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THE SHUTTLE
BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE II. A LACK OF PERCEPTION III. YOUNG LADY ANSTRUTHERS IV. A MISTAKE OF THE POSTBOY’S V. ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC VI. AN UNFAIR ENDOWMENT VII. ON BOARD THE “MERIDIANA” VIII. THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER IX. LADY JANE GREY X. “IS LADY ANSTRUTHERS AT HOME?” XI. “I THOUGHT YOU HAD ALL FORGOTTEN” XII. UGHTRED XIII. ONE OF THE NEW YORK DRESSES XIV. IN THE GARDENS XV. THE FIRST MAN XVI. THE PARTICULAR INCIDENT XVII. TOWNLINSON & SHEPPARD XVIII. THE FIFTEENTH EARL OF MOUNT DUNSTAN XIX. SPRING IN BOND STREET XX. THINGS OCCUR IN STORNHAM VILLAGE XXI. KEDGERS XXII. ONE OF MR. VANDERPOEL’S LETTERS XXIII. INTRODUCING G. SELDEN XXIV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF STORNHAM XXV. “WE BEGAN TO MARRY THEM, MY GOOD FELLOW!” XXVI. “WHAT IT MUST BE TO BE YOU—JUST YOU!” XXVII. LIFE XXVIII. SETTING THEM THINKING XXIX. THE THREAD OF G. SELDEN XXX. A RETURN XXXI. NO, SHE WOULD NOT XXXII. A GREAT BALL XXXIII. FOR LADY JANE XXXIV. RED GODWYN XXXV. THE TIDAL WAVE XXXVI. BY THE ROADSIDE EVERYWHERE XXXVII. CLOSED CORRIDORS XXXVIII. AT SHANDY’S XXXIX. ON THE MARSHES XL. “DON’T GO ON WITH THIS” XLI. SHE WOULD DO SOMETHING XLII. IN THE BALLROOM XLIII. HIS CHANCE XLIV. A FOOTSTEP XLV. THE PASSING BELL XLVI. LISTENING XLVII. “I HAVE NO WORD OR LOOK TO REMEMBER” XLVIII. THE MOMENT XLIX. AT STORNHAM AND AT BROADMORLANDS L. THE PRIMEVAL THING
THE SHUTTLE
CHAPTER I
THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE
No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held and guided by the great hand of Fate. Fate alone saw the meaning of the web it wove, the might of it, and its place in the making of a world’s history. Men thought but little of either web or weaving, calling them by other names and lighter ones, for the time unconscious of the strength of the thread thrown across thousands of miles of leaping, heaving, grey or blue ocean.
Fate and Life planned the weaving, and it seemed mere circumstance which guided the Shuttle to and fro between two worlds divided by a gulf broader and deeper than the thousands of miles of salt, fierce sea—the gulf of a bitter quarrel deepened by hatred and the shedding of brothers’ blood. Between the two worlds of East and West there was no will to draw nearer. Each held apart. Those who had rebelled against that which their souls called tyranny, having struggled madly and shed blood in tearing themselves free, turned stern backs upon their unconquered enemies, broke all cords that bound them to the past, flinging off ties of name, kinship and rank, beginning with fierce disdain a new life.
Those who, being rebelled against, found the rebels too passionate in their determination and too desperate in their defence of their strongholds to be less than unconquerable, sailed back haughtily to the world which seemed so far the greater power. Plunging into new battles, they added new conquests and splendour to their land, looking back with something of contempt to the half-savage West left to build its own civilisation without other aid than the strength of its own strong right hand and strong uncultured brain.
But while the two worlds held apart, the Shuttle, weaving slowly in the great hand of Fate, drew them closer and held them firm, each of them all unknowing for many a year, that what had at first been mere threads of gossamer, was forming a web whose strength in time none could compute, whose severance could be accomplished but by tragedy and convulsion.
The weaving was but in its early and slow-moving years when this story opens. Steamers crossed and recrossed the Atlantic, but they accomplished the journey at leisure and with heavy rollings and all such discomforts as small craft can afford. Their staterooms and decks were not crowded with people to whom the voyage was a mere incident—in many cases a yearly one. “A crossing” in those days was an event. It was planned seriously, long thought of, discussed and re-discussed, with and among the various members of the family to which the voyager belonged. A certain boldness, bordering on recklessness, was almost to be presupposed in the individual who, turning his back upon New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and like cities, turned his face towards “Europe.” In those days when the Shuttle wove at leisure, a man did not lightly run over to London, or Paris, or Berlin, he gravely went to “Europe.”
The journey being likely to be made once in a lifetime, the traveller’s intention was to see as much as possible, to visit as many cities cathedrals, ruins, galleries, as his time and purse would allow. People who could speak with any degree of familiarity of Hyde Park, the Champs Elysees, the Pincio, had gained a certain dignity. The ability to touch with an intimate bearing upon such localities was a raison de plus for being asked out to tea or to dinner. To possess photographs and relics was to be of interest, to have seen European celebrities even at a distance, to have wandered about the outside of poets’ gardens and philosophers’ houses, was to be entitled to respect. The period was a far cry from the time when the Shuttle, having shot to and fro, faster and faster, week by week, month by month, weaving new threads into its web each year, has woven warp and woof until they bind far shore to shore.
It was in comparatively early days that the first thread we follow was woven into the web. Many such have been woven since and have added greater strength than any others, twining the cord of sex and home-building and race-founding. But this was a slight and weak one, being only the thread of the life of one of Reuben Vanderpoel’s daughters—the pretty little simple one whose name was Rosalie.
They were—the Vanderpoels—of the Americans whose fortunes were a portion of the history of their country. The building of these fortunes had been a part of, or had created epochs and crises. Their millions could scarcely be regarded as private property. Newspapers bandied them about, so to speak, employing them as factors in argument, using them as figures of speech, incorporating them into methods of calculation. Literature touched upon them, moral systems considered them, stories for the young treated them gravely as illustrative.
The first Reuben Vanderpoel, who in early days of danger had traded with savages for the pelts of wild animals, was the lauded hero of stories of thrift and enterprise. Throughout his hard-working life he had been irresistibly impelled to action by an absolute genius of commerce, expressing itself at the outset by the exhibition of courage in mere exchange and barter. An alert power to perceive the potential value of things and the possible malleability of men and circumstances, had stood him in marvellous good stead. He had bought at low prices things which in the eyes of the less discerning were worthless, but, having obtained possession of such things, the less discerning had almost invariably awakened to the fact that, in his hands, values increased, and methods of remunerative disposition, being sought, were found. Nothing remained unutilisable. The practical, sordid, uneducated little man developed the power to create demand for his own supplies. If he was betrayed into an error, he quickly retrieved it. He could live upon nothing and consequently could travel anywhere in search of such things as he desired. He could barely read and write, and could not spell, but he was daring and astute. His untaught brain was that of a financier, his blood burned with the fever of but one desire—the desire to accumulate. Money expressed to his nature, not expenditure, but investment in such small or large properties as could be resold at profit in the near or far future. The future held fascinations for him. He bought nothing for his own pleasure or comfort, nothing which could not be sold or bartered again. He married a woman who was a trader’s daughter and shared his passion for gain. She was of North of England blood, her father having been a hard-fisted small tradesman in an unimportant town, who had been daring enough to emigrate when emigration meant the facing of unknown dangers in a half-
