for the mere pleasure of it. She
23:12
Speaker 1: knew what custom demanded. Why should she hesitate before this
23:16
Speaker 1: man with his not too courteous surly face? She felt
23:19
Speaker 1: slightly irritated by her own unpractical embarrassment as she put
23:23
Speaker 1: her hand into the small latched bag at her belt.'
23:25
Speaker 1: I am very much obliged, keeper,' she said.' You have
23:29
Speaker 1: given me a great deal of your time. You know
23:32
Speaker 1: the place so well that it has been a pleasure
23:34
Speaker 1: to be taken about by you. I have never seen
23:37
Speaker 1: anything so beautiful and so sad. Thank you, thank you.'
23:41
Speaker 1: And she put a gold piece in his palm. His
23:45
Speaker 1: fingers closed over it quietly. Why it was to her
23:48
Speaker 1: great relief she did not know, because something in the
23:51
Speaker 1: simple act annoyed her, even while she congratulated herself that
23:55
Speaker 1: her hesitance had been absurd. The next moment she wondered
23:58
Speaker 1: if it could be possible that he had expected a
24:00
Speaker 1: larger fee. He opened his hand and looked at the
24:03
Speaker 1: money with a grim steadiness.' Thank you, miss,' he said,
24:07
Speaker 1: and touched his cap in the proper manner. He did
24:11
Speaker 1: not look gracious or grateful. but he began to put
24:14
Speaker 1: it in a small pocket in the breast of his
24:16
Speaker 1: worn corduroy shooting-jacket. Suddenly he stopped as if with abrupt resolve.
24:21
Speaker 1: He handed the coin back without any change in his
24:23
Speaker 1: glum look. Hang it all, he said. I can't take this,
24:27
Speaker 1: you know. I suppose I ought to have told you.
24:30
Speaker 1: It would have been less awkward for us both. I
24:33
Speaker 1: am that unfortunate beggar Mount Dunstan myself. A pause was inevitable.
24:38
Speaker 1: It was a rather long one. After it, Betty took
24:41
Speaker 1: back her half-sovereign and returned it to her bag, but
24:44
Speaker 1: she pleased a certain perversity in him by looking more
24:47
Speaker 1: annoyed than confused.' Yes,' she said.' You ought to have
24:51
Speaker 1: told me, Lord Mount Dunstan.' He slightly shrugged his big shoulders.'
24:56
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't you take me for a keeper? You crossed
24:59
Speaker 1: the Atlantic with a fourth-rate looking fellow separated from you
25:02
Speaker 1: by barriers of wood and iron. You came upon him
25:05
Speaker 1: tramping over a nobleman's estate in shabby corduroys and gaiters.'
25:09
Speaker 1: with a gun over his shoulder and a scowl on
25:11
Speaker 1: his ugly face. Why should you leap to the conclusion
25:14
Speaker 1: that he is the Belted Earl himself? There's no cause
25:17
Speaker 1: for embarrassment.'' I' m not embarrassed,' said Bettina.' That is what
25:23
Speaker 1: I like,' gruffly.' I' m pleased, in her mellowest velvet voice,
25:27
Speaker 1: that you like it.' Their eyes met with a singular
25:30
Speaker 1: directness of gaze. Between them a spark passed which was
25:34
Speaker 1: not afterwards to be extinguished, though neither of them knew
25:37
Speaker 1: the moment of its kindling. and Mount Dunstan slightly frowned.'
25:41
Speaker 1: I beg pardon,' he said.' You are quite right. It
25:45
Speaker 1: had a ducidly patronising sound.' As he stood before her,
25:49
Speaker 1: Betty was given her opportunity to see him as she
25:51
Speaker 1: had not seen him before, to confront the sum total
25:54
Speaker 1: of his physique. His red-brown eyes looked out from rather fine,
25:58
Speaker 1: heavy brows, his features were strong and clear, though ruggedly cut,
26:03
Speaker 1: His build showed weight of bone, not of flesh, and
26:05
Speaker 1: his limbs were big and long. He would have wielded
26:08
Speaker 1: a battle-axe with power in centuries in which men hewed
26:11
Speaker 1: their way with them. Also it occurred to her he
26:14
Speaker 1: would have looked well in a coat of mail. He
26:17
Speaker 1: did not look ill in his corduroys and gaiters. I'm
26:20
Speaker 1: a self-absorbed beggar, he went on. I'd been slouching about
26:24
Speaker 1: the place, almost driven mad by my thoughts, and when
26:27
Speaker 1: I saw you took me for a servant, my fancy
26:29
Speaker 1: was for letting the thing go on. If I had
26:32
Speaker 1: been a rich man instead of a pauper, I would
26:34
Speaker 1: have kept your half-sovereign.'' I should not have enjoyed that
26:38
Speaker 1: when I found out the truth,' said Miss Vanderpool.' No,
26:42
Speaker 1: I suppose you wouldn't, but I should not have cared.'
26:46
Speaker 1: He was looking at her straightly and summing her up
26:48
Speaker 1: as she had summed him up. A man and young,
26:51
Speaker 1: he did not miss a line or a tint of
26:53
Speaker 1: her chin or cheek, shoulder or brow, or dense uplifted hair.
26:57
Speaker 1: He had already, even in his guise of keeper, noticed
27:00
Speaker 1: one thing, which was that while at times her eyes
27:03
Speaker 1: were the blue of steel, sometimes they melted to the
27:06
Speaker 1: colour of bluebells under water. There had been of this
27:10
Speaker 1: last hue when she had stood in the sunken garden,
27:12
Speaker 1: forgetting him and crying low, Oh, if it were mine,
27:16
Speaker 1: if it were mine! He did not like American women
27:19
Speaker 1: with millions, but while he would not have said that
27:22
Speaker 1: he liked her, he did not wish her yet to
27:24
Speaker 1: move away. and she too did not wish just yet
27:27
Speaker 1: to move away. There was something dramatic and absorbing in
27:30
Speaker 1: the situation. She looked over the softly stirring grass and
27:34
Speaker 1: saw the sunshine was deepening its gold and the shadows
27:37
Speaker 1: were growing long. It was not a habit of hers
27:40
Speaker 1: to ask questions, but she asked one. Did you not
27:43
Speaker 1: like America? was what she said. Hated it, hated it.
27:48
Speaker 1: I went there, lured by a belief that a man
27:50
Speaker 1: like myself, with muscle and will, even without experience, could
27:54
Speaker 1: make a fortune out of small capital on a sheep-branch.
27:58
Speaker 1: Wind and weather and disease played the devil with me.
28:01
Speaker 1: I lost the little I had, and came back to
28:03
Speaker 1: begin over again, on nothing, here. And he waved his
28:07
Speaker 1: hand over the park, with its sward and coppers and bracken,
28:10
Speaker 1: and the deer cropping in the late afternoon gold.' To
28:13
Speaker 1: begin what again?' said Betty. It was an extraordinary enough thing,
28:17
Speaker 1: seen in the light of conventions, that they should stand
28:20
Speaker 1: and talk like this. But the spark had kindled between
28:23
Speaker 1: eye and eye, and because of it they suddenly had
28:26
Speaker 1: forgotten that they were strangers. You are an American, so
28:29
Speaker 1: it may not seem as mad to you as it
28:31
Speaker 1: would to others, to begin to build up again, in
28:34
Speaker 1: one man's life, what has taken centuries to grow and
28:37
Speaker 1: fall into this. It would be a splendid thing to do,
28:42
Speaker 1: she said slowly. and as she said it her eyes
28:44
Speaker 1: took on their colour of bluebells because what she had
28:47
Speaker 1: seen had moved her she had not looked at him
28:50
Speaker 1: but at the cropping deer as she spoke but at
28:52
Speaker 1: her next sentence she turned to him again where should
28:56
Speaker 1: you begin she asked and in saying it thought of
28:59
Speaker 1: stornham he laughed shortly' That is American enough,' he said.'
29:03
Speaker 1: Your people have not finished their beginnings yet and live
29:06
Speaker 1: in the spirit of them. I tell you of a
29:09
Speaker 1: wild fancy, and you accept it as a possibility and
29:12
Speaker 1: turn on me with,' Where should you begin?'' That is
29:15
Speaker 1: one way of beginning,' said Bettina.' In fact, it is
29:18
Speaker 1: the only way.' He did not tell her that he
29:22
Speaker 1: liked that, but he knew that he did like it,
29:24
Speaker 1: and that her mere words touched him like a spur.
29:28
Speaker 1: It was, of course, her lifelong breathing of the atmosphere
29:31
Speaker 1: of millions which made for this fashion of moving at
29:33
Speaker 1: once in the direction of obstacles, presenting to the rest
29:36
Speaker 1: of the world barriers seemingly insurmountable. And yet there was
29:40
Speaker 1: something else in it some quality of nature which did
29:43
Speaker 1: not alone suggest the omnipotence of wealth but another thing
29:46
Speaker 1: which might be even stronger and therefore carried conviction He,
29:51
Speaker 1: who had raged and clenched his hands in the face
29:53
Speaker 1: of his knowledge of the aspect his dream would have
29:55
Speaker 1: presented if he had revealed it to the ordinary practical mind,
29:59
Speaker 1: felt that a point of view like this was good
30:01
Speaker 1: for him. There was in it stimulus for a fleeting
30:04
Speaker 1: moment at least.' That' s a good idea,' he answered.' Where
30:08
Speaker 1: should you begin?' She replied quite seriously, though he could
30:13
Speaker 1: have imagined some girls rather simpering over the question as
30:16
Speaker 1: a casual joke.' One would begin at the fences,' she said.
30:20
Speaker 1: Don't you think so?'' That' s practical.'' That' s where I shall
30:25
Speaker 1: begin at Stornham,' reflectively.' You are going to begin at Stornham?''
30:29
Speaker 1: How could one help it? It's not as large or
30:33
Speaker 1: as splendid as this has been, but it's like it
30:36
Speaker 1: in a way, and it will belong to my sister's son. No,
30:40
Speaker 1: I could not help it.'' I suppose you could not.'
30:44
Speaker 1: There was a hint of wholly unconscious resentment in his tone.
30:47
Speaker 1: He was thinking that the effect produced by their boundless
30:50
Speaker 1: wealth was to make these people feel as a race
30:53
Speaker 1: of giants might. Even their women unknowingly revealed it. No,
30:57
Speaker 1: I could not, was her reply. I suppose I am
31:00
Speaker 1: on the whole a sort of commercial working person. I
31:04
Speaker 1: have no doubt it is commercial, that instinct which makes
31:07
Speaker 1: one resent seeing things lose their value. Shall you begin
31:11
Speaker 1: it for that reason? Partly for that one, partly for another.
31:16
Speaker 1: She held out her hand to him. Look at the
31:18
Speaker 1: length of the shadows. I must go. Thank you, Lord
31:21
Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan, for showing me the place, and thank you
31:25
Speaker 1: for undeceiving me. He held the side gate open for her,
31:29
Speaker 1: and lifted his cap as she passed through. He admitted
31:32
Speaker 1: to himself with some reluctance that he was not content
31:35
Speaker 1: that she should go even yet, but of course she
31:38
Speaker 1: must go. There passed through his mind a remote wonder
31:42
Speaker 1: why he had suddenly unbosomed himself to her in a
31:44
Speaker 1: way so extraordinarily unlike himself. It was, he thought next,
31:49
Speaker 1: because as he had taken her about from one place
31:52
Speaker 1: to another, he had known that she had seen in
31:54
Speaker 1: things what he had seen in them so long, the
31:57
Speaker 1: melancholy loneliness, the significance of it, the lost hopes that
32:01
Speaker 1: lay behind it, the touching pain of the stateliness wrecked.
32:05
Speaker 1: She had shown it in the way in which he
32:07
Speaker 1: tenderly looked from side to side, in the very lightness
32:10
Speaker 1: of her footfall, in the bluebell softening of her eyes.
32:14
Speaker 1: Oh yes, she had understood and cared. American as she was,
32:18
Speaker 1: she had felt it all, even with her hideous background
32:21
Speaker 1: of Fifth Avenue behind her. When he had spoken, it
32:24
Speaker 1: had been an involuntary response to an emotion in herself.
32:29
Speaker 1: So he stood, thinking, as he for some time watched
32:32
Speaker 1: her walking up the sunset-glowing road.