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The Shuttle Chapter 22 - One of Mr Vanderpoel's Letters · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER XXII. ONE OF MR. VANDERPOEL'S LETTERS Mr. German, the
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  Speaker 1: secretary of the great Mr. Vanderpool, in arranging the neat
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  Speaker 1: stacks of letters preparatory to his chief's entrance to his
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  Speaker 1: private room each morning, knowing where each should be placed,
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  Speaker 1: understood that such as were addressed in Miss Vanderpool's hand
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  Speaker 1: would be read before anything else. This had been the
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  Speaker 1: case even when she had just been placed in a
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  Speaker 1: French school, a tall, slim little girl with immense demanding eyes,
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  Speaker 1: and a thick black plait of hair swinging between her straight,
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  Speaker 1: rather thin shoulders. Between other financial potentates and their little girls, Mr.
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  Speaker 1: German knew that the oddly confidential relation which existed between
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  Speaker 1: these two was unusual. Her schoolgirl letter, as it had
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  Speaker 1: been understood, should be given the first place on the
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  Speaker 1: stacks of envelopes each incoming ocean steamer brought in its mail-bags.
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  Speaker 1: Since the beginning of her visit to her sister, Lady Anstruthers,
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  Speaker 1: the exact dates of male steamers seem to be of
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  Speaker 1: increased importance. Miss Vanderpool evidently found much to write about.
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  Speaker 1: Each steamer brought a full-looking envelope to be placed in
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  Speaker 1: a prominent position. On a hot morning in the early summer, Mr.
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  Speaker 1: German found two or three, two of them of larger
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  Speaker 1: size and seeming to contain business papers. These he placed
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  Speaker 1: where they would be seen at once.' Mr. Vanderpool was
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  Speaker 1: a little later than usual in his arrival. At this
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  Speaker 1: season he came from his place in the country, and
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  Speaker 1: before leaving it this morning he had been talking to
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  Speaker 1: his wife, whom he found rather disturbed by a chance
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  Speaker 1: encounter with a young woman who had returned to visit
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  Speaker 1: her mother after a year spent in England with her
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  Speaker 1: English husband. The young woman, now Lady Bowen, once Millie Jones,
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  Speaker 1: had been one of the amusing marvels of New York.
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  Speaker 1: a girl neither rich nor so endowed by nature as
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  Speaker 1: to be able to press upon the world any special
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  Speaker 1: claim to consideration as a beauty, her enterprise and the
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  Speaker 1: daring of her tactics had been the delight of many
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  Speaker 1: a satiric onlooker. In her school days she had ingeniously
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  Speaker 1: mapped out her future career. Other American girls married men
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  Speaker 1: with titles, and she intended to do the same thing.
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  Speaker 1: The other little girls laughed, but they liked to hear
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  Speaker 1: her talk. All information regarding such unions as was to
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  Speaker 1: be found in the newspapers and magazines, she collected and
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  Speaker 1: studiously read, sometimes aloud to her companions. Social paragraphs about royalties,
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  Speaker 1: dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies, court balls and glittering functions,
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  Speaker 1: she devoured and learned by heart. An abominably vulgar little person,
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  Speaker 1: she was an interestingly pertinacious creature, and wrought night and
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  Speaker 1: day at acquiring an air of fashionable elegance. at first
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  Speaker 1: naturally laying it on in such a manner as suggested
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  Speaker 1: that it should be scraped off with a knife, but
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  Speaker 1: with experience gaining a certain specious knowledge of forms. How
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  Speaker 1: the over-mature child at school had assimilated her uncanny young worldliness,
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  Speaker 1: it would have been less difficult to decide if possible
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  Speaker 1: sources had been less numerous. The air was full of it,
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  Speaker 1: the literature of the day, the chatter of afternoon teas,
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  Speaker 1: the gossip of the hour— Before she was fifteen she
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  Speaker 1: saw the indiscretion of her childish frankness, and realised that
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  Speaker 1: it might easily be detrimental to her ambitions. She said
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  Speaker 1: no more of her plans for her future, and even
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  Speaker 1: took the astute tone of carelessly treating as a joke
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  Speaker 1: her vulgar little past. But no titled foreigner appeared upon
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  Speaker 1: the horizon without setting her small but business-like brain at work.
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  Speaker 1: Her lack of wealth and assured position made her situation
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  Speaker 1: rather hopeless. She was not of the class of lucky
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  Speaker 1: young women whose parents' gorgeous establishments offered attractions to wandering
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  Speaker 1: persons of rank. She and her mother lived in a flat,
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  Speaker 1: and gave rather pathetic afternoon teas, in return for such
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  Speaker 1: more brilliant hospitalities as careful and pertinacious calling and recalling
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  Speaker 1: obliged their acquaintances to feel they could not decently be
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  Speaker 1: left wholly out of. Millie and her anxious mother had
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  Speaker 1: worked hard. They lost no opportunity of writing a note
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  Speaker 1: or sending a Christmas card or an economical funeral wreath.
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  Speaker 1: By daily toil and amicable ignoring of casualness of manner
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  Speaker 1: or slights, they managed to cling to the edge of
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  Speaker 1: the precipice of social oblivion into whose depths a lesser
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  Speaker 1: degree of assiduity or a greater sensitiveness would have plunged them. Once,
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  Speaker 1: early in Millie's career, when her ever-ready chatter and her
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  Speaker 1: superficial brightness were a novelty— it had seemed for a
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  Speaker 1: short time that luck might be glancing towards her. A
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  Speaker 1: young man of foreign title and of bohemian tastes met
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  Speaker 1: her at a studio dance, and, misled by the smartness
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  Speaker 1: of her dress and her always carefully carried air of
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  Speaker 1: careless prosperity, began to pay a delusive court to her.
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  Speaker 1: For a few weeks all her precious frocks were worn assiduously,
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  Speaker 1: and credit was strained to buy new ones. The flat
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  Speaker 1: was adorned with fresh flowers, and several new yellow and
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  Speaker 1: pale blue cushions appeared at the little teas, which began
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  Speaker 1: to assume a more festive air. Desirable people, who went
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  Speaker 1: ordinarily to the teas at long intervals and through reluctant weakness,
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  Speaker 1: or sometimes rebellious amiability, were drummed up and brought firmly
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  Speaker 1: to the fore. Millie herself began to look pink and
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  Speaker 1: fluffy through mere hopeful good spirits. Her thin little laugh
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  Speaker 1: was heard incessantly, and people amusedly, if they were good-tempered,
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  Speaker 1: or derisively, if they were spiteful, wondered if it really
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  Speaker 1: would come to something. But it did not. The young
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  Speaker 1: foreigner suddenly left New York, making his adieus with entire lightness.
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  Speaker 1: There was the end of it. He had heard something
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  Speaker 1: about lack of income and uncertainty of credit, which had
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  Speaker 1: suggested to him that discretion was the better part of valour.
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  Speaker 1: He married later a young lady in the West whose
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  Speaker 1: father was a solid person. Less astute young women under
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  Speaker 1: the circumstances would have allowed themselves a week or so
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  Speaker 1: of headache or influenza, but Millie did not. She made
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  Speaker 1: calls in the new frocks, and with such persistent spirit
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  Speaker 1: that she fished forth from the depths of indifferent hospitality
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  Speaker 1: two or three excellent invitations. She wore her freshest pink
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  Speaker 1: frock and an amazingly clever little Parisian diamond crescent in
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  Speaker 1: her hair at the huge Monson Ball at Delmonico's, and
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  Speaker 1: it was recorded that it was on that glittering occasion
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  Speaker 1: that her Uncle James was first brought upon the scene.
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  Speaker 1: He was only mentioned lightly at first. it was to
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  Speaker 1: Millie's credit that he was not made too much of.
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  Speaker 1: He was casually touched upon as a very rich uncle
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  Speaker 1: who lived in Dakota, and had actually lived there since
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  Speaker 1: his youth, letting his few relations know nothing of him.
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  Speaker 1: He had been rather a black sheep as a boy,
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  Speaker 1: but Millie's mother had liked him, and when he had
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  Speaker 1: run away from New York he had told her what
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  Speaker 1: he was going to do, and had kissed her when
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  Speaker 1: she cried, and had taken her daguerreotype with him. Now
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  Speaker 1: he had written— and it turned out that he was
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  Speaker 1: enormously rich and was interested in milly from that time
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  Speaker 1: uncle james formed an atmosphere he did not appear in
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  Speaker 1: new york but milly spent the next season in london
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  Speaker 1: and the monsons being at hurlingham one day had her
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  Speaker 1: pointed out to them as a new american girl who
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  Speaker 1: was the idol of a millionaire uncle she was not
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  Speaker 1: living in an ultra fashionable quarter or with ultra fashionable
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  Speaker 1: people but she was, on all occasions, they heard, beautifully dressed,
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  Speaker 1: and beautifully, if a little heavily, hung with gourds and gems,
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  Speaker 1: her rings being said to be quite amazing and suggesting
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  Speaker 1: an impassioned lavishness on the part of Uncle James. London,
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  Speaker 1: having become inured to American marvels, Millie's bit of it,
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  Speaker 1: accepted and enjoyed Uncle James and all the sumptuous attributes
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  Speaker 1: of his Dakota. English people would swallow anything sometimes, Mrs.
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  Speaker 1: Monson commented sagely, and yet sometimes they stared and evidently
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  Speaker 1: thought you were lying about the simplest things. Millie's corner
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  Speaker 1: of South Kensington had gulped down the Dakota uncle. Her
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  Speaker 1: managing in this way, if there was no uncle, was
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  Speaker 1: too clever and amusing. She had left her mother at
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  Speaker 1: home to scrimp and save, and by hook or by
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  Speaker 1: crook she had contrived to get a number of quite
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  Speaker 1: good things to wear. She wore them with such an
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  Speaker 1: air of accustomed resource that the jewels might easily, mixed
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  Speaker 1: with some relics of her mother's better days, be of
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  Speaker 1: the order of the clever little Parisian diamond crescent. It
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  Speaker 1: was Millie's never-laid-aside manner which did it. The announcement of
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  Speaker 1: her union with Sir Arthur Bowen was received in certain
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  Speaker 1: New York circles with little suppressed shrieks of glee. It
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  Speaker 1: had been so sharp of her to aim low, and
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  Speaker 1: to realise so quickly that she could not aim high.
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  Speaker 1: The baronetcy was a recent one, and not unconnected with trade.
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  Speaker 1: Sir Arthur was not a rich man, and, had it
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  Speaker 1: leaked out, believed in Uncle James. If he did not
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  Speaker 1: find him all his fancy painted, Millie was clever enough
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  Speaker 1: to keep him quiet. She was, when all was said
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  Speaker 1: and done, one of the American women of title. Her
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  Speaker 1: servants and the tradespeople addressed her as My Lady, and
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  Speaker 1: with her capacity for appropriating what was most useful, and
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  Speaker 1: her easy assumption of possessing all required, She was a
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  Speaker 1: very smart person, indeed. She provided herself with an English accent,
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  Speaker 1: an English vocabulary, and an English manner, and in certain
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  Speaker 1: circles was felt to be most impressive. At an afternoon
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  Speaker 1: function in the country, Mrs. Vanderpool had met Lady Bowen.
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  Speaker 1: She had been one of the few kindly ones who
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  Speaker 1: in the past had given an occasional treat to Millie
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  Speaker 1: Jones for her girlhood's sake. Lady Bowen, having gathered a
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  Speaker 1: small group of hearers, was talking volubly to it, when
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  Speaker 1: the nice woman entered. and catching sight of her she
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  Speaker 1: swept across the room. It would not have been like
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  Speaker 1: Millie to fail to see and greet at once the
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  Speaker 1: wife of Reuben Vanderpool. She would count anywhere, even in
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  Speaker 1: London sets it was not easy to connect oneself with.
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  Speaker 1: She had already discovered that there were almost as many
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  Speaker 1: difficulties to be surmounted in London by the wife of
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  Speaker 1: an unimportant baronet as there had been to overcome in
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  Speaker 1: New York by a girl without money or place. It
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  Speaker 1: was well to have something in the way of information
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  Speaker 1: to offer in one small talk with the lucky ones,
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  Speaker 1: and milly knew what subject lay nearest to mrs vanderpoel's
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  Speaker 1: heart miss vanderpoel has evidently been enjoying her visit to
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  Speaker 1: stornham court she said after her first few sentences i
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  Speaker 1: met mrs worthington at the embassy and she said she
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  Speaker 1: had buried herself in the country but I think she
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: must have run up to town quietly for shopping. I
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  Speaker 1: saw her one day in Piccadilly, and I was almost
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  Speaker 1: sure Lady Anstruthers was with her in the carriage— almost sure. Mrs.
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  Speaker 1: Vanderpool's heart quickened its beat.' You were so young when
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  Speaker 1: she married,' she said.' I dare say you've forgotten her face.'' Oh, no,'
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Millie protested effusively.' I remember her quite well. She was
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  Speaker 1: so pretty and pink and happy-looking, and her hair curled naturally.'
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  Speaker 1: I used to pray every night that when I grew
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  Speaker 1: up I might have hair in a complexion like hers.' Mrs.
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  Speaker 1: Vanderpool's kind maternal face fell.' And you were not sure
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  Speaker 1: you recognized her? Well, I suppose twelve years does make
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  Speaker 1: a difference,' her voice dragging a little. Millie saw that
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  Speaker 1: she had made a blunder. The fact was she had
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  Speaker 1: not even guessed at Rosie's identity until long after the
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  Speaker 1: carriage had passed her.' Oh, you see,' she hesitated. Their
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  Speaker 1: carriage was not near me, and I was not expecting
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  Speaker 1: to see them, and perhaps she looked a little delicate.
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  Speaker 1: I heard she had been rather delicate. She felt she
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  Speaker 1: was floundering, and bravely floundered away from the subject. She
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  Speaker 1: plunged into talk of Betty and people's anxiety to see her,
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  Speaker 1: and the fact that the society columns were already faintly
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  Speaker 1: heralding her. She would surely come soon to town. It
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  Speaker 1: was too late for the first drawing-room this year. When
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  Speaker 1: did Mrs. Vanderpool think she would be presented?' Would Lady
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  Speaker 1: Anstruthers present her? Mrs. Vanderpool could not bring her back
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  Speaker 1: to Rosie in the nature of the change which had
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  Speaker 1: made it difficult to recognise her. The result of this
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  Speaker 1: chance encounter was that she did not sleep very well,
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  Speaker 1: and the next morning talked anxiously to her husband. What
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  Speaker 1: I could see, Reuben, was that Millie Bowen had not
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  Speaker 1: known her at all, even when she saw her in
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  Speaker 1: the carriage with Betty. She couldn't have changed as much
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  Speaker 1: as that if she'd been taken care of and happy.'
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  Speaker 1: Her affection and admiration for her husband were such as
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  Speaker 1: made the task of soothing her a comparatively simple thing.
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  Speaker 1: The instinct of tenderness for the mate his youth had
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  Speaker 1: chosen was an unchangeable one in Reuben Vanderpool. He was
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  Speaker 1: not a primitive man, but in this he was as
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  Speaker 1: unquestioningly simple as if he had been a kindly New
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  Speaker 1: England farmer. He had outgrown his wife, but he had
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  Speaker 1: always loved and protected her gentle goodness. He had never
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  Speaker 1: failed her in her smallest difficulty. He couldn't bear to
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  Speaker 1: see her hurt. Betty had been his compeer and his
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  Speaker 1: companion almost since her childhood, but his wife was the
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  Speaker 1: tenderest care of his days. There was a strong sense
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  Speaker 1: of relief in his thought of Betty now. It was
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  Speaker 1: good to remember the fineness of her perceptions, her clearness
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  Speaker 1: of judgment, and recall that they were qualities he might
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  Speaker 1: rely upon. When he left his wife to take his
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  Speaker 1: train to town, he left her smiling again. She scarcely
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  Speaker 1: knew how her fears had been dispelled. His talk had
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  Speaker 1: all been kindly, practical, and reasonable. It was true Betty
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  Speaker 1: had said in her letter that Rosie had been rather delicate,
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  Speaker 1: and had not been taking very good care of herself,
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  Speaker 1: but that was to be remedied. Rosie had made a
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  Speaker 1: little joke or so about it herself. Betty says I'm
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  Speaker 1: not fat enough for an English matron. I'm drinking milk
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  Speaker 1: and breakfasting in bed, and am going to be massaged
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  Speaker 1: to please her. I believe we all used to obey
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  Speaker 1: Betty when she was a child, and now she's so
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  Speaker 1: tall and splendid one would never dare to cross her. Oh, Mother,
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  Speaker 1: I'm so happy at having her with me. To re-read
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  Speaker 1: just these simple things caused the suggestion of things not
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  Speaker 1: comfortably normal to melt away. Mrs. Vanderpool sat down at
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  Speaker 1: a sunny window with her lap full of letters, and
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  Speaker 1: forgot Millie Bowen's floundering. When Mr. Vanderpool reached his office
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  Speaker 1: and glanced at his carefully arranged morning's mail, Mr. German
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  Speaker 1: saw him smile at the sight of the envelopes addressed
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  Speaker 1: in his daughter's hand. He sat down to read them
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  Speaker 1: at once, and as he read the smile of welcome
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: became a shrewd and deeply interested one. She has undertaken
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a good-sized contract, he was saying to himself, and she
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  Speaker 1: is to be trusted to see it through. It is
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: rather fine the way she manages to combine emotions and
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  Speaker 1: romance and sentiments with practical good business, without letting one
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  Speaker 1: interfere with the other. It's none of it bad business, this,
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  Speaker 1: as the estate is entailed, and the boy is Rosie's.
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  Speaker 1: It's good business. This was what Betty had written to
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  Speaker 1: her father in New York from Stornham Court. Things I
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  Speaker 1: am beginning to do it would be impossible for me
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  Speaker 1: to resist doing, and it would certainly be impossible for you.
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  Speaker 1: The thing I am seeing I have never seen at
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  Speaker 1: close hand before, though I have taken in something almost
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  Speaker 1: its parallel as part of a certain picturesqueness of scenes
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  Speaker 1: in other countries. But I am living with this, and
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  Speaker 1: also through relationship to Rosie I in a measure belong
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  Speaker 1: to it, and it belongs to me. You and I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: may have often seen in American villages crudeness, incompleteness, lack
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  Speaker 1: of comfort, and the composition of a picture, a rough ugliness,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the result of haste and unsettled life, which stays nowhere long,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: but packs up its goods and chattels and wanders further
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: afield in search of something better or worse, in any
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: case in search of change. But we have never seen
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: ripe gradual falling to ruin of what generations ago was beautiful.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: To me it is wonderful and tragic and touching. if
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you could see the court, if you could see the village,
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  Speaker 1: if you could see the church, if you could see
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the people, all quietly disintegrating, and so dearly perfect in
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: their way that if one knew absolutely that nothing could
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: be done to save them, one could only stand still
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and catch one's breath and burst into tears. The church
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: has stood since the conquest, and as it still stands,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: grey and fine, with its massive square tower, and despite
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the state of its roof is not yet given wholly
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: to the winds and weather, it will no doubt stand
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  Speaker 1: a few centuries longer. The court, however, cannot long remain
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  Speaker 1: a possible habitation if it is not given a new
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  Speaker 1: lease of life. I do not mean that it will
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  Speaker 1: crumble to-morrow or the day after, but we should not
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  Speaker 1: think it habitable now, even while we should admit that
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: nothing could be more delightful to look at. The cottages
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: in the village are already many of them amazing when
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: regarded as the dwellings of human beings. How long ago
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the cottagers gave up expecting that anything in particular would
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: be done for them, I do not know. I am
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: impressed by the fact that they are an unexpecting people.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Their calm non-expectancy fills me with interest. Only centuries of
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: waiting for their superiors in rank to do things for them,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and the slow formation of the habit of realizing that
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: not to submit to disappointment was no use, could have
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: produced the almost serenity of their attitude. it is all
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: very well for new-born republican nations, meaning my native land,
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  Speaker 1: to sniff sternly and say that such a state of
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  Speaker 1: affairs is an insult to the spirit of the race.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps it is now, but it was not apparently centuries ago,
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  Speaker 1: which was when it all began and when man and
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the race had not developed to the point of asking
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: questions to which they demand replies about themselves and the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: things which happened to them. It began in the time
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: of Eckbert and Canute and earlier in the days of
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the Druids when they used peacefully to allow themselves to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be burned by the score, enclosed in wicker idols as
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: natural offerings to placate the gods. The modern acceptance of
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: things is only a somewhat attenuated remnant of the ancient idea.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: And this is what I have to deal with and understand.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: When I begin to do the things I am going
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  Speaker 1: to do with the aid of your practical advice, if
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I have your approval— The people will be at first
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: rather afraid of me. They will privately expect I am mad.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: It will also not seem at all unlikely that an
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: American should be of unreasoningly extravagant and flighty mind. Stornham,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: having long slumbered in remote peace through lack of railroad convenience,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: still regards America as almost of the character of wild rumour.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Rosie was their one American, and she disappeared from their
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: view so soon that she had not time to make
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: any lasting impression. I am asking myself how difficult or
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: how simple it will be to quite understand these people
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and to make them understand me. I greatly doubt its
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: being simple. Layers and layers and layers of centuries must
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: be far from easy to borrow through. They look simple.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: They do not know that they are not simple, but
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: really they are not. Their point of view has been
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the point of view of the English peasants so many
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: hundred years that an American point of view, which has
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: had no more than a trifling century and a half
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to form itself in, may find its hues and sinews
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the least powerful of the two. When I walk down
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the village street, faces appear at windows and figures, stolidly
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: at doors. What I see is that, vaguely and remotely,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: American though I am, the fact that I am of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: her ladyship's blood, and that her ladyship, American though she is,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: has the claim on them of being the mother of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the son of the owner of the land, STIRS IN
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: THEM A FEELING THAT I HAVE A SHADOWY SORT OF
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: RELATIONSHIP IN THE WHOLE THING, AND WITH REGARD TO THEIR
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: BAD ROOFS AND BAD CHIMNEYS, TO THEIR BROKEN PAILINGS AND
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: DAMP FLOORS, TO THEIR COMFORTS AND DISCOMFORTS, A SORT OF RESPONSIBILITY.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: THAT IS THE WHOLE THING, AND YOU, JUST YOU, FATHER,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: WILL UNDERSTAND ME WHEN I SAY THAT I ACTUALLY LIKE IT.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I MIGHT NOT LIKE IT IF I WERE POOR ROSY,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: BUT BEING MYSELF I LOVE IT. THERE IS SOMETHING PATRIARCHAL
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: IN IT WHICH MOVES ME. Is it an abounding and
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: arrogant delight in power which makes it appeal to me,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: or is it something better? To feel that every man
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: on the land, every woman, every child, new one, counted
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: on one's honour and friendship, turned to one believingly in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: time of stress, to know that one could help and
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: be a finely faithful thing, the very knowledge of it
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: would give one vigour and warm blood in the veins.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I wish I had been born to it. I wish
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the first sounds falling on my newborn ears had been
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the clanging of the peal from an old Norman church tower,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: calling out to me, Welcome, newcomer of our house, long
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: life among us, welcome. Still, though the first sounds that
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: greeted me were probably the rattling of a Fifth Avenue stage,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I have brought them something, and who knows whether I
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: could have brought it from without the range of that
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: prosaic but cheerful rattle. The rest of the letter was
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: detail of a business-like order. A large envelope contained the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: detail notes of things to be done, notes concerning roofs, windows, flooring,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: park fences, gardens, greenhouses, tool houses, potting sheds, garden walls, gates, woodwork, masonry.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Sharp little sketches, such as Buttle had seen, notes concerning Buttle, Fox, Tread, Kedges,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and less accomplished workmen, concerning wages of day-labourers, hours, capabilities— Buttle,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: if he had chanced to see them, would have broken
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: into a like perspiration at the idea of a young
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: woman having compiled the documents. He had never heard of
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the first Reuben Vanderpool. Her father's reply to Betty was
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: as long as her own to him, and gave her
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: keen pleasure by its support, both of sympathetic interest and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: practical advice. He left none of her points unnoted, and
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: dealt with each of them as she had most hoped,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and indeed had felt she knew he would. This was
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: his final summing up. If you had been a boy,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and I own I am glad you were not, a
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: man wants a daughter, I should have been quite willing
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to allow you your flutter on Wall Street, or your
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: try at anything you felt you would like to handle.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: It would have interested me to look on and see
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: what you were made of, what you wanted, and how
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you set about trying to get it. It's a new
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: kind of deal you have undertaken. It's more romantic than
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Wall Street, but I think I do see what you
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: see in it. Even apart from Rosie and the boy,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it would interest me to see what you would do
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: with it.' This is your flutter. I like the way
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: you face it. If you were a son instead of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a daughter, I should see I might have confidence in you.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I could not confide to Wall Street what I will
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: tell you, which is that in the midst of the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: drive and swirl and tumult of my life here, I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: like what you see in the thing. I like your
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: idea of the lord of the land who should love
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the land and the souls born on it, and be
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the friend and strength of them, and give the best
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and get it back in fair exchange.' There's a steadiness
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: in the thought of such a life among one's kind
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: which has attractions for a man who has spent years
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: in a maelstrom, snatching at what whirls among the eddies
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of it. Your notes and sketches and summing up of
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: probable costs did us both credit. I say both because
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: your business education is the result of our long talks
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and journeyings together. You began to train for this when
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: you began going to visit mines and railroads with me
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: at twelve years old. I leave the whole thing in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: your hands, my girl. I leave Rosie in your hands,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and in leaving Rosie to you, you know how I
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: am trusting you with your mother. Your letters to her
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: tell her only what is good for her. She is
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: beginning to look happier and younger already, and is looking
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: forward to the day when Rosie and the boy will
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: come home to visit us, and when we shall go
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: in state to Stornham Court. God bless her, she is
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: made up of affection and simple trust, and that makes
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: it easy to keep things from her. She has never
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: been ill-treated, and she knows I love her. so that
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: when I tell her that things are coming right, she
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: never doubts me. While you are rebuilding the place, you
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: will rebuild Rosie, so that the sight of her may
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: not be a pain when her mother sees her again,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: which is what she is living for. End of chapter
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: twenty-two