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The Shuttle Chapter 39 - On the Marshes · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER XXXIX ON THE MARSHES The marshes stretched mellow in
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  Speaker 1: the autumn sun. Sheep wandered about nibbling contentedly, or lay
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  Speaker 1: down to rest in groups. The sky, reflecting itself in
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  Speaker 1: the narrow dikes, gave a blue colour to the water.
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  Speaker 1: A scent of the sea was in the air as
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  Speaker 1: one breathed it. Flocks of plover rose now and then,
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  Speaker 1: crying softly. Betty, walking with her dog, had passed a
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  Speaker 1: heron standing at the edge of a pool. From her
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  Speaker 1: first discovery of them she had been attracted by the marshes,
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  Speaker 1: with their English suggestion of the Roman Campania, their broad
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  Speaker 1: expanse of level land spread out to the sun and wind,
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  Speaker 1: the thousands of white sheep dotted or clustered as far
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  Speaker 1: as eye could reach, the hues of the marsh grass
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  Speaker 1: and the plants growing thick at the borders of the
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  Speaker 1: strips of water. Its beauty was all its own, and
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  Speaker 1: curiously aloof from the softly wooded undulating world about it.
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  Speaker 1: Driving or walking along the high road, the road the
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  Speaker 1: Romans had built to London town long centuries ago, on
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  Speaker 1: either side of one were meadows, farms, scattered cottages, and hop-gardens,
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  Speaker 1: but beyond and below stretched the marshland, golden and grey,
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  Speaker 1: and always alluring one by its silence. I never pass
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  Speaker 1: it without wanting to go to it, to take solitary
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  Speaker 1: walks over it, to be one of the spots on
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  Speaker 1: it as the sheep are. It seems as if, lying
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  Speaker 1: there under the blue sky or the low grey clouds,
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  Speaker 1: with all the world held at bay by mere space
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  Speaker 1: and stillness, they must feel something we know nothing of.
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  Speaker 1: I want to go and find out what it is.'
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  Speaker 1: This she had once said to Mount Dunstan. So she
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  Speaker 1: had fallen into the habit of walking there with her
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  Speaker 1: dog at her side as her sole companion, for having
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  Speaker 1: need for time and space for thought, she had found
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  Speaker 1: them in the silence and aloofness. Life had been a
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  Speaker 1: vivid and pleasurable thing to her as far as she
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  Speaker 1: could look back upon it. She began to realise that
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  Speaker 1: she must have been very happy, because she had never
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  Speaker 1: found herself desiring existence other than such as had come
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  Speaker 1: to her day by day. Except for her passionate, childish
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  Speaker 1: regret at Rosie's marriage, she had experienced no painful feeling.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, she had faced no hurt in her life,
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  Speaker 1: and certainly had been confronted by no limitations. Arguing that
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  Speaker 1: girls in their teens usually fall in love, her father
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  Speaker 1: had occasionally wondered that she passed through no little episodes
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  Speaker 1: of sentiment, but the fact was that her interests had
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  Speaker 1: been larger and more numerous than the interests of girls
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  Speaker 1: generally are, and her affectionate intimacy with himself had left
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  Speaker 1: no such small vacant spaces as are frequently filled by
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  Speaker 1: unimportant young emotions. Because she was a logical creature and
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  Speaker 1: had watched life and those living it with clear and
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  Speaker 1: interested eyes, She had not been blind to the path
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  Speaker 1: which had marked itself before her during the summer's growth
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  Speaker 1: and waning. She had not at first, perhaps, known exactly
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  Speaker 1: when things began to change for her, when the clarity
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  Speaker 1: of her mind began to be disturbed. She had thought
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  Speaker 1: in the beginning, as people have a habit of doing,
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  Speaker 1: that an instance, a problem, a situation had attracted her
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  Speaker 1: attention because it was absorbing enough to think over. Her
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  Speaker 1: view of the matter had been that as the same
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  Speaker 1: thing would have interested her father, it had interested herself.
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  Speaker 1: But from the morning when she had been conscious of
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  Speaker 1: the sudden fury roused in her by Nigel Anstruthers' ugly
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  Speaker 1: sneer at Mount Dunstan, she had better understood the thing
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  Speaker 1: which had come upon her. Day by day it had
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  Speaker 1: increased and gathered power, and she realised with a certain
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  Speaker 1: sense of impatience that she had not in any degree
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  Speaker 1: understood it when she had seen and wondered at its
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  Speaker 1: effect on other women. Each day had been like a
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  Speaker 1: wave encroaching further upon the shore she stood upon. At
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  Speaker 1: the outset a certain ignoble pride, she knew it ignoble,
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  Speaker 1: filled her with rebellion. She had seen so much of
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  Speaker 1: this kind of situation, and had heard so much of
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  Speaker 1: the general comment. People had learned how to sneer because
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  Speaker 1: experience had taught them. If she gave them cause, why
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  Speaker 1: should they not sneer at her as at things? She
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  Speaker 1: recalled what she had herself thought of such things, the
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  Speaker 1: folly of them. the obviousness, the almost deserved disaster. She
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  Speaker 1: had arrogated to herself judgment of women and men, who might, yes,
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  Speaker 1: who might have stood upon their strip of sand as
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  Speaker 1: she stood, with the waves creeping in, each one higher, stronger,
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  Speaker 1: and more engulfing than the last. There might have been
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  Speaker 1: those among them who also had knowledge of that sudden
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  Speaker 1: deadly joy at the sight of one face, at the
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  Speaker 1: drop of one voice. When that wave submerged one's pulsing being,
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  Speaker 1: what had the world to do with one? How could
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  Speaker 1: one hear and think of what its speech might be?
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  Speaker 1: Its voice clamoured too far off. As she walked across
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  Speaker 1: the marsh she was thinking this first phase over. She
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  Speaker 1: had reached a new one, and at first she looked
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  Speaker 1: back with a faint, even rather hard, smile. She walked
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  Speaker 1: straight ahead, her mastiff, Roland, padding along heavily closer to
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  Speaker 1: her side. How still and wide and golden it was!
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  Speaker 1: how the cry of plover and lifting trill of skylark
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  Speaker 1: assured one that one was wholly encircled by solitude and
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  Speaker 1: space which were more enclosing than any walls. She was
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  Speaker 1: going to the mounds to which Mr. Penzance had trundled G.
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  Speaker 1: Selden in the pony-chaise, when he had given him the
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  Speaker 1: marvellous hour which had brought Roman camp and Roman legions
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  Speaker 1: to life again. Up on the largest hillock one could
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  Speaker 1: sit enthroned, resting chin in hand and looking out under
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  Speaker 1: level lids at the unstirring, softly living loveliness of the
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  Speaker 1: marshland world. so she was presently seated with her heavy-limbed
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  Speaker 1: Roland at her feet. She had come here to try
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  Speaker 1: to put things clearly to herself, to plan with such
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  Speaker 1: reason as she could control. She had begun to be unhappy,
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  Speaker 1: she had begun, with some unfairness, to look back upon
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  Speaker 1: the Betty Vanderpool of the past as an unwittingly self-sufficient
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  Speaker 1: young woman, to find herself suddenly entangled by things, even
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  Speaker 1: to know a touch of desperateness. not to take a
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  Speaker 1: remnant from the ducal bargain-counter, she was saying mentally. That
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  Speaker 1: was why her smile was a little hard. What if
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  Speaker 1: the remnant from the ducal bargain-counter had prejudices of his own?
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  Speaker 1: If he were passionately, passionately in love with me, she said,
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  Speaker 1: with red staining her cheeks, he would not come, he
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  Speaker 1: would not come, he would not come. And because of
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  Speaker 1: that he is more to me, more, and more he
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  Speaker 1: will become every day, and the more strongly he will
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  Speaker 1: hold me,' And there we stand!' Roland lifted his fine
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  Speaker 1: head from his paws, and holding it erect on a stiff,
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  Speaker 1: strong neck, stared at her in obvious inquiry. She put
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  Speaker 1: out her hand and tenderly patted him.' He will have
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  Speaker 1: none of me,' she said.' He will have none of me.'
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  Speaker 1: And she faintly smiled, but the next instant shook her
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  Speaker 1: head a little haughtily, and having done it, looked down
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  Speaker 1: with an altered expression upon the cloth of her skirt,
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  Speaker 1: because she had shaken upon it, from the extravagant lashes,
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  Speaker 1: two clear drops. It was not the result of chance
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  Speaker 1: that she had seen nothing of him for weeks. She
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  Speaker 1: had not attempted to persuade herself of that. Twice he
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  Speaker 1: had declined an invitation to Stornham, and once he had
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  Speaker 1: ridden past her on the road when he might have
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  Speaker 1: stopped to exchange greetings or have ridden on by her side.
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  Speaker 1: He did not mean to seem to desire, ever so lightly,
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  Speaker 1: to be counted as in the lists.' Whether he was
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  Speaker 1: drawn by any liking for her or not, it was
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  Speaker 1: plain he had determined on this. If she were to
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  Speaker 1: go away now, they would never meet again. Their ways
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  Speaker 1: in this world would part for ever. She would not
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  Speaker 1: know how long it took to break him utterly, if
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  Speaker 1: such a man could be broken. If no magic change
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  Speaker 1: took place in his fortunes, and what change could come,
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  Speaker 1: the decay about him would spread day by day. Stone
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  Speaker 1: walls last a long time, so the house would stand,
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  Speaker 1: while every beauty and stateliness within it fell into ruin.
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  Speaker 1: Gardens would become wildernesses, terraces and fountains crumble and be overgrown,
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  Speaker 1: walls that were to-day leaning would fall with time. The
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  Speaker 1: years would pass and his youth with them. He would
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  Speaker 1: gradually change into an old man while he watched the
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  Speaker 1: things he loved with passion die slowly and hard. How
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  Speaker 1: strange it was that life should touch and pass on
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  Speaker 1: the ocean of time, and nothing should result, nothing at all.
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  Speaker 1: When she went on her way, it would be as
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  Speaker 1: if a ship loaded with every aid of food and
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  Speaker 1: treasure had passed a boat in which a strong man tossed,
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  Speaker 1: starving to death, and had not even run up a flag.'
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  Speaker 1: But one cannot run up a flag,' she said, stroking Roland.'
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  Speaker 1: One cannot. There we stand.' To her recognition of this
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  Speaker 1: deadlock of fate, there had been adding the growing disturbance
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  Speaker 1: caused by yet another thing which was increasingly troubling, increasingly
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  Speaker 1: difficult to face. Gradually, and at first with wonderful naturalness
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  Speaker 1: of bearing, Nigel Anstruthers had managed to create for himself
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  Speaker 1: a singular place in her everyday life. It had begun
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  Speaker 1: with a certain personalness in his attitude, a personalness which
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  Speaker 1: was a thing to dislike, but almost impossible openly to resent. Certainly,
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  Speaker 1: as a self-invited guest in his house, she could scarcely
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  Speaker 1: protest against the amiability of his demeanour and his exterior
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  Speaker 1: courtesy and attentiveness of manner in his conduct towards her.
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  Speaker 1: She had tried to sweep away the objectionable quality in
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  Speaker 1: his bearing by frankness, by indifference, by entire lack of response,
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  Speaker 1: but she had remained conscious of its increasing as a
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  Speaker 1: spider's web might increase, as the spider spun it quietly
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  Speaker 1: over one, throwing out threads so impalpable that one could
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  Speaker 1: not brush them away because they were too slight to
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  Speaker 1: be seen. She was aware that in the first years
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  Speaker 1: of his married life he had alternately resented the scarcity
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  Speaker 1: of the invitations sent them, and rudely refused such as
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  Speaker 1: were received. Since he had returned to find her at Stornham,
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  Speaker 1: he had insisted that no invitations should be declined, and
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  Speaker 1: had escorted his wife and herself wherever they went. What
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  Speaker 1: could have been conventionally more proper? What more improper than
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  Speaker 1: that he should have persistently have remained at home, and
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  Speaker 1: yet there came a time when, as they three drove
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  Speaker 1: together at night in the closed carriage, Betty was conscious
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  Speaker 1: that as he sat opposite to her in the dark,
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  Speaker 1: when he spoke, when he touched her in arranging the
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  Speaker 1: robe over her, or opening or shutting the window, he
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  Speaker 1: subtly but persistently conveyed that the personalness of his voice, look,
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  Speaker 1: and physical nearness was a sort of hideous confidence between
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  Speaker 1: them which they were cleverly concealing from Rosalie in the
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  Speaker 1: outside world. When she rode about the country he had
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  Speaker 1: a way of appearing at some turning and making himself
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  Speaker 1: her companion, riding too closely at her side, and assuming
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  Speaker 1: a noticeable air of being engaged in meaningly confidential talk. Once,
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  Speaker 1: when he had been leaning towards her with an audaciously
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  Speaker 1: tender manner, they had been passed by the Dunham carriage,
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  Speaker 1: and Lady Dunham and the friend driving with her had
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  Speaker 1: evidently tried not to look surprised. Lady Allenby meeting them
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  Speaker 1: in the same way at another time had put up
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  Speaker 1: her glasses and stared in open disapproval. She might admire
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  Speaker 1: a strikingly handsome American girl, but her favour would not
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  Speaker 1: last through any such vulgar silliness as flirtations with disgraceful brothers-in-law.
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  Speaker 1: When Betty strolled about the park or the lanes, she
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  Speaker 1: much too often encountered Sir Nigel strolling also, and knew
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  Speaker 1: that he did not mean to allow her to rid
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  Speaker 1: herself of him. In public he made a point of
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  Speaker 1: keeping observably close to her, of hovering in her vicinity,
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  Speaker 1: and looking on at all she did with eyes she
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  Speaker 1: rebelled against finding fixed on her each time she was
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  Speaker 1: obliged to turn in his direction. He had a fashion
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  Speaker 1: of coming to her side and speaking in a dropped
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  Speaker 1: voice which excluded others as a favoured lover might. She
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  Speaker 1: had seen both men and women glance at her in
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  Speaker 1: half embarrassment at their sudden sense of finding themselves slightly
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  Speaker 1: de trop. She had said aloud to him on one
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  Speaker 1: such occasion, and she had said it with smiling casualness
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  Speaker 1: for the benefit of Lady Allenby to whom she had
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  Speaker 1: been talking.' Don' t alarm me by dropping your voice, Nigel.
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  Speaker 1: I am easily frightened, and Lady Allenby will think we
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  Speaker 1: are conspirators.' For an instant he was taken by surprise.
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  Speaker 1: He had been pleased to believe that there was no
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  Speaker 1: way in which she could defend herself unless she would
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  Speaker 1: condescend to something stupidly like a scene. He flushed and
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  Speaker 1: drew himself up.' I beg your pardon, my dear Betty,'
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  Speaker 1: he said, and walked away with the manner of an
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  Speaker 1: offended adorer, leaving her to realise an odiously unpleasant truth,
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  Speaker 1: which is that there are incidents only made more inexplicable
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  Speaker 1: by an effort to explain. She saw also that he
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  Speaker 1: was quite aware of this, and that his offended departure
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  Speaker 1: was a brilliant inspiration, and had left her, as it were,
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  Speaker 1: in the lurch. To have said to Lady Allenby, My brother-in-law,
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  Speaker 1: in whose house I am merely staying for my sister's sake,
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  Speaker 1: is trying to lead you to believe that I allow
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  Speaker 1: him to make love to me, would have suggested either
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  Speaker 1: folly or insanity on her own part. As it was,
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  Speaker 1: after a glance at Sir Nigel stiffly retreating back, Lady
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  Speaker 1: Allenby merely looked away with a wholly uninviting expression. When
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  Speaker 1: Betty spoke to him afterwards, haughtily and with determination, he laughed.
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  Speaker 1: My dearest girl, he said— If I watch you with
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  Speaker 1: interest and drop my voice when I get a chance
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  Speaker 1: to speak to you, I only do what every other
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  Speaker 1: man does. I do it because you are an alluring
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  Speaker 1: young woman, which no one is more perfectly aware of
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  Speaker 1: than yourself. Your pretense that you do not know you
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  Speaker 1: are alluring is the most captivating thing about you. And
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: what do you think of doing if I continue to
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  Speaker 1: offend you? Do you propose to desert us, to leave
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  Speaker 1: poor Rosalie to sink back again into the bundle of
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  Speaker 1: old clothes she was when you came?'' For heaven's sake,
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  Speaker 1: don't do that!' All that his words suggested took form
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  Speaker 1: before her vividly, how well he understood what he was saying.
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  Speaker 1: But she answered him bravely,' No, I do not mean
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  Speaker 1: to do that.' He watched her for a few seconds.
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  Speaker 1: There was curiosity in his eyes.' Don' t make the mistake
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  Speaker 1: of imagining that I will let my wife go with
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  Speaker 1: you to America,' he said next.' She is as far
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  Speaker 1: off from that as she was when I brought her
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  Speaker 1: to Stornham. I've told her so.' A man cannot tie
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  Speaker 1: his wife to the bedpost in these days, but he
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  Speaker 1: can make her efforts to leave him so decidedly unpleasant
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  Speaker 1: that decent women prefer to stay at home and take
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  Speaker 1: what is coming. I have seen that often enough to
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  Speaker 1: bank on it, if I may quote your American friends.'
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Do you remember my once saying,' Betty remarked,' that when
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  Speaker 1: a woman has been properly ill-treated, the time comes when
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  Speaker 1: nothing matters, nothing but release from the life she loathes?'' Yes,'
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  Speaker 1: he answered,' and to you nothing would matter. But excuse
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  Speaker 1: my saying it, your own damnable headstrong pride. But Rosalie
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  Speaker 1: is different. Everything matters to her. And you will find
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  Speaker 1: it so, my dear girl.' And that this was at
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  Speaker 1: least half true was brought home to her by the
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  Speaker 1: fact that late the same night Rosie came to her
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  Speaker 1: white with crying.' It is not your fault, Betty,' she said.'
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Don' t think that I think it is your fault.' but
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  Speaker 1: he has been in my room in one of those
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  Speaker 1: humours when he seems like a devil. He thinks you
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  Speaker 1: will go back to America and try to take me
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  Speaker 1: with you. But, Betty, you must not think about me.
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  Speaker 1: It will be better for you to go. I've seen
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  Speaker 1: you again. I've had you for a time. You will
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  Speaker 1: be safer at home with father and mother.' Betty laid
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  Speaker 1: a hand on her shoulder and looked at her fixedly.'
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  Speaker 1: What is it, Rosie?' she said.' What is it that
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  Speaker 1: he does to you that makes you like this?' I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, but that he makes me feel that there
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: is nothing but evil and lies in the world, nothing
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: can help one against them. Those things he says about everyone,
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  Speaker 1: men and women, things one can't repeat, make me sick,
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  Speaker 1: and when I try to deny them, he laughs. Does
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  Speaker 1: he say things about me? Betty inquired very quietly, and
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  Speaker 1: suddenly Rosalie threw her arms around her. betty darling she
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  Speaker 1: cried go home go home you mustn't stay here when
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  Speaker 1: i go you will go with me betty answered i
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  Speaker 1: am not going back to mother without you she made
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a collection of many facts before their interview was at
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  Speaker 1: an end and they parted for the night among the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: first was that nigel had prepared for certain possibilities as
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: wise holders of a fortress prepare for siege a rather
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: long sitting alone over whisky and soda had, without making
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: him loquacious, heated his blood in such a manner as
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: led him to be less subtle than usual. Drink did
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: not make him drunk but malignant, and when a man
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  Speaker 1: is in the malignant mood he forgets his cleverness. So
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  Speaker 1: he revealed more than he absolutely intended. It was to
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  Speaker 1: be gathered that he did not mean to permit his
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  Speaker 1: wife to leave him even for a visit. He would
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  Speaker 1: not allow himself to be made ridiculous by such a thing.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: A man who could not control his wife was a
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  Speaker 1: fool and deserved to be a laughing-stock. As Uhtred and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: his future inheritance seemed to have become of interest to
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  Speaker 1: his grandfather, and were to be well nursed and taken
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  Speaker 1: care of, his intention was that the boy should remain
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: under his own supervision. He could amuse himself well enough
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: at Stornham now that it had been put in order,
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  Speaker 1: if it was kept up properly, and he filled it
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  Speaker 1: with people who did not bore him. There were people
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  Speaker 1: who did not bore him, plenty of them. Rosalie would
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: stay where she was and receive his guests. If she
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: imagined that the little episode of Folliott had been entirely dormant,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: she was mistaken. He knew where the man was, and
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  Speaker 1: exactly how serious it would be to him if scandal
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  Speaker 1: was stirred up. He had been at some trouble to
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: find out. The fellow had recently had the luck to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: fall into a very fine living. It had been bestowed
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: on him by the old Duke of Broadmorelands, who was
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the most straight-laced old boy in England. he had become
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: so in his disgust at the like behaviour of the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: wife he had divorced in his early manhood. Nigel cackled
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: gently as he detailed that by an agreeable coincidence it
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: happened that her grace had suddenly become filled with pious fervour,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: roused thereto by a good-looking locum tenens. Result, painful discoveries,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the pair being now rumoured to be keeping a lodging-house
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: together somewhere in Australia. A word to good old Broadmorelands
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: would produce the effect of a lighted match on a
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: barrel of gunpowder. It would be the end of Folliott.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Neither would it be a good introduction to Betty's first
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: season in London, neither would it be enjoyed by her mother,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: whom he remembered as a woman with primitive views of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: domestic rectitude. He smiled the awful smile as he took
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: out of his pocket the envelope containing the words his
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: wife had written to Mr. Folliott.' Do not come to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the house. Meet me at Bartian Wood.' It did not
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: take much to convince people if one managed things with
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: decent forethought. The Brents, for instance, were fond neither of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: her nor of Betty, and they had never forgotten the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: questionable conduct of their locum tenens. Then suddenly he had
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: changed his manner and had sat down laughing and drawn
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Rosalie to his knee and kissed her. Yes, he'd kissed
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: her and told her not to look like a little
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: fool or act like one. Nothing unpleasant would happen if
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: she behaved herself. Betty had improved her greatly, and she
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: had grown young and pretty again. She looked quite like
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: a child sometimes, now that her bones were covered and
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: she dressed well. If she wanted to please him, she
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: could put her arms around his neck and kiss him
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: as he had kissed her.'' That is what has made
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you look white,' said Betty.' Yes, there is something about
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: him that sometimes makes you feel as if the very
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: blood in your veins turned white,' answered Rosie in a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: low voice, which the next moment rose.' Don' t you see?'
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Don't you see, she broke out, that to displease him
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: would be like murdering Mr. Folliott, like murdering his mother
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and mine, and like murdering Uhtred because he would be
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: killed by the shame of things, and by being taken
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: from me. We have loved each other so much, so much,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: don't you see? I see all that rises up before you,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Betty said, and I understand your feeling that you cannot
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: save yourself by bringing ruin upon an innocent man who
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: helped you. I realize that one must have time to
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: think it over. But Rosie, a sudden ring in her voice,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I tell you there is a way out, there is
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a way out. The end of the misery is coming,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and it will not be what he thinks. You always believe,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: began Rosie. I know, answered Betty, I know there are
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: some things so bad that they cannot go on. They
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: kill themselves through their own evil. I know, I know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that is all. End of chapter 39