"What did he do?" she exclaimed."Did he look angry at seeing a stranger? They say he is so ill-tempered and rude.""I should feel ill-tempered if I were in his place," said Betty."He has enough to rouse his evil passions and make him savage.What a fate for a man with any sense and decency of feeling! What fools and criminals the last generation of his house must have produced! I wonder how such things evolve themselves.But he is different--different.One can see it.If he had a chance--just half a chance--he would build it all up again.And I don't mean merely the place, but all that one means when one says `his house.' ""He would need a great deal of money," sighed Lady Anstruthers.
Betty nodded slowly as she looked out, reflecting, into the park.
"Yes, it would require money," was her admission.
"And he has none," Lady Anstruthers added."None whatever.""He will get some," said Betty, still reflecting."He will make it, or dig it up, or someone will leave it to him.There is a great deal of money in the world, and when a strong creature ought to have some of it he gets it.""Oh, Betty!" said Rosy."Oh, Betty! "
"Watch that man," said Betty; "you will see.It will come."Lady Anstruthers' mind, working at no time on complex lines, presented her with a simple modern solution.
"Perhaps he will marry an American," she said, and saying it, sighed again.
"He will not do it on purpose." Bettina answered slowly and with such an air of absence of mind that Rosy laughed a little.
"Will he do it accidentally, or against his will?" she said.
Betty herself smiled.
"Perhaps he will," she said."There are Englishmen who rather dislike Americans.I think he is one of them."It apparently became necessary for Lady Anstruthers, a moment later, to lean upon the stone balustrade and pick off a young leaf or so, for no reason whatever, unless that in doing so she averted her look from her sister as she made her next remark.
"Are you--when are you going to write to father and mother?""I have written," with unembarrassed evenness of tone.
"Mother will be counting the days."
"Mother!" Rosy breathed, with a soft little gasp."Mother!" and turned her face farther away."What did you tell her?"Betty moved over to her and stood close at her side.The power of her personality enveloped the tremulous creature as if it had been a sense of warmth.
"I told her how beautiful the place was, and how Ughtred adored you--and how you loved us all, and longed to see New York again."The relief in the poor little face was so immense that Betty's heart shook before it.Lady Anstruthers looked up at her with adoring eyes.
"I might have known," she said; "I might have known that--that you would only say the right thing.You couldn't say the wrong thing, Betty."Betty bent over her and spoke almost yearningly.
"Whatever happens," she said, "we will take care that mother is not hurt.She's too kind--she's too good--she's too tender.""That is what I have remembered," said Lady Anstruthers brokenly."She used to hold me on her lap when I was quite grown up.Oh! her soft, warm arms--her warm shoulder!
I have so wanted her."
"She has wanted you," Betty answered."She thinks of you just as she did when she held you on her lap.""But if she saw me now--looking like this! If she saw me! Sometimes I have even been glad to think she never would.""She will." Betty's tone was cool and clear."But before she does I shall have made you look like yourself."Lady Anstruthers' thin hand closed on her plucked leaves convulsively, and then opening let them drop upon the stone of the terrace.
"We shall never see each other.It wouldn't be possible,"she said."And there is no magic in the world now, Betty.
You can't bring back----"
"Yes, you can," said Bettina."And what used to be called magic is only the controlled working of the law and order of things in these days.We must talk it all over."Lady Anstruthers became a little pale.
"What?" she asked, low and nervously, and Betty saw her glance sideways at the windows of the room which opened on to the terrace.
Betty took her hand and drew her down into a chair.She sat near her and looked her straight in the face.
"Don't be frightened," she said."I tell you there is no need to be frightened.We are not living in the Middle Ages.There is a policeman even in Stornham village, and we are within four hours of London, where there are thousands."Lady Anstruthers tried to laugh, but did not succeed very well, and her forehead flushed.
"I don't quite know why I seem so nervous," she said.
"It's very silly of me."
She was still timid enough to cling to some rag of pretence, but Betty knew that it would fall away.She did the wisest possible thing, which was to make an apparently impersonal remark.
"I want you to go over the place with me and show me everything.Walls and fences and greenhouses and outbuildings must not be allowed to crumble away.""What?" cried Rosy."Have you seen all that already?"She actually stared at her."How practical and--and American!""To see that a wall has fallen when you find yourself obliged to walk round a pile of grass-grown brickwork?" said Betty.
Lady Anstruthers still softly stared.
"What--what are you thinking of?" she asked.
"Thinking that it is all too beautiful----" Betty's look swept the loveliness spread about her, "too beautiful and too valuable to be allowed to lose its value and its beauty." She turned her eyes back to Rosy and the deep dimple near her mouth showed itself delightfully."It is a throwing away of capital,"she added.
"Oh!" cried Lady Anstruthers, "how clever you are!
And you look so different, Betty."
"Do I look stupid?" the dimple deepening."I must try to alter that.""Don't try to alter your looks," said Rosy."It is your looks that make you so--so wonderful.But usually women--girls----" Rosy paused.