Chapter XII. Ughtred

The Shuttle

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

Bettina stood alone in her bedroom a couple of hours later. Lady
Anstruthers had taken her to it, preparing her for its limitations by
explaining that she would find it quite different from her room in
New York. She had been pathetically nervous and flushed about it,
and Bettina had also been aware that the apartment itself had been
hastily, and with much moving of objects from one chamber to another,
made ready for her.

The room was large and square and low. It was panelled in small
squares of white wood. The panels were old enough to be cracked here
and there, and the paint was stained and yellow with time, where it
was not knocked or worn off. There was a small paned, leaded window
which filled a large part of one side of the room, and its deep seat
was an agreeable feature. Sitting in it, one looked out over several
red- walled gardens, and through breaks in the trees of the park to a
fair beyond. Bettina stood before this window for a few moments, and
then took a seat in the embrasure, that she might gaze out and
reflect at leisure.

Her genius, as has before been mentioned, was the genius for
living, for being vital. Many people merely exist, are kept alive by
others, or continue to vegetate because the persistent action of
normal functions will allow of their doing no less. Bettina
Vanderpoel had lived vividly, and in the midst of a self-created
atmosphere of action from her first hour. It was not possible for
her to be one of the horde of mere spectators. Wheresoever she moved
there was some occult stirring of the mental, and even physical, air.
Her pulses beat too strongly, her blood ran too fast to allow of
inaction of mind or body. When, in passing through the village, she
had seen the broken windows and the hanging palings of the cottages,
it had been inevitable that, at once, she should, in thought, repair
them, set them straight. Disorder filled her with a sort of
impatience which was akin to physical distress. If she had been born
a poor woman she would have worked hard for her living, and found an
interest, almost an exhilaration, in her labour. Such gifts as she
had would have been applied to the tasks she undertook. It had
frequently given her pleasure to imagine herself earning her
livelihood as a seamstress, a housemaid, a nurse. She knew what she
could have put into her service, and how she could have found it
absorbing. Imagination and initiative could make any service
absorbing. The actual truth was that if she had been a housemaid,
the room she set in order would have taken a character under her
touch; if she had been a seamstress, her work would have been swiftly
done, her imagination would have invented for her combinations of
form and colour; if she had been a nursemaid, the children under her
care would never have been sufficiently bored to become tiresome or
intractable, and they also would have gained character to which would
have been added an undeniable vividness of outlook. She could not
have left them alone, so to speak. In obeying the mere laws of her
being, she would have stimulated them. Unconsciously she had
stimulated her fellow pupils at school; when she was his companion,
her father had always felt himself stirred to interest and
enterprise.

"You ought to have been a man, Betty," he used to say to her
sometimes.

But Betty had not agreed with him.

"You say that," she once replied to him, "because you see I am
inclined to do things, to change them, if they need changing. Well,
one is either born like that, or one is not. Sometimes I think that
perhaps the people who must act are of a distinct race. A kind of
vigorous restlessness drives them. I remember that when I was a
child I could not see a pin lying upon the ground without picking it
up, or pass a drawer which needed closing, without giving it a push.
But there has always been as much for women to do as for men."

There was much to be done here of one sort of thing and another.
That was certain. As she gazed through the small panes of her large
windows, she found herself overlooking part of a wilderness of
garden, which revealed itself through an arch in an overgrown laurel
hedge. She had glimpses of unkempt grass paths and unclipped topiary
work which had lost its original form. Among a tangle of weeds rose
the heads of clumps of daffodils, stirred by a passing wind of
spring. In the park beyond a cuckoo was calling.

She was conscious both of the forlorn beauty and significance of
the neglected garden, and of the clear quaintness of the cuckoo call,
as she thought of other things.

"Her spirit and her health are broken," was her summing up.
"Her prettiness has faded to a rag. She is as nervous as an
ill-treated child. She has lost her wits. I do not know where to
begin with her. I must let her tell me things as gradually as she
chooses. Until I see Nigel I shall not know what his method with her
has been. She looks as if she had ceased to care for things, even
for herself. What shall I write to mother?"

She knew what she should write to her father. With him she
could be explicit. She could record what she had found and what it
suggested to her. She could also make clear her reason for hesitance
and deliberation. His discretion and affection would comprehend the
thing which she herself felt and which affection not combined with
discretion might not take in. He would understand, when she told him
that one of the first things which had struck her, had been that Rosy
herself, her helplessness and timidity, might, for a period at least,
form obstacles in their path of action. He not only loved Rosy, but
realised how slight a sweet thing she had always been, and he would
know how far a slight creature's gentleness might be overpowered and
beaten down.

There was so much that her mother must be spared, there was
indeed so little that it would be wise to tell her, that Bettina sat
gently rubbing her forehead as she thought of it. The truth was that
she must tell her nothing, until all was over, accomplished, decided.
Whatsoever there was to be "over," whatsoever the action finally
taken, must be a matter lying as far as possible between her father
and herself. Mrs. Vanderpoel's trouble would be too keen, her
anxiety too great to keep to herself, even if she were not
overwhelmed by them. She must be told of the beauties and dimensions
of Stornham, all relatable details of Rosy's life must be generously
dwelt on. Above all Rosy must be made to write letters, and with an
air of freedom however specious.

A knock on the door broke the thread of her reflection. It was
a low-sounding knock, and she answered the summons herself, because
she thought it might be Rosy's.

It was not Lady Anstruthers who stood outside, but Ughtred, who
balanced himself on his crutches, and lifted his small, too mature,
face.

"May I come in?" he asked.

Here was the unexpected again, but she did not allow him to see
her surprise.

"Yes," she said. "Certainly you may."

He swung in and then turned to speak to her.

"Please shut the door and lock it," he said.

There was sudden illumination in this, but of an order almost
whimsical. That modern people in modern days should feel bolts and
bars a necessity of ordinary intercourse was suggestive. She was
plainly about to receive enlightenment. She turned the key and
followed the halting figure across the room.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked.

"When mother and I talk things over," he said, "we always do it
where no one can see or hear. It's the only way to be safe."

"Safe from what?"

His eyes fixed themselves on her as he answered her almost
sullenly.

"Safe from people who might listen and go and tell that we had
been talking."

In his thwarted-looking, odd child-face there was a shade of
appeal not wholly hidden by his evident wish not to be boylike.
Betty felt a desire to kneel down suddenly and embrace him, but she
knew he was not prepared for such a demonstration. He looked like a
creature who had lived continually at bay, and had learned to adjust
himself to any situation with caution and restraint.

"Sit down, Ughtred," she said, and when he did so she herself
sat down, but not too near him.

Resting his chin on the handle of a crutch, he gazed at her
almost protestingly.

"I always have to do these things," he said, "and I am not
clever enough, or old enough. I am only eleven."

The mention of the number of his years was plainly not
apologetic, but was a mere statement of his limitations. There the
fact was, and he must make the best of it he could.

"What things do you mean?"

"Trying to make things easier--explaining things when she cannot
think of excuses. To-day it is telling you what she is too
frightened to tell you herself. I said to her that you must be told.
It made her nervous and miserable, but I knew you must."

"Yes, I must," Betty answered. "I am glad she has you to depend
on, Ughtred."

His crutch grated on the floor and his boy eyes forbade her to
believe that their sudden lustre was in any way connected with
restrained emotion.

"I know I seem queer and like a little old man," he said.
"Mother cries about it sometimes. But it can't be helped. It is
because she has never had anyone but me to help her. When I was very
little, I found out how frightened and miserable she was. After his
rages," he used no name, "she used to run into my nursery and snatch
me up in her arms and hide her face in my pinafore. Sometimes she
stuffed it into her mouth and bit it to keep herself from screaming.
Once-- before I was seven--I ran into their room and shouted out, and
tried to fight for her. He was going out, and had his riding whip in
his hand, and he caught hold of me and struck me with it--until he
was tired."

Betty stood upright.

"What! What! What!" she cried out.

He merely nodded his head shortly. She saw what the thing had
been by the way his face lost colour.

"Of course he said it was because I was impudent, and needed
punishment," he said. "He said she had encouraged me in American
impudence. It was worse for her than for me. She kneeled down and
screamed out as if she was crazy, that she would give him what he
wanted if he would stop."

"Wait," said Betty, drawing in her breath sharply. " `He,' is
Sir Nigel? And he wanted something."

He nodded again

"Tell me," she demanded, "has he ever struck her?"

"Once," he answered slowly, "before I was born--he struck her
and she fell against something. That is why I am like this." And he
touched his shoulder.

The feeling which surged through Betty Vanderpoel's being forced
her to go and stand with her face turned towards the windows, her
hands holding each other tightly behind her back.

"I must keep still," she said. "I must make myself keep
still."

She spoke unconsciously half aloud, and Ughtred heard her and
replied hurriedly.

"Yes," he said, "you must make yourself keep still. That is
what we have to do whatever happens. That is one of the things
mother wanted you to know. She is afraid. She daren't let
you----"

She turned from the window, standing at her full height and
looking very tall for a girl.

"She is afraid? She daren't? See--that will come to an end
now. There are things which can be done."

He flushed nervously.

"That is what she was afraid you would say," he spoke fast and
his hands trembled. "She is nearly wild about it, because she knows
he will try to do something that will make you feel as if she does
not want you."

"She is afraid of that?" Betty exclaimed.

"He'd do it! He'd do it--if you did not know beforehand."

"Oh!" said Betty, with unflinching clearness. "He is a liar, is
he?"

The helpless rage in the unchildish eyes, the shaking voice, as
he cried out in answer, were a shock. It was as if he wildly
rejoiced that she had spoken the word.

"Yes, he's a liar--a liar!" he shrilled. "He's a liar and a
bully and a coward. He'd--he'd be a murderer if he dared --but he
daren't." And his face dropped on his arms folded on his crutch, and
he broke into a passion of crying. Then Betty knew she might go to
him. She went and knelt down and put her arm round him.

"Ughtred," she said, "cry, if you like, I should do it, if I
were you. But I tell you it can all be altered--and it shall be."

He seemed quite like a little boy when he put out his hand to
hers and spoke sobbingly:

"She--she says--that because you have only just come from
America--and in America people--can do things--you will think you can
do things here--and you don't know. He will tell lies about you lies
you can't bear. She sat wringing her hands when she thought of it.
She won't let you be hurt because you want to help her." He stopped
abruptly and clutched her shoulder.

"Aunt Betty! Aunt Betty--whatever happens--whatever he makes
her seem like--you are to know that it is not true. Now you have
come--now she has seen you it would kill her if you were driven away
and thought she wanted you to go."

"I shall not think that," she answered, slowly, because she
realised that it was well that she had been warned in time.
"Ughtred, are you trying to tell me that above all things I must not
let him think that I came here to help you, because if he is angry he
will make us all suffer--and your mother most of all?"

"He'll find a way. We always know he will. He would either be
so rude that you would not stay here--or he would make mother seem
rude--or he would write lies to grandfather. Aunt Betty, she
scarcely believes you are real yet. If she won't tell you things at
first, please don't mind." He looked quite like a child again in his
appeal to her, to try to understand a state of affairs so
complicated. "Could you-- could you wait until you have let her
get--get used to you?"

"Used to thinking that there may be someone in the world to help
her?" slowly. "Yes, I will. Has anyone ever tried to help her?"

"Once or twice people found out and were sorry at first, but it
only made it worse, because he made them believe things."

"I shall not try, Ughtred," said Betty, a remote spark kindling
in the deeps of the pupils of her steel-blue eyes. "I shall not try.
Now I am going to ask you some questions."

Before he left her she had asked many questions which were
pertinent and searching, and she had learned things she realised she
could have learned in no other way and from no other person. But for
his uncanny sense of the responsibility he clearly had assumed in the
days when he wore pinafores, and which had brought him to her room to
prepare her mind for what she would find herself confronted with in
the way of apparently unexplainable obstacles, there was a strong
likelihood that at the outset she might have found herself more than
once dangerously at a loss. Yes, she would have been at a loss,
puzzled, perhaps greatly discouraged. She was face to face with a
complication so extraordinary.

That one man, through mere persistent steadiness in evil temper
and domestic tyranny, should have so broken the creatures of his
household into abject submission and hopelessness, seemed too
incredible. Such a power appeared as remote from civilised existence
in London and New York as did that which had inflicted tortures in
the dungeons of castles of old. Prisoners in such dungeons could
utter no cry which could reach the outside world; the prisoners at
Stornham Court, not four hours from Hyde Park Corner, could utter
none the world could hear, or comprehend if it heard it. Sheer lack
of power to resist bound them hand and foot. And she, Betty
Vanderpoel, was here upon the spot, and, as far as she could
understand, was being implored to take no steps, to do nothing. The
atmosphere in which she had spent her life, the world she had been
born into, had not made for fearfulness that one would be at any time
defenceless against circumstances and be obliged to submit to
outrage. To be a Vanderpoel was, it was true, to be a shining mark
for envy as for admiration, but the fact removed obstacles as a rule,
and to find one's self standing before a situation with one's hands,
figuratively speaking, tied, was new enough to arouse unusual
sensations. She recalled, with an ironic sense of bewilderment, as a
sort of material evidence of her own reality, the fact that not a
week ago she had stepped on to English soil from the gangway of a
solid Atlantic liner. It aided her to resist the feeling that she
had been swept back into the Middle Ages.

"When he is angry," was one of the first questions she put to
Ughtred, "what does he give as his reason? He must profess to have a
reason."

"When he gets in a rage he says it is because mother is silly
and common, and I am badly brought up. But we always know he wants
money, and it makes him furious. He could kill us with rage."

"Oh!" said Betty. "I see."

"It began that time when he struck her. He said then that it
was not decent that a woman who was married should keep her own
money. He made her give him almost everything she had, but she
wants to keep some for me. He tries to make her get more from
grandfather, but she will not write begging letters, and she won't
give him what she is saving for me."

It was a simple and sordid enough explanation in one sense, and
it was one of which Bettina had known, not one parallel, but several.
Having married to ensure himself power over unquestioned resources,
the man had felt himself disgustingly taken in, and avenged himself
accordingly. In him had been born the makings of a domestic tyrant
who, even had he been favoured by fortune, would have wreaked his
humours upon the defenceless things made his property by ties of
blood and marriage, and who, being unfavoured, would do worse. Betty
could see what the years had held for Rosy, and how her weakness and
timidity had been considered as positive assets. A woman who will
cry when she is bullied, may be counted upon to submit after she has
cried. Rosy had submitted up to a certain point and then, with the
stubbornness of a weak creature, had stood at timid bay for her
young.

What Betty gathered was that, after the long and terrible
illness which had followed Ughtred's birth, she had risen from what
had been so nearly her deathbed, prostrated in both mind and body.
Ughtred did not know all that he revealed when he touched upon the
time which he said his mother could not quite remember--when she had
sat for months staring vacantly out of her window, trying to recall
something terrible which had happened, and which she wanted to tell
her mother, if the day ever came when she could write to her again.
She had never remembered clearly the details of the thing she had
wanted to tell, and Nigel had insisted that her fancy was part of her
past delirium. He had said that at the beginning of her delirium she
had attacked and insulted his mother and himself but they had excused
her because they realised afterwards what the cause of her excitement
had been. For a long time she had been too brokenly weak to question
or disbelieve, but, later she had vaguely known that he had been
lying to her, though she could not refute what he said. She
recalled, in course of time, a horrible scene in which all three of
them had raved at each other, and she herself had shrieked and
laughed and hurled wild words at Nigel, and he had struck her. That
she knew and never forgot. She had been ill a year, her hair had
fallen out, her skin had faded and she had begun to feel like a
nervous, tired old woman instead of a girl. Girlhood, with all the
past, had become unreal and too far away to be more than a dream.
Nothing had remained real but Stornham and Nigel and the little
hunchbacked baby. She was glad when the Dowager died and when Nigel
spent his time in London or on the Continent and left her with
Ughtred. When he said that he must spend her money on the estate,
she had acquiesced without comment, because that insured his going
away. She saw that no improvement or repairs were made, but she
could do nothing and was too listless to make the attempt. She only
wanted to be left alone with Ughtred, and she exhibited will- power
only in defence of her child and in her obstinacy with regard to
asking money of her father.

"She thought, somehow, that grandfather and grandmother did not
care for her any more--that they had forgotten her and only cared for
you," Ughtred explained. "She used to talk to me about you. She
said you must be so clever and so handsome that no one could remember
her. Sometimes she cried and said she did not want any of you to see
her again, because she was only a hideous, little, thin, yellow old
woman. When I was very little she told me stories about New York and
Fifth Avenue. I thought they were not real places--I though they
were places in fairyland."

Betty patted his shoulder and looked away for a moment when he
said this. In her remote and helpless loneliness, to Rosy's
homesick, yearning soul, noisy, rattling New York, Fifth Avenue with
its traffic and people, its brown-stone houses and ricketty stages,
had seemed like that--so splendid and bright and heart-filling, that
she had painted them in colours which could belong only to fairyland.
It said so much.

The thing she had suspected as she had talked to her sister was,
before the interview ended, made curiously clear. The first obstacle
in her pathway would be the shrinking of a creature who had been so
long under dominion that the mere thought of seeing any steps taken
towards her rescue filled her with alarm. One might be prepared for
her almost praying to be let alone, because she felt that the process
of her salvation would bring about such shocks and torments as she
could not endure the facing of.

"She will have to get used to you," Ughtred kept saying. "She
will have to get used to thinking things."

"I will be careful," Bettina answered. "She shall not be
troubled. I did not come to trouble her,"