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The Shuttle Chapter 10 - Is Lady Anstruthers at Home? · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER X All that she had brought with her to England,
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  Speaker 1: combined with what she had called sophistication, but which was
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  Speaker 1: rather her exquisite appreciation of values and effects, she took
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  Speaker 1: with her when she went the next day to Charing
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  Speaker 1: Cross Station, and arranged herself at her ease in the
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  Speaker 1: railway carriage while her maid bought their tickets for Stornham.
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  Speaker 1: What the people in the station saw, the guards and porters,
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  Speaker 1: the men in the bookstalls, the travellers hurrying past, was
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  Speaker 1: a striking-looking girl, whose colouring and carriage made one turn
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  Speaker 1: to glance after her, and who, having bought some periodicals
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  Speaker 1: and papers, took her place in a first-class compartment, and
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  Speaker 1: watched the passers-by interestedly through the open window. Having been
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  Speaker 1: looked at and remarked on during her whole life, Bettina
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  Speaker 1: did not find it disturbing that more than one corduroy-clothed
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  Speaker 1: porter and fresh-coloured elderly gentlemen, or freshly attired young one,
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  Speaker 1: having caught a glimpse of her through her window, made
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  Speaker 1: it convenient to saunter past or hover around. She looked
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  Speaker 1: at them much more frankly than they looked at her.
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  Speaker 1: To her they were all specimens of the type she
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  Speaker 1: was at present interested in. For practical reasons she was
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  Speaker 1: summing up English character with more deliberate intention than she
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  Speaker 1: had felt in the years when she had gradually learned
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  Speaker 1: to know continental types, and differentiate such peculiarities as were
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  Speaker 1: significant of their ranks and nations. As the first Reuben
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  Speaker 1: Vanderpool had studied the countenances and indicative methods of the
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  Speaker 1: inhabitants of the new parts of the country in which
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  Speaker 1: it was his intention to do business, so the modernity
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  Speaker 1: of his descendant applied itself to observation for reasons parallel
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  Speaker 1: in nature, though not in actual kind. As he had
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  Speaker 1: brought beads and fire-water to bear as agents upon savages
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  Speaker 1: who would barter for them skins and products which might
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  Speaker 1: be turned into money— so she brought her nineteenth-century beauty,
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  Speaker 1: steadfastness of purpose, and alertness of brain, to bear upon
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  Speaker 1: the matter the practical dealing with which was the end
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  Speaker 1: she held in view. To bear herself in this matter,
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  Speaker 1: with as practical a control of situations as that with
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  Speaker 1: which her great-grandfather would have borne himself in making a
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  Speaker 1: trade with a previously unknown tribe of Indians, was quite
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  Speaker 1: her intention, though it had not occurred to her to
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  Speaker 1: put it to herself in any such form. Still, whether
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  Speaker 1: she was aware of the fact or not, Her point
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  Speaker 1: of view was exactly what the first Reuben Vanderpools had
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  Speaker 1: been on many very different occasions. She had before her
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  Speaker 1: the task of dealing with facts and factors, of which
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  Speaker 1: at present she knew but little. Astuteness of perception, self-command,
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  Speaker 1: and adaptability were her chief resources. She was ready, either
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  Speaker 1: for calm, bold approach, or equally calm and wholly non-committal retreat.
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  Speaker 1: The perception she had brought with her filled her journey
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  Speaker 1: into Kent with delicious things, delicious recognition of beauty she
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  Speaker 1: had before known the existence of only through the reading
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  Speaker 1: of books, and the dwelling upon their charms as reproduced
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  Speaker 1: more or less perfectly on canvas. She saw roll by her,
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  Speaker 1: with the passing of the train, the loveliness of land
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  Speaker 1: and picturesqueness of living which she had saved for herself
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  Speaker 1: with Epicurean intention for years. Her fancy, when detached from
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  Speaker 1: her thoughts of her sister, had been Epicurean, and she
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  Speaker 1: had been quite aware that it was so. When she
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  Speaker 1: had left the suburbs and those villages already touched with
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  Speaker 1: suburbanity behind, she felt herself settle into a glow of
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  Speaker 1: luxurious enjoyment in the freshness of her pleasure in the
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  Speaker 1: familiar and yet unfamiliar objects in the thick-hedged fields, whose broad-branched,
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  Speaker 1: thick-foliaged oaks and beeches were more embowering in their shade
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  Speaker 1: and sweeter in their green than anything she remembered that
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  Speaker 1: other countries had offered her, even at their best. Within
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  Speaker 1: the fields, the hawthorn hedges beautifully enclosed, were groups of
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  Speaker 1: resigned mother-sheep with their young lambs about them. The curious
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  Speaker 1: pointed tops of the red hop-kilns piercing the trees near
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  Speaker 1: the farmhouses wore an almost intentional air of adding picturesque detail.
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  Speaker 1: There were clusters of old building and dots of cottages
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  Speaker 1: and cottage gardens which made her now and then utter
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  Speaker 1: exclamations of delight. Little inarticulate Rosie had seen and felt
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  Speaker 1: it all twelve years before, on her hopeless bridal homecoming,
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  Speaker 1: when Nigel had sat huddled unbecomingly in the corner of
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  Speaker 1: the railway carriage. Her power of expression had been limited
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  Speaker 1: to little joyful gasps and obvious laudatory adjectives, smothered in
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  Speaker 1: their birth by her first glance at her bridegroom. Betty,
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  Speaker 1: on seeing it, knew all the exquisiteness of her own pleasure,
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  Speaker 1: and all the meanings of it. Yes, it was England— England!
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  Speaker 1: It was the England of Constable and Morland, of Miss
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  Speaker 1: Mitford and Miss Austin, the Brontes and George Elliot. The
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  Speaker 1: land which softly rolled and clothed itself in the rich
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  Speaker 1: verdure of many trees, sometimes in lovely clusters, sometimes in
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  Speaker 1: covering copse, was Constable's. The ripe young woman with the
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  Speaker 1: fat-legged children and the farmyard beasts about her, as she
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  Speaker 1: fed the hens from the wooden piggin under her arm,
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  Speaker 1: was Morland's own. The village street might be Miss Mitford's,
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  Speaker 1: the well-to-do house Jane Austen's own fancy in its warm
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  Speaker 1: brick and comfortable decorum. She laughed a little as she
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  Speaker 1: thought of it.' That is American,' she said,' the habit
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  Speaker 1: of comparing every stick and stone and breathing thing to
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  Speaker 1: some literary parallel. We almost invariably say that things remind
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  Speaker 1: us of pictures or books, most usually books. It seems
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  Speaker 1: a little crude, but perhaps it means that we are
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  Speaker 1: an intensely literary and artistic people.' She continued to find
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  Speaker 1: comparisons revealing to her their appositeness, until her journey had
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  Speaker 1: ended by the train's slackening speed and coming to a
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  Speaker 1: standstill before the rural-looking little station which had presented its
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  Speaker 1: quaint aspect to Lady Anstruthers on her homecoming of years before.
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  Speaker 1: It had not, during the years which certainly had given
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  Speaker 1: time for change, altered in the least. The station-master had
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  Speaker 1: grown stouter and more rosy, and came forward with his respectful,
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  Speaker 1: hospitable air, to attend to the unusual-looking young lady, who
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  Speaker 1: was the only first-class passenger. He thought she might be
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  Speaker 1: a visitor expected at some country house, but none of
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  Speaker 1: the carriages whose coachman or his familiar acquaintances were in waiting.
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  Speaker 1: That such a fine young lady should be paying a
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  Speaker 1: visit at any house whose owners did not send an
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  Speaker 1: equipage to attend her coming struck him as unusual. The
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  Speaker 1: broom from the crown, though a decent country-town vehicle, seemed inadequate.
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  Speaker 1: yet there it stood, drawn up outside the station, and
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  Speaker 1: she went to it with the manner of a young
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  Speaker 1: lady who had ordered its attendance and knew it would
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  Speaker 1: be there. Wells felt a good deal of interest. Among
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  Speaker 1: the many young ladies who descended from the first-class compartments
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  Speaker 1: and passed through the little waiting-room on their way to
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  Speaker 1: the carriages of the gentry they were going to visit,
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  Speaker 1: he did not know when a young lady had caught
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  Speaker 1: his eye, so to speak, as this one did. She
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  Speaker 1: was not exactly the kind of young lady one would
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  Speaker 1: immediately class mentally as a foreigner, but the blue of
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  Speaker 1: her eyes was so deep, and her hair and eyelashes
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  Speaker 1: so dark, that these things, combining themselves with a certain
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  Speaker 1: way she had, made him feel her to be of
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  Speaker 1: a type unfamiliar to the region at least. He was
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  Speaker 1: struck also by the fact the young lady had no
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  Speaker 1: maid with her. The truth was that Bettina had purposely
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  Speaker 1: left her maid in town. If awkward things occurred, the
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  Speaker 1: presence of an attendant would be a sort of complication.
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  Speaker 1: It was better, on the first approach, to be wholly unencumbered.'
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  Speaker 1: How far are we from Stornham Court?' she inquired.' Five miles,
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  Speaker 1: my lady,' he answered, touching his cap. She expressed something
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  Speaker 1: which to the rural and ingenious whose standards were defined
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  Speaker 1: demanded a recognition of probable rank.' I' d like to know,'
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  Speaker 1: was his comment to his wife when he went home
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  Speaker 1: to dinner,' who has gone to Stornham Court to-day. There's
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  Speaker 1: few enough visitors go there and none such as her,
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  Speaker 1: for certain. She don't live anywhere on the line above
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  Speaker 1: here either, for I've never seen her face before.' She
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  Speaker 1: was a tall, handsome one, she was, but it isn't
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  Speaker 1: just that made you look after her. She was a
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  Speaker 1: clever one, with spirit. I'll be bound. I was wondering
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  Speaker 1: what a ladyship would have to say to her. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: she was one of his fine ladies, suggestively. But she
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  Speaker 1: wasn't either, and as for that, I wonder what he'd
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  Speaker 1: have to say as such as she is. There was
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  Speaker 1: complexity of element enough in the thing she was on
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  Speaker 1: her way to do, Bettina was thinking— as she was
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  Speaker 1: driven over the white ribbon of country road that unrolled
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  Speaker 1: over rise and hollow between the sheep-dotted greenness of fields
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  Speaker 1: and the scented hedges. The soft beauty enclosing her was
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  Speaker 1: a little shut out from her by her mental attitude.
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  Speaker 1: She brought forward for her own decisions upon suitable action
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  Speaker 1: a number of possible situations she might find herself called
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  Speaker 1: upon to confront. The one thing necessary was that she
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  Speaker 1: should be prepared for anything whatever, even for Rosie's not
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  Speaker 1: being pleased to see her, or for finding Sir Nigel
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  Speaker 1: a thoroughly reformed and amiable character. It is the one
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  Speaker 1: thing which seemingly cannot happen which one is most likely
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  Speaker 1: to find oneself face to face with. It will be
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  Speaker 1: a little awkward to arrange if he has developed every
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  Speaker 1: domestic virtue and is delighted to see me. Under such
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  Speaker 1: rather confusing conditions her plan would be to present to them,
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  Speaker 1: as an affectionate surprise, the unheralded visit which might appear
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  Speaker 1: a trifle uncalled for. She felt happily sure of herself
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  Speaker 1: under any circumstances not partaking of the nature of collisions
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  Speaker 1: at sea. Yet she had not behaved absolutely ill at
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  Speaker 1: the time of the threatened catastrophe in the Meridiana. Her remembrance,
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  Speaker 1: an oddly sudden one, of the definite manner of the
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  Speaker 1: red-haired second-class passenger assured her of that. He had certainly
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  Speaker 1: had all his senses about him, and he had spoken
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  Speaker 1: to her as a person to be counted on. Her
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  Speaker 1: pulse beat a little more hurriedly as the broom entered
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  Speaker 1: Stornham village. It was picturesque, but struggling. her as looking neglected.
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  Speaker 1: Many of the cottages had an air of dilapidation. There
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  Speaker 1: were many broken windows and unmended garden palings. A suggested
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  Speaker 1: lack of whitewash in several cases was not cheerful.' I
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  Speaker 1: know nothing of the duties of English landlords,' she said,
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  Speaker 1: looking through her carriage window.' but I should do it
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  Speaker 1: myself if I were rosy. She saw, as she was
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  Speaker 1: taken through the park gateway, that that structure was out
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  Speaker 1: of order, and that damaged diamond panes peered out from
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  Speaker 1: under the thickness of the ivy massing itself over the lodge. Ah,
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  Speaker 1: was her thought, it does not promise as it should.
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  Speaker 1: Happy people do not let things fall to pieces. Even
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  Speaker 1: winding avenue, and spreading sward, and gorse, and broom, and bracken,
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  Speaker 1: and folding all the earth beneath huge trees— were not
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  Speaker 1: fair enough to remove a sudden remote fear which arose
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  Speaker 1: in her rapidly reasoning mind. It suggested to her a
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  Speaker 1: point of view so new that while she was amazed
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  Speaker 1: at herself for not having contemplated it before, she found
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  Speaker 1: herself wishing that the coachman would drive rather more slowly,
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  Speaker 1: actually that she might have more time to reflect. They
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  Speaker 1: were nearing a dip in the park where there was
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  Speaker 1: a lonely-looking pool. The bracken was thick and high there,
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  Speaker 1: and the sun, which had just broken through a cloud,
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  Speaker 1: had pierced the trees with a golden gleam. A little
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  Speaker 1: withdrawn from the shaft of brightness stood two figures, a
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  Speaker 1: dowdy little woman and a hunchbacked boy. The woman held
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  Speaker 1: some ferns in her hand, and the boy was sitting
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  Speaker 1: down and resting his chin on his hands, which were
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  Speaker 1: folded on the top of a stick.' Stop here for
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  Speaker 1: a moment,' Bettina said to the coachman.' I want to
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  Speaker 1: ask that woman a question.' She had thought that she
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  Speaker 1: might discover if her sister was at the court. She
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  Speaker 1: realized that to know would be a point of advantage.
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  Speaker 1: She leaned forward and spoke.' I beg your pardon,' she said.'
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if you can tell me.' The woman came
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  Speaker 1: forward a little. She had a listless step and a
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  Speaker 1: faded listless face.' What did you ask?' she said. Betty
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  Speaker 1: leaned still further forward.' Can you tell me?' she began,
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  Speaker 1: and stopped. A sense of stricture in the throat stopped her,
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  Speaker 1: as her eyes took in the washed-out colour of the
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  Speaker 1: thin face, the washed-out colour of the thin hair, thin
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  Speaker 1: drab hair dragged in straight hard unbecomingness from the forehead
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  Speaker 1: and cheeks. Was it true that her heart was thumping,
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  Speaker 1: as she had heard it said that agitation made hearts thump?
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  Speaker 1: She began again.' Can you tell me if Lady Anstruthers
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  Speaker 1: is at home?' she inquired. As she said it, she
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  Speaker 1: felt the blood surge up from the furious heart, and
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  Speaker 1: the hand she had laid on the handle of the
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  Speaker 1: door of the room clutched it involuntarily. The dowdy little
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  Speaker 1: woman answered her indifferently, staring at her a little.' I
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  Speaker 1: am Lady Anstruthers,' she said. Bettina opened the carriage door
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  Speaker 1: and stood upon the ground.' Go on to the house,'
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  Speaker 1: she gave order to the coachman, and with a somewhat
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  Speaker 1: startled look he drove away.' Rosie?' Bettina's voice was a hushed,
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  Speaker 1: almost awed thing.' You a Rosie?' The faded little wreck
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  Speaker 1: of a creature began to look frightened.' Rosie,' she repeated,
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  Speaker 1: with a small, wry, painful smile. She was, the next moment,
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  Speaker 1: held in the folding of strong young arms, against a
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  Speaker 1: quickly beating heart. She was being wildly kissed, and the
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  Speaker 1: very air seemed rich with warmth and life.' I am Betty,'
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  Speaker 1: she heard.' Look at me, Rosie, I am Betty.' Look
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  Speaker 1: at me and remember. Lady Anstruthers gasped and broke into
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  Speaker 1: a faint hysteric laugh. She suddenly clutched at Bettina's arm.
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  Speaker 1: For a minute her gaze was wild as she looked up. Betty,
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  Speaker 1: she cried out. No, no, no, I can't believe it,
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  Speaker 1: I can't, I can't. That just this thing could have
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  Speaker 1: taken place in her Bettina had never thought. As she
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  Speaker 1: had reflected on her way from the station, the impossible
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  Speaker 1: is what one finds oneself face to face with. Twelve
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  Speaker 1: years should not have changed a pretty blonde thing of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen to a worn, unintelligent-looking dowdy of the order of
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  Speaker 1: dowdiness which seems to have lived beyond age and sex.
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  Speaker 1: She looked even stupid, or at least stupefied. At this
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  Speaker 1: moment she was a silly, middle-aged woman who did not
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  Speaker 1: know what to do. For a few seconds Bettina wondered
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  Speaker 1: if she was glad to see her, or only felt
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  Speaker 1: awkward and unequal to the situation.' I can't believe you!'
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  Speaker 1: she cried out again, and began to shiver.' Betty, little Betty, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: it isn't.'' She turned to the boy, who had lifted
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  Speaker 1: his chin from his stick and was staring.' Utrid, Utrid,'
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  Speaker 1: she called to him,' come, she says, she says.'' She
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  Speaker 1: sat down upon a clump of heather and began to cry.'
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  Speaker 1: She hid her face in her spare hands and broke
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  Speaker 1: into sobbing.' Oh, Betty, no,' she gasped, 'so long ago,
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  Speaker 1: so far away.' You never came, no one, no one came.'
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  Speaker 1: The hunchback boy drew near. He had limped up on
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  Speaker 1: his stick. He spoke like an elderly, affectionate gnome, not
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  Speaker 1: like a child.' Don' t do that, mother,' he said.' Don' t
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  Speaker 1: let it upset you so, whatever it is.'' It' s so
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  Speaker 1: long ago, it's so far away,' she wept, with catches
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  Speaker 1: in her breath and voice.' You never came.' Betty knelt
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  Speaker 1: down and enfolded her again. Her bell-like voice was firm
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  Speaker 1: and clear.' I have come now,' she said,' and it's
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  Speaker 1: not far away.' A cable will reach farther in two hours.'
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  Speaker 1: Pursuing a certain vivid thought in her mind, she looked
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  Speaker 1: at her watch.' If you spoke to Mother by cable
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  Speaker 1: this moment,' she added, with accustomed coolness, and she felt
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  Speaker 1: her sister actually start as she spoke, 'she could answer
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  Speaker 1: you by five o'clock.' Lady Anstruther's start ended in a
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  Speaker 1: laugh and gasp, nor hysteric than her first. There was
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  Speaker 1: even a kind of wan awakening in her face as
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  Speaker 1: she lifted it to look at the wonderful newcomer. She
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  Speaker 1: caught her hand and held it, trembling, as she weakly laughed.'
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  Speaker 1: It must be Betty,' she cried.' That little stern way.
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  Speaker 1: It's so like her. Betty, Betty, dear!' She fell into
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  Speaker 1: a sobbing, shaken heap upon the heather. The harrowing thought
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  Speaker 1: passed through Betty's mind that she looked almost like a
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  Speaker 1: limp bundle of shabby clothes. She was so helpless in
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  Speaker 1: her pathetic, apologetic hysteria.' I shall be better,' she gasped.'
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  Speaker 1: It' s nothing. Utred, tell her. She's very weak, really, said
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  Speaker 1: the boy outread in his mature way. She can't help
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  Speaker 1: it sometimes. I'll get some water from the pool. Let
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  Speaker 1: me go, said Betty, and she darted down to the water.
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  Speaker 1: She was back in a moment. The boy was rubbing
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  Speaker 1: and patting his mother's hands tenderly. At any rate, he remarked,
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  Speaker 1: as one consoled by a reflection, father is not at home.
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  Speaker 1: End of chapter 10