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 assistants 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 [pg 54]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 [pg 55]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 [pg 56]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 assist 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 assembled 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, [pg 57]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.
“good-morning, my lady,” she said, gently, in answer to bettina’s friendly salutation. “will your ladyship not have a shawl? this room is always cool, no matter what the weather is.”
bettina declined the wrap, but passed on to the next picture, requesting the woman to come with her and act as cicerone.
[pg 58]
“what is your name? i ought to know it,” she said.
“parlett, your ladyship.”
“and how long have you lived here, parlett?”
“over forty years, my lady. i was here in the old lord’s time. that is his picture, with his lady next to him.”
bettina looked with interest at the two pictures designated.
“he is thought to be very much like his present lordship,” said the housekeeper.
“yes, i see it,” said bettina, feeling an instinct to guard her countenance. here were the same keen eyes, the same resolute jaw, the same thin lips and hard lines about the mouth. only in the older face they were yet more accentuated, and instead of the not unbecoming thinness of hair which showed in the son, there was a frank expanse of bald head which made his features all the harder.
hurrying away from the contemplation of this portrait, bettina turned to its companion. here she encountered a face and form which were truly all womanly, if by womanliness is meant abject submission and self-effacement. the poor little lady looked patiently hopeless, and her deprecating air seemed the last in the world calculated [pg 59]to hold its own against such a lord. that she had not done so—of her own full surrender of herself, in mind and soul and body—the picture seemed a plain representation.
“poor woman! she looks as if she had suffered,” said bettina.
“oh yes, my lady,” parlett answered, as if divided between the inclination to talk and the duty to be silent.
“she was unhappy, then?” said bettina. “you need not hesitate to answer. his lordship has told me what a trusted servant of the family you are, and i shall treat you as such. you need not fear to speak to me quite freely.”
“yes, my lady, she had a great deal of sadness in her life,” went on the housekeeper, thus encouraged. “she had six daughters before she had a son, and this was naturally a disappointment to his lordship. one after the other these children died, which grieved her ladyship sorely, for she was a very devoted mother. his lordship had never noticed them much, being angry at not having an heir, and this made my lady all the fonder of them. she had little constitution herself, and the children were sickly. at last, however, an heir was born, but her ladyship died at his birth. it seemed a pity, my lady, did it [pg 60]not? for his lordship was greatly pleased with the heir, and, of course, my lady would have been much happier after that.”
bettina did not answer. the evident reasonableness of the father’s position, in the eyes of this good and gentle woman, made it impossible for her to speak without dissent to such an atrocity as lord hurdly’s attitude seemed to her. so she moved away, and the woman took the hint and said no more.
a little distance off, at the end of the long room, she had caught sight of an object that made her heart beat suddenly. she did no more than glance at it, and then returned to the contemplation of the picture before which she was standing. but she had recognized horace spotswood in the tall stripling of perhaps fifteen who stood in riding-clothes at the side of a pawing gray horse.
by the time she had made her way to it, in its regular succession, she had quite recovered her calmness and had made up her mind as to her course.
“and who is this handsome boy?” she said, with perfect self-possession, as they stood before the large canvas.
“that is mr. horace, my lady,” said the woman, [pg 61]a sudden tone of emotion mingling with the deference in her voice as her eyes dwelt on the picture fondly.
and who could wonder at this? surely a more winsome lad had never been seen. he was even then tall, and in his riding coat and breeches looked strangely slender, in contrast to the broad-shouldered physique which she had lately known so well. but the eyes were just the same—direct, frank, eager eyes, which looked straight at you and seemed to make a demand upon you to be as open and frank in return.
had bettina searched the world, she could not, as she knew, have found a more significant contrast than the comparison of the honest eyes with the guarded, cold, inscrutable ones into which it was now her lot to look so often.
“have you known him a long time?” she asked, pleasantly, as the woman remained silent.
“oh, since he was a little lad, my lady! we all love mr. horace here. he is the handsomest and kindest young gentleman in the world, and he’s that good to me that i couldn’t be fonder of my own son, not forgetting the difference, my lady.”
bettina detected a tone of regretfulness in the woman’s voice, and also, she thought, an effort [pg 62]to conceal it. if there was a feeling akin to this regret in her own heart, she also must conceal it. these allusions to the handsome, enthusiastic young fellow to whom she had promised herself in marriage had stirred her deeply. the idea of any one, servant or equal, speaking in this way of the man who was her husband, at any time in his life, gave her a nervous desire to laugh. it was followed by an equally nervous impulse to cry.
walking ahead of the housekeeper, she gained a moment’s opportunity for the recovery of her self-control, and she made good use of it.
“parlett,” she said, presently, “i do not want you to think that in marrying lord hurdly i have done an injury to mr. spotswood.” in spite of herself, her voice shook at the name.
“oh no, my lady—” began parlett, but her mistress interrupted her, saying, quickly:
“of course he always knew that his lordship might marry, and could not have been unprepared for such a possibility; but in order that he might feel no difference in his present position on that account, lord hurdly has settled on him what is really a handsome fortune—not only the income of it, but the principal also. i tell you this that you may understand that he [pg 63]is none the worse off, so far as money goes, through his cousin’s marriage to me.”
“yes, my lady. i understand, my lady. thank you for telling me,” said parlett, somewhat nervously. “of course every one knows that you have done him no harm, my lady, and we knew, of course, that his lordship would do the handsome thing by him.”
somehow these civil, reassuring words smote painfully upon bettina’s consciousness. when this woman spoke so confidently of lord hurdly’s doing the handsome thing by his former heir, she felt it to be the hollow tribute of a conventional loyalty, and the assurance that it was understood that she herself had done him no harm grated on her also. now that she was quite alone and free to think things out, as she had shrunk from doing heretofore, and as, in the rush of the london season, she had been able to avoid doing, she felt a sense of compunction toward horace that seriously depressed her.
dismissing the housekeeper, she put on a shade-hat and went for a ramble in the park. how beautiful it was! what shrubs, what trees, what undulations of rich emerald turf! she could not in the least feel that she had any right in it all. but how must a creature love it who [pg 64]had looked upon its noble beauties from childhood up to youth, and on to manhood, with the belief that it would some day be his own! she could not stifle the feeling that she had wronged that being if by her marriage she should be the means of depriving him of such a fortune and position, and deep, deep down in her consciousness she had a boding fear that, if all things hidden could be revealed, it might be shown that in a keener sense than this she had also wronged him.
for marriage had been in many ways an illumination to bettina. the revelation of her own heart which it had given her was one which she tried hard to shut her eyes to. twice she had consented to the idea of marrying without love. once she had actually done this thing. only her own heart knew what had been the consequences to her. but of one thing she had often felt glad. this was that she had not entered into a loveless marriage with a man who had loved her as she had believed horace did at the time he had so ardently wooed her. from such a wrong as that might she be delivered!
as her thoughts now dwelt on horace and the circumstances of their brief past together, the memory of his honest, tender, self-forgetful attitude [pg 65]toward her recurred to her half wistfully, in contrast to her recent experiences. lord hurdly’s manner toward her had, in truth, changed from the very hour of their marriage. he no longer had the air of a solicitous suitor, but took at once that of the assured husband and master. it made her think what she had heard of his father and of his poor little mother’s history. not that she could fancy herself becoming, under any circumstances, a griselda; though she could without difficulty imagine him in his father’s rôle.
but what right had she, she asked herself, to expect to reap where she had not sown? she had married for money and position, and she had got them. what more had she expected?
nothing more, perhaps; but in one point she had been disappointed—namely, in the power of these things to give her what she longed for, and what she could define only under the indefinite term happiness.
