bettina was writing in the library one morning when her attention was arrested by the sound of an approaching footstep. the next moment a servant announced,
“lord hurdly.”
at this name she started violently. so long accustomed to associate it with one person, she forgot for the instant that another bore it now. as she rose, startled and expectant, through the portière held back by the servant there entered a man whose sharp dissimilarity to the image in her mind made her catch her breath.
the next second she knew that it was horace, and realized that she was trembling from head to foot. the breadth of the room was between them, for he had paused just within the door, nodding to the servant to withdraw.
he stood there an instant in silence.
perhaps she was no more startled by the surprise which the sight of him occasioned than [pg 138]was he at the sight of her; but the quality of the surprise was different. it was her beauty, her so far more than recollected beauty, which had arrested him and held him spellbound. he had left her sick with grief about her mother, the color faded from her cheeks, her eyes dulled with weeping. there had been, moreover, in her expression an apathy which his ardent words had failed to do away with. besides these inherent things, the extrinsic points were glaringly a contrast to the present ones. then her somewhat too slight figure had been dressed in gowns of village make and fit, and her lovely hair had been carelessly wound up, without regard to fashion or effect.
now he saw confronting him a woman whom nature had endowed with a rare beauty, and for whom art had also done its best in the matter of outward adornment. true, she was clad in plain unrelieved black from head to foot, but no other costume could have so exquisitely displayed her glowing loveliness of coloring or the pure correctness of her outlines.
during the few seconds in which they stood looking at each other she had perceived also a great change in him. it was of a very different character, but it made all the more a strong appeal [pg 139]to her, for he was mysteriously aged. not only had the eastern sun turned to bronze the once ruddy hues of his skin, but he had also lost flesh, and his hair was getting streaks of gray in it. his figure, too, was sparer, but it looked more powerful than ever; and still more apparent was the added look of strength in the familiar and yet subtly altered face.
there was no pause long enough to be embarrassing before he spoke.
“i hope you will excuse me,” he said (and, oh, the voice was altered too, unless she had forgotten that rich, vibrating tone in it!), “for coming upon you so suddenly. i know i should have given warning, but i had what i think a sufficient reason for not doing so. i am hoping earnestly that you will agree with me when you have heard it.”
“pray sit down,” said bettina, speaking mechanically, and from the mere instinct of observance of ordinary forms. she had no sooner spoken than she remembered that it was his own house, of which she was doing the honors to him. if he remembered it also, he gave no sign, for he took the chair she indicated, with the conventional “thank you” of an ordinary visitor.
bettina also had sunk into her chair, and sat [pg 140]quite still, with her white hands clasped together on the dense black of her dress. she could not speak, yet she dreaded lest, in the silence, he might hear the beating of her heart. its soft thuds were plainly audible to her, and all the blood from her cheeks seemed to have gone there.
“in any event, i should have been obliged to come to england soon,” said her companion, “but i should have put it off longer had i not felt it important to come on your account.”
bettina’s eyes expressed a questioning surprise.
“on my account?” she said, vaguely.
“certainly,” was the prompt, decided answer. “the only responsibility which comes near to me in my new and strange position is that of protecting the honor and credit of the name i have assumed. these, you will excuse me for saying, have been seriously, i may even say shamefully, disregarded by the terms of the late lord hurdly’s will.”
bettina’s eyes had still that vague and puzzled look. she had not the least comprehension of what he meant. could he be resenting the fact that, so far as it was practicable for him to do so, his cousin had disinherited him? but no, that was impossible. as she remained silent and expectant, he went on:
[pg 141]
“since he chose to disregard the duty and dignity of his position, it is for me, who must now bear his name, to repair that wrong so far as it is in my power to do so. it is for that explicit purpose that i am now come to speak to you.”
still bettina looked perplexed.
“i don’t understand exactly in what way the will has displeased you,” she said. “there was a great deal of it that i hardly took in. but in any case there is nothing for me to do. as you know, my services have not been asked, and certainly there is no place for them. i have nothing whatever to do with the executing of lord hurdly’s will. indeed, my plans are all made to return to america immediately.”
“i cannot be surprised at your decision,” he said, with a certain resentment in his voice which she did not understand. “certainly it would be natural for you to wish to shake off the dust of this land from your feet. but wherever you may choose to live for the future, it is my duty to see that you live as becomes the widow of lord hurdly, and it is for this purpose that i have hastened to get here before you should be gone.”
all was now clear, and with the illumination which had come to her from these words of his [pg 142]the color flooded her pale cheeks. her first sensation was of keenly wounded pride.
“you might have spared yourself such haste,” she said. “if you had taken the slight trouble to write to me, i could have saved you the long and hurried journey. so far from wishing to have more money than what i am legally entitled to, it is my purpose and decision to take nothing. i have of my own enough to live upon in the simple way in which i shall live for the future. did you think so ill of me as to suppose that i would wish to grasp at more than my husband saw fit to leave me—or to take money at your hands?”
it was her instinct of pride which had caused her to use the words “my husband,” which another instinct at the same moment urged her to repudiate. but pride was now the uppermost feeling of her heart, and it supplied her with a sudden and sufficient strength for this hour’s need.
“this is in no sense a question between you and your late husband,” said horace. (was there not in him also a certain hesitation at that word, and did not the same feeling as in her compel him to its use?) “nor is it a question between you and me. the obviously simple issue [pg 143]is what propriety demands as to the manner in which the widow of lord hurdly is provided for. it belongs to my own sense of the dignity of my position that the late lord hurdly’s widow should be situated as becomes her name and title, and i am determined to see that this is done.”
“determined,” she said, a certain defiance in her quiet tone, “is not the word for this case. you may determine as you choose, but what will it avail if i determine not to touch a penny belonging to either the late or the present lord hurdly? you are very careful of the dignity of your position. i must also look to mine, which you seem strangely to have forgotten.”
his expression showed her plainly that these words of hers had cut deep into his consciousness. a swift compunction seized her heart, but her pride was still in the supremacy, and enabled her to stifle the feeling.
“i have not forgotten it,” he said. “it is because i have been mindful of the dignity of your position that i have urged this thing upon you. the conditions of the will need not be generally known if you will accept the right and proper income, which i wish, above all things, to see you have. can you not believe me sincere in my desire to remove the indignity put upon you by a [pg 144]member of my family, and the bearer before me of a name and position of which it has now become my duty to maintain the credit? and can you not believe me just enough and kind enough to wish to see this done for your sake as well as for my own?”
bettina’s face continued proudly hard. if the gentleness of her companion’s expression, the kindness of his manner, the delicate respect of his tones, made any appeal to her woman’s heart, the all-potency of her pride enabled her to conceal it. but the struggle between the two feelings at war within her made a desperate demand upon her strength. she felt that she would do well to put an end to this interview as soon as practicable. with this purpose she said, abruptly:
“i am willing to do full justice to your motives, but they cannot affect my action. my mind is quite made up. i shall return to america at once, and there the credit of lord hurdly’s name will not suffer any hurt, since i shall be practically out of the world. certainly i shall be forever removed from the world in which his life will be spent. do not think that i shall regret it. i shall not. my experience of your world has shown me that the mere possession of money, rank, position, influence, is powerless to bring [pg 145]happiness. i thought once that if i should come to have these i could get pleasure and satisfaction from them, but i was wrong. my nature inherently loved importance and display, but i mistook the unessential for the essential. if i had had all these external things, together with the satisfaction of the inward needs, they might have made me happy. in themselves i have proved them to be worthless.”
she was compelled to say these words. the intimate knowledge of the character of her husband which had come to her after marriage made her long that horace should know that had she really comprehended the man as he perhaps had known him all the while, she never could have become his wife. it was impossible for her to tell him this, but she caught eagerly at her present opportunity of letting him know that she had had no duty toward her late husband beyond the mere formal obligation of her wifehood. she could not bear horace to think that she had loved him. even now, under the softening influence that death imparts, that thought was intolerable to her. this was quite aside from his treatment of her in his will, which, indeed, was strangely little to her. it was the memory of the crafty and common nature under that [pg 146]polished exterior that made her recoil from the thought of him now.
if this feeling was strengthened by the contrast of the personality now present to her gaze, how could she be blamed? surely the man who stood before her might have seemed to answer any woman’s heart’s desire as lover, companion, friend. how her conscience smote her for the doubts she had once had of him! when she remembered whose treachery it was that had created these doubts, there was hate in her heart.
she did not wish him to see the expression of this feeling in her face, so she rose abruptly and turned from him. as if he understood her, he rose also, and crossed the room to the desk at which she had been seated on his entrance.
here were heaped papers and memoranda connected with the kingdon hall estates. evidently he recognized their character, for he said:
“at least you have not refused to give me the help that i asked. i’ve been talking to kirke, and he tells me you have been taking an interest in the affairs of the tenants. thank you for this.”
in an instant the bitterness in bettina’s heart was changed into a new and softer emotion. she saw the opportunity of effecting now what she [pg 147]had been so powerless to effect in the past. forgetting everything else, she came quickly to his side and took up one of the papers. this was in her own handwriting, and was a memorandum of some length. she held it away from him a moment, her face flushing, and a look of hesitation showing on it.
“i never intended that you should see this,” she said. “i began it long ago, and had to put it by; but recently i have taken it up again, without really knowing why, except that all my whole heart was in it.”
“what is it?” he asked. “i beg you to let me see it.”
“no,” she said. “it is not my affair, and i must remember that. it concerns some most deplorable facts which i have discovered concerning the management of the kingdon hall estates, but—”
“then it is my affair,” he interrupted her; “and since you know what these abuses are, and have looked into them, you surely will not deprive me of the help that you could give. i ask it as a favor.”
still bettina hesitated, but he could see that she was longing to comply. he could imagine, also, what it was that held her back.
[pg 148]
“not as a favor to me,” he hastened to add; “i appeal to you in the name of these poor tenants, who have been so long neglected and abused. this is no new thing to me. i have seen it going on from the time i was a boy here, and i can truly say that almost the only pleasure that i have looked forward to in succeeding to the estates has been the righting of these wrongs. surely you will not refuse to help me to do this.”
for answer, bettina turned upon him a pair of ardent eyes that swam with tears.
“oh, are you really going to do this blessed, glorious thing?” she said. she had forgotten herself for the moment, and was thinking only of them—the wretched beings whose wrongs had so long oppressed her, and who, it seemed, were to have justice and care and kindness at last. “you don’t know how hideous the condition of these poor creatures is, and how impossible it has been for me to do anything in the past. to think there is some one who will let me tell about it at last and give the help that is so needed! but you can do nothing with such a steward as kirke. his heart is as cold as ice.”
“kirke shall go at once. i have long believed that he was unworthy of the position he holds. [pg 149]if you will give me the benefit of your investigation and insight into the situation you will save me much trouble, and you can also feel that these poor people will be that much nearer to having their distress relieved.”
at these prompt, determined words her heart swelled, and again tears brimmed her eyes.
“oh, thank god that you will help them!” she said. “now that i am sure of that, i can go away contented. it would have broken my heart to leave them so—yet i had not dared to hope that i could do anything. you have no idea of the extent of it. it will take a great deal of money to give them new houses, proper sanitary conditions, and all the things they need.”
“never mind that—only tell me what to do.”
“but can you do it? i know how comparatively limited you are as to money.”
“comparatively only,” he said, reassuringly. “i have much less than my predecessor had, but fortunately i have little pride and simple tastes. i can let the place in leicestershire, where the hunting is good, and i can also lease the town house if necessary. pray consider that the question of money is disposed of. i assure you that does not enter into it.”
thus invited, bettina sat down before the desk, [pg 150]while he took a seat near by, and with the papers before her she went fully into the questions at issue, showing a grasp of the situation which soon testified to her companion that she had studied it to some purpose. all the changes which she recommended were approved, but more than once his attention was diverted from the purpose of the future to an indignant contempt for the delinquencies of the past. it was hard for him to constrain himself to silence as to this, but bettina thanked him in her heart for the successful effort which he made. she was too abject in her sense of compunction for her own past to feel inclined to severe judgment of another, and in her joy that these cherished plans of hers were to be immediately realized she was able to put by for the moment more personal trouble. she spoke with a fervor that made her beautiful face wellnigh adorable in its kind compassion, and when she would describe the wrongs and hardships of these poor simple folk her eyes at times would fill with tears of pity and her voice would tremble.
she knew it not, but in this hour she was making a new revelation of herself to horace, which answered to the need of his maturer nature as marvellously as the bettina of old had satisfied the needs of the ardent young fellow that he was [pg 151]then. if he remembered that bettina only as being beautiful and beloved, he saw in this one a far nobler and more perfect beauty, as he recognized in her qualities more worthy to command love.
here they were alone together, in a mood of extraordinary openness and sincerity, for they were thinking the same thoughts of helpfulness to others, and there was not an atom of the embarrassment of their personal relationship to come between them now. it was not singular, therefore, that he, for his part, should have longed to speak to her, heart to heart, of that mysterious thing which had divided them, and to tell her that, in spite of all—in spite of facts that had been flaunted before his eyes in society, in the public prints, and everywhere—he had never quite succeeded in stilling a small voice in his soul which had continued to declare that the young girl to whom he had so passionately given his love was less fickle and unfaithful than these facts had shown her to be. now, more than ever, this insistent voice repeated itself. how he longed to ask her the simple question! but then came common-sense, and demanded, what question? was there any question which he could ask her to which the fact and conditions [pg 152]of her marriage to lord hurdly were not a final answer?
as for bettina, she had also her longings to take advantage of that interview, when they were speaking together in such friendly converse, by telling him of the letter of confession which she had received, but pride here took the place of common-sense, and bade her to be silent.
they had gone over all the papers together now. there was no longer any excuse for lingering. he had given and repeated his assurances that all these abuses which she so lamented should be remedied, and she had thanked him again and again. both felt that the time to part had come. and yet both felt an impulse to postpone it. it was her consciousness of this feeling which now made bettina act. there was an influence from his very presence which alarmed her.
“i must go now,” she said, her voice a shade unsteady.
“no, it is i who am going,” was the answer. “i return at once to london, as i have neither the right nor the desire to intrude upon your privacy. i wish to say, however, that i do not accept your decision as to your future income. i beg you to give my wish, my earnest request, [pg 153]your consideration. i shall write to you. perhaps i can put the case more clearly so. at all events, i shall try.”
bettina shook her head.
“you will simply waste your time,” she said. “nothing can change me from my purpose of going at once to america, with no income but my own little inheritance, and taking up my old life there.”
the word inheritance had suggested to both of them the thought of her mother. they saw the consciousness in each other’s eyes.
“how can you take up your old life there,” he said, “when the presence which made its interest, its very atmosphere, is gone? it is enough to kill you—and you will not have money to live elsewhere.”
the keen solicitude in voice and eyes could not be mistaken. it was evident that he cared for what she might suffer—what might ultimately become of her. the thought was rapture to her starved and lonely heart.
“i must bear it,” she said, trying to control her voice as well as her face. “life will be no harder to me there than elsewhere.”
“you are wrong. in no other spot on earth will the loss of your mother so oppress you. i [pg 154]know what that has been to you, by my consciousness of what that possession was. and remember one thing, which gives me some right to speak to you as i am doing now—i loved your mother and she also loved me.”
at these words and the tones that accompanied them bettina’s strength gave way. she dropped back in the seat from which she had risen, and, hiding her face in her hands, burst into tears.
she could not see the effect of her weeping on the man, who still stood motionless and erect before her. she did not know that the tears sprang into his eyes also, and that the whispered utterance of her name was on his lips.
he heard it, however, though she did not, and the knowledge that he had lost control of himself made him turn away and walk to the other end of the room.
when he had stood there a few seconds, with his back turned, he heard her voice, somewhat shaken, though with the accent of recovered self-possession, saying, in a tone of summons,
“lord hurdly—”
an inward revolt sprung up at being so addressed by her. the name had only sinister associations for him in any case, but to hear it [pg 155]from bettina’s lips filled him with a sort of rage.
“lord hurdly,” she said again, and this time her voice had gained in steadiness, until it sounded mechanical and hard.
“i wish to express to you,” she said, when he had drawn a little nearer, “my thanks for your kind intentions concerning me. i can only repeat, however, that my decision is quite fixed, and that i shall carry out the plans i have made known to you. do not urge me further. do not write to me. it will be useless. let me go back to the life from which you never should have taken me. you were mistaken in me from the first, and i have been nothing but a trouble and a hinderance to you. i am sorry. i ask you to forget it all if you can. but, above all things, i ask, if you would really help me and serve me in the one way in which i can be helped by you, that you will consider that the present moment closes our intercourse in every way, and will show me the respect, little as i deserve it, of proving to me that in this one instance, at least, you believe me capable of acting with rectitude and dignity, and of meaning what i say.”
he did not answer her. he only stood profoundly still and looked at her. that gaze, the [pg 156]searching, scrutinizing power of it, made her afraid. trembling with terror of what she might reveal in answer to it, she turned suddenly and vanished through a door behind her, leaving him standing there, and with a consciousness that his keen eyes were on her yet, reading what she so ardently desired to conceal.
once in her own room, she locked the door, and then ran swiftly to the window, which gave her a view of the terrace below.
there she saw waiting a hired trap, with its driver drowsing in the sunlight. as she looked, she saw the man from whom she had just parted come rather slowly down the steps and get into the shabby conveyance. his hat-brim hid the upper part of his face, but she saw the stern set of his jaw, the bronzed pallor of his cheeks.
she watched the little trap until it had disappeared behind some great oaks, which were one of the glories of kingdon hall. in a strange way she had come to love this stately old place, and it gave her a pang to feel that she was about to look her last on it. this feeling, however, was subordinated to another, which literally tore her heart; this was that, by the use of every means of thought and action within her power, she had [pg 157]quite determined never to run the risk of seeing this man again.
she knew that her only safety lay in flight, and she set to work at once to make her preparations to fly.
