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The Shuttle Chapter 41 - She Would Do Something · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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Speaker 1: CHAPTER XLI. SHE WOULD DO SOMETHING Sir Nigel's face was
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Speaker 1: not a good thing to see when he appeared at
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Speaker 1: the dinner-table in the evening. As he took his seat
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Speaker 1: the two footmen glanced quickly at each other, and the
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Speaker 1: butler at the sideboard furtively thrust out his underlip. Not
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Speaker 1: a man or woman in the household but had learned
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Speaker 1: the signal denoting the moment when no service would please.
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Speaker 1: no word or movement be unobjectionable. Lady Anstruthers' face unconsciously
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Speaker 1: assumed its propitiatory expression, and she glanced at her sister
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Speaker 1: more than once when Betty was unaware that she did so.
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Speaker 1: Until the soup had been removed, Sir Nigel scarcely spoke,
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Speaker 1: merely making curt replies to any casual remark. This was
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Speaker 1: one of his simple and most engaging methods of at
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Speaker 1: once enjoying an ill-humour and making his wife feel that
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Speaker 1: she was in some way to blame for it.' Mount
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Speaker 1: Dunstan is in a ducidly unpleasant position,' he condescended at last.'
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Speaker 1: I should not care to stand in his shoes.' He
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Speaker 1: had not returned to the court until late in the afternoon,
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Speaker 1: but having heard in the village the rumour of the
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Speaker 1: outbreak of fever, he had made inquiries and gathered detail.'
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Speaker 1: You are thinking of the outbreak of typhoid among the hop-pickers,'
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Speaker 1: said Lady Anstruthers.' Mrs. Brent thinks it threatens to be
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Speaker 1: very serious.'' An epidemic, without a doubt,' he answered.' In
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Speaker 1: a wretched, unsanitary place like Dunstan Village, the wretches will
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Speaker 1: die like flies.'' What will be done?' inquired Betty. He
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Speaker 1: gave her one of the unpleasant personal glances and laughed derisively.' Done.
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Speaker 1: The county authorities, who call themselves guardians, will be frightened
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Speaker 1: to death, and will potter about and fuss like old women,
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Speaker 1: and profess to examine and protect and lay restrictions. But
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Speaker 1: everyone will manage to keep at a discreet distance, and
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Speaker 1: the thing will run riot and do its worst.' As
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Speaker 1: far as one can see, there seems no reason why
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Speaker 1: the whole place should not be swept away. No doubt
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Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan has wisely taken to his heels already.'' I
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Speaker 1: think that on the contrary there would be much doubt
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Speaker 1: of that,' Betty said.' He would stay and do what
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Speaker 1: he could.' Sir Nigel shrugged his shoulders.' Would he? I
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Speaker 1: think you'll find he would not.' Mrs. Brent tells me,
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Speaker 1: Rosalie broke in somewhat hurriedly, that the huts for the
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Speaker 1: hoppers are in the worst possible condition. They are so
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Speaker 1: dilapidated that the rain pours into them. There is no
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Speaker 1: proper shelter for the people who are ill, and Lord
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Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan cannot afford to take care of them. But
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Speaker 1: he will, he will, broke forth Betty. Her head lifted itself,
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Speaker 1: and she spoke almost as if through her small, shut teeth.
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Speaker 1: A wave of intense belief, high, proud, and obstinate, swept
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Speaker 1: through her. It was a feeling so strong and vibrant,
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Speaker 1: that she felt as if Mount Dunstan himself must be
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Speaker 1: reached and upborne by it, as if he himself must
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Speaker 1: hear her. Rosalie looked at her half startled, and for
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Speaker 1: the moment held fascinated by the sudden force rising in her,
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Speaker 1: and by the splendid spark of light under her lids.
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Speaker 1: She was reminded of the fierce little Betty of long ago,
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Speaker 1: with her delicate, indomitable small face, and the spirit, which
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Speaker 1: even at nine years old had somehow seemed so strong
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Speaker 1: and straightly keen of sight, that one had known it
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Speaker 1: might always be trusted. Actually, in one way she had
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Speaker 1: not changed. She saw the truth of things. The next instant, however,
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Speaker 1: inadvertently glancing towards her husband, she caught her breath quickly.
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Speaker 1: Across his heavy-featured face had shot the sudden gleam of
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Speaker 1: a new expression. It was as if he had, at
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Speaker 1: the moment, recognised something which filled him with a rush
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Speaker 1: of fury he himself was not prepared for. That he
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Speaker 1: did not wish it to be seen, she knew by
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Speaker 1: his manner. There was a brief silence in which it
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Speaker 1: passed away. he spoke after it with disagreeable precision he
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Speaker 1: has had an enormous effect on you that man he
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Speaker 1: said to betty he spoke clearly so that she might
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Speaker 1: have the pleasure of being certain that the men-servants heard
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Speaker 1: they were close to the table handing fruit professing to
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Speaker 1: be automatons eyes down faces expressing nothing but as quick
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Speaker 1: of hearing as it is said that blind men are
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Speaker 1: he knew that if he had been in her place
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Speaker 1: and a thing as insultingly significant had been said to
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Speaker 1: him he should promptly have hurled the nearest object— plate, wine-glass,
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Speaker 1: or decanter— in the face of the speaker. He knew, too,
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Speaker 1: that women cannot hurl projectiles without looking like viragos and fools.
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Speaker 1: The weakly feminine might burst into tears, or into a
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Speaker 1: silly rage, and leave the table. There was a distinct
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Speaker 1: breath-space of pause, and Betty, cutting a cluster from a
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Speaker 1: bunch of hothouse grapes presented by the footman at her side,
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Speaker 1: answered as clearly as he had spoken himself. He is
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Speaker 1: strong enough to produce an effect on anyone, she said.
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Speaker 1: I think you feel that yourself. He is a man
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Speaker 1: who will not be beaten in the end. Fortune will
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Speaker 1: give him some good thing. He is a fellow who
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Speaker 1: knows well enough on which hand of him good things lie,
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Speaker 1: he said. He will take all that offers itself. Why not?
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Speaker 1: Betty said impartially. There must be no riding or driving
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Speaker 1: in the neighbourhood of the place, he said next. I
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Speaker 1: will have no risks run. He turned and addressed the butler. Jennings,
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Speaker 1: tell the servants that those are my orders.' He sat
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Speaker 1: over his wine but a short time that evening, and
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Speaker 1: when he joined his wife and sister-in-law in the drawing-room
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Speaker 1: he went at once to Betty. In fact, he was
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Speaker 1: in the condition when a man cannot keep away from
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Speaker 1: a woman, but must invent some reason for reaching her,
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Speaker 1: whether it is fatuous or plausible.' What I said to
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Speaker 1: Jennings was an order to you as well as to
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Speaker 1: the people below stairs. I know you're particularly fond of
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Speaker 1: riding in the direction of Mount Dunstan.' You are in
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Speaker 1: my care so long as you are in my house.''
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Speaker 1: Orders are not necessary,' Betty replied.' The day is past
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Speaker 1: when one rushed to smooth pillows and give the wrong
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Speaker 1: medicine when one's friends were ill. If one is not
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Speaker 1: a properly trained nurse, it is riser not to risk
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Speaker 1: being very much in the way.' He spoke over her shoulder,
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Speaker 1: dropping his voice, though Lady Anstruthers sat apart, appearing to read.'
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Speaker 1: Don' t think I'm fool enough not to understand.' You've kept
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Speaker 1: yourself under magnificent control, but a woman passionately in love
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Speaker 1: cannot keep a certain look out of her eyes.' He
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Speaker 1: was standing on the hearth. Betty swung herself lightly round,
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Speaker 1: facing him squarely. Her full look was splendid.' If it
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Speaker 1: is there, let it stay,' she said.' I would not
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Speaker 1: keep it out of my eyes if I could. And
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Speaker 1: you are right, I could not if I would, if
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Speaker 1: it is there. If it is, let it stay.' The daring,
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Speaker 1: throbbing human truth of her made his brain whirl. To
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Speaker 1: a man young and clean and fit to count as
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Speaker 1: in the lists, to have heard her say the thing
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Speaker 1: of a rival would have been hard enough, but base, degenerate,
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Speaker 1: and of the world behind her day, to hear it
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Speaker 1: while frenzied for her was intolerable. And it was Mount
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Speaker 1: Dunstan she bore herself so highly for. Whether melodrama is
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Speaker 1: out of date or not, there are occasionally some fine
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Speaker 1: melodramatic touches in the enmities of to-day.' You think you
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Speaker 1: will reach him,' he persisted.' You think you will help
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Speaker 1: him in some way.' You will not let the thing alone.''
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Speaker 1: Excuse my mentioning that whatsoever I take the liberty of
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Speaker 1: doing' will encroach on no right of yours,' she said.
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Speaker 1: But alone in her room, after she went upstairs, the
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Speaker 1: face reflecting itself in the mirror was pale, and its
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Speaker 1: black brows were drawn together. She sat down at the dressing-table,
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Speaker 1: and seeing the paled face drew the black brows closer—
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Speaker 1: confronting a complicating truth. If I were free to take
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Speaker 1: Rosalie and Uhtred home to-morrow, she thought, I could not
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Speaker 1: bear to go. I should suffer too much. She was
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Speaker 1: suffering now. The strong longing in her heart was like
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Speaker 1: a physical pain. No word or look of this one
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Speaker 1: man had given her proof that his thoughts turned to her,
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Speaker 1: and yet it was intolerable, intolerable, that in his hour
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Speaker 1: of stress and need they were as wholly apart as
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Speaker 1: if worlds rolled between them. At any dire moment it
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Speaker 1: was mere nature that she should give herself in help
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Speaker 1: and support. If, on the night at sea, when they
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Speaker 1: had first spoken to each other, the ship had gone down,
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Speaker 1: she knew that they too, strangers though they were, would
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Speaker 1: have worked side by side among the frantic people, and
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Speaker 1: have been among the last to take to the boats.
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Speaker 1: How did she know? Only because he being he, and
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Speaker 1: she being she, it must have been so in accordance
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Speaker 1: with the law's ruling entities.' and now he stood facing
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Speaker 1: a calamity almost as terrible, and she, with full hands,
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Speaker 1: sat still. She had seen the hop-pickers' huts, and had
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Speaker 1: recognised their condition. Mere brick sheds in which the pickers
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Speaker 1: slept upon bundles of hay or straw in their best days,
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Speaker 1: in their decay they did not even provide shelter. In
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Speaker 1: fine weather the hop-gatherers slept well enough in them, cooking
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Speaker 1: their food in gypsy fashion in the open. When the
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Speaker 1: rain descended, it must run down walls and drip through
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Speaker 1: the holes in the roofs in streams which would soak
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Speaker 1: clothes and bedding. The worst that Nigel and Mrs. Brent
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Speaker 1: had implied was true. Illness of any order under such
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Speaker 1: circumstances would have small chance of recovery, but malignant typhoid
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Speaker 1: without shelter, without proper nourishment or nursing, had not one
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Speaker 1: chance in a million. And he, this one man, stood
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Speaker 1: alone in the midst of the tragedy, responsible and helpless.
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Speaker 1: He would feel himself responsible, as she herself would if
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Speaker 1: she were in his place. She was conscious that suddenly
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Speaker 1: the event of the afternoon, the interview upon the marshes,
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Speaker 1: had receded until it had become an almost unmeaning incident.
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Speaker 1: What did the degenerate melodramatic folly matter? She had restlessly
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Speaker 1: left her chair before the dressing-table and was walking to
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Speaker 1: and fro. She paused and stood looking down at the carpet,
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Speaker 1: though she scarcely saw it. nothing matters but one thing
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Speaker 1: one person she owned to herself aloud i suppose it
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Speaker 1: is always like this' Rosie, Uhtred, even father and mother.'
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Speaker 1: Everyone seems less near than they were.' It is too strong,
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Speaker 1: too strong.' It is,' the words dropped slowly from her lips,'
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Speaker 1: the strongest thing in the world.'' She lifted her face
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Speaker 1: and threw out her hands,' a lovely young half-sad smile
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Speaker 1: curling the deep corners of her mouth.' Sometimes one feels
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Speaker 1: so disdained,' she said. so disdained with all one's power.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps I'm an unwanted thing. But even in this case
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Speaker 1: there were aids one might make an effort to give.
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Speaker 1: She went to her writing-table and sat thinking for some time.
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Speaker 1: Afterwards she began to write letters. Three or four were
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Speaker 1: addressed to London. One was to Mr. Penzance. Mount Dunstan
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Speaker 1: and his vicar were walking through the village to the vicarage.
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Speaker 1: They had been to the hop-picker's hut to see the
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Speaker 1: people who were ill of the fever. Both of them
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Speaker 1: noticed that cottage doors and windows were shut, and that
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Speaker 1: here and there alarmed faces looked out from behind latticed panes.
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Speaker 1: They're in a panic of fear, Mount Dunstan said, and
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Speaker 1: by way of safeguard they shut out every breath of
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Speaker 1: air and stifle indoors. Something must be done. Catching the
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Speaker 1: eye of a woman who was peering over her short
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Speaker 1: white dimity blind, he beckoned to her authoritatively. She came
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Speaker 1: to the door and hesitated there, curtsying nervously. Mount Dunstan
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Speaker 1: spoke to her across the hedge.' You need not come
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Speaker 1: out to me, Mrs. Binner. You may stay where you are,'
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Speaker 1: he said.' Are you obeying the orders given by the guardians?'' Yes,
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Speaker 1: my lord, yes, my lord,' with more curtsies.' Your health
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Speaker 1: is very much in your own hands,' he added.' You
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Speaker 1: must keep your cottage and your children cleaner than you
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Speaker 1: have ever kept them before, and you must use the
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Speaker 1: disinfectant I sent you. Keep away from the huts and
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Speaker 1: open your windows.' If you don't open them, I shall
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Speaker 1: come and do it for you. Bad air is infection itself.
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Speaker 1: Do you understand?'' Yes, my lord. Thank your lordship. Go
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Speaker 1: in and open your windows now, and tell your neighbours
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Speaker 1: to do the same. If anyone is ill, let me
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Speaker 1: know at once. The vicar and I will do our
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Speaker 1: best for everyone.' By that time curiosity had overcome fear,
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Speaker 1: and other cottage doors had opened. Mount Dunstan passed down
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Speaker 1: the row and said a few words to each woman
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Speaker 1: or man who looked out. questions were asked anxiously, and
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Speaker 1: he answered them. That he was personally unafraid was comfortingly plain,
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Speaker 1: and the mere sight of him was on the whole
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Speaker 1: an unexplainable support.' We heard said your lordship was going away,'
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Speaker 1: put in a stout mother with a heavy child on
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Speaker 1: her arm, a slight testiness scarcely concealed by respectful good manners.
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Speaker 1: She was a matron with a temper, and that a
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Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan should avoid responsibility seemed highly credible.'' I shall
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Speaker 1: stay where I am,' Mount Dunstan answered.' My place is here.'
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Speaker 1: They believed him, Mount Dunstan, though he was. It could
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Speaker 1: not be said that they were fond of him, but
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Speaker 1: gradually it had been borne in upon them that his
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Speaker 1: word was to be relied on, though his manner was unalluring,
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Speaker 1: and they knew he was too poor to do his
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Speaker 1: duty by them or his estate. As he walked away
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Speaker 1: with the vicar, windows were opened, and in one or
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Speaker 1: two untidy cottages a sudden flourishing of mops and brooms began.
13:11
Speaker 1: there was dark trouble in Mount Dunstan's face. In the
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Speaker 1: huts they had left two men stiff on their straw,
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Speaker 1: and two women and a child in a state of collapse.
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Speaker 1: Added to these were others stricken helpless. A number of
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Speaker 1: workers in the hop-gardens, on realising the danger threatening them,
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Speaker 1: had gathered together bundles and children, and leaving the harvest behind,
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Speaker 1: had gone on the tramp again. Those who remained were
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Speaker 1: the weaker or less cautious, or were held by some
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Speaker 1: tie to those who were already ill of the fever.
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Speaker 1: The village doctor was an old man who had spent
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Speaker 1: his blameless life in bringing little cottages into the world,
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Speaker 1: attending their measles and whooping-coughs, and their father's and grandfather's rheumatics.
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Speaker 1: He had never faced a village crisis in the course
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Speaker 1: of his seventy-five years, and was aghast and flurried with fright.
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Speaker 1: His methods remained those of his youth, and were marked
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Speaker 1: chiefly by a readiness to prescribe calomel in any emergency.
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Speaker 1: A younger and stronger man was needed, as well as
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Speaker 1: a man of more modern training. but even the most
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Speaker 1: brilliant practitioner of the hour could not have provided shelter
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Speaker 1: and nourishment, and without them his skill would have counted
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Speaker 1: as nothing. For three weeks there had been no rain,
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Speaker 1: which was a condition of the barometer not likely to last.
14:25
Speaker 1: Already grey clouds were gathering and obscuring the blueness of
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Speaker 1: the sky. The vicar glanced upwards anxiously.' When it comes,'
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Speaker 1: he said,' there will be a downpour and a persistent one.'' Yes,'
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Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan answered. He had lain awake thinking throughout the night.
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Speaker 1: How was a man to sleep? It was as Betty
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Speaker 1: Vanderpool had known it would be. He, who, beggar though
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Speaker 1: he might be, was the lord of the land, was
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Speaker 1: the man to face the strait of these poor workers
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Speaker 1: on the land as his own. Some action must be taken.
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Speaker 1: What action? As he walked by his friend's side from
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Speaker 1: the huts where the dead men lay, it revealed itself
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Speaker 1: that he saw his way. They were going to the
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Speaker 1: vicarage to consult a medical book, but on the way
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Speaker 1: there they passed a part of the park where, through
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Speaker 1: a break in the timber, the huge, white, blind-faced house
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Speaker 1: stood on view. Mount Dunstan laid his hand on Mr.
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Speaker 1: Penzance's shoulder and stopped him.' Look there,' he said.' There
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Speaker 1: are weather-tight rooms enough.' A startled expression showed itself on
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Speaker 1: the vicar's face.' For what?' he exclaimed.' For a hospital,' brusquely.'
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Speaker 1: I can give them one thing at least— shelter.'' It' s a
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Speaker 1: very remarkable thing to think of doing,' Mr. Penzance said.'
15:39
Speaker 1: It is not so remarkable as that labourers on my
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Speaker 1: land should die at my gate, because I cannot give
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Speaker 1: them decent roofs to cover them. There is a roof
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Speaker 1: that will shield them from the weather. They shall be
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Speaker 1: brought to the mount.' The vicar was silent a moment,
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Speaker 1: and a flush of sympathy warmed his face.' You are
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Speaker 1: quite right, Fergus,' he said.' Entirely right.'' Let us go
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Speaker 1: to your study and plan how it shall be done,'
16:03
Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan said. As they walked toward the vicarage he
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Speaker 1: went on talking. When I lie awake at night there
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Speaker 1: is one thread which always winds itself through my thoughts
16:13
Speaker 1: whatsoever they are. I don't find that I can disentangle it.
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Speaker 1: It connects itself with Ruben S. Vanderpool's daughter. You would
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Speaker 1: know that without my telling you. If you had ever
16:24
Speaker 1: struggled with an insane passion— It is not insane, I repeat,
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Speaker 1: put in Penzance unflinchingly. Thank you, whether you are right
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Speaker 1: or wrong, answered Mount Dunstan, striding by his side. When
16:37
Speaker 1: I am awake, she is as much a part of
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Speaker 1: my existence as my breath itself. When I think things over,
16:43
Speaker 1: I find that I am asking myself if her thoughts
16:45
Speaker 1: would be like mine. She is a creature of action.
16:49
Speaker 1: Last night, as I lay awake, I said to myself,
16:52
Speaker 1: She would do something. What would she do? She would
16:55
Speaker 1: not be held back by fear of comment or convention.
16:58
Speaker 1: She would look about her for the utilisable. and she
17:01
Speaker 1: would find it somewhere and use it. I began to
17:04
Speaker 1: sum up the village resources and found nothing, until my
17:07
Speaker 1: thoughts led me to my own house. There it stood,
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Speaker 1: empty and useless. If it were hers and she stood
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Speaker 1: in my place, she would make it useful. So I decided.'
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Speaker 1: You are quite right,' Mr. Penzance said again. They spent
17:22
Speaker 1: an hour in his library at the vicarage, arranging practical
17:25
Speaker 1: methods for transforming the great ballroom into a sort of
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Speaker 1: hospital ward. It could be done by the removal of
17:31
Speaker 1: pieces of furniture from the many unused bedrooms. There was
17:34
Speaker 1: also the transportation of the patients from the huts to
17:37
Speaker 1: be provided for. But when all this was planned out,
17:41
Speaker 1: each found himself looking at the other with an unspoken
17:44
Speaker 1: thought in his mind. Mount Dunstan first expressed it.' As
17:48
Speaker 1: far as I can gather, the safety of typhoid fever
17:51
Speaker 1: patients depends almost entirely on scientific nursing, and the caution
17:55
Speaker 1: with which even liquid nourishment is given.' The woman, whose
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Speaker 1: husband died this morning, told me that he had seemed
18:01
Speaker 1: better in the night and had asked for something to eat.
18:04
Speaker 1: She gave him a piece of bread and a slice
18:06
Speaker 1: of cold bacon because he told her he fancied it.
18:10
Speaker 1: I could not explain to her, as she sat sobbing
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Speaker 1: over him, that she had probably killed him.' When we
18:16
Speaker 1: have patients in our ward, what shall we feed them on,
18:19
Speaker 1: and who will know how to nurse them? They do
18:21
Speaker 1: not know how to nurse each other, and the women
18:23
Speaker 1: in the village would not run the risk of undertaking
18:26
Speaker 1: to help us.' but even before he had left the
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Speaker 1: house the problem was solved for them. The solving of
18:32
Speaker 1: it lay in the note Miss Vanderpool had written the
18:34
Speaker 1: night before at Stornham. When it was brought to him, Mr.
18:38
Speaker 1: Penzance glanced up from certain calculations he was making upon
18:42
Speaker 1: a sheet of notepaper. The accumulating difficulties made him look
18:46
Speaker 1: worn and tired. He opened the note and read it gravely,
18:50
Speaker 1: and then as gravely, though with a change of expression,
18:53
Speaker 1: handed it to Mount Dunstan.' Yes, she is a creature
18:57
Speaker 1: of action,' She has heard and understood at once, and
18:59
Speaker 1: she has done something. It is immensely practical. It is fine.
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Speaker 1: It is lovable. Do you mind my keeping it? Mount
19:08
Speaker 1: Dunstan asked, after he had read it. Keep it by
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Speaker 1: all means, the vicar answered. It is worth keeping. But
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Speaker 1: it was quite brief. She had heard of the outbreak
19:17
Speaker 1: of fever among the hop-pickers, and asked to be allowed
19:20
Speaker 1: to give help to the people who were suffering. They
19:22
Speaker 1: would need prompt aid. She chanced to know something of
19:26
Speaker 1: the requirements of such cases, and had written to London
19:28
Speaker 1: for certain supplies which would be sent to them at once.
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Speaker 1: She had also written for nurses who would be needed
19:34
Speaker 1: above all else. Might she ask Mr. Penzance to kindly
19:37
Speaker 1: call upon her for any further assistance required? Tell her
19:41
Speaker 1: we are deeply grateful, Mount Dunstan said, and that she
19:44
Speaker 1: has given us greater help than she knows. Why not
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Speaker 1: answer her note yourself, Penzance? suggested. Mount Dunstan shook his head. No,
19:53
Speaker 1: he said shortly, no. End of chapter forty-one