Chapter XXIX. The Thread of G. Selden

The Shuttle

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

The Shuttle having in its weaving caught up the thread of G.
Selden's rudimentary existence and drawn it, with the young man
himself, across the sea, used curiously the thread in question, in
the forming of the design of its huge web. As wool and coarse linen
are sometimes interwoven with rich silk for decorative or utilitarian
purposes, so perhaps was this previously unvalued material
employed.

It was, indeed, an interesting truth that the young man, during
his convalescence, without his own knowledge, acted as a species of
magnet which drew together persons who might not easily otherwise
have met. Mr. Penzance and Mount Dunstan rode over to see him every
few days, and their visits naturally established relations with
Stornham Court much more intimate than could have formed themselves
in the same length of time under any of the ordinary circumstances of
country life. Conventionalities lost their prominence in friendly
intercourse with Selden. It was not, however, that he himself
desired to dispense with convention. His intense wish to "do the
right thing," and avoid giving offence was the most ingenuous and
touching feature of his broad cosmopolitan good nature.

"If I ever make a break, sir," he had once said, with almost
passionate fervour, in talking to Mr. Penzance, "please tell me, and
set me on the right track. No fellow likes to look like a hoosier,
but I don't mind that half as much as--as seeming not to
appreciate."

He used the word "appreciate" frequently. It expressed for him
many degrees of thanks.

"I tell you that's fine," he said to Ughtred, who brought him a
flower from the garden. "I appreciate that."

To Betty he said more than once:

"You know how I appreciate all this, Miss Vanderpoel. You do
know I appreciate it, don't you?"

He had an immense admiration for Mount Dunstan, and talked to
him a great deal about America, often about the sheep ranch, and what
it might have done and ought to have done. But his admiration for
Mr. Penzance became affection. To him he talked oftener about
England, and listened to the vicar's scholarly stories of its
history, its past glories and its present ones, as he might have
listened at fourteen to stories from the Arabian Nights.

These two being frequently absorbed in conversation, Mount
Dunstan was rather thrown upon Betty's hands. When they strolled
together about the place or sat under the deep shade of green trees,
they talked not only of England and America, but of divers things
which increased their knowledge of each other. It is points of view
which reveal qualities, tendencies, and innate differences, or
accordances of thought, and the points of view of each interested the
other.

"Mr. Selden is asking Mr. Penzance questions about English
history," Betty said, on one of the afternoons in which they sat in
the shade. "I need not ask you questions. You are English
history."

"And you are American history," Mount Dunstan answered.

"I suppose I am."

At one of their chance meetings Miss Vanderpoel had told Lord
Dunholm and Lord Westholt something of the story of G. Selden. The
novelty of it had delighted and amused them. Lord Dunholm had, at
points, been touched as Penzance had been. Westholt had felt that he
must ride over to Stornham to see the convalescent. He wanted to
learn some New York slang.

He would take lessons from Selden, and he would also buy a
Delkoff--two Delkoffs, if that would be better. He knew a
hard-working fellow who ought to have a typewriter.

"Heath ought to have one," he had said to his father. Heath was
the house-steward. "Think of the letters the poor chap has to write
to trades-people to order things, and un- order them, and blackguard
the shopkeepers when they are not satisfactory. Invest in one for
Heath, father."

"It is by no means a bad idea," Lord Dunholm reflected. "Time
would be saved by the use of it, I have no doubt."

"It saves time in any department where it can be used," Betty
had answered. "Three are now in use at Stornham, and I am going to
present one to Kedgers. This is a testimonial I am offering. Three
weeks ago I began to use the Delkoff. Since then I have used no
other. If you use them you will introduce them to the county."

She understood the feeling of the junior assistant, when he
found himself in the presence of possible purchasers. Her blood
tingled slightly. She wished she had brought a catalogue.

"We will come to Stornham to see the catalogue," Lord Dunholm
promised.

"Perhaps you will read it aloud to us," Westholt suggested
gleefully.

"G. Selden knows it by heart, and will repeat it to you with
running comments. Do you know I shall be very glad if you decide to
buy one--or two--or three," with an uplift of the Irish blue eyes to
Lord Dunholm. "The blood of the first Reuben Vanderpoel stirs in my
veins--also I have begun to be fond of G. Selden."

Therefore it occurred that on the afternoon referred to Lady
Anstruthers appeared crossing the sward with two male visitors in her
wake.

"Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt," said Betty, rising.

For this meeting between the men Selden was, without doubt,
responsible. While his father talked to Mount Dunstan, Westholt
explained that they had come athirst for the catalogue. Presently
Betty took him to the sheltered corner of the lawn, where the
convalescent sat with Mr. Penzance.

But, for a short time, Lord Dunholm remained to converse with
Mount Dunstan. In a way the situation was delicate. To encounter by
chance a neighbour whom one-- for reasons--has not seen since his
childhood, and to be equal to passing over and gracefully
obliterating the intervening years, makes demand even upon finished
tact. Lord Dunholm's world had been a large one, and he had acquired
experience tending to the development of the most perfect methods.
If G. Selden had chanced to be the magnet which had decided his
course this special afternoon, Miss Vanderpoel it was who had stirred
in him sufficient interest in Mount Dunstan to cause him to use the
best of these methods when he found himself face to face with him.

He beautifully eliminated the years, he eliminated all but the
facts that the young man's father and himself had been acquaintances
in youth, that he remembered Mount Dunstan himself as a child, that
he had heard with interest of his visit to America. Whatsoever the
young man felt, he made no sign which presented obstacles. He
accepted the eliminations with outward composure. He was a
powerful-looking fellow, with a fine way of carrying his shoulders,
and an eye which might be able to light savagely, but just now, at
least, he showed nothing of the sulkiness he was accused of.

Lord Dunholm progressed admirably with him. He soon found that
he need not be upon any strain with regard to the eliminations. The
man himself could eliminate, which was an assistance.

They talked together when they turned to follow the others to
the retreat of G. Selden.

"Have you bought a Delkoff?" Lord Dunholm inquired.

"If I could have afforded it, I should have bought one."

"I think that we have come here with the intention of buying
three. We did not know we required them until Miss Vanderpoel
recited half a page of the catalogue to us."

"Three will mean a `rake off' of fifteen dollars to G. Selden,"
said Mount Dunstan. It was, he saw, necessary that he should explain
the meaning of a "rake off," and he did so to his companion's
entertainment.

The afternoon was a satisfactory one. They were all kind to G.
Selden, and he on his part was an aid to them. In his innocence he
steered three of them, at least, through narrow places into an open
sea of easy intercourse. This was a good beginning. The junior
assistant was recovering rapidly, and looked remarkably well. The
doctor had told him that he might try to use his leg. The inside
cabin of the cheap Liner and "little old New York" were looming up
before him. But what luck he had had, and what a holiday! It had
been enough to set a fellow up for ten years' work. It would set up
the boys merely to be told about it. He didn't know what he had ever
done to deserve such luck as had happened to him. For the rest of
his life he would he waving the Union Jack alongside of the Stars and
Stripes.

Mr. Penzance it was who suggested that he should try the
strength of the leg now.

"Yes," Mount Dunstan said. "Let me help you."

As he rose to go to him, Westholt good-naturedly got up also.
They took their places at either side of his invalid chair and
assisted him to rise and stand on his feet.

"It's all right, gentlemen. It's all right," he called out with
a delighted flush, when he found himself upright. "I believe I could
stand alone. Thank you. Thank you."

He was able, leaning on Mount Dunstan's arm, to take a few
steps. Evidently, in a short time, he would find himself no longer
disabled.

Mr. Penzance had invited him to spend a week at the vicarage.
He was to do this as soon as he could comfortably drive from the one
place to the other. After receiving the invitation he had sent
secretly to London for one of the Delkoffs he had brought with him
from America as a specimen. He cherished in private a plan of gently
entertaining his host by teaching him to use the machine. The vicar
would thus be prepared for that future in which surely a Delkoff must
in some way fall into his hands. Indeed, Fortune having at length
cast an eye on himself, might chance to favour him further, and in
time he might be able to send a "high- class machine" as a grateful
gift to the vicarage. Perhaps Mr. Penzance would accept it because
he would understand what it meant of feeling and appreciation.

During the afternoon Lord Dunholm managed to talk a good deal
with Mount Dunstan. There was no air of intention in his manner,
nevertheless intention was concealed beneath its courteous
amiability. He wanted to get at the man. Before they parted he felt
he had, perhaps, learned things opening up new points of view.

  .  .  .  .  .

In the smoking-room at Dunholm that
night he and his son talked of their chance encounter. It seemed
possible that mistakes had been made about Mount Dunstan. One did
not form a definite idea of a man's character in the course of an
afternoon, but he himself had been impressed by a conviction that
there had been mistakes.

"We are rather a stiff-necked lot--in the country--when we allow
ourselves to be taken possession of by an idea," Westholt
commented.

"I am not at all proud of the way in which we have taken things
for granted," was his father's summing up. "It is, perhaps, worth
observing," taking his cigar from his mouth and smiling at the end of
it, as he removed the ash, "that, but for Miss Vanderpoel and G.
Selden, we might never have had an opportunity of facing the fact
that we may not have been giving fair play. And one has prided one's
self on one's fair play."