Chapter LX. "Don't Go on with This"

The Shuttle

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

Of these things, as of others, she had come to her solitude to
think. She looked out over the marshes scarcely seeing the wandering
or resting sheep, scarcely hearing the crying plover, because so much
seemed to confront her, and she must look it all well in the face.
She had fulfilled the promise she had made to herself as a child.
She had come in search of Rosy, she had found her as simple and
loving of heart as she had ever been. The most painful discoveries
she had made had been concealed from her mother until their aspect
was modified. Mrs. Vanderpoel need now feel no shock at the sight of
the restored Rosy. Lady Anstruthers had been still young enough to
respond both physically and mentally to love, companionship,
agreeable luxuries, and stimulating interests. But for Nigel's
antagonism there was now no reason why she should not be taken home
for a visit to her family, and her long-yearned-for New York, no
reason why her father and mother should not come to Stornham, and
thus establish the customary social relations between their
daughter's home and their own. That this seemed out of the question
was owing to the fact that at the outset of his married life Sir
Nigel had allowed himself to commit errors in tactics. A perverse
egotism, not wholly normal in its rancour, had led him into deeds
which he had begun to suspect of having cost him too much, even
before Betty herself had pointed out to him their unbusinesslike
indiscretion. He had done things he could not undo, and now, to his
mind, his only resource was to treat them boldly as having been the
proper results of decision founded on sound judgment, which he had no
desire to excuse. A sufficiently arrogant loftiness of bearing
would, he hoped, carry him through the matter. This Betty herself
had guessed, but she had not realised that this loftiness of attitude
was in danger of losing some of its effectiveness through his being
increasingly stung and spurred by circumstances and feelings
connected with herself, which were at once exasperating and at times
almost overpowering. When, in his mingled dislike and admiration, he
had begun to study his sister-in-law, and the half-amused weaving of
the small plots which would make things sufficiently unpleasant to be
used as factors in her removal from the scene, if necessary, he had
not calculated, ever so remotely, on the chance of that madness
besetting him which usually besets men only in their youth. He had
imagined no other results to himself than a subtly-exciting private
entertainment, such as would give spice to the dullness of virtuous
life in the country. But, despite himself and his intentions, he had
found the situation alter. His first uncertainty of himself had
arisen at the Dunholm ball, when he had suddenly realised that he was
detesting men who, being young and free, were at liberty to pay
gallant court to the new beauty.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing to him had been his
consciousness of his sudden leap of antagonism towards Mount Dunstan,
who, despite his obvious lack of chance, somehow especially roused in
him the rage of warring male instinct. There had been admissions he
had been forced, at length, to make to himself. You could not, it
appeared, live in the house with a splendid creature like this
one--with her brilliant eyes, her beauty of line and movement before
you every hour, her bloom, her proud fineness holding themselves
wholly in their own keeping--without there being the devil to pay.
Lately he had sometimes gone hot and cold in realising that, having
once told himself that he might choose to decide to get rid of her,
he now knew that the mere thought of her sailing away of her own
choice was maddening to him. There was the devil to pay! It
sometimes brought back to him that hideous shakiness of nerve which
had been a feature of his illness when he had been on the Riviera
with Teresita.

Of all this Betty only knew the outward signs which, taken at
their exterior significance, were detestable enough, and drove her
hard as she mentally dwelt on them in connection with other things.
How easy, if she stood alone, to defy his evil insolence to do its
worst, and leaving the place at an hour's notice, to sail away to
protection, or, if she chose to remain in England, to surround
herself with a bodyguard of the people in whose eyes his disrepute
relegated a man such as Nigel Anstruthers to powerless nonentity.
Alone, she could have smiled and turned her back upon him. But she
was here to take care of Rosy. She occupied a position something
like that of a woman who remains with a man and endures outrage
because she cannot leave her child. That thought, in itself, brought
Ughtred to her mind. There was Ughtred to be considered as well as
his mother. Ughtred's love for and faith in her were deep and
passionate things. He fed on her tenderness for him, and had grown
stronger because he spent hours of each day talking, reading, and
driving with her. The simple truth was that neither she nor Rosalie
could desert Ughtred, and so long as Nigel managed cleverly enough,
the law would give the boy to his father.

"You are obliged to prove things, you know, in a court of law,"
he had said, as if with casual amiability, on a certain occasion.
"Proving things is the devil. People lose their tempers and rush
into rows which end in lawsuits, and then find they can prove
nothing. If I were a villain," slightly showing his teeth in an
agreeable smile--"instead of a man of blameless life, I should go in
only for that branch of my profession which could be exercised
without leaving stupid evidence behind."

Since his return to Stornham the outward decorum of his own
conduct had entertained him and he had kept it up with an increasing
appreciation of its usefulness in the present situation. Whatsoever
happened in the end, it was the part of discretion to present to the
rural world about him an appearance of upright behaviour. He had
even found it amusing to go to church and also to occasionally make
amiable calls at the vicarage. It was not difficult, at such times,
to refer delicately to his regret that domestic discomfort had led
him into the error of remaining much away from Stornham. He knew
that he had been even rather touching in his expression of interest
in the future of his son, and the necessity of the boy's being
protected from uncontrolled hysteric influences. And, in the years
of Rosalie's unprotected wretchedness, he had taken excellent care
that no "stupid evidence" should be exposed to view.

Of all this Betty was thinking and summing up definitely, point
after point. Where was the wise and practical course of defence?
The most unthinkable thing was that one could find one's self in a
position in which action seemed inhibited. What could one do? To
send for her father would surely end the matter--but at what cost to
Rosy, to Ughtred, to Ffolliott, before whom the fair path to
dignified security had so newly opened itself? What would be the
effect of sudden confusion, anguish, and public humiliation upon
Rosalie's carefully rebuilt health and strength--upon her mother's
new hope and happiness? At moments it seemed as if almost all that
had been done might be undone. She was beset by such a moment now,
and felt for the time, at least, like a creature tied hand and foot
while in full strength.

Certainly she was not prepared for the event which happened.
Roland stiffened his ears, and, beginning a rumbling growl, ended it
suddenly, realising it an unnecessary precaution.

He knew the man walking up the incline of the mound from the
side behind them. So did Betty know him. It was Sir Nigel looking
rather glowering and pale and walking slowly. He had discovered
where she had meant to take refuge, and had probably ridden to some
point where he could leave his horse and follow her at the expense of
taking a short cut which saved walking.

As he climbed the mound to join her, Betty rose to her feet.

"My dear girl," he said, "don't get up as if you meant to go
away. It has cost me some exertion to find you."

"It will not cost you any exertion to lose me," was her light
answer. "I am going away."

He had reached her, and stood still before her with scarcely a
yard's distance between them. He was slightly out of breath and even
a trifle livid. He leaned on his stick and his look at her combined
leaping bad temper with something deeper.

"Look here!" he broke out, "why do you make such a point of
treating me like the devil?"

Betty felt her heart give a hastened beat, not of fear, but of
repulsion. This was the mood and manner which subjugated Rosalie.
He had so raised his voice that two men in the distance, who might be
either labourers or sportsmen, hearing its high tone, glanced
curiously towards them.

"Why do you ask me a question which is totally absurd?" she
said.

"It is not absurd," he answered. "I am speaking of facts, and I
intend to come to some understanding about them."

For reply, after meeting his look a few seconds, she simply
turned her back and began to walk away. He followed and overtook
her.

"I shall go with you, and I shall say what I want to say," he
persisted. "If you hasten your pace I shall hasten mine. I cannot
exactly see you running away from me across the marsh, screaming.
You wouldn't care to be rescued by those men over there who are
watching us. I should explain myself to them in terms neither you
nor Rosalie would enjoy. There! I knew Rosalie's name would pull
you up. Good God! I wish I were a weak fool with a magnificent
creature protecting me at all risks."

If she had not had blood and fire in her veins, she might have
found it easy to answer calmly. But she had both, and both leaped
and beat furiously for a few seconds. It was only human that it
should be so. But she was more than a passionate girl of high and
trenchant spirit, and she had learned, even in the days at the French
school, what he had never been able to learn in his
life--self-control. She held herself in as she would have held in a
horse of too great fire and action. She was actually able to
look--as the first Reuben Vanderpoel would have looked--at her
capital of resource. But it meant taut holding of the reins.

"Will you tell me," she said, stopping, "what it is you
want?"

"I want to talk to you. I want to tell you truths you would
rather be told here than on the high road, where people are
passing--or at Stornham, where the servants would overhear and
Rosalie be thrown into hysterics. You will not run screaming across
the marsh, because I should run screaming after you, and we should
both look silly. Here is a rather scraggy tree. Will you sit on the
mound near it--for Rosalie's sake?"

"I will not sit down," replied Betty, "but I will listen,
because it is not a bad idea that I should understand you. But to
begin with, I will tell you something." She stopped beneath the tree
and stood with her back against its trunk. "I pick up things by
noticing people closely, and I have realised that all your life you
have counted upon getting your own way because you saw that
people--especially women --have a horror of public scenes, and will
submit to almost anything to avoid them. That is true very often,
but not always."

Her eyes, which were well opened, were quite the blue of steel,
and rested directly upon him. "I, for instance, would let you make a
scene with me anywhere you chose--in Bond Street-- in Piccadilly--on
the steps of Buckingham Palace, as I was getting out of my carriage
to attend a drawing-room--and you would gain nothing you wanted by
it--nothing. You may place entire confidence in that statement."

He stared back at her, momentarily half-magnetised, and then
broke forth into a harsh half-laugh.

"You are so damned handsome that nothing else matters. I'm
hanged if it does!" and the words were an exclamation. He drew still
nearer to her, speaking with a sort of savagery. "Cannot you see that
you could do what you pleased with me? You are too magnificent a
thing for a man to withstand. I have lost my head and gone to the
devil through you. That is what I came to say."

In the few seconds of silence that followed, his breath came
quickly again and he was even paler than before.

"You came to me to say that?" asked Betty.

"Yes--to say it before you drove me to other things."

Her gaze was for a moment even slightly wondering. He presented
the curious picture of a cynical man of the world, for the time being
ruled and impelled only by the most primitive instincts. To a
clear-headed modern young woman of the most powerful class, he--her
sister's husband--was making threatening love as if he were a savage
chief and she a savage beauty of his tribe. All that concerned him
was that he should speak and she should hear--that he should show her
he was the stronger of the two.

"Are you quite mad?" she said.

"Not quite," he answered; "only three parts--but I am beyond my
own control. That is the best proof of what has happened to me. You
are an arrogant piece and you would defy me if you stood alone, but
you don't, and, by the Lord! I have reached a point where I will
make use of every lever I can lay my hand on--yourself, Rosalie,
Ughtred, Ffolliott-- the whole lot of you!"

The thing which was hardest upon her was her knowledge of her
own strength--of what she might have allowed herself of flaming words
and instant action--but for the memory of Rosy's ghastly little face,
as it had looked when she cried out, "You must not think of me.
Betty, go home--go home!" She held the white desperation of it
before her mental vision and answered him even with a certain
interested deliberateness.

"Do you know," she inquired, "that you are talking to me as
though you were the villain in the melodrama?"

"There is an advantage in that," he answered, with an unholy
smile. "If you repeat what I say, people will only think that you
are indulging in hysterical exaggeration. They don't believe in the
existence of melodrama in these days."

The cynical, absolute knowledge of this revealed so much that
nerve was required to face it with steadiness.

"True," she commented. "Now I think I understand."

"No, you don't," he burst forth. "You have spent your life
standing on a golden pedestal, being kowtowed to, and you imagine
yourself immune from difficulties because you think you can pay your
way out of anything. But you will find that you cannot pay your way
out of this--or rather you cannot pay Rosalie's way out of it."

"I shall not try. Go on," said the girl. "What I do not
understand, you must explain to me. Don't leave anything unsaid."

"Good God, what a woman you are!" he cried out bitterly. He had
never seen such beauty in his life as he saw in her as she stood with
her straight young body flat against the tree. It was not a matter
of deep colour of eye, or high spirit of profile--but of something
which burned him. Still as she was, she looked like a flame. She
made him feel old and body- worn, and all the more senselessly
furious.

"I believe you hate me," he raged. "And I may thank my wife for
that." Then he lost himself entirely. "Why cannot you behave well
to me? If you will behave well to me, Rosalie shall go her own way.
If you even looked at me as you look at other men--but you do not.
There is always something under your lashes which watches me as if I
were a wild beast you were studying. Don't fancy yourself a
dompteuse. I am not your man. I swear to you that you don't know
what you are dealing with. I swear to you that if you play this game
with me I will drag you two down if I drag myself with you. I have
nothing much to lose. You and your sister have everything."

"Go on," Betty said briefly.

"Go on! Yes, I will go on. Rosalie and Ffolliott I hold in the
hollow of my hand. As for you--do you know that people are beginning
to discuss you? Gossip is easily stirred in the country, where
people are so bored that they chatter in self-defence. I have been
considered a bad lot. I have become curiously attached to my
sister-in-law. I am seen hanging about her, hanging over her as we
ride or walk alone together. An American young woman is not like an
English girl--she is used to seeing the marriage ceremony juggled
with. There's a trifle of prejudice against such young women when
they are too rich and too handsome. Don't look at me like that!" he
burst forth, with maddened sharpness, "I won't have it!"

The girl was regarding him with the expression he most
resented--the reflection of a normal person watching an abnormal one,
and studying his abnormality.

"Do you know that you are raving?" she said, with quiet
curiosity--"raving?"

Suddenly he sat down on the low mound near him, and as he
touched his forehead with his handkerchief, she saw that his hand
actually shook.

"Yes," he answered, panting, "but 'ware my ravings! They mean
what they say."

"You do yourself an injury when you give way to them"--
steadily, even with a touch of slow significance--"a physical injury.
I have noticed that more than once."

He sprang to his feet again. Every drop of blood left his face.
For a second he looked as if he would strike her. His arm actually
flung itself out--and fell.

"You devil!" he gasped. "You count on that? You she-devil!"

She left her tree and stood before him.

"Listen to me," she said. "You intimate that you have been
laying melodramatic plots against me which will injure my good name.
That is rubbish. Let us leave it at that. You threaten that you
will break Rosy's heart and take her child from her, you say also
that you will wound and hurt my mother to her death and do your worst
to ruin an honest man----"

"And, by God, I will!" he raged. "And you cannot stop me,
if----"

"I do not know whether I can stop you or not, though you may be
sure I will try," she interrupted him, "but that is not what I was
going to say." She drew a step nearer, and there was something in
the intensity of her look which fascinated and held him for a moment.
She was curiously grave. "Nigel, I believe in certain things you do
not believe in. I believe black thoughts breed black ills to those
who think them. It is not a new idea. There is an old Oriental
proverb which says, `Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.' I
believe also that the worst--the very worst cannot be done to those
who think steadily--steadily--only of the best. To you that is
merely superstition to be laughed at. That is a matter of opinion.
But--don't go on with this thing--don't go on with it. Stop and
think it over."

He stared at her furiously--tried to laugh outright, and failed
because the look in her eyes was so odd in its strength and
stillness.

"You think you can lay some weird spell upon me," he jeered
sardonically.

"No, I don't," she answered. "I could not if I would. It is no
affair of mine. It is your affair only--and there is nothing weird
about it. Don't go on, I tell you. Think better of it."

She turned about without further speech, and walked away from
him with light swiftness over the marsh. Oddly enough, he did not
even attempt to follow her. He felt a little weak-- perhaps because
a certain thing she had said had brought back to him a familiar touch
of the horrors. She had the eyes of a falcon under the odd, soft
shade of the extraordinary lashes. She had seen what he thought no
one but himself had realised. Having watched her retreating figure
for a few seconds, he sat down--as suddenly as before--on the mound
near the tree.

"Oh, damn her!" he said, his damp forehead on his hands. "Damn
the whole universe!"

  .  .  .  .  .

When Betty and Roland reached
Stornham, the wicker-work pony chaise from the vicarage stood before
the stone entrance steps. The drawing-room door was open, and Mrs.
Brent was standing near it saying some last words to Lady Anstruthers
before leaving the house, after a visit evidently made with an
object. This Betty gathered from the solemnity of her manner.

"Betty," said Lady Anstruthers, catching sight of her, "do come
in for a moment."

When Betty entered, both her sister and Mrs. Brent looked at her
questioningly.

"You look a little pale and tired, Miss Vanderpoel," Mrs. Brent
said, rather as if in haste to be the first to speak. "I hope you
are not at all unwell. We need all our strength just now. I have
brought the most painful news. Malignant typhoid fever has broken
out among the hop pickers on the Mount Dunstan estate. Some poor
creature was evidently sickening for it when he came from London.
Three people died last night."