The Shuttle Part 55

Mary laughed.

"We talk of American business outlook," she said, "but very few of us English people are dreamy idealists. We are of a coolness and a daring--when we are dealing with questions of this sort. I don't think you can know the thing you have brought here. You descend on a dull country place, with your money and your looks, and you simply STAY and amuse yourself by doing extraordinary things, as if there was no London waiting for you. Everyone knows this won't last. Next season you will be presented, and have a huge success. You will be whirled about in a vortex, and people will sit on the edge, and cast big strong lines, baited with the most glittering things they can get together. You won't be able to get away. Lady Alanby knows there would be no chance for Tommy then. It would be too idiotic to expect it. He must make his try now."

Their eyes met again, and Miss Vanderpoel looked neither shocked nor angry, but an odd small shadow swept across her face. Mary, of course, did not know that she was thinking of the thing she had realised so often--that it was not easy to detach one's self from the fact that one was Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter. As a result of it here one was indecently and unwillingly disturbing the lives of innocent, una.s.suming lovers.

"And so long as Sir Thomas has not tried--and found out--Lady Jane will be made unhappy?"

"If he were to let you escape without trying, he would not be forgiven.

His grandmother has had her own way all her life."

"But suppose after I went away someone else came?"

Mary shook her head.

"People like you don't HAPPEN in one neighbourhood twice in a lifetime.

I am twenty-six and you are the first I have seen."

"And he will only be safe if?"

Mary Lithcom nodded.

"Yes--IF," she answered. "It's silly--and frightful--but it is true."

Miss Vanderpoel looked down on the gra.s.s a few moments, and then seemed to arrive at a decision.

"He likes you? You can make him understand things?" she inquired.

"Yes."

"Then go and tell him that if he will come here and ask me a direct question, I will give him a direct answer--which will satisfy Lady Alanby."

Lady Mary caught her breath.

"Do you know, you are the most wonderful girl I ever saw!" she exclaimed. "But if you only knew what I feel about Janie!" And tears rushed into her eyes.

"I feel just the same thing about my sister," said Miss Vanderpoel. "I think Rosy and Lady Jane are rather alike."

When Tommy tramped across the gra.s.s towards her he was turning red and white by turns, and looking somewhat like a young man who was being marched up to a cannon's mouth. It struck him that it was an American kind of thing he was called upon to do, and he was not an American, but British from the top of his closely-cropped head to the rather thick soles of his boots. He was, in truth, overwhelmed by his sense of his inadequacy to the demands of the brilliantly conceived, but unheard-of situation. Joy and terror swept over his being in waves.

The tall, proud, wood-nymph look of her as she stood under a tree, waiting for him, would have struck his courage dead on the spot and caused him to turn and flee in anguish, if she had not made a little move towards him, with a heavenly, every-day humanness in her eyes. The way she managed it was an amazing thing. He could never have managed it at all himself.

She came forward and gave him her hand, and really it was HER hand which held his own comparatively steady.

"It is for Lady Jane," she said. "That prevents it from being ridiculous or improper. It is for Lady Jane. Her eyes," with a soft-touched laugh, "are the colour of the blue speedwell I showed you. It is the colour of babies' eyes. And hers look as theirs do--as if they asked everybody not to hurt them."

He actually fell upon his knee, and bending his head over her hand, kissed it half a dozen times with adoration. Good Lord, how she SAW and KNEW!

"If Jane were not Jane, and you were not YOU," the words rushed from him, "it would be the most outrageous--the most impudent thing a man ever had the cheek to do."

"But it is not." She did not draw her hand away, and oh, the girlish kindness of her smiling, supporting look. "You came to ask me if----"

"If you would marry me, Miss Vanderpoel," his head bending over her hand again. "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon. Oh Lord, I do.'

"I thank you for the compliment you pay me," she answered. "I like you very much, Sir Thomas--and I like you just now more than ever--but I could not marry you. I should not make you happy, and I should not be happy myself. The truth is----" thinking a moment, "each of us really belongs to a different kind of person. And each of knows the fact."

"G.o.d bless you," he said. "I think you know everything in the world a woman can know--and remain an angel."

It was an outburst of eloquence, and she took it in the prettiest way--with the prettiest laugh, which had in it no touch of mockery or disbelief in him.

"What I have said is quite final--if Lady Alanby should inquire," she said--adding rather quickly, "Someone is coming."

It pleased her to see that he did not hurry to his feet clumsily, but even stood upright, with a shade of boyish dignity, and did not release her hand before he had bent his head low over it again.

Sir Nigel was bringing with him Lady Alanby, Mrs. Manners, and his wife, and when Betty met his eyes, she knew at once that he had not made his way to this particular garden without intention. He had discovered that she was with Tommy, and it had entertained him to break in upon them.

"I did not intend to interrupt Sir Thomas at his devotions," he remarked to her after dinner. "Accept my apologies."

"It did not matter in the least, thank you," said Betty.

"I am glad to be able to say, Thomas, that you did not look an entire fool when you got up from your knees, as we came into the rose garden."

Thus Lady Alanby, as their carriage turned out of Stornham village.

"I'm glad myself," Tommy answered.

"What were you doing there? Even if you were asking her to marry you, it was not necessary to go that far. We are not in the seventeenth century."

Then Tommy flushed.

"I did not intend to do it. I could not help it. She was so--so nice about everything. That girl is an angel. I told her so."

"Very right and proper spirit to approach her in," answered the old woman, watching him keenly. "Was she angel enough to say she would marry you?"

Tommy, for some occult reason, had the courage to stare back into his grandmother's eyes, quite as if he were a man, and not a hobbledehoy, expecting to be bullied.

"She does not want me," he answered. "And I knew she wouldn't. Why should she? I did what you ordered me to do, and she answered me as I knew she would. She might have snubbed me, but she has such a way with her--such a way of saying things and understanding, that--that--well, I found myself on one knee, kissing her hand--as if I was being presented at court."

Old Lady Alanby looked out on the pa.s.sing landscape.

"Well, you did your best," she summed the matter up at last, "if you went down on your knees involuntarily. If you had done it on purpose, it would have been unpardonable."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV