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The Shuttle Chapter 25 - We Began to Marry Them My Good Fellow · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five of the shuttle we began to marry
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  Speaker 1: them my good fellow lord dunham and his eldest son
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  Speaker 1: lord westholt sauntered together smoking their after-dinner cigars on the
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  Speaker 1: broad turf terrace overlooking park and gardens which seemed to
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  Speaker 1: sweep without boundary line into the purplish land beyond the
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  Speaker 1: grey mass of the castle stood clear-cut against the blue
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  Speaker 1: of the sky whose twilight was still almost daylight, though
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  Speaker 1: in the purity of its evening stillness a star already
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  Speaker 1: hung here and there, and a young moon swung low.
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  Speaker 1: The great spaces about them held a silence whose exquisite
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  Speaker 1: entirety was marked at intervals by the distant bark of
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  Speaker 1: a shepherd-dog driving his master's sheep to their fold. Their
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  Speaker 1: soft intermittent plaits, the mother-ewes mellow answering to the tender
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  Speaker 1: fretful lambs, floated on the air, a lovely part of
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  Speaker 1: the ending day's repose. where two who are friends stroll
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  Speaker 1: together at such hours the great beauty makes for silence
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  Speaker 1: or for thoughtful talk. These two men, father and son,
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  Speaker 1: were friends and intimates, and had been so from Westholt's
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  Speaker 1: first memory of the time when his childish individuality began
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  Speaker 1: to detach itself from the background of misty and indistinct things.
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  Speaker 1: They had liked each other, and their liking and intimacy
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  Speaker 1: had increased with the onward moving and change of years.
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  Speaker 1: After sixty sane and decently spent active years of life,
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  Speaker 1: Lord Denham, in either country tweed or evening dress, was
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  Speaker 1: a well-built and handsome man. At thirty-three his son was
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  Speaker 1: still like him.' Have you seen her?' he was saying.
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  Speaker 1: Only at a distance. She was driving Lady Anstruthers across
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  Speaker 1: the marshes in a cart. She drove well, and—' he
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  Speaker 1: laughed as he flicked the ash from his cigar—' the back
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  Speaker 1: of her head and shoulders looked handsome.'' The American young
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  Speaker 1: woman is at present a factor which is without doubt
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  Speaker 1: to be counted with,' Lord Denham put the matter without lightness.'
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  Speaker 1: Any young woman is a factor, but the American young
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  Speaker 1: woman just now— just now—' He paused a moment as though considering.'
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  Speaker 1: It did not seem at all necessary to count with
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  Speaker 1: them at first when they began to appear among us.'
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  Speaker 1: They were generally curiously exotic, funny little creatures with odd
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  Speaker 1: manners and voices.' They were often most amusing, and one
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  Speaker 1: liked to hear them chatter and see the airy likeness
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  Speaker 1: with which they took superfluous and sometimes unsuperfluous conventions, as
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  Speaker 1: a hunter takes a five-barred gate. But it never occurred
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  Speaker 1: to us to marry them. We didn't take them seriously enough.
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  Speaker 1: But we began to marry them. We began to marry them,
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  Speaker 1: my good fellow. The final words broke forth with such
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  Speaker 1: a suggestion of sudden anxiety that in spite of himself
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  Speaker 1: Westhold laughed involuntarily. and his father turning to look at
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  Speaker 1: him laughed also but he recovered his seriousness it was
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  Speaker 1: all rather a muddle at first he went on things
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  Speaker 1: were not fairly done and certain bad lots looked on
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  Speaker 1: it as a paying scheme on the one side while
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  Speaker 1: it was a matter of silly little ambitions on the
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  Speaker 1: other but that it is an extraordinary country there is
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  Speaker 1: no sane denying huge fabulously resourceful in every way Area,
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  Speaker 1: variety of climate, wealth of minerals, products of all sorts,
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  Speaker 1: soil to grow anything, and sun and rain enough to
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  Speaker 1: give each thing what it needs. Last, or rather first,
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  Speaker 1: a people who considered as a nation are in the
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  Speaker 1: riot of youth, and who began by being English, which
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  Speaker 1: we Englishmen have an innocent belief is the one method
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  Speaker 1: of owning the earth. That figure of speech is an
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  Speaker 1: Americanism I carefully committed to memory. Well, after all, look
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  Speaker 1: at the map, look at the map, there we are.
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  Speaker 1: they had frequently discussed together the question of the development
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  Speaker 1: of international relations. Lord Dunham, a man of far-reaching and
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  Speaker 1: clear logic, had realised that the oddly unaccentuated growth of
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  Speaker 1: intercourse between the two countries might be a subject to
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  Speaker 1: be reflected on without likeness. The habit we have of
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  Speaker 1: regarding America and Americans as rather a joke, he had
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  Speaker 1: once said, has a sort of parallel in the condescendingly
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  Speaker 1: amiable amusement of a parent at the precocity or whimsicalness
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  Speaker 1: of a child. but the child is shooting up amazingly, amazingly,
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  Speaker 1: in a way which suggests diverse possibilities. The exchange of
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  Speaker 1: visits between Dunham and Stornham had been rare and formal.
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  Speaker 1: From the call made upon the younger Lady Anstruthers on
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  Speaker 1: her marriage, the Dunhams had returned with a sense of
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  Speaker 1: puzzled pity for the little American bride, with her wonderful
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  Speaker 1: frock and her uneasy, childish eyes. For some years Lady
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  Speaker 1: Anstruthers had been too delicate to make or return calls,
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  Speaker 1: One heard painful accounts of her apparent wretched ill-health, and
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  Speaker 1: of the condition of her husband's estate.' As the relations
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  Speaker 1: between the two families have evidently been strained for years,'
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  Speaker 1: Lord Dunham said,' it is interesting to hear of the
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  Speaker 1: sudden advent of the sister. It seems to point to reconciliation,
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  Speaker 1: and you say the girl is an unusual person. From
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  Speaker 1: what one hears she would be unusual if she were
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  Speaker 1: an English girl who had spent her life on an
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  Speaker 1: English estate.' that an American who is making her first
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  Speaker 1: visit to England should seem to see at once the
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  Speaker 1: practical needs of a neglected place is a thing to
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  Speaker 1: wonder at. What can she know about it, one thinks.
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  Speaker 1: But she apparently does know. They say she has made
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  Speaker 1: no mistakes, even with the village people. She is managing,
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  Speaker 1: in one way or another, to give work to every
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  Speaker 1: man who wants it. Result, of course, unbounded rustic enthusiasm.
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  Speaker 1: Lord Dunham laughed between the soothing whiffs of his cigar.'
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  Speaker 1: How clever of her! And what sensible good feeling! Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: she evidently has learned things somewhere. Perhaps New York has
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  Speaker 1: found it wise to begin to give young women professional
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  Speaker 1: training in the management of English estates. Who knows? Not
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  Speaker 1: a bad idea.'' It was the rustic enthusiasm,' Westholt explained,
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  Speaker 1: which had in a manner spread her fame. One heard
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  Speaker 1: enlightening and illustrative anecdotes of her. He related several well
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  Speaker 1: worth hearing.' She had evidently a sense of humour and
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  Speaker 1: unexpected perceptions. One detail of the story of old Dobie's Meerschaum,
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  Speaker 1: Westholtz said, pleased me enormously. She managed to convey to him,
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  Speaker 1: without hurting his aged feelings or overwhelming him with embarrassment,
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  Speaker 1: that if he preferred a clean churchwarden or his old briarwood,
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  Speaker 1: he need not feel obliged to smoke the new pipe.
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  Speaker 1: He could regard it as a trophy. Now, how did
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  Speaker 1: she do that without filling him with fright and confusion—
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  Speaker 1: lest she might think him not sufficiently grateful for her present.
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  Speaker 1: But they tell me she did it, and that old
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  Speaker 1: Dobie is rapturously happy and takes the Mearsham to bed
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  Speaker 1: with him, but only smokes it on Sundays, sitting at
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  Speaker 1: his window, blowing great clouds when his neighbours are coming
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  Speaker 1: from church. It was a clever girl who knew that
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  Speaker 1: an old fellow might secretly like his old pipe best.'
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  Speaker 1: It was a deliciously clever girl,' said Lord Dunham.' One
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  Speaker 1: wants to know and make friends with her. We must
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  Speaker 1: drive over and call.' I confess I rather congratulate myself
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  Speaker 1: that Anne Struthers is not at home. Oh, so do I,
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  Speaker 1: Westholt answered. One wonders a little how far he and
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  Speaker 1: his sister-in-law will foregather when he returns. He's an unpleasant beggar.
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  Speaker 1: A few days later Mrs. Brent, returning from a call
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  Speaker 1: on Mrs. Charlie Jenkins, was passed by a carriage whose
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  Speaker 1: livery she recognised halfway up the village street. It was
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  Speaker 1: the carriage from Dunham Castle. Lord and Lady Dunham and
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  Speaker 1: Lord Westholt sat in it. They were, of course, going
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  Speaker 1: to call at the court. Miss Vanderpool was beginning to
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  Speaker 1: draw people. She naturally would. She would be likely to
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  Speaker 1: make quite a difference in the neighbourhood, now that it
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  Speaker 1: had heard of her, and Lady Anstruthers had been seen
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  Speaker 1: driving with her, evidently no longer an unvisitable invalid, but
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  Speaker 1: actually decently clothed and in her right mind. Mrs. Brent
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  Speaker 1: slackened her steps that she might have the pleasure of
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  Speaker 1: receiving and responding gracefully to salutations from the important personages
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  Speaker 1: in the Landau, She felt that the Dunhams were important.
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  Speaker 1: There were Oldhams and Earldhams, and that of Dunham was
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  Speaker 1: dignified and of distinction. A common-looking young man on a bicycle,
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  Speaker 1: who had wheeled into the village with the carriage, riding
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  Speaker 1: alongside it for a hundred yards or so, stopped before
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  Speaker 1: the clock in and dismounted, just as Mrs. Brent neared him.
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  Speaker 1: He saw her looking after the equipage, and lifting his cap,
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  Speaker 1: spoke to her civilly.' This is Stornham Village, ain't it, ma'am?'
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  Speaker 1: he inquired.' Yes, my man.' His costume and general aspect
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  Speaker 1: seemed to indicate that he was of the class one
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  Speaker 1: addressed as my man, though there was something a little
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  Speaker 1: odd about him. Thank you, that wasn't Miss Vanderpool's eldest
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  Speaker 1: sister in that carriage, was it? Miss Vanderpool's, Mrs. Brent hesitated.
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  Speaker 1: Do you mean Lady Anne Struthers? I'd forgotten her name.
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  Speaker 1: I know Miss Vanderpool's eldest sister lives at Stornham, Reuben S.
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  Speaker 1: Vanderpool's daughter.' Lady Anstruther's younger sister is a Miss Vanderpool,
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  Speaker 1: and she is visiting at Stornham Court now. Mrs. Brent
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  Speaker 1: could not help adding curiously, Why do you ask? I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to see her. I'm an American. Mrs. Brent coughed
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  Speaker 1: to cover a slight gasp. She had heard remarkable things
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  Speaker 1: of the democratic customs of America. It was painful not
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  Speaker 1: to be able to ask questions. The lady in the
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  Speaker 1: carriage was the Countess of Dunham, she said rather grandly,
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  Speaker 1: they are going to the court to call on miss
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  Speaker 1: vanderpoel then miss vanderpoel's there yet that's all right thank
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  Speaker 1: you ma'am and lifting his cap again he turned into
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  Speaker 1: the little public-house the dunham party had been accustomed on
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  Speaker 1: their rare visits to stornham to be received by the
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  Speaker 1: kind of man-servant in the kind of livery which is
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  Speaker 1: a manifest though unwilling confession the men who threw open
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  Speaker 1: the doors were of regulation height well and of a
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  Speaker 1: trained bearing. The entrance-hall had lost its hopeless shabbiness. It
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  Speaker 1: was a complete and picturesquely luxurious thing. The change suggested magic.
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  Speaker 1: The magic which had been used, Lord Denham reflected, was
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  Speaker 1: the simplest and most powerful on earth. given surroundings combined
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  Speaker 1: with the gift of knowing values of form and colour
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  Speaker 1: if you have the power to spend thousands of guineas
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  Speaker 1: on tiger-skins oriental rugs and other beauties baroness is easily
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  Speaker 1: transformed the drawing-room wore a changed aspect and at a
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  Speaker 1: first glance it was to be seen that in poor
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  Speaker 1: little lady anstruthers as she had generally been called there
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  Speaker 1: was to be noted alteration also in her case the
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  Speaker 1: change being in its first stages could not perhaps be
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  Speaker 1: yet called transformation but aided by softly pretty arrangement of
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  Speaker 1: dress and hair, a light in her eyes, and a
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  Speaker 1: suggestion of pink under her skin, one recalled that she
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  Speaker 1: had once been a pretty little woman, and that after
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  Speaker 1: all she was only about thirty-two years old. That her sister,
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  Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool, had beauty, it was not necessary to hesitate
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  Speaker 1: in deciding. Neither Lord Dunham, nor his wife, nor their
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  Speaker 1: son did hesitate. A girl with long limbs in alluring profile,
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  Speaker 1: and extraordinary black lashes set around lovely Irish blue eyes,
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  Speaker 1: possesses physical capital not to be argued about. She was
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  Speaker 1: not one of the curious, exotic little creatures, whose thin,
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  Speaker 1: though sometimes rather sweet, and always gay, high-pitched young voices
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  Speaker 1: Lord Dunham had been so especially struck by in the
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  Speaker 1: early days of the American invasion. Her voice had a
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  Speaker 1: tone one would be likely to remember with pleasure. How
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  Speaker 1: well she moved! How well her black head was set
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  Speaker 1: on her neck! Yes, she was of the new type,
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  Speaker 1: the later generation.' These amazing, oddly practical people had evolved it,
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  Speaker 1: planned it, perhaps, bought, figuratively speaking, the architects and material
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  Speaker 1: to design and build it, bought them in whatever country
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  Speaker 1: they found them, England, France, Italy, Germany, pocketing them coolly
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  Speaker 1: and carrying them back home to develop, complete, and send
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  Speaker 1: forth into the world when their invention was a perfected thing.
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  Speaker 1: Struck by the humour of his fancy, Lord Dunham found
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  Speaker 1: himself smiling into the Irish blue eyes. They smiled back
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  Speaker 1: at him, in a way which warmed his heart. There
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  Speaker 1: were no pauses in the conversation which followed. In times past,
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  Speaker 1: calls at Stornham had generally held painfully blank moments. Lady
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  Speaker 1: Dunham was as pleased as her husband. A really charming
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  Speaker 1: girl was an enormous acquisition to the neighbourhood. Westholt, his
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  Speaker 1: father saw, had found even more than the story of
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  Speaker 1: old Dobie's pipe had prepared him to expect. Country calls
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  Speaker 1: were not usually interesting or stimulating— and this one was.
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  Speaker 1: Lord Dunham laid subtly brilliant plans to lead Miss Vanderpool
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  Speaker 1: to talk of her native land and her views of it.
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  Speaker 1: He knew that she would say things worth hearing. Incidentally,
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  Speaker 1: one gathered picturesque detail. To have vibrated between the two
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  Speaker 1: continents since her thirteenth year, to have spent a few
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  Speaker 1: years at school in one country, a few years in another,
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  Speaker 1: and yet a few years more in still another, as
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  Speaker 1: part of an arranged educational plan, to have crossed the
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  Speaker 1: Atlantic for the holidays— and to have journeyed thousands of
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  Speaker 1: miles with her father in his private car, to make
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  Speaker 1: the visits of a man of great schemes to his
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  Speaker 1: possessions of mines, railroads, and lands which were almost principalities.
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  Speaker 1: These things had been merely details of her life, adding
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  Speaker 1: interest and variety it was true, but seeming the merely
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  Speaker 1: normal outcome of existence. They were normal to Vanderpools and
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  Speaker 1: others of their class who were abnormalities in themselves when
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  Speaker 1: compared with the rest of the world. Her own very
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  Speaker 1: lack of any abnormality reached, in Lord Dunham's mind, the
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  Speaker 1: highest point of illustration of the phase of life she
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  Speaker 1: beautifully represented, for beautiful he felt its rare charms were.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: When they strolled out to look at the gardens he
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  Speaker 1: found talk with her no less a stimulating thing. She
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  Speaker 1: told her story of kedgers, and showed the chosen spot
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  Speaker 1: where thickets of lilies were to bloom, with the giants
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  Speaker 1: lifting white archangel trumpets above them in the centre. He
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  Speaker 1: can be trusted, she said. I feel sure he can
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  Speaker 1: be trusted. He loves them. He could not love them
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  Speaker 1: so much and not be able to take care of them.
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  Speaker 1: And as she looked at him in frank appeal for sympathy,
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  Speaker 1: Lord Dunham felt that for the moment she looked like
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  Speaker 1: a tall, queenly child. But pleased as he was, he
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  Speaker 1: presently gave up his place at her side to Westholt.
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  Speaker 1: He must not be a selfish old fellow and monopolise her.
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  Speaker 1: He hoped they would see each other often, he said charmingly.
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  Speaker 1: He thought she would be sure to like Dunham, which
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: was really a thoroughly English old place marked by all
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the features she seemed so much attracted by. There were
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: some beautiful relics of the past here, and some rather
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  Speaker 1: shocking ones. Certain dungeons, for instance, and a gallows mount,
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  Speaker 1: on which in good old times the family gallows had stood.
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  Speaker 1: This had apparently been a working adjunct to the domestic
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: arrangements of every respectable family. and that irritating persons should
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: dangle from it had been a simple domestic necessity if
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: one was to believe old stories. It was then that
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  Speaker 1: nobles were regarded with respect, he said with his fine smile,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: in the days when a man appeared with clang of
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  Speaker 1: arms and with javelins and spears before, and donjon keeps
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  Speaker 1: in the background, the attitude of bent knees and awful
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: reverence were the inevitable results. When one could hang a
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  Speaker 1: servant on one's own private gallows, or chop off his
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: hand for irreverence or disobedience, obedience and reverence were a
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: rule now a month's notice is the extremity of punishment
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and the old pomp of armed servitors suggests comic opera
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  Speaker 1: but we can show you relics of it at dunholm
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: he joined his wife and began at once to make
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  Speaker 1: himself so delightful to rosy that she ceased to be
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  Speaker 1: afraid of him and ended by talking almost gaily of
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: her london visit betty and westholt walked together the afternoon
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: being lovely they had all sauntered into the park to
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  Speaker 1: look at certain views and the sun was shining between
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  Speaker 1: the trees. Betty thought the young man almost as charming
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  Speaker 1: as his father, which was saying much. She had fallen
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  Speaker 1: wholly in love with Lord Denham, with his handsome, elderly face,
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  Speaker 1: his voice, his erect bearing, his fine smile, his attraction
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  Speaker 1: of manner, his courteous ease and wit. He was one
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  Speaker 1: of the men who stood for the best of all
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  Speaker 1: they had been born to represent. Her own father, she felt,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: stood for the best of all such an American as
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: himself should be. Lord Westholt would in time be what
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  Speaker 1: his father was. He had inherited from him good looks,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: good feeling, and a sense of humour. Yes, he had
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: been given from the outset all that the other man
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: had been denied. She was thinking of Mount Dunstan as
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the other man, and spoke of him.' You know Lord
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan?' she said. Westholt hesitated slightly.' Yes and no,'
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: he answered after the hesitation.' No one knows him very well.
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  Speaker 1: You have not met him? With a touch of surprise
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: in his tone. He was a passenger on the Meridiana
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: when I last crossed the Atlantic. There was a slight accident,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and we were thrown together for a few moments. Afterwards
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  Speaker 1: I met him by chance again. I did not know
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  Speaker 1: who he was. Lord Westholt showed signs of hesitation anew.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, he was rather disturbed. She evidently did not
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  Speaker 1: know anything whatever of the Mount Dunstans. she would not
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  Speaker 1: be likely to hear the details of the scandal which
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: had obliterated them, as it were, from the decent world.
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  Speaker 1: The present man, though he had not openly been mixed
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: up with the hideous thing, had borne the brand, because
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  Speaker 1: he had not proved himself to possess any qualities likely
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  Speaker 1: to recommend him. It was generally understood that he was
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a bad lot also. To such a man, the allurements
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: such a young woman as Miss Vanderpool would present would
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: be extraordinary. It was unfortunate that she should have been
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: thrown in his way. At the same time it was
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: not possible to state the place clearly during one's first
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: call on a beautiful stranger.' His going to America was
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  Speaker 1: rather spirited,' said the mellow voice beside him.' I thought
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: only Americans took their fates in their hands in that way.'
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: For a man of his class to face a rancher's
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: life means determination.' It means the spirit,' with a low
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: little laugh at the leap of her imagination.' of the
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  Speaker 1: men who were Mount Dunstans in early days and went
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  Speaker 1: forth to fight for what they meant to have. He
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  Speaker 1: went to fight. He ought to have won. He will
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  Speaker 1: win some day.'' I do not know about fighting,' Lord
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Westholt answered, had the fellow been telling her romantic stories.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: The general impression was that he went to America to
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: amuse himself.'' No, he did not do that,' said Betty,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: with simple finality.' A sheep-ranch is not amusing.' She stopped
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: short and stood still for a moment. They had been
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: walking down the avenue, and she stopped because her eyes
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: had been caught by a figure half sitting, half lying
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the road, a prostrate bicycle near it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: It was the figure of a cheaply dressed young man, who,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: as she looked, seemed to make an ineffectual effort to rise.'
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Is that man ill?' she exclaimed.' I think he must be.'
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: They went towards him at once, and when they reached
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: him he lifted a dazed white face, down which a
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: stream of blood was trickling from a cut on his forehead.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: He was, in fact, very white indeed, and didn't seem
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: to know what he was doing.' I' m afraid you are hurt,'
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Betty said, and as she spoke the rest of the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: party joined them. The young man vacantly smiled, and making
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: an unconscious-looking pass across his face with his hand, smeared
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the blood over his features painfully. betty kneeled down and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: drawing out her handkerchief lightly wiped the gruesome smears away
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: lord westholt saw what had happened having given a look
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: at the bicycle his chain broke as he was coming
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: down the incline and as he fell he got a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: nasty knock on this stone touching with his foot a
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: rather large one which had evidently fallen from some cartload
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of building material The young man, still vacantly smiling, was
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: fumbling at his breast-pocket. He began to talk incoherently in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: good nasal New York, at the mere sound of which
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Lady Amstruthers made a little yearning step forward.' Superior any other,'
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: he muttered.' Tabulator, spacer, marginal release-key.' Call your attention instantly,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: justable Delkoff.' No equal on market. and having found what
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: he had fumbled for, he handed a card to Miss Vanderpool,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: and sank unconscious on her breast.' Let me support him,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool,' said Westholt, starting forward.' Never mind, thank you,'
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: said Betty.' If he has fainted, I suppose he must
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: be laid flat on the ground.' Will you please to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: read the card?'' It was the card Mount Dunstan had
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: read the day before.' J. Burridge & Son, Delcoff Typewriter Company, Broadway,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: New York, G. Selden.'' He' s probably G. Selden,' said Westholt,'
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: travelling in the interests of his firm, poor chap.' The
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: clue is not of much immediate use, however.' They were
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: fortunately not far from the house, and Westholt went back
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: quickly to summon servants and send for the village doctor.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: The Dunhams were kindly sympathetic, and each of the party
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: lent a handkerchief to staunch the bleeding. Lord Dunham helped
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool to lay the young man down carefully.' I' m afraid,'
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: he said,' I' m really afraid his leg is broken.' It
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: was twisted under him. What can be done with him?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool looked at her sister. Will you allow him
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to be carried to the house temporarily, Rosie? she asked.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: There is apparently nothing else to be done. Yes, yes,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: said Lady Amstruthers. How could one send him away, poor fellow?
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Let him be carried to the house. Miss Vanderpool smiled
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: into Lord Dunham's much-approving elderly eyes. She seldom is a compatriot,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: she said. Perhaps he heard I was here and came
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to sell me a typewriter. Lord Westholt, returning with two
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: footmen and a light mattress, G. Selden was carried with
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: cautious care to the house. The afternoon sun, breaking through
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the branches of the ancestral oaks, kindly touched his keen-featured
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: white young face. Lord Dunham and Lord Westholt each lent
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: a friendly hand, and Miss Vanderpool, keeping near, once or
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: twice wiped away an insistent trickle of blood which showed
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: itself from beneath the handkerchiefs. Lady Dunham followed with Lady Anstruthers. Afterwards,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: during his convalescence, G. Selden frequently felt with regret that
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: by his unconsciousness of the dignity of his cortege at
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the moment, he had missed feeling himself to be for
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: once in a position he would have designated as out
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: of sight in the novelty of its importance. To have
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: beheld him, born by nobles and liveried menials, accompanied by
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: ladies of title up the avenue of an English park,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: on his way to be cared for in veronial halls, would,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: he knew, have added a joy to the final moments
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: of his grandmother, which the consolations of religion could scarcely
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: have met equally in competition. His own point of view, however,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: would not, it is true, have been that of the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: old woman in the black net cap and purple ribbons,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: but of a less reverent nature. His enjoyment, in fact,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: would have been based upon that transatlantic sense of humour,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: whose soul is glee at the incompatible, which would have
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: been full fed by the incongruity of little Willie, being
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: yanked along by a bunch of earls, and Ruben S.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Vanderpool's daughters following the funeral. That he himself should have
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: been unconscious of the situation seemed to him like throwing
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: away money. The doctor arriving after he had been put
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to bed found slight concussion of the brain and a
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: broken leg. With Lady Anstruther's kind permission, it would certainly
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: be best that he should remain for the present where
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: he was. So, in a bedroom, whose windows looked out
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: upon spreading lawns and broad-branched trees— he was as comfortably
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: established as was possible. G. Selden, through the capricious intervention
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: of fate, if he had not got next to Rubin S.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Vanderpool himself, had most undisputably got next to his favourite daughter.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: As the Dunham carriage rolled down the avenue, there reigned
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: for a few minutes a reflective silence. It was Lady
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Dunham who broke it.' That,' she said in her softly
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: decided voice,' that is a nice girl.' Lord Dunham's agreeable,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: humorous smile flickered into evidence.' That is it,' he said.'
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Eleanor, for supplying me with a quite delightful
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: early Victorian word. I believe I wanted it. She is
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: a beauty, and she is clever. She is a number
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of other things, but she is also a nice girl.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: If you will allow me to say so, I have
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: fallen in love with her.'' If you will allow me
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to say so,' put in Westholt, 'so have I, quite fatally.' That,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: said his father, with speculation in his eye, is more serious.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: End of chapter 25