A Manifest Destiny Part 3

Deprived of the restraint of her mother's influence, Bettina had progressed with rapidity in her way toward worldliness and selfish ambition, but she had a heart. Her love for her mother had given abundant proof of that, if there were nothing else; and now her heart combated the influence of her head, which decreed that only a fool would reject the great good fortune now held out to her.

In point of fact, Bettina had been influenced more by ambition than by love in engaging herself to Horace, and the gratification of a far more splendid ambition was offered to her in making this other marriage. In it, also, love would play but little part, and this she felt to be decidedly a gain. Yet she was not so far lost to the sentiments of kindness and loyalty, that she had learned from the teaching and example of her mother, as not to hesitate before wounding and humiliating the man who, as she still believed, loved her devotedly. Could it have been proved that she was mistaken in so believing, Lord Hurdly's case would have been already won.

CHAPTER III

In the end Lord Hurdly prevailed, and that end was swifter in coming than Bettina would have believed to be possible. She had allowed herself a week to wait in London, and for the first day or two of that week she lived in dread lest Lord Hurdly should come to her and renew the arguments which she was quite determined to combat. As the days pa.s.sed and he did not come, she began to fear that the opportunity of final decision on the momentous question of her choice between these two men would not again be offered her. Her better nature still held her to her pledge to Horace, but already she had come to feel that, but for his disappointment at losing her, she would have accepted Lord Hurdly's proposal, as it offered a full and immediate fulfilment of her dreams of ambition, and the other postponed these indefinitely, while it promised comparatively little in any other direction.

Toward the end of the week Lord Hurdly called, and, without any reference to his own hopes and intentions, spoke, with what seemed to be a considerable hesitation and regret, of his young cousin's character and mode of life, which he declared were known, to every one except Bettina, to be exceedingly capricious--even light. He dwelt upon the fact, well known to Bettina, of his earnest desire that his cousin and heir should marry, and gave as a reason for this desire, what he declared to be the accepted fact, that Horace was inclined to a dissipated manner of living, which he hoped marriage might correct.

Poor Bettina! She had believed the young man, to whom she had pledged herself, to be the very opposite of all this. Yet how absolutely ignorant concerning him she really was! And the rector of her church, who was supposed to vouch for him, knew in reality as little as she.

How easily she might have been mistaken in him! And yet, and yet, there was a still, small voice in her heart which confirmed her in her resolve to believe in him until she had proof that such a belief was ill founded.

"With his past I have nothing to do," she said to Lord Hurdly, with a certain show of pride. "If it has been lower than my ideal of him, I regret it; but I am entirely sure that since he has known me and had my promise to be his wife he has been true to all that that promise required of him."

"This being your conclusion," Lord Hurdly answered, "you force upon me the necessity of showing you a letter which I have to-day received from a friend in St. Petersburg, and which I would, without strong reason to the contrary, have gladly spared you the pain of reading."

With these words, he handed Bettina a letter.

It was signed with a name unknown to her, but written evidently in the tone and manner of an intimate friend. The first page or two referred to matters wholly indifferent to her--public affairs and the like--but toward the end were these words:

"Are you as set as ever in your determination not to marry?

Pity it is that such a n.o.ble name and fortune as yours should not pa.s.s on to a son of your own, instead of to one who, it is to be feared, will do little to honor it. I see him here, at court and everywhere, accurately fulfilling the rather unflattering predictions which I long ago made concerning him. There is a story that he became engaged to be married during his travels in America, and I hear that he owns up to it and speaks of being joined by his _fiancee_ and married on this side. I hope it may not be so. Certainly his present manner of living argues against the rumor, unless--a supposition I am reluctant to believe--he proposes to keep up, as a married man, the habits which are so readily forgiven to a bachelor, though not to a husband."

There was more, but Bettina read no further. This was enough. She had turned away to a window, that she might read this letter un.o.bserved by Lord Hurdly, who had considerately walked to the other end of the room.

When at last she approached him and gave him back the letter, she was very pale, but her manner was wholly without indecision and her voice was resolute as she said:

"I thank you, Lord Hurdly, for the service which you have rendered me. This letter has made my future course quite clear. I shall write to your cousin to-day that everything is at an end between us. And now will you be good enough to leave me? I wish to make my arrangements to return to America at once."

Even as she said the words, the bitter barrenness of this prospect--the old dull life, without the dear presence which had been its one and sufficient palliation--rose before her mind and appalled her. Perhaps Lord Hurdly saw in her face some change of expression which he construed as favorable to himself, for he hastened to say:

"Will you not, before taking so rash a step, consider the proposal which I have made to you? I can offer you the substance of which the other was only the shadow, and I can pledge to you the stable and unalterable devotion of a man who has lived long enough to know his own mind, and who declares to you that you are the only woman whom he has ever desired to put in the position of his wife."

It was impossible not to feel some consciousness of satisfaction at a tribute which her own knowledge of facts convinced her to be sincere, but Bettina's heart and mind were still too preoccupied to meet him in the way he wished. She repeated her request that he would leave her, and so earnest and distressed was her manner that he complied, leaving behind him an impression of the deepest solicitude for her, and the most earnest desire on his part to atone for the wrong which his kinsman had done her.

Bettina threw herself upon the lounge and abandoned herself to a fit of weeping--so overwhelming, so despairing, so heart-breaking that she could scarcely believe that she, who had thought that all her power of deep suffering had been exhausted, could still find it in her to care so much for any other grief.

The worst of it was that, now it was quite evident that she was forever divided from Horace, the charm of his manner and appearance, the tenderness of his love-making, came back to her with a power which they had never exercised upon her in reality. Never, surely, had a man existed who was, to appearance at least, more frank, sincere, ardent, and deeply in love than he had seemed to be with her. It made his perfidy appear the greater. Nothing but the sight of that letter could have made her believe it; but that, taken in connection with the rareness and coolness of his recent letters to her, made it all too plain that the ardent flame of his love had burned out, and that he had repented his impetuosity, now that he had had time to think of the sacrifice which it entailed.

This was indeed great for a man in his position, ambitious in his career, and with his foot already on the ladder that led to success.

She even began to doubt whether he would have fulfilled his obligations to her when it came to the point.

She got out his letters and read them over. How pa.s.sionately loving were the early ones--how cool and constrained the more recent! The contrast struck her far more now in the light of recent events. It really seemed as if he might be trying to get out of the engagement.

At this thought pride came to her rescue. She felt herself grow hard and cold, and her composure returned completely. She would never let him know what she had heard, for that might make it seem as if she gave him up from compulsion. She sat down and wrote quickly a few formal sentences, saying that she had mistaken her own feelings, and that she wished to break the engagement. She added that she was returning immediately to America, as indeed she was intending to do at the time of the writing of this letter.

After it had gone, and was on its way to St. Petersburg, a mental condition of such abject misery settled down upon her that the thought of the endless days and nights of idle monotony which would be her lot if she returned home, and the awful void of her mother's absence, became intolerable. She could not do it. She must find some way of escape from such a fate.

Just as she was casting about for such a way, Lord Hurdly came to see her. The escape which he offered had in it many elements of the strongest attractiveness for her. Since she could not be happy, as she believed, why might she not get from life the satisfaction which comes from the holding of a great position, the opportunity of being admired and wielding a powerful influence? It was a prospect which had always charmed her; and now, with no alternative but lonely isolation and bitter weariness, was it strange that she decided to accept Lord Hurdly's offer?

And if it was to be, what need was there to wait? Wounded in her pride as she was by the revelation of Horace which she had received, she relished the idea of becoming at once what he had proposed to make her--and afterward repented of. She was fully convinced in her mind that he had repented, and her blood beat faster as she thought of his consternation on hearing of this marriage. She felt eager that he should hear of it at once.

And so indeed he did. On the heels of his receipt of Bettina's letter her marriage to Lord Hurdly was announced by cable--not to him, but through the newspapers.

Then into his heart there entered also the exceeding bitterness of a lost ideal. She became to him, as he had become to her, the image of broken faith, capricious feeling, and overweening worldly ambition.

Yet in the heart of the man, who had loved completely and supremely, as Bettina never had, there was a feeling which made him say to himself, with a conviction which he knew to be immutable, that marriage was not for him. The present Lord Hurdly had said the same, and had changed his mind. For himself he knew that he should not, for all of love that he was capable of feeling had been given to the woman who had cast him off.

CHAPTER IV

Bettina had gone through her first London season as Lady Hurdly, and certainly no girl's ambitious dreams could have forecast a more brilliant experience. She had been far too ignorant to imagine such subtle delights of the senses as resulted from the wealth and eminence which she had attained to in marrying Lord Hurdly. And beyond the mere sensuous appeal which was made to her by the wearing of magnificent clothes and jewels, and the being always surrounded with objects of beauty and means of luxury, she had the greater delight of having her feverishly active mind continually supplied with a stimulus, which it now more than ever needed. This was furnished by the innumerable social demands made upon her, and the complete power which she felt within herself to respond to them not only creditably, but in a way that should make even Lord Hurdly wonder at her.

True, she had had no social training, and in a less powerful position she might have shown her ignorance and incapacity, for she would then have had to take a personal supervision of the things which she now left utterly alone, and which, being essential to be done, were done--how and by whom she did not ask. Lord Hurdly had so long done the honors of his house without a wife that it was natural to him to continue the direction of household affairs, with the aid of the accomplished a.s.sistants who were in his employment; so Bettina had no more to do with such matters than if she had become the mistress of a royal household. At the proper time she showed herself at Lord Hurdly's side, and she had beauty enough and wit enough not only to do credit to that high position, but to cast a glory over it which he knew in his heart no other Lady Hurdly of them all had ever done.

That she enjoyed it, who could doubt that saw her, day after day and evening after evening, beautifying with her presence the social gatherings at her own splendid house, and at those of the new acquaintances who sought her society and distinguished her with their attentions wherever she might go.

Having had no experience of wealth, it never seemed to occur to her that it could have its definite limit, and she ordered costumes and invented ways of spending money which sometimes surprised her lord, but which also pleased him. His fortune was so large, and had been so long without such demands upon it, that it was a source of genuine satisfaction to him to see that Bettina knew how to avail herself of her brilliant opportunity. Save and except a wife, he was already possessed of every adjunct that could do credit to his name and position, and in marrying Bettina he had been largely influenced by the fact that she was qualified to supply this one deficiency with a distinction which no other woman he had ever seen could have bestowed upon the position.

So, to the world, Bettina seemed completely satisfied, and in the worldly sense she was so. In this sense, also, Lord Hurdly seemed and was satisfied in his marriage. How it was with them in their hearts no one knew, and perhaps there was no one who cared to know. The one being to whom this question was of strong interest was very far away.

He had shifted his position from Russia to India about the time of his cousin's marriage, and Bettina never heard his name mentioned, nor did she ever utter it.

After the London season was over, Lord and Lady Hurdly had moved from their town-house to the family seat, Kingdon Hall. Here, after a day's stop, Lord Hurdly had left her, to return to town on some public business; and so, for the first time since her marriage, she had a few days to herself. Later they were to have the house filled with guests, and after that to make some visits; so this time of solitude was not likely to be repeated soon. Bettina was surprised at herself to see how eagerly she clutched at it. It was, in some faint degree, like the feeling which she had had after the rare and short separations from her mother--a longing to get back to the familiar and the accustomed. She now felt somewhat the same longing to get back to herself. She had done her part in all that brilliant pageant like a woman in a dream. She had enjoyed it, for power and admiration were very dear to her, and she had revelled in their fresh first-fruits. But she had not been herself for so long, had not for so long looked herself in the face and searched her own heart, that she did not know herself much more familiarly than she knew the other brilliant personages who moved beside her across the crowded stage of London life.

It was unaccountable even to herself how she rejoiced at the idea of these few days of quiet and solitude. Nora, her old nurse, was of course with her still, with a French maid to a.s.sist her and perform the important functions of the toilet of which the elderly woman was ignorant. This maid Bettina sent off on a holiday, so that she might have only Nora about her.

The morning after her arrival at Kingdon, Bettina, having breakfasted in her room, went for a ramble over the house. It seemed solemnly vast and empty, and she would have lost herself many times had she not encountered now and then a courtesying house-maid or an obsequious footman, who answered her inquiries and told her into what apartments she had strayed.

"Show me the way to the picture-gallery," she said to one of these, "and then tell the housekeeper to come to me there presently."

She had taken a fancy to this white-haired old woman the night before, when Lord Hurdly had presented the servants to their new mistress in the great hall, where they had all been a.s.sembled to receive her on her arrival.

In a few moments she found herself alone in the stately gallery, going from picture to picture. On one side was a long line of the ladies of Kingdon Hall, painted by contemporary artists, each celebrated in his era. At the end of this line her own portrait, done by a celebrated French painter who had come to London for the purpose, had recently been put in place.

It was a magnificent thing in its manner as well as in its subject, and the costume which Lord Hurdly's taste had conceived for her and a French milliner had carried out was a marvel of rich effects. As she paused in front of it her lips parted, and she said, whispering to herself,

"Lady Hurdly--the present Lady Hurdly! And what has become of Bettina?"

As she asked herself this question she sighed.

A sudden instinct made her move away. She wanted to escape from Lady Hurdly. She had a chance to be herself to-day, and she felt a strong desire to make the most of it.

Hearing a sound at her side, she turned and found the serious, pleasant face of the housekeeper near her.