The Shuttle Part 37

It would have gone hard with him to describe to them the value of his enjoyment. Again and again there came back to him the memory of the grandmother who wore the black net cap trimmed with purple ribbons.

Apparently she had remained to the last almost contumaciously British.

She had kept photographs of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on her bedroom mantelpiece, and had made caustic, international comparisons.

But she had seen places like this, and her stories became realities to him now. But she had never thought of the possibility of any chance of his being shown about by the lord of the manor himself--lunching, by gee! and talking to them about typewriters. He vaguely knew that if the grandmother had not emigrated, and he had been born in Dunstan village, he would naturally have touched his forehead to Mount Dunstan and the vicar when they pa.s.sed him in the road, and conversation between them would have been an unlikely thing. Somehow things had been changed by Destiny--perhaps for the whole of them, as years had pa.s.sed.

What he felt when he stood in the picture gallery neither of his companions could at first guess. He ceased to talk, and wandered silently about. Secretly he found himself a trifle awed by being looked down upon by the unchanging eyes of men in strange, rich garments--in corslet, ruff, and doublet, velvet, powder, curled love locks, brocade and lace. The face of long-dead loveliness smiled out from its canvas, or withheld itself haughtily from his salesman's gaze. Wonderful bare white shoulders, and bosoms clasped with gems or flowers and lace, defied him to recall any treasures of Broadway to compare with them.

Elderly dames, garbed in stiff splendour, held stiff, unsympathetic inquiry in their eyes, as they looked back upon him. What exactly was a thirty shilling bicycle suit doing there? In the Delkoff, plainly none were interested. A pretty, masquerading shepherdess, with a lamb and a crook, seemed to laugh at him from under her broad beribboned straw hat. After looking at her for a minute or so, he gave a half laugh himself--but it was an awkward one.

"She's a looker," he remarked. "They're a lot of them lookers--not all--but a fair show----"

"A looker," translated Mount Dunstan in a low voice to Penzance, "means, I believe, a young women with good looks--a beauty."

"Yes, she IS a looker, by gee," said G. Selden, "but--but--" the awkward half laugh, taking on a depressed touch of sheepishness, "she makes me feel 'way off--they all do."

That was it. Surrounded by them, he was fascinated but not cheered. They were all so smilingly, or disdainfully, or indifferently unconscious of the existence of the human thing of his cla.s.s. His aspect, his life, and his desires were as remote as those of prehistoric man. His Broadway, his L railroad, his Delkoff--what were they where did they come into the scheme of the Universe? They silently gazed and lightly smiled or frowned THROUGH him as he stood. He was probably not in the least aware that he rather loudly sighed.

"Yes," he said, "they make me feel 'way off. I'm not in it. But she is a looker. Get onto that dimple in her cheek."

Mount Dunstan and Penzance spent the afternoon in doing their best for him. He was well worth it. Mr. Penzance was filled with delight, and saturated with the atmosphere of New York.

"I feel," he said, softly polishing his eyegla.s.ses and almost affectionately smiling, "I really feel as if I had been walking down Broadway or Fifth Avenue. I believe that I might find my way to--well, suppose we say Weber & Field's," and G. Selden shouted with glee.

Never before, in fact, had he felt his heart so warmed by spontaneous affection as it was by this elderly, somewhat bald and thin-faced clergyman of the Church of England. This he had never seen before.

Without the trained subtlety to have explained to himself the finely sweet and simply gracious deeps of it, he was moved and uplifted. He was glad he had "come across" it, he felt a vague regret at pa.s.sing on his way, and leaving it behind. He would have liked to feel that perhaps he might come back. He would have liked to present him with a Delkoff, and teach him how to run it. He had delighted in Mount Dunstan, and rejoiced in him, but he had rather fallen in love with Penzance. Certain American doubts he had had of the solidity and permanency of England's position and power were somewhat modified. When fellows like these two stood at the first rank, little old England was a pretty safe proposition.

After they had given him tea among the scents and songs of the sunken garden outside the library window, they set him on his way. The shadows were lengthening and the sunlight falling in deepening gold when they walked up the avenue and shook hands with him at the big entrance gates.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "you've treated me grand--as fine as silk, and it won't be like Little Willie to forget it. When I go back to New York it'll be all I can do to keep from getting the swell head and bragging about it. I've enjoyed myself down to the ground, every minute.

I'm not the kind of fellow to be likely to be able to pay you back your kindness, but, hully gee! if I could I'd do it to beat the band.

Good-bye, gentlemen--and thank you--thank you."

Across which one of their minds pa.s.sed the thought that the sound of the hollow impact of a trotting horse's hoofs on the road, which each that moment became conscious of hearing was the sound of the advancing foot of Fate? It crossed no mind among the three. There was no reason why it should. And yet at that moment the meaning of the regular, stirring sound was a fateful thing.

"Someone on horseback," said Penzance.

He had scarcely spoken before round the curve of the road she came. A finely slender and spiritedly erect girl's figure, upon a satin-skinned bright chestnut with a thoroughbred gait, a smart groom riding behind her. She came towards them, was abreast them, looked at Mount Dunstan, a smiling dimple near her lip as she returned his quick salute.

"Miss Vanderpoel," he said low to the vicar, "Lady Anstruther's sister."

Mr. Penzance, replacing his own hat, looked after her with surprised pleasure.

"Really," he exclaimed, "Miss Vanderpoel! What a fine girl! How unusually handsome!"

Selden turned with a gasp of delighted, amazed recognition.

"Miss Vanderpoel," he burst forth, "Reuben Vanderpoel's daughter! The one that's over here visiting her sister. Is it that one--sure?"

"Yes," from Mount Dunstan without fervour. "Lady Anstruthers lives at Stornham, about six miles from here."

"Gee," with feverish regret. "If her father was there, and I could get next to him, my fortune would be made."

"Should you," ventured Penzance politely, "endeavour to sell him a typewriter?"

"A typewriter! Holy smoke! I'd try to sell him ten thousand. A fellow like that syndicates the world. If I could get next to him----" and he mounted his bicycle with a laugh.

"Get next," murmured Penzance.

"Get on the good side of him," Mount Dunstan murmured in reply.

"So long, gentlemen, good-bye, and thank you again," called G. Selden as he wheeled off, and was carried soundlessly down the golden road.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF STORNHAM

The satin-skinned chestnut was one of the new horses now standing in the Stornham stables. There were several of them--a pair for the landau, saddle horses, smart young cobs for phaeton or dog cart, a pony for Ughtred--the animals necessary at such a place at Stornham. The stables themselves had been quickly put in order, grooms and stable boys kept them as they had not been kept for years. The men learned in a week's time that their work could not be done too well. There were new carriages as well as horses. They had come from London after Lady Anstruthers and her sister returned from town. The horses had been brought down by their grooms--immensely looked after, blanketed, hooded, and altogether cared for as if they were visiting dukes and d.u.c.h.esses.

They were all fine, handsome, carefully chosen creatures. When they danced and sidled through the village on their way to the Court, they created a sensation. Whosoever had chosen them had known his business.

The older vehicles had been repaired in the village by Tread, and did him credit. Fox had also done his work well.

Plenty more of it had come into their work-shops. Tools to be used on the estate, garden implements, wheelbarrows, lawn rollers, things needed about the house, stables, and cottages, were to be attended to. The church roof was being repaired. Taking all these things and the "doing up" of the Court itself, there was more work than the village could manage, and carpenters, bricklayers, and decorators were necessarily brought from other places. Still Joe b.u.t.tle and Sim Soames were allowed to lead in all such things as lay within their capabilities. It was they who made such a splendid job of the entrance gates and the lodges. It was astonishing how much was done, and how the sense of life in the air--the work of resulting prosperity, made men begin to tread with less listless steps as they went to and from their labour. In the cottages things were being done which made downcast women bestir themselves and look less slatternly. Leaks mended here, windows there, the hopeless copper in the tiny washhouse replaced by a new one, chimneys cured of the habit of smoking, a clean, flowered paper put on a wall, a coat of whitewash--they were small matters, but produced great effect.

Betty had begun to drop into the cottages, and make the acquaintance of their owners. Her first visits, she observed, created great consternation. Women looked frightened or sullen, children stared and refused to speak, clinging to skirts and ap.r.o.ns. She found the atmosphere clear after her second visit. The women began to talk, and the children collected in groups and listened with cheerful grins.

She could pick up little Jane's kitten, or give a pat to small Thomas'

mongrel dog, in a manner which threw down barriers.

"Don't put out your pipe," she said to old Grandfather Doby, rising totteringly respectful from his chimney-side chair. "You have only just lighted it. You mustn't waste a whole pipeful of tobacco because I have come in."

The old man, grown childish with age, t.i.ttered and shuffled and giggled.

Such a joke as the grand young lady was having with him. She saw he had only just lighted his pipe. The gentry joked a bit sometimes. But he was afraid of his grandson's wife, who was frowning and shaking her head.

Betty went to him, and put her hand on his arm.

"Sit down," she said, "and I will sit by you." And she sat down and showed him that she had brought a package of tobacco with her, and actually a wonder of a red and yellow jar to hold it, at the sight of which unheard-of joys his rapture was so great that his trembling hands could scarcely clasp his treasures.

"Tee-hee! Tee-hee-ee! Deary me! Thankee--thankee, my lady," he t.i.ttered, and he gazed and blinked at her beauty through heavenly tears.

"Nearly a hundred years old, and he has lived on sixteen shillings a week all his life, and earned it by working every hour between sunrise and sunset," Betty said to her sister, when she went home. "A man has one life, and his has pa.s.sed like that. It is done now, and all the years and work have left nothing in his old hands but his pipe. That's all. I should not like to put it out for him. Who am I that I can buy him a new one, and keep it filled for him until the end? How did it happen? No," suddenly, "I must not lose time in asking myself that. I must get the new pipe."

She did it--a pipe of great magnificence--such as drew to the Doby cottage as many callers as the village could provide, each coming with fevered interest, to look at it--to be allowed to hold and examine it for a few moments, guessing at its probable enormous cost, and returning it reverently, to gaze at Doby with respect--the increase of which can be imagined when it was known that he was not only possessor of the pipe, but of an a.s.surance that he would be supplied with as much tobacco as he could use, to the end of his days. From the time of the advent of the pipe, Grandfather Doby became a man of mark, and his life in the chimney corner a changed thing. A man who owns splendours and unlimited, excellent s.h.a.g may like friends to drop in and crack jokes--and even smoke a pipe with him--a common pipe, which, however, is not amiss when excellent s.h.a.g comes free.

"He lives in a wild whirl of gaiety--a social vortex," said Betty to Lady Anstruthers, after one of her visits. "He is actually rejuvenated.

I must order some new white smocks for him to receive his visitors in.

Someone brought him an old copy of the Ill.u.s.trated London News last night. We will send him ill.u.s.trated papers every week."

In the dull old brain, G.o.d knows what spark of life had been relighted.

Young Mrs. Doby related with chuckles that granddad had begged that his chair might be dragged to the window, that he might sit and watch the village street. Sitting there, day after day, he smoked and looked at his pictures, and dozed and dreamed, his pipe and tobacco jar beside him on the window ledge. At any sound of wheels or footsteps his face lighted, and if, by chance, he caught a glimpse of Betty, he tottered to his feet, and stood hurriedly touching his bald forehead with a reverent, palsied hand.