“I don’t see how she can believe he has much of a chance. I don’t think she does—but she will never forgive him if he doesn’t make a try at finding out whether he has one or not.”
“It is very businesslike,” Betty made observation.
Mary laughed.
“We talk of American business outlook,” she said, “but very few of us English people are dreamy idealists. We are of a coolness and a daring—when we are dealing with questions of this sort. I don’t think you can know the thing you have brought here. You descend on a dull country place, with your money and your looks, and you simply STAY and amuse yourself by doing extraordinary things, as if there was no London waiting for you. Everyone knows this won’t last. Next season you will be presented, and have a huge success. You will be whirled about in a vortex, and people will sit on the edge, and cast big strong lines, baited with the most glittering things they can get together. You won’t be able to get away. Lady Alanby knows there would be no chance for Tommy then. It would be too idiotic to expect it. He must make his try now.”
Their eyes met again, and Miss Vanderpoel looked neither shocked nor angry, but an odd small shadow swept across her face. Mary, of course, did not know that she was thinking of the thing she had realised so often—that it was not easy to detach one’s self from the fact that one was Reuben S. Vanderpoel’s daughter. As a result of it here one was indecently and unwillingly disturbing the lives of innocent, unassuming lovers.
“And so long as Sir Thomas has not tried—and found out— Lady Jane will be made unhappy?”
“If he were to let you escape without trying, he would not be forgiven. His grandmother has had her own way all her life.”
“But suppose after I went away someone else came?”
Mary shook her head.
“People like you don’t HAPPEN in one neighbourhood twice in a lifetime. I am twenty-six and you are the first I have seen.”
“And he will only be safe if?”
Mary Lithcom nodded.
“Yes—IF,” she answered. “It’s silly—and frightful—but it is true.”
Miss Vanderpoel looked down on the grass a few moments, and then seemed to arrive at a decision.
“He likes you? You can make him understand things?” she inquired.
“Yes.”
“Then go and tell him that if he will come here and ask me a direct question, I will give him a direct answer—which will satisfy Lady Alanby.”
Lady Mary caught her breath.
“Do you know, you are the most wonderful girl I ever saw!” she exclaimed. “But if you only knew what I feel about Janie!” And tears rushed into her eyes.
“I feel just the same thing about my sister,” said Miss Vanderpoel. “I think Rosy and Lady Jane are rather alike.”
… . .
When Tommy tramped across the grass towards her he was turning red and white by turns, and looking somewhat like a young man who was being marched up to a cannon’s mouth. It struck him that it was an American kind of thing he was called upon to do, and he was not an American, but British from the top of his closely-cropped head to the rather thick soles of his boots. He was, in truth, overwhelmed by his sense of his inadequacy to the demands of the brilliantly conceived, but unheard-of situation. Joy and terror swept over his being in waves.
The tall, proud, wood-nymph look of her as she stood under a tree, waiting for him, would have struck his courage dead on the spot and caused him to turn and flee in anguish, if she had not made a little move towards him, with a heavenly, everyday humanness in her eyes. The way she managed it was an amazing thing. He could never have managed it at all himself.
She came forward and gave him her hand, and really it was HER hand which held his own comparatively steady.
“It is for Lady Jane,” she said. “That prevents it from being ridiculous or improper. It is for Lady Jane. Her eyes,” with a soft-touched laugh, “are the colour of the blue speedwell I showed you. It is the colour of babies’ eyes. And hers look as theirs do—as if they asked everybody not to hurt them.”
He actually fell upon his knee, and bending his head over her hand, kissed it half a dozen times with adoration. Good Lord, how she SAW and KNEW!
“If Jane were not Jane, and you were not YOU,” the words rushed from him, “it would be the most outrageous—the most impudent thing a man ever had the cheek to do.”
“But it is not.” She did not draw her hand away, and oh, the girlish kindness of her smiling, supporting look. “You came to ask me if–-“
“If you would marry me, Miss Vanderpoel,” his head bending over her hand again. “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon. Oh Lord, I do.’
“I thank you for the compliment you pay me,” she answered. “I like you very much, Sir Thomas—and I like you just now more than ever—but I could not marry you. I should not make you happy, and I should not be happy myself. The truth is–-” thinking a moment, “each of us really belongs to a different kind of person.
And each of knows the fact.”
“God bless you,” he said. “I think you know everything in the world a woman can know—and remain an angel.”
It was an outburst of eloquence, and she took it in the prettiest way—with the prettiest laugh, which had in it no touch of mockery or disbelief in him.
“What I have said is quite final—if Lady Alanby should inquire,” she said—adding rather quickly, “Someone is coming.”
It pleased her to see that he did not hurry to his feet clumsily, but even stood upright, with a shade of boyish dignity, and did not release her hand before he had bent his head low over it again.
Sir Nigel was bringing with him Lady Alanby, Mrs. Manners, and his wife, and when Betty met his eyes, she knew at once that he had not made his way to this particular garden without intention. He had discovered that she was with Tommy, and it had entertained him to break in upon them.
“I did not intend to interrupt Sir Thomas at his devotions,” he remarked to her after dinner. “Accept my apologies.”
“It did not matter in the least, thank you,” said Betty.
… . .
“I am glad to be able to say, Thomas, that you did not look an entire fool when you got up from your knees, as we came into the rose garden.” Thus Lady Alanby, as their carriage turned out of Stornham village.
“I’m glad myself,” Tommy answered.
“What were you doing there? Even if you were asking her to marry you, it was not necessary to go that far. We are not in the seventeenth century.
Then Tommy flushed.
“I did not intend to do it. I could not help it. She was so—so nice about everything. That girl is an angel. I told her so.”
“Very right and proper spirit to approach her in,” answered the old woman, watching him keenly. “Was she angel enough to say she would marry you?”
Tommy, for some occult reason, had the courage to stare back into his grandmother’s eyes, quite as if he were a man, and not a hobbledehoy, expecting to be bullied.
“She does not want me,” he answered. “And I knew she wouldn’t. Why should she? I did what you ordered me to do, and she answered me as I knew she would. She might have snubbed me, but she has such a way with her—such a way of saying things and understanding, that—that—well, I found myself on one knee, kissing her hand—as if I was being presented at court.”
Old Lady Alanby looked out on the passing landscape.
“Well, you did your best,” she summed the matter up at last, “if you went down on your knees involuntarily. If you had done it on purpose, it would have been unpardonable.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
RED GODWYN
Stornham Court had taken its proper position in the county as a place which was equal to social exchange in the matter of entertainment. Sir Nigel and Lady Anstruthers had given a garden party, according to the decrees of the law obtaining in country neighbourhoods. The curiosity to behold Miss Vanderpoel, and the change which had been
worked in the well-known desolation and disrepair, precluded the possibility of the refusal of any invitations sent, the recipient being in his or her right mind, and sound in wind and limb. That astonishing things had been accomplished, and that the party was a successful affair, could not but be accepted as truths. Garden parties had been heard of, were a trifle repetitional, and even dull, but at this one there was real music and real dancing, and clever entertainments were given at intervals in a green-embowered little theatre, erected for the occasion. These were agreeable additions to mere food and conversation, which were capable of palling.
To the garden party the Anstruthers did not confine themselves. There were dinner parties at Stornham, and they also were successful functions. The guests were of those who make for the success of such entertainments.
“I called upon Mount Dunstan this afternoon,” Sir Nigel said one evening, before the first of these dinners. “He might expect it, as one is asking him to dine. I wish him to be asked. The Dunholms have taken him up so tremendously that no festivity seems complete without him.”
He had been invited to the garden party, and had appeared, but Betty had seen little of him. It is easy to see little of a guest at an out-of-door festivity. In assisting Rosalie to attend to her visitors she had been much occupied, but she had known that she might have seen more of him, if he had intended that it should be so. He did not—for reasons of his own—intend that it should be so, and this she became aware of. So she walked, played in the bowling green, danced and talked with Westholt, Tommy Alanby and others.
“He does not want to talk to me. He will not, if he can avoid it,” was what she said to herself.
She saw that he rather sought out Mary Lithcom, who was not accustomed to receiving special attention. The two walked together, danced together, and in adjoining chairs watched the performance in the embowered theatre. Lady Mary enjoyed her companion very much, but she wondered why he had attached himself to her.
Betty Vanderpoel asked herself what they talked to each other about, and did not suspect the truth, which was that they talked a good deal of herself.
“Have you seen much of Miss Vanderpoel?” Lady Mary had begun by asking.
“I have SEEN her a good deal, as no doubt you have.”
Lady Mary’s plain face expressed a somewhat touched reflectiveness.
“Do you know,” she said, “that the garden parties have been a different thing this whole summer, just because one always knew one would see her at them?”
A short laugh from Mount Dunstan.
“Jane and I have gone to every garden party within twenty miles, ever since we left the schoolroom. And we are very tired of them. But this year we have quite cheered up. When we are dressing to go to something dull, we say to each other, `Well, at any rate, Miss Vanderpoel will be there, and we shall see what she has on, and how her things are made,’ and that’s something—besides the fun of watching people make up to her, and hearing them talk about the men who want to marry her, and wonder which one she will take. She will not take anyone in this place,” the nice turned-up nose slightly suggesting a derisive sniff. “Who is there who is suitable?”
Mount Dunstan laughed shortly again.
“How do you know I am not an aspirant myself?” he said. He had a mirthless sense of enjoyment in his own brazenness. Only he himself knew how brazen the speech was.
Lady Mary looked at him with entire composure.
“I am quite sure you are not an aspirant for anybody. And I happen to know that you dislike moneyed international marriages. You are so obviously British that, even if I had not been told that, I should know it was true. Miss Vanderpoel herself knows it is true.”
“Does she?”
“Lady Alanby spoke of it to Sir Nigel, and I heard Sir Nigel tell her.”
“Exactly the kind of unnecessary thing he would be likely to repeat.” He cast the subject aside as if it were a worthless superfluity and went on: “When you say there is no one suitable, you surely forget Lord Westholt.”
“Yes, it’s true I forgot him for the moment. But—” with a laugh—”one rather feels as if she would require a royal duke or something of that sort.”
“You think she expects that kind of thing?” rather indifferently.
“She? She doesn’t think of the subject. She simply thinks of other things—of Lady Anstruthers and Ughtred, of the work at Stornham and the village life, which gives her new emotions and interest. She also thinks about being nice to people. She is nicer than any girl I know.”
“You feel, however, she has a right to expect it?” still without more than a casual air of interest.
“Well, what do you feel yourself?” said Lady Mary. “Women who look like that—even when they are not millionairesses— usually marry whom they choose. I do not believe that the two beautiful Miss Gunnings rolled into one would have made anything as undeniable as she is. One has seen portraits of them. Look at her as she stands there talking to Tommy and Lord Dunholm!”
Internally Mount Dunstan was saying: “I am looking at her, thank you,” and setting his teeth a little.
But Lady Mary was launched upon a subject which swept her along with it, and she—so to speak—ground the thing in.
“Look at the turn of her head! Look at her mouth and chin, and her eyes with the lashes sweeping over them when she looks down! You must have noticed the effect when she lifts them suddenly to look at you. It’s so odd and lovely that it—it almost–-“
“Almost makes you jump,” ended Mount Dunstan drily.
She did not laugh and, in fact, her expression became rather sympathetically serious.
“Ah,” she said, “I believe you feel a sort of rebellion against the unfairness of the way things are dealt out. It does seem unfair, of course. It would be perfectly disgraceful—if she were different. I had moments of almost hating her until one day not long ago she did something so bewitchingly kind and understanding of other people’s feelings that I gave up. It was clever, too,” with a laugh, “clever and daring. If she were a young man she would make a dashing soldier.”
She did not give him the details of the story, but went on to say in effect what she had said to Betty herself of the inevitable incidentalness of her stay in the country. If she had not evidently come to Stornham this year with a purpose, she would have spent the season in London and done the usual thing. Americans were generally presented promptly, if they had any position—sometimes when they had not. Lady Alanby had heard that the fact that she was with her sister had awakened curiosity and people were talking about her.
“Lady Alanby said in that dry way of hers that the arrival of an unmarried American fortune in England was becoming rather like the visit of an unmarried royalty. People ask each other what it means and begin to arrange for it. So far, only the women have come, but Lady Alanby says that is because the men have had no time to do anything but stay at home and make the fortunes. She believes that in another generation there will be a male leisure class, and then it will swoop down too, and marry people. She was very sharp and amusing about it. She said it would help them to rid themselves of a plethora of wealth and keep them from bursting.”
She was an amiable, if unsentimental person, Mary Lithcom —and was, quite without ill nature, expressing the consensus of public opinion. These young women came to the country with something practical to exchange in these days, and as there were men who had certain equivalents to offer, so also there were men who had none, and whom decency should cause to stand aside. Mount Dunstan knew that when she had said, “Who is there who is suitable?” any shadow of a thought of himself as being in the running had not crossed her mind. And this was not only for the reasons she had had the ready composure to name, but for one less conquerable.
Later, having left Mary Lithcom, he decided to take a turn by himself. He had done his duty as a masculine guest. He had conversed with young women and old ones, had danced, visited gardens and greenhouses, and taken his part in all thi
ngs. Also he had, in fact, reached a point when a few minutes of solitude seemed a good thing. He found himself turning into the clipped laurel walk, where Tommy Alanby had stood with Jane Lithcom, and he went to the end of it and stood looking out on the view.
“Look at the turn of her head,” Lady Mary had said. “Look at her mouth and chin.” And he had been looking at them the whole afternoon, not because he had intended to do so, but because it was not possible to prevent himself from doing it.
This was one of the ironies of fate. Orthodox doctrine might suggest that it was to teach him that his past rebellion had been undue. Orthodox doctrine was ever ready with these soothing little explanations. He had raged and sulked at Destiny, and now he had been given something to rage for.
“No one knows anything about it until it takes him by the throat,” he was thinking, “and until it happens to a man he has no right to complain. I was not starving before. I was not hungering and thirsting—in sight of food and water. I suppose one of the most awful things in the world is to feel this and know it is no use.”
He was not in the condition to reason calmly enough to see that there might be one chance in a thousand that it was of use. At such times the most intelligent of men and women lose balance and mental perspicacity. A certain degree of unreasoning madness possesses them. They see too much and too little. There were, it was true, a thousand chances against him, but there was one for him—the chance that selection might be on his side. He had not that balance of thought left which might have suggested to him that he was a man young and powerful, and filled with an immense passion which might count for something. All he saw was that he was notably in the position of the men whom he had privately disdained when they helped themselves by marriage. Such marriages he had held were insults to the manhood of any man and the womanhood of any woman. In such unions neither party could respect himself or his companion. They must always in secret doubt each other, fret at themselves, feel distaste for the whole thing. Even if a man loved such a woman, and the feeling was mutual, to whom would it occur to believe it—to see that they were not gross and contemptible? To no one. Would it have occurred to himself that such an extenuating circumstance was possible? Certainly it would not. Pig-headed pride and obstinacy it might be, but he could not yet face even the mere thought of it—even if his whole position had not been grotesque. Because, after all, it was grotesque that he should even argue with himself. She—before his eyes and the eyes of all others—the most desirable of women; people dinning it in one’s ears that she was surrounded by besiegers who waited for her to hold out her sceptre, and he—well, what was he! Not that his mental attitude was that of a meek and humble lover who felt himself unworthy and prostrated himself before her shrine with prayers —he was, on the contrary, a stout and obstinate Briton finding his stubbornly-held beliefs made as naught by a certain obsession —an intolerable longing which wakened with him in the morning, which sank into troubled sleep with him at night—the longing to see her, to speak to her, to stand near her, to breathe the air of her. And possessed by this—full of the overpowering strength of it—was a man likely to go to a woman and say, “Give your life and desirableness to me; and incidentally support me, feed me, clothe me, keep the roof over my head, as if I were an impotent beggar”?
The Shuttle: By Frances Hodgson Burnett Page 43