which belongs to Sir Nigel Anstruthers. Lady Anstruthers is my sister. I am Miss Vanderpoel.’ And, boys, she used to come and talk to me every day.”
“George,” said Nick Baumgarten, “you take about seventy-five bottles of Warner’s Safe Cure, and rub yourself all over with St. Jacob’s Oil. Luck like that ain’t HEALTHY!”
… . .
Mr. Vanderpoel, sitting in his study, wore the interestedly grave look of a man thinking of absorbing things. He had just given orders that a young man who would call in the course of the evening should be brought to him at once, and he was incidentally considering this young man, as he reflected upon matters recalled to his mind by his impending arrival. They were matters he had thought of with gradually increasing seriousness for some months, and they had, at first, been the result of the letters from Stornham, which each “steamer day” brought. They had been of immense interest to him— these letters. He would have found them absorbing as a study, even if he had not deeply loved Betty. He read in them things she did not state in words, and they set him thinking.
He was not suspected by men like himself of concealing an imagination beneath the trained steadiness of his exterior, but he possessed more than the world knew, and it singularly combined itself with powers of logical deduction.
If he had been with his daughter, he would have seen, day by day, where her thoughts were leading her, and in what direction she was developing, but, at a distance of three thousand miles, he found himself asking questions, and endeavouring to reach conclusions. His affection for Betty was the central emotion of his existence. He had never told himself that he had outgrown the kind and pretty creature he had married in his early youth, and certainly his tender care for her and pleasure in her simple goodness had never wavered, but Betty had given him a companionship which had counted greatly in the sum of his happiness. Because imagination was not suspected in him, no one knew what she stood for in his life. He had no son; he stood at the head of a great house, so to speak—the American parallel of what a great house is in non-republican countries. The power of it counted for great things, not in America alone, but throughout the world. As international intimacies increased, the influence of such houses might end in aiding in the making of history. Enormous constantly increasing wealth and huge financial schemes could not confine their influence, but must reach far. The man whose hand held the lever controlling them was doing well when he thought of them gravely. Such a man had to do with more than his own mere life and living. This man had confronted many problems as the years had passed. He had seen men like himself die, leaving behind them the force they had controlled, and he had seen this force— controlled no longer—let loose upon the world, sometimes a power of evil, sometimes scattering itself aimlessly into nothingness and folly, which wrought harm. He was not an ambitious man, but—perhaps because he was not only a man of thought, but a Vanderpoel of the blood of the first Reuben—these were things he did not contemplate without restlessness. When Rosy had gone away and seemed lost to them, he had been glad when he had seen Betty growing, day by day, into a strong thing. Feminine though she was, she sometimes suggested to him the son who might have been his, but was not. As the closeness of their companionship increased with her years, his admiration for her grew with his love. Power left in her hands must work for the advancement of things, and would not be idly disseminated—if no antagonistic influence wrought against her. He had found himself reflecting that, after all was said, the marriage of such a girl had a sort of parallel in that of some young royal creature, whose union might make or mar things, which must be considered. The man who must inevitably strongly colour her whole being, and vitally mark her life, would, in a sense, lay his hand upon the lever also. If he brought sorrow and disorder with him, the lever would not move steadily. Fortunes such as his grow rapidly, and he was a richer man by millions than he had been when Rosalie had married Nigel Anstruthers. The memory of that marriage had been a painful thing to him, even before he had known the whole truth of its results. The man had been a common adventurer and scoundrel, despite the facts of good birth and the air of decent breeding. If a man who was as much a scoundrel, but cleverer—it would be necessary that he should be much cleverer—made the best of himself to Betty–-! It was folly to think one could guess what a woman—or a man, either, for that matter—would love. He knew Betty, but no man knows the thing which comes, as it were, in the dark and claims its own—whether for good or evil. He had lived long enough to see beautiful, strong-spirited creatures do strange things, follow strange gods, swept away into seas of pain by strange waves.
“Even Betty,” he had said to himself, now and then. “Even my Betty. Good God—who knows! “
Because of this, he had read each letter with keen eyes. They were long letters, full of detail and colour, because she knew he enjoyed them. She had a delightful touch. He sometimes felt as if they walked the English lanes together. His intimacy with her neighbours, and her neighbourhood, was one of his relaxations. He found himself thinking of old Doby and Mrs. Welden, as a sort of soporific measure, when he lay awake at night. She had sent photographs of Stornham, of Dunholm Castle, and of Dole, and had even found an old engraving of Lady Alanby in her youth. Her evident liking for the Dunholms had pleased him. They were people whose dignity and admirableness were part of general knowledge. Lord Westholt was plainly a young man of many attractions. If the two were drawn to each other—and what more natural—all would be well. He wondered if it would be Westholt. But his love quickened a sagacity which needed no stimulus. He said to himself in time that, though she liked and admired Westholt, she went no farther. That others paid court to her he could guess without being told. He had seen the effect she had produced when she had been at home, and also an unexpected letter to his wife from Milly Bowen had revealed many things. Milly, having noted Mrs. Vanderpoel’s eager anxiety to hear direct news of Lady Anstruthers, was not the person to let fall from her hand a useful thread of connection. She had written quite at length, managing adroitly to convey all that she had seen, and all that she had heard. She had been making a visit within driving distance of Stornham, and had had the pleasure of meeting both Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel at various parties. She was so sure that Mrs. Vanderpoel would like to hear how well Lady Anstruthers was looking, that she ventured to write. Betty’s effect upon the county was made quite clear, as also was the interested expectation of her appearance in town next season. Mr. Vanderpoel, perhaps, gathered more from the letter than his wife did. In her mind, relieved happiness and consternation were mingled.
“Do you think, Reuben, that Betty will marry that Lord Westholt?” she rather faltered. “He seems very nice, but I would rather she married an American. I should feel as if I had no girls at all, if they both lived in England.”
“Lady Bowen gives him a good character,” her husband said, smiling. “But if anything untoward happens, Annie, you shall have a house of your own half way between Dunholm Castle and Stornham Court.”
When he had begun to decide that Lord Westholt did not seem to be the man Fate was veering towards, he not unnaturally cast a mental eye over such other persons as the letters mentioned. At exactly what period his thought first dwelt a shade anxiously on Mount Dunstan he could not have told, but he at length became conscious that it so dwelt. He had begun by feeling an interest in his story, and had asked questions about him, because a situation such as his suggested query to a man of affairs. Thus, it had been natural that the letters should speak of him. What she had written had recalled to him certain rumours of the disgraceful old scandal. Yes, they had been a bad lot. He arranged to put a casual-sounding question or so to certain persons who knew English society well. What he gathered was not encouraging. The present Lord Mount Dunstan was considered rather a surly brute, and lived a mysterious sort of life which might cover many things. It was bad blood, and people were naturally shy of it. Of course, the man was a pauper, and his place a barrack falling to ruin. There had been something rather shady in his going to America or Australia a few years ago.
Good looking? Well, so few people had seen him. The lady, who was speaking, had heard that he was one of those big, rather lumpy men, and had an ill-tempered expression. She always gave a wide berth to a man who looked nasty-tempered. One or two other persons who had spoken of him had conveyed to Mr. Vanderpoel about the same amount of vaguely unpromising information. The episode of G. Selden had been interesting enough, with its suggestions of picturesque contrasts and combinations. Betty’s touch had made the junior salesman attracting. It was a good type this, of a young fellow who, battling with the discouragements of a hard life, still did not lose his amazing good cheer and patience, and found healthy sleep and honest waking, even in the hall bedroom. He had
