The Shuttle: By Frances Hodgson Burnett

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

  … . .

  The letter took long to write. It led a consecutive story up to the point where it culminated in a situation which presented itself as no longer to be dealt with by means at hand. Parts of the story previous letters had related, though some of them it had not seemed absolutely necessary to relate in detail. Now they must be made clear, and Betty made them so.

  “Because you trusted me you made me trust myself,” was one of the things she wrote. “For some time I felt that it was best to fight for my own hand without troubling you. I hoped perhaps I might be able to lead things to a decorous sort of issue. I saw that secretly Rosy hoped and prayed that it might be possible. She gave up expecting happiness before she was twenty, and mere decent peace would have seemed heaven to her, if she could have been allowed sometimes to see those she loved and longed for. Now that I must give up my hope —which was perhaps a rather foolish one—and now that I cannot remain at Stornham, she would have no defence at all if she were left alone. Her condition would be more hopeless than before, because Nigel would never forget that we had tried to rescue her and had failed. If I were a man, or if I were very much older, I need not be actually driven away, but as it is I think that you must come and take the matter into your own hands.”

  She had remained in her sister’s room until long after midnight, and by the time the American letter was completed and sealed, a pale touch of dawning light was showing itself. She rose, and going to the window drew the blind up and looked out. The looking out made her open the window, and when she had done so she stood feeling the almost unearthly freshness of the morning about her. The mystery of the first faint light was almost unearthly, too. Trees and shrubs were beginning to take form and outline themselves against the still pallor of the dawn. Before long the waking of the birds would begin —a brief chirping note here and there breaking the silence and warning the world with faint insistence that it had begun to live again and must bestir itself. She had got out of her bed sometimes on a summer morning to watch the beauty of it, to see the flowers gradually reveal their colour to the eye, to hear the warmly nesting things begin their joyous day. There were fewer bird sounds now, and the garden beds were autumnal. But how beautiful it all was! How wonderful life in such a place might be if flowers and birds and sweep of sward, and mass of stately, broad-branched trees, were parts of the home one loved and which surely would in its own way love one in return. But soon all this phase of life would be over. Rosalie, once safe at home, would look back, remembering the place with a shudder. As Ughtred grew older the passing of years would dim miserable child memories, and when his inheritance fell to him he might return to see it with happier eyes. She began to picture to herself Rosy’s voyage in the ship which would carry her across the Atlantic to her mother and the scenes connected in her mind only with a girl’s happiness. Whatsoever happened before it took place, the voyage would be made in the end. And Rosalie would be like a creature in a dream—a heavenly, unbelievable dream. Betty could imagine how she would look wrapped up and sitting in her steamer chair, gazing out with rapturous eyes upon the racing waves

  “She will be happy,” she thought. “But I shall not. No, I shall not.”

  She drew in the morning air and unconsciously turned towards the place where, across the rising and falling lands and behind the trees, she knew the great white house stood far away, with watchers’ lights showing dimly behind the line of ballroom windows.

  “I do not know how such a thing could be! I do not know how such a thing could be!” she said. “It COULD not.” And she lifted a high head, not even asking herself what remote sense in her being so obstinately defied and threw down the glove to Fate.

  Sounds gain a curious distinctness and meaning in the hour of the break of the dawn; in such an hour they seem even more significant than sounds heard in the dead of night. When she had gone to the window she had fancied that she heard something in the corridor outside her door, but when she had listened there had been only silence. Now there was sound again—that of a softly moved slippered foot. She went to the room’s centre and waited. Yes, certainly something had stirred in the passage. She went to the door itself. The dragging step had hesitated—stopped. Could it be Rosalie who had come to her for something. For one second her impulse was to open the door herself; the next, she had changed her mind with a sense of shock. Someone had actually touched the handle and very delicately turned it. It was not pleasant to stand looking at it and see it turn. She heard a low, evidently unintentionally uttered exclamation, and she turned away, and with no attempt at softening the sound of her footsteps walked across the room, hot with passionate disgust. As well as if she had flung the door open, she knew who stood outside. It was Nigel Anstruthers, haggard and unseemly, with burned-out, sleepless eyes and bitten lip.

  Bad and mad as she had at last seen the situation to be, it was uglier and more desperate than she could well know.

  CHAPTER XLV

  THE PASSING BELL

  The following morning Sir Nigel did not appear at the breakfast table. He breakfasted in his own room, and it be came known throughout the household that he had suddenly decided to go away, and his man was packing for the journey. What the journey or the reason for its being taken happened to be were things not explained to anyone but Lady Anstruthers, at the door of whose dressing room he appeared without warning, just as she was leaving it.

  Rosalie started when she found herself confronting him. His eyes looked hot and hollow with feverish sleeplessness.

  “You look ill,” she exclaimed involuntarily. “You look as if you had not slept.”

  “Thank you. You always encourage a man. I am not in the habit of sleeping much,” he answered. “I am going away for my health. It is as well you should know. I am going to look up old Broadmorlands. I want to know exactly where he is, in case it becomes necessary for me to see him. I also require some trifling data connected with Ffolliott. If your father is coming, it will be as well to be able to lay my hands on things. You can explain to Betty. Good-morning.” He waited for no reply, but wheeled about and left her.

  Betty herself wore a changed face when she came down. A cloud had passed over her blooming, as clouds pass over a morning sky and dim it. Rosalie asked herself if she had not noticed something like this before. She began to think she had. Yes, she was sure that at intervals there had been moments when she had glanced at the brilliant face with an uneasy and yet half-unrealising sense of looking at a glowing light temporarily waning. The feeling had been unrealisable, because it was not to be explained. Betty was never ill, she was never low-spirited, she was never out of humour or afraid of things—that was why it was so wonderful to live with her. But—yes, it was true—there had been days when the strong, fine light of her had waned. Lady Anstruthers’ comprehension of it arose now from her memory of the look she had seen the night before in the eyes which suddenly had gazed straight before her, as into an unknown place.

  “Yes, I know—I know—I know!” And the tone in the girl’s voice had been one Rosy had not heard before.

  Slight wonder—if you KNEW—at any outward change which showed itself, though in your own most desperate despite. It would be so even with Betty, who, in her sister’s eyes, was unlike any other creature. But perhaps it would be better to make no comment. To make comment would be almost like asking the question she had been forbidden to ask.

  While the servants were in the room during breakfast they talked of common things, resorting even to the weather and the news of the village. Afterwards they passed into the morning room together, and Betty put her arm around Rosalie and kissed her.

  “Nigel has suddenly gone away, I hear,” she said. “Do you know where he has gone?”

  “He came to my dressing-room to tell me.” Betty felt the whole slim body stiffen itself with a determination to seem calm. “He said he was going to find out where the old Duke of Broadmorlands was staying at present.”

  “There is some forethought in that,�
� was Betty’s answer. “He is not on such terms with the Duke that he can expect to be received as a casual visitor. It will require apt contrivance to arrange an interview. I wonder if he will be able to accomplish it?”

  “Yes, he will,” said Lady Anstruthers. “I think he can always contrive things like that.” She hesitated a moment, and then added: “He said also that he wished to find out certain things about Mr. Ffolliott—`trifling data,’ he called it—that he might be able to lay his hands on things if father came. He told me to explain to you.”

  “That was intended for a taunt—but it’s a warning,” Betty said, thinking the thing over. “We are rather like ladies left alone to defend a besieged castle. He wished us to feel that.” She tightened her enclosing arm. “But we stand together— together. We shall not fail each other. We can face siege until father comes.”

  “You wrote to him last night?”

  “A long letter, which I wish him to receive before he sails. He might decide to act upon it before leaving New York, to advise with some legal authority he knows and trusts, to prepare our mother in some way—to do some wise thing we cannot foresee the value of. He has known the outline of the story, but not exact details—particularly recent ones. I have held back nothing it was necessary he should know. I am going out to post the letter myself. I shall send a cable asking him to prepare to come to us after he has reflected on what I have written.”

  Rosalie was very quiet, but when, having left the room to prepare to go to the village, Betty came back to say a last word, her sister came to her and laid her hand on her arm.

  “I have been so weak and trodden upon for years that it would not be natural for you to quite trust me,” she said. “But I won’t fail you, Betty—I won’t.”

  The winter was drawing in, the last autumn days were short and often grey and dreary; the wind had swept the leaves from the trees and scattered them over park lands and lanes, where they lay a mellow-hued, rustling carpet, shifting with each chill breeze that blew. The berried briony garlands clung to the bared hedges, and here and there flared scarlet, still holding their red defiantly until hard frosts should come to shrivel and blacken them. The rare hours of sunshine were amber hours instead of golden.

  As she passed through the park gate Betty was thinking of the first morning on which she had walked down the village street between the irregular rows of red-tiled cottages with the ragged little enclosing gardens. Then the air and sunshine had been of the just awakening spring, now the sky was brightly cold, and through the small-paned windows she caught glimpses of fireglow. A bent old man walking very slowly, leaning upon two sticks, had a red-brown woollen muffler wrapped round his neck. Seeing her, he stopped and shuffled the two sticks into one hand that he might leave the other free to touch his wrinkled forehead stiffly, his face stretching into a slow smile as she stopped to speak to him.

  “Good-morning, Marlow,” he said. “How is the rheumatism to-day?”

  He was a deaf old man, whose conversation was carried on principally by guesswork, and it was easy for him to gather that when her ladyship’s handsome young sister had given him greeting she had not forgotten to inquire respecting the “rheumatics,” which formed the greater part of existence.

  “Mornin’, miss—mornin’,” he answered in the high, cracked voice of rural ancientry. “Winter be nigh, an’ they damp days be full of rheumatiz. ‘T’int easy to get about on my old legs, but I be main thankful for they warm things you sent, miss. This ‘ere,” fumbling at his red-brown muffler proudly, ” ‘tis a comfort on windy days, so ‘tis, and warmth be a good thing to a man when he be goin’ down hill in years.”

  “All of you who are not able to earn your own fires shall be warm this winter,” her ladyship’s handsome sister said, speaking closer to his ear. “You shall all be warm. Don’t be afraid of the cold days coming.”

  He shuffled his sticks and touched his forehead again, looking up at her admiringly and chuckling.

  ” ‘T’will be a new tale for Stornham village,” he cackled. ” ‘T’will be a new tale. Thank ye, miss. Thank ye.”

  As she nodded smilingly and passed on, she heard him cackling still under his breath as he hobbled on his slow way, comforted and elate. How almost shamefully easy it was; a few loads of coal and faggots here and there, a few blankets and warm garments whose cost counted for so little when one’s hands were full, could change a gruesome village winter into a season during which labour-stiffened and broken old things, closing their cottage doors, could draw their chairs round the hearth and hover luxuriously over the red glow, which in its comforting fashion of seeming to have understanding of the dull dreams in old eyes, was more to be loved than any human friend.

  But she had not needed her passing speech with Marlow to stimulate realisation of how much she had learned to care for the mere living among these people, to whom she seemed to have begun to belong, and whose comfortably lighting faces when they met her showed that they knew her to be one who might be turned to in any hour of trouble or dismay. The centuries which had trained them to depend upon their “betters” had taught the slowest of them to judge with keen sight those who were to be trusted, not alone as power and wealth holders, but as creatures humanly upright and merciful with their kind.

  “Workin’ folk allus knows gentry,” old Doby had once shrilled to her. “Gentry’s gentry, an’ us knows ‘em wheresoever they be. Better’n they know theirselves. So us do!”

  Yes, they knew. And though they accepted many things as being merely their natural rights, they gave an unsentimental affection and appreciation in return. The patriarchal note in the life was lovable to her. Each creature she passed was a sort of friend who seemed almost of her own blood. It had come to that. This particular existence was more satisfying to her than any other, more heart-filling and warmly complete.

  “Though I am only an impostor,” she thought; “I was born in Fifth Avenue; yet since I have known this I shall be quite happy in no other place than an English village, with a Norman church tower looking down upon it and rows of little gardens with spears of white and blue lupins and Canterbury bells standing guard before cottage doors.”

  And Rosalie—on the evening of that first strange day when she had come upon her piteous figure among the heather under the trees near the lake—Rosalie had held her arm with a hot little hand and had said feverishly:

  “If I could hear the roar of Broadway again! Do the stages rattle as they used to, Betty? I can’t help hoping that they do.”

  She carried her letter to the post and stopped to talk a few minutes with the postmaster, who transacted his official business in a small shop where sides of bacon and hams hung suspended from the ceiling, while groceries, flannels, dress prints, and glass bottles of sweet stuff filled the shelves. “Mr. Tewson’s” was the central point of Stornham in a commercial sense. The establishment had also certain social qualifications.

  Mr. Tewson knew the secrets of all hearts within the village radius, also the secrets of all constitutions. He knew by some occult means who had been “taken bad,” or who had “taken a turn,” and was aware at once when anyone was “sinkin’ fast.” With such differences of opinion as occasionally arose between the vicar and his churchwardens he was immediately familiar. The history of the fever among the hop pickers at Dunstan village he had been able to relate in detail from the moment of its outbreak. It was he who had first dramatically revealed the truth of the action Miss Vanderpoel had taken in the matter, which revelation had aroused such enthusiasm as had filled The Clock Inn to overflowing and given an impetus to the sale of beer. Tread, it was said, had even made a speech which he had ended with vague but excellent intentions by proposing the joint healths of her ladyship’s sister and the “President of America.” Mr. Tewson was always glad to see Miss Vanderpoel cross his threshold. This was not alone because she represented the custom of the Court, which since her arrival had meant large regular orders and large bills promptly paid, but that she brought w
ith her an exotic atmosphere of interest and excitement.

  He had mentioned to friends that somehow a talk with her made him feel “set up for the day.” Betty was not at all sure that he did not prepare and hoard up choice remarks or bits of information as openings to conversation.

  This morning he had thrilling news for her and began with it at once.

  “Dr. Fenwick at Stornham is very low, miss,” he said. “He’s very low, you’ll be sorry to hear. The worry about the fever upset him terrible and his bronchitis took him bad. He’s an old man, you know.”

  Miss Vanderpoel was very sorry to hear it. It was quite in the natural order of things that she should ask other questions about Dunstan village and the Mount, and she asked several.

  The fever was dying out and pale convalescents were sometimes seen in the village or strolling about the park. His lordship was taking care of the people and doing his best for them until they should be strong enough to return to their homes.

  “But he’s very strict about making it plain that it’s you, miss, they have to thank for what he does.”

  “That is not quite just,” said Miss Vanderpoel. “He and Mr. Penzance fought on the field. I only supplied some of the ammunition.”

  “The county doesn’t think of him as it did even a year ago, miss,” said Tewson rather smugly. “He was very ill thought of then among the gentry. It’s wonderful the change that’s come about. If he should fall ill there’ll be a deal of sympathy.”

  “I hope there is no question of his falling ill,” said Miss Vanderpoel.

  Mr. Tewson lowered his voice confidentially. This was really his most valuable item of news.

  “Well, miss,” he admitted, “I have heard that he’s been looking very bad for a good bit, and it was told me quite private, because the doctors and the vicar don’t want the people to be upset by hearing it—that for a week he’s not been well enough to make his rounds.”