Lady Betty Across the Water Part 1

Lady Betty Across the Water, Edited by Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson.

I

ABOUT BEING BANISHED

I don't know yet whether I'm pleased or not, but I do know that I'm excited--more excited than I've ever been in my life, except perhaps when Miss Mackinstry, my last governess, had hysterics in the schoolroom and fainted among the tea things.

I suppose I shan't be able to decide about the state of my feelings until I've had more of them on the same subject, or until I've written down in this book of mine everything exactly as it's happened. I like doing that; it makes things seem so clear when you try to review them afterwards.

The excitement began at breakfast by Mother having a letter that she liked. I knew she liked it by the way her eyes lighted up, as if they had been lamps and the letter a match. All the other letters, mostly with horrid, tradesmanny-looking envelopes, which had been making her quite glowery, she pushed aside.

Mother won't have a crown on her envelopes; she thinks it's vulgar; besides, putting it only on the paper saves expense. This envelope had a great sprawly gold crest, but she didn't seem to disapprove of it.

She read on and on, then suddenly glanced up as if she would have said something quickly, to Victoria; she didn't say it, though, for she remembered me. I am never taken into family conclaves, because I'm not out yet. I don't see what difference that makes, especially as I'm not to be allowed to come out till after Vic's married, because she was presented four years ago, and isn't even engaged yet; so for all I can tell I may have to stay in till I'm a hundred, or leak out slowly when n.o.body is noticing, as Vic says girls do in the middle cla.s.ses.

This time I didn't mind, however, for I couldn't see how the letter concerned me; and as I was dying for a sight of Berengaria's puppies, which were born last night, I was glad when Mother told me not to fidget after I'd finished breakfast, but to run down to the kennels if I liked.

Soon I forgot all about the letter, for the puppies were the dearest ducks on earth (can puppies be ducks, I wonder?), and besides, it was such a delicious June morning that I could have danced with joy because I was alive.

I often feel like that; but there's n.o.body to tell, except the trees and the dogs, and my poor pony, who is almost too old and second-childish now to understand. She was my brother Stanforth's pony first of all, and Stanforth is twenty-eight; then she was Vic's, and Vic is--but Mother doesn't like Vic's age to be mentioned any more, though she is years younger than Stan.

I took a walk in the park and afterwards went through the rose-garden, to see how the roses were getting on. There were a lot of petals for my _pot-pourri_, and gathering them up kept me for some time. Then, as the jar stands in Vic's and my den (she calls it her den, but it has to be part mine, as I have no other), I was going in by one of the long windows, when I heard Mother's voice. "The question is," she was saying, "what's to be done with Betty?"

I turned round and ran away on my tiptoes across the lawn, for I didn't want to be an eavesdropper, and it would be nearly as bad to have Mother know I had heard even those few words; she would be so annoyed, and Mother chills me all the way through to my bones when she's annoyed. It is wonderful how she does it, for she never scolds; but the thermometer simply drops to freezing-point, and you feel like a poor little shivering crocus that has come up too soon, by mistake, to find the world covered with snow, and no hope of squeezing back into its own cosy warm bulb again.

I stopped out of doors till luncheon, and played croquet against myself, wishing that Stan would run down; for although Stan rather fancies himself as a Gorgeous Person since poor father's death gave him the t.i.tle, he is quite nice to me, when it occurs to him. I'm always glad when he comes to the Towers, but he hardly ever does in the Season; and then in August and September he's always in Scotland. So is Vic, for the matter of that, and she hates being in the country in May and June, though Surrey is so close to town that luckily she doesn't miss much; but this year we seem to have been horribly poor, for some reason. Vic says it's Stan's fault. He is extravagant, I suppose.

However, as everything is really his, I don't see that we ought to complain; only, it can't be pleasant for him to feel that Mother is worrying lest he should marry and make her a frumpy dowager, before we two girls are off her hands.

At luncheon, Mother mentioned to me that she had wired to ask Mrs.

Stuyvesant-Knox and her cousin, Miss Sally Woodburn, down for dinner and to stay the night. "You will be pleased, Betty, as you like Miss Woodburn so much," she said.

"I like her, but I don't like Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and I don't know how to p.r.o.nounce her," said I.

"For goodness sake, don't call her Mrs. Ess Kay to her face again," cut in Vic.

"I didn't mean to; it slipped out," I defended myself. "Besides, it was you who nicknamed her that."

"Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox is a very charming person, and a thorough woman of the world," Mother a.s.serted, in that way she has of saying the word which you had better leave for the last if you know what is good for you.

I did leave it for the last so far as _answering_ was concerned, but inside, where, thank goodness, even her eyes can't see, I was wondering hard when Mother had formed that flattering opinion. A fortnight ago I heard her announce that Americans "got upon her nerves," and she hoped she would not soon be called upon to meet any more. As she had made this remark directly after bidding Mrs. Ess Kay good-bye, I naturally supposed that lady to be the immediate cause for it. But now, it seemed, this was not the case.

"You would be very ungrateful if you disliked her," Mother went on, "as she took such a tremendous fancy to you."

"Dear me, I didn't know that!" I exclaimed, opening my eyes wide. "I thought it was Vic she----"

"You are her favourite, as you are with Miss Woodburn, also," said Mother, who gets the effect of being so tremendously dignified partly, I believe, from never clipping her words as the rest of us do. "I am asking them down again especially on your account, and I want you to be particularly nice to them."

"It's easy enough to be nice to Sally Woodburn, but----"

I caught a look from Vic and broke off my sentence, hurrying to change it into another. "As they're sailing for the States so soon, I shan't have time to spread myself much."

"Don't be slangy, Betty; it doesn't suit you," said Mother. "You pick up too many things from Stanforth."

"Trust him not to drop anything worth having," interpolated Vic, which was pert; but Mother never reproves her.

"Perhaps Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Miss Woodburn won't come," I said, for the sake of getting on safer ground.

"Not come? Of course they will come. It is short notice, but if they have other engagements they will break them," returned Mother; and though it would be as impossible for her to be vulgar or sn.o.bbish, as it would for a tall white arum lily to be either of those things, still I couldn't help feeling that her unconscious thought was: "The invitation to a couple of unknown, touring Americans, from the d.u.c.h.ess of Stanforth, is equivalent to my receiving a Royal Command."

She was probably right,--anyhow, so far as Mrs. Ess Kay is concerned: as for Sally Woodburn, I don't think she has a drop of sn.o.bbish blood in her veins. She's Southern--not South American, as I was stupid enough to think at first; but from some Southern State or other; Kentucky, I believe it is. She's short and plump, and olive and smooth as ivory satin, with soft, lazy brown eyes, a voice like rich cream, a smile which says: "Please like me"; and pretty, crinkly dark hair that is beginning to glitter with silver network here and there, though she isn't exactly old, even for a woman--perhaps about thirty.

I knew that Miss Woodburn rather fancied me, and I was quite pleased to take her up to her room, when she and her elder cousin arrived, about an hour before dinner. I stopped for a few minutes, and then left her with her maid, while I went to help Vic, and get myself ready. We've only one maid between the three of us, nowadays; which means (unless there's some reason why Vic should be made particularly smart), that Mother gets more than a third of Thompson's services. That's as it should be, of course, and we don't grudge it; but Vic's rather helpless, and I always have to hurry, to see her through.

This evening, though, I found Thompson in Vic's room, next to mine; and just as I scientifically dislocated my arms to unhook my frock, which does up behind, Mother came in. "Betty," she said, quite playfully for her, "I have a very pleasant surprise for you. You would never be able to guess, so I will tell you. I have consented to let you go and visit Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Miss Woodburn in America. Aren't you delighted?"

I felt as if the wall of the house were tumbling down, and I would presently be crumpled up underneath.

"My goodness gracious, Mother!" I managed to stammer, forgetting how I've always stood in awe of her, since I could toddle. "How--how perfectly extraordinary! _Why_ am I going? And is it all decided, whether I like or not?"

"Of course you will like. To travel with pleasant companions and see a great, new country under such charming auspices, is an immense privilege, a very unusual privilege for a young girl," Mother replied promptly. "As for the 'why,' you are going because you have been cordially invited; because I think the experience will be for your advantage, present and future; because also it will be good for a growing girl like you to have the bracing effect of a sea voyage."

"Mother, I haven't a thing the matter with me, and I haven't grown the eighth of an inch this whole last year; you can see by my frocks," I protested, more on principle than because it would be any use to protest, or because I was sure that I wanted Mother to change her mind.

Naturally the protest had no effect, but Mother's mood mercifully remained placid, and she didn't give me a single freezing look.

"Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox is a woman of good family and position in her own country," she went calmly on. "I have satisfied myself on those points beyond doubt, or I should not dream of allowing you to be her guest.

She has a cottage at Newport, and will take you there, as summer, it seems, is not the Season in New York. You may stay with her through July and August,--even for September, if you are amusing yourself.

Later, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox will send you home with friends of hers, who can be trusted to take good care of you. She knows several people, she tells me, who are crossing in the autumn, to winter abroad; and they would bring you to me. Of course, I should have to be nice to them, by way of showing my appreciation of any trouble you had given; but a dinner, and a Sat.u.r.day to Monday at most, would be quite enough."

So it was all arranged, even to the details of my home-coming, and the price to be paid for returning me, like a parcel, to my owner! Suddenly I remembered the words I had overheard at the window of the den. "The question is, what is to be done with Betty?"

Mother had evidently been so anxious to have the question answered, that she had at once taken measures to settle it. But why should anything be done with me? Nothing ever had been, so far, except when I was sent last autumn to stop with my aunt; and she was so much annoyed because my cousin Loveland came home unexpectedly, that after that I could do nothing to please her, and was packed back to Battlemead Towers in disgrace, I never could understand for what crime.

"How did Mrs. Ess--I mean, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox happen to ask for a visit from me?" I ventured to wriggle out, like a worm who isn't sure whether it had better turn or not. I was certain that for some reason of her own, Mother had suggested the idea, if only hypnotically; but she seemed almost too frank as she answered, and it was frightening not even to be snubbed.

"I told you to-day that she had taken a fancy to you, my dear. Of course, she could not hope to secure Victoria, even if she preferred her, for Victoria has important engagements which will carry her through the season, and afterwards to Cowes and up to Scotland for the shooting at Dorloch Castle. But you are still almost a child; and children do not have engagements. Nevertheless, you are Lady Betty Bulkeley, the Duke of Stanforth's sister, and as such, though in yourself you are an unimportant little person, it's not impossible that as a member of your family, these Americans may think you worth cultivating. One hears that they worship t.i.tles."

"I'm sure they can't worship them as much as some people in our own country, who haven't got them, do," I cried, defending Americans for Miss Woodburn's sake. "Vic says----"

"Never mind what Victoria says," returned Mother. "The less you think on these subjects, the better, my dear Betty. I merely hinted at a possible and partial incentive to these people's friendship for you, so that you need not feel it inc.u.mbent to be oppressively grateful, you know. I should wish you to keep your dignity among foreigners, even though you would, of course, look upon Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox as, in a way, your guardian. Now I must call Thompson, and have her put me into my dinner dress, as there is no more time to waste. When Mrs.

Stuyvesant-Knox speaks of your visit, you will know what to say."

I mumbled something vaguely dutiful, and began to dress as quickly as I could; but the more I thought of it, the more I felt that I hadn't been fairly treated, to be disposed of in such an offhand way. After all, I _am_ eighteen; and a person of eighteen isn't a child.

I'm not sure I wasn't pouting when Vic came in, ready for dinner, asking if she should fasten up my frock. I had nearly finished it, for practice has made me almost as clever as a conjurer about manipulating my hands behind my back, but when Vic flew at me and began giving useless little touches, I guessed that she wanted to whisper something in my ear without Mother seeing, if she should happen to prance in at the wrong moment--as she often does.

"Look here, Betty, are you going to be a good little girl, and do what you're bid, without making a fuss?" she asked, in a quick, low voice.

"I'm not certain yet," said I. "I'm thinking it over. I don't see why I should be sent off across the water with strangers, at a moment's notice, and I----"