Читать книгу A Manifest Destiny - Julia Magruder - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Bettina was in London. The ocean voyage had done her good, and the necessary effect of change, variety, new faces, new feelings, new thoughts, had been to take her out of herself—the self that was nothing but a grieving and bereaved daughter—and to quicken the pleasure-loving instincts and thirst for admiration which were as inherently, though not as prominently, a part of her. There was still a root of bitterness springing up within her whenever she thought of her mother’s being taken from her, and this very element it was which urged her to make all she could of life, in the hope of partially filling the void in her heart. She was not even yet reconciled to the loss of her mother, and there was a certain defiance of destiny in her resolution to get some compensation for the wrong she had sustained in losing what was dearest to her.

On arriving in London, Bettina went to a hotel, and from there made inquiries as to the whereabouts of Lord Hurdly. Parliament was in session, and his lordship was in his town house in Grosvenor Square. Having ascertained the hour at which he was most likely to be at home, Bettina betook herself at that hour to his house.

She refused to give her name to the servant who answered her ring, and asked merely that Lord Hurdly might be told that a lady wished to speak to him on a matter of importance. The servant, after a moment’s hesitation, ushered her into a small reception-room on the first floor, and requested her to wait there.

She stood for a few moments alone in this room, her heart beating fast. She wore the American style of deep mourning, which swathed her in dense, impenetrable black from head to feet, and seemed to add to her somewhat unusual tallness.

The door opened. Lord Hurdly entered. She had seen photographs of him, and even through that thick veil would have known him anywhere. The tall, thin figure, sharp eyes, aquiline nose, clean-shaven face, and scrupulous dress were all familiar to both memory and imagination.

He paused on the threshold of the room, as if slightly repelled by the strange appearance of the shrouded figure before him. Then he spoke, coldly and concisely.

“You wished to speak to me?” he said. “I have a few moments only at my disposal.”

Bettina raised one hand and threw back her veil, revealing thus not only her face, but her whole figure clothed in smooth, tight-fitting black, so plain and devoid of trimming that the exquisite lines were shown to the best advantage. Her face, surrounded by black draperies, looked as purely tinted as a flower, and the excitement of the moment had made her eyes brilliant and flushed her cheeks.

The imperturbability of Lord Hurdly’s face relaxed. His lips parted; a smothered sound, as of surprise, escaped him. Certainly at that moment Bettina was nothing less than bewilderingly beautiful.

“I have to beg your pardon for coming to you so unceremoniously,” she said. “My excuse is that I have a matter of great importance to speak to you of.”

Her voice was certainly a charming one, and if her accent was such as he might have found fault with under other circumstances, under these he found it an added attraction. She had put her own construction on Lord Hurdly’s evident surprise at sight of her, and it was one which gave her an increased self-possession and added to her sense of power.

“Let us go into another room,” said Lord Hurdly. “I cannot keep you here, and whatever you may have to say to me I am quite at leisure to attend to.”

He led the way from the room, and Bettina followed in silence. She had had innumerable dreams of grandeur, poor child! but she had been too ignorant even to imagine such a place as this house. Its furnishing and decorations represented not only the accumulated wealth, but also the accumulated taste and opportunity, of many successive generations. She felt an ineffable emotion of deep, sensuous enjoyment in her present surroundings which made her heart leap at the idea that all these things might some day be hers. Lord Hurdly looked exceedingly well preserved, and that day might be very far distant. All the more reason, therefore, she told herself, why she should make peace between him and Horace, so that she might at least be sometimes a guest in this house, and be lifted into an atmosphere where she felt for the first time that she was in her true element. It was not only the magnificence which she saw on every side which so appealed to her. It was that air of the best in everything that made her feel, in Lord Hurdly’s presence, as well as in his house, that civilization could not go further—that life, on its material side, had nothing more to offer. And Bettina had now reached a point in her experience where material pleasure seemed to be all that was left. She quite believed that all of the joy of loving was buried in the grave of her mother.

Her heart was beating fast as she entered Lord Hurdly’s library and saw him close the door behind them. It then struck her as being a little peculiar that he should have brought her here without even knowing who she was or what she wanted of him.

A doubt, a scarcely possible suspicion, came into her mind.

“Have you any idea who I am?” she said.

“It suffices me to know what you are.”

“Ah! I do not understand,” she said, puzzled.

“You have come upon me without ceremony, madam,” said Lord Hurdly, with a slightly old-fashioned pomposity in his polished manner, “and I may therefore ask you to excuse an absence of ceremony in me in alluding to the impression which you have made upon me. You are a stranger to me—an American, I judge from your speech. I hope that I am to be so fortunate as to hear that there is something which I can do for you.”

“There is,” Bettina said—“a thing so vital and important to me that, now I am in your presence, I am afraid to venture to speak, for fear you may refuse to hear my prayer.”

“You are in small danger from that quarter, I assure you. I am ready to do for you whatever you may ask. Let me, however, put a few questions before I hear your request. You are wearing mourning. Is it, perhaps, for your husband?”

“For my mother,” said Bettina, with a sudden trembling of the lip and suffusion of the eyes which gave her a new charm, in revealing the fact that this young goddess had a human heart which could be quickly stirred to emotion.

“Forgive me,” said Lord Hurdly, with great courtesy. “Forget that I have roughly touched a spot so sore, and tell me this, if you will: are you married or unmarried?”

“I am unmarried,” said Bettina, beginning to tremble as she found the important moment upon her; “but I am about to be married. I have made this visit to London beforehand only to see you. The man I am going to marry is your cousin and heir, Horace Spotswood.”

Lord Hurdly’s guarded face betrayed a certain agitation, but the signs of this were quickly controlled.

He looked straight into her eyes for a few seconds without speaking. Then he crossed the room and touched an electric button, saying, as he did so:

“I will get rid of an engagement that I had, so that I may be quite at leisure to talk with you.”

Neither spoke again until the servant had come, taken his instructions, and gone away, closing the door behind him. There was a certain determination in Lord Hurdly’s manner and expression which did not escape Bettina. She was sure that her revelation of her identity had prompted some decisive course of action in his mind, but what it was she could not guess from that inscrutable face.

“I am now quite free for the morning,” her companion said. “Naturally there is much for us to say to each other. Will you not lay aside your bonnet and wrap? The day is warm, and that heavy mourning must distress you.”

Certainly his manner was kind. Bettina began to like him and to hope for success in her object in coming here. Quickly unbuttoning her black gloves, she unsheathed her lovely hands, which were bare of rings. Then with a few deft motions she removed her outer wrap and her bonnet with its long, thick veil.

In so doing she revealed the fact that she had an exquisite head, with delicious masses of brown hair which looked almost reddish in its contrast to the dense black of her gown, the smooth severity of which accentuated every lovely curve of her figure, as it would have done every defect, had there been defect. This gown was fitted to her so absolutely that one had the satisfying sense that one looked at the woman instead of at her clothes. There were fine old portraits on the wall, of noble ladies who had once done the honors of this great establishment, but the fairest of them paled before the glowing loveliness of this girl. For she looked a girl, despite her sombre garments, and there was a certain timidity in her manner which strengthened this impression.

Lord Hurdly offered her a seat, and then took another, facing her.

“In engaging yourself to marry Horace Spotswood,” he began, deliberately, “you have made the supreme, if not the irreparable, mistake of your life.”

Bettina’s white skin showed the sudden ebb of the blood in her veins as he said these words.

“Why?” she asked, concisely.

“Because he is no match for you, and because your marrying him would not only place you on a lower plane than where you belong, but it would also so seriously injure his position in life that there would be no possible chance for him to retrieve it until my death. I am comparatively a young man, and likely to live a long time. Apart from that, I may marry. I had no expectation or intention of doing so, but his recent defiance of me has made me sometimes feel inclined to the idea. I have so far changed in my feeling on this subject that if I could meet and win a woman to my mind, I would marry at once. What then would become of Horace? He has a mere pittance besides his pay, which is a ridiculous sum for a man to marry on. He has wronged you in putting you in such a position, and you have equally wronged him.”

Bettina had turned very white as he spoke. The picture he drew was bad enough in itself, but to have it sketched before her in her present surroundings made it infinitely worse.

“If we have wronged each other, we have done it ignorantly,” she said. “He assured me that you were determined never to marry, and he counted on your past kindness and your attachment to him—”

She broke off, her voice shaken.

“On the same ground I counted on him,” said Lord Hurdly. “He was in no position to marry against my will, and in engaging to do so he defied me. Let him take the consequences.”

“Then you are determined not to relent?” Bettina faltered. “You will not forgive him for the offence of proposing to make me his wife?”

“I did not say that,” returned Lord Hurdly, with a subtle change of tone. “I certainly should not forgive him for marrying you, but for proposing to do so I am ready enough to forgive him, provided he comes to his senses at that point and goes no further. In that event I am ready not only to continue the handsome income that I have allowed him, but to give him outright the principal of it.”

Bettina had never pretended that she was deeply in love with Horace Spotswood. Indeed, she had quite decided within herself that she was incapable of such a state of feeling, and it was her belief that the fervor and intensity of love which she had given to her mother had taken the place of what some women give to their husbands. Still, she looked upon her prospective marriage to him as one of the fixed facts of the universe, and Lord Hurdly’s words bewildered her.

Keener than this surprise, however, was her sense of humiliation at the implacable offence which Lord Hurdly had taken at his heir’s proposed marriage with herself. That he had wished Horace to marry she knew; it was therefore the woman whom he had chosen that Lord Hurdly resented.

She rose to her feet, feeling herself giddy, and knowing that she was white with agitation. Her one idea was to get away—to escape the scrutiny of the intense gaze which was fixed upon her.

“I must go. I beg your pardon for coming,” she said, with a proud coldness, reaching for her wrap.

“You must not go. I owe you endless thanks for coming, and I will show you that you have to congratulate yourself also on this interview. If you went now, you would defeat all the good that may come of it. Sit down, I beg of you, and hear me out.”

His manner was not only urgent, it was also kind, and nothing could have been more respectful than his every look and tone.

Bettina sat down again and waited.

“What is it that has shocked you?” he said. “Is it because of your great love for Horace—or is it his for you which you are thinking of most?”

“I do not see that I am bound to answer you that question,” said Bettina, proudly. “My reasons are sufficient for myself.”

“You are in no way bound, my dear young lady, but you would be wise to answer me. I have every disposition to act as your friend in this matter, and you would be making a mistake to turn away from me without hearing what I have to say. If you are imagining that the young fellow with whom you have an engagement of marriage would be rendered inconsolable by the loss of you, when it would be made up to him by the possession of a fortune, perhaps you overestimate things.”

“What things?” she said, still cold and withheld in her manner, her pale face very set.

“The unselfishness of man’s love in general, and of this man’s in particular,” he said; “and, for another thing, yourself. It seems a brutal thing to say, but if you believe that that hotheaded, undisciplined boy is capable of a sustained affection against such odds of fortune as this case presents, then I disagree with you, and I know him better than you do.”

Bettina’s face flushed.

“He does love me—he does!” she cried, in some agitation. “I have been cold and careless toward him, and have told him that my heart was buried in my mother’s grave.” At these words her voice trembled. “He knows how hard it is for me to think of another kind of love just yet; but he has been kindness itself, and has written me the dearest, lovingest letters that ever a woman had. If they have been a little rarer and colder lately, it is only because of my own shortcomings toward him. I shall try to atone for them now. Since I realize how great an injury I have done to him, I shall try to be his compensation for it.”

“And you think you will succeed? I doubt it.”

Something in his manner impressed her in spite of herself. Perhaps he saw that it was so, for he pushed his advantage.

“Compare the length and opportunities of my intercourse with him and yours,” he said. “You would be acting the part of absolute folly not to listen to me now. In the end you will be as free to act as you were in the beginning. Only let me remind you that his future is involved as well as your own.”

He saw that this argument told.

“I am willing to listen,” she said.

“I am grateful to you,” he answered, with that air of finished politeness which makes the best graces of a young man seem crude, and which Bettina was not too ignorant to appreciate at its proper value.

“I have known Horace as child and boy and man—if he may yet be called a man,” he said, with a light touch of scorn. “You have known him in one capacity and state only—that of a lover, a rôle he can no doubt play very prettily, and one in which, despite his youth, he is far from being unpractised. He has been in love oftener than it behooves me to say or you to hear—quite harmless affairs, of course, but they prove to one who has watched him as I have that his nature is fickle and capricious. I confess that when I heard you say, just now, that his letters of late had been rarer and less ardent, I could not wholly attribute it to the reason which so quickly satisfied you. As a rule, these intensely ardent feelings are not of long duration, and I know well both the intensity and the brevity of Horace’s attacks of love. It was for this very reason that I so resented the idea of his marrying without my advice. I foresaw that he would soon weary of any woman. All the more reason, therefore, for his choosing one who was suited to him, apart from the matter of his loving her. I knew he had not the staying quality—that he was quite incapable of a sustained affection. I therefore considered his taste in the matter less than my own. As he was my heir in the event of my not marrying, I felt that I had the right to demand that he should marry suitably to his position.”

“I regret that he should have made an engagement which has disappointed you,” said Bettina, a slight curl at the corners of her lips.

“I regret it also; but you may remember that at the beginning of this interview I spoke of this mistake on your part and on his as great, though not perhaps irreparable.”

He was looking at her keenly, and he saw that his words had no effect upon her except to mystify her.

“I do not see any way to its reparation,” she said, and was about to continue, when he interrupted her.

“I have pointed out the way—a rupture of the engagement by mutual consent.”

“A consent that he would never give,” said Bettina, with a certain pride of confidence.

“And you?” he asked.

“Nor I either,” she said, “unless I were convinced that he wished it.”

“It would perhaps be not impossible to convince you of that, granted a little time,” said Lord Hurdly. “But, apart from his wish, have you no consideration for his interest? His position in diplomacy is at present insignificant, but he has talents and a chance to rise, unless that chance be utterly frustrated by his embarrassing himself with a family—a condition that would be death to his career. Ask any one you choose, and they will tell you that there cannot be two opinions about this. Besides, through my help he has been able to live like a man of fortune. His allowance, however, will be stopped on the day of his marriage, if he persists in such a course. If he abandons it, he will find himself with the principal as well as the interest at his disposal. So situated, he has every chance to rise. Under the other conditions, he inevitably falls. What would become of him ultimately is too dreary a line of conjecture to dwell upon.”

Bettina’s face was paler still. The tears sprang to her eyes—tears of mortification and keen regret. The thought of her mother pierced through her, and the consciousness that she had no longer the refuge of that gentle heart to cast herself upon almost overcame her. Pride lent her aid, however, and she rallied quickly.

“You have fully demonstrated to me,” she said, “that I have injured your cousin in promising to marry him. I did it in ignorance, however. With the facts before me which you have just given, I should perhaps have acted differently. Regret now, however, is useless.”

“On the contrary, this is one of the rare cases in which regret is not useless. The reparation of your mistake is in your own hands.”

The possibility of doing what he urged flashed through Bettina’s mind. Horace would certainly be infinitely better off without her, in every rational and material sense; and at this stage of Bettina’s development the rational and material were predominant. But what of her, apart from Horace? This thought found vent in words.

“You have been looking at this subject from your own point of view,” she said, “and perhaps naturally. I must, however, think of an aspect of the case in which you have no interest. I am absolutely alone in the world, and if, for your cousin’s sake, I made this sacrifice—”

In spite of herself her voice faltered.

Lord Hurdly drew his chair a little nearer to her. His eyes were fixed upon her with a yet more intent gaze as he said, with directness and decision:

“You are quite mistaken. It is this aspect of the case which concerns me chiefly. If, as is undoubtedly true, the prevention of this most mistaken marriage would be an advantage to Horace, to you it may be a far greater gain, and to me it may be the fulfilment of all that I have ever desired in life.”

“What do you mean?” she said, bewildered.

“I mean that the supreme desire of my heart is, and has been from the moment my eyes rested on you, to make you Lady Hurdly absolutely and at once, instead of your waiting for a name and position which, after all, may never come to you.”

Her heart beat so that her breathing came in smothered gasps. The piercing demand of his eyes was almost terrifying to her. She saw that he was absolutely in earnest, and the commiseration which she felt for Horace struggled with the dazzling temptation which this opportunity offered to that strong ambition which was so great an element in her essential nature.

“Do not be shocked or startled by the suddenness of my proposal,” he said. “I trust that you will come to see that it is eminently wise and reasonable. When I said the marriage was an unsuitable one, I was thinking more of you than of Horace. Your beauty, your manner, your voice, your words, your whole ego and personality, show you to have been born for a great position. It is a case of manifest destiny. The fortune and the social rank that I can bestow are all too little for you; I should like to be able to put a queen’s crown on your beautiful head. But such as I am—a man who has made his impression on the current history of his country, and who, though no longer young in the crude sense that counts only by months and years, is still by no means old—and such things as I have and can command, I lay at your feet, begging you humbly to impart to them a value which they have never had before, by accepting them and becoming the sharer of my name, my position, and my fortune, and the mistress of my heart.”

He had risen and was standing in front of her with the resolution of a strong purpose in his eyes. But she could not meet them, those dominating, searching eyes. The thoughts that his words had given rise to were too agitating, too uncertain, too tormenting to her. The thought of giving Horace up pained her more than she would have believed, while the vision of the grandeur so urged upon her, which not ten minutes gone she had seen dashed like a full beaker from her thirsty lips, tormented her as well. It was to her a vast sacrifice to think of resigning such possibilities, yet at the first she had no other thought but to resign them. The arguments for Horace’s future career which had been urged upon her also played their part in her consciousness now, and the seething confusion of images in her brain made her senses swim.

Lord Hurdly must have seen her agitation, for he hastened to say:

“I have been too hasty. You must forgive me. Do not try to answer me at present. I see that you are overwrought. Let me beseech you to rest a little while. I will send for the housekeeper.”

“No, no! I must go,” she answered, starting to her feet. But she had overestimated her strength. She sank back in her chair.

He went himself and brought her a glass of wine, talking to her with a soothing reassurance as she drank it. He reproached himself for having been too hurried, too rash, but pleaded the earnestness of his hopes as an excuse. When she had taken the wine she wanted to go, but he entreated her so humbly not to punish him too deeply for his fault that when he begged her to let him call the housekeeper to sit with her until luncheon, which he implored her to take before leaving, she acquiesced, too fagged out mentally to take any decided position of her own.

To the housekeeper Lord Hurdly explained that this lady was in deep trouble—a fact sufficiently attested by her heavy mourning—and would like to rest awhile before eating some luncheon. Bettina saw herself regarded with a respectful awe which she had never had a taste of before. The housekeeper, with the sweetest of voices and kindest of manners, promised to do all in her power, and Lord Hurdly withdrew.