Chapter XXXIV. Red Godwyn

The Shuttle

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

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 things. 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"?

"No, by God!" he said. "If she thinks of me at all it shall be
as a man. No, by God, I will not sink to that!"

  .  .  .  .  .

A moving touch of colour caught his
eye. It was the rose of a parasol seen above the laurel hedge, as
someone turned into the walk. He knew the colour of it and expected
to see other parasols and hear voices. But there was no sound, and
unaccompanied, the wonderful rose-thing moved towards him.

"The usual things are happening to me," was his thought as it
advanced. "I am hot and cold, and just now my heart leaped like a
rabbit. It would be wise to walk off, but I shall not do it. I
shall stay here, because I am no longer a reasoning being. I suppose
that a horse who refuses to back out of his stall when his stable is
on fire feels something of the same thing."

When she saw him she made an involuntary-looking pause, and then
recovering herself, came forward.

"I seem to have come in search of you," she said. "You ought to
be showing someone the view really--and so ought I."

"Shall we show it to each other?" was his reply.

"Yes." And she sat down on the stone seat which had been placed
for the comfort of view lovers. "I am a little tired-- just enough
to feel that to slink away for a moment alone would be agreeable. It
is slinking to leave Rosalie to battle with half the county. But I
shall only stay a few minutes."

She sat still and gazed at the beautiful lands spread before
her, but there was no stillness in her mind, neither was there
stillness in his. He did not look at the view, but at her, and he
was asking himself what he should be saying to her if he were such a
man as Westholt. Though he had boldness enough, he knew that no
man--even though he is free to speak the best and most passionate
thoughts of his soul--could be sure that he would gain what he
desired. The good fortune of Westholt, or of any other, could but
give him one man's fair chance.

But having that chance, he knew he should not relinquish it
soon. There swept back into his mind the story of the marriage of
his ancestor, Red Godwyn, and he laughed low in spite of himself.

Miss Vanderpoel looked up at him quickly.

"Please tell me about it, if it is very amusing," she said.

"I wonder if it will amuse you," was his answer. "Do you like
savage romance?"

"Very much."

It might seem a propos de rien, but he did not care in the
least. He wanted to hear what she would say.

"An ancestor of mine--a certain Red Godwyn--was a barbarian
immensely to my taste. He became enamoured of rumours of the beauty
of the daughter and heiress of his bitterest enemy. In his day, when
one wanted a thing, one rode forth with axe and spear to fight for
it."

"A simple and alluring method," commented Betty. "What was her
name?"

She leaned in light ease against the stone back of her seat, the
rose light cast by her parasol faintly flushed her. The silence of
their retreat seemed accentuated by its background of music from the
gardens. They smiled a second bravely into each other's eyes, then
their glances became entangled, as they had done for a moment when
they had stood together in Mount Dunstan park. For one moment each
had been held prisoner then--now it was for longer.

"Alys of the Sea-Blue Eyes."

Betty tried to release herself, but could not.

"Sometimes the sea is grey," she said.

His own eyes were still in hers.

"Hers were the colour of the sea on a day when the sun shines on
it, and there are large fleece-white clouds floating in the blue
above. They sparkled and were often like bluebells under water."

"Bluebells under water sounds entrancing," said Betty.

He caught his breath slightly.

"They were--entrancing," he said. "That was evidently the devil
of it--saving your presence."

"I have never objected to the devil," said Betty. "He is an
energetic, hard-working creature and paints himself an honest black.
Please tell me the rest."

"Red Godwyn went forth, and after a bloody fight took his
enemy's castle. If we still lived in like simple, honest times, I
should take Dunholm Castle in the same way. He also took Alys of the
Eyes and bore her away captive."

"From such incidents developed the germs of the desire for
female suffrage," Miss Vanderpoel observed gently.

"The interest of the story lies in the fact that apparently the
savage was either epicure or sentimentalist, or both. He did not
treat the lady ill. He shut her in a tower chamber overlooking his
courtyard, and after allowing her three days to weep, he began his
barbarian wooing. Arraying himself in splendour he ordered her to
appear before him. He sat upon the dais in his banquet hall, his
retainers gathered about him-- a great feast spread. In archaic
English we are told that the board groaned beneath the weight of
golden trenchers and flagons. Minstrels played and sang, while he
displayed all his splendour."

"They do it yet," said Miss Vanderpoel, "in London and New York
and other places."

"The next day, attended by his followers, he took her with him
to ride over his lands. When she returned to her tower chamber she
had learned how powerful and great a chieftain he was. She `laye
softely' and was attended by many maidens, but she had no
entertainment but to look out upon the great green court. There he
arranged games and trials of strength and skill, and she saw him
bigger, stronger, and more splendid than any other man. He did not
even lift his eyes to her window. He also sent her daily a rich
gift."

"How long did this go on?"

"Three months. At the end of that time he commanded her
presence again in his banquet hall. He told her the gates were
opened, the drawbridge down and an escort waiting to take her back to
her father's lands, if she would."

"What did she do?"

"She looked at him long--and long. She turned proudly away--in
the sea-blue eyes were heavy and stormy tears, which seeing----"

"Ah, he saw them?" from Miss Vanderpoel.

"Yes. And seizing her in his arms caught her to his breast,
calling for a priest to make them one within the hour. I am quoting
the chronicle. I was fifteen when I read it first."

"It is spirited," said Betty, "and Red Godwyn was almost modern
in his methods."

While professing composure and lightness of mood, the spell
which works between two creatures of opposite sex when in such case
wrought in them and made them feel awkward and stiff. When each is
held apart from the other by fate, or will, or circumstance, the
spell is a stupefying thing, deadening even the clearness of sight
and wit.

"I must slink back now," Betty said, rising. "Will you slink
back with me to give me countenance? I have greatly liked Red
Godwyn."

So it occurred that when Nigel Anstruthers saw them again it was
as they crossed the lawn together, and people looked up from ices and
cups of tea to follow their slow progress with questioning or
approving eyes.