Bettina loved this power and importance. The drama of her present
life was like the unfolding, before her gaze, of a beautiful series
of pictures which she had conceived in her imagination, and which
some enchanter's word had turned into reality. The crowded functions
of the London season had somewhat palled upon her, though she had not
quite owned it to herself; but here she was the centre of the system,
the light around which these lesser lights revolved, and she seemed,
under these conditions, to shine with an increased radiance. Her
manners, where they differed from those of the women about her,
seemed to gain rather than lose by the contrast, and her costumes
seemed to be endless in their variety as well as in their beauty.
Certainly she had an air of being born to the purple, and her
husband's pride in her was undoubted, if unexpressed.
Bettina was aware that this pride was his strongest feeling in
regard to her, and she was abundantly willing to have it so. If she
had found it difficult to fall in love with a youth who might have
disturbed the heart of Diana, she was not likely to have fallen in
love with the cool, cynical, narrow-chested, thin-haired man whom she
could yet feel a certain pride in owning as her husband, since his
appearance, no less than his name, was distinguished. She had always
had a theory that she would never love deeply any one besides her
mother, and her two experiences in the lottery of marriage, so
different as they were, convinced her that her knowledge of herself
had been correct. She was glad of it. The hot anguish which at times
even yet contracted her heart at the thought of her mother made her
hope devoutly that she would never love again. The joy of it could
not be worth the pain.
When Lady Hurdly's house-party broke up, she went with her husband on
a round of visits to other country-houses. This phase of society she
liked, and she threw herself into it with ardor. But toward the end
she wearied of these visits, as she had wearied of London, and was
glad to get back to Kingdon Hall. Instead of rest, however, she found
restlessness, and the disturbing thoughts which she had smothered
before came back with added force. It was a relief to her to think of
going abroad--Lord Hurdly having made plans for their spending some
months of the winter on the Continent.
There was one instinctive fear connected with this plan--the
possibility that she might by some chance encounter Horace. She had
little fear that he would come to England. What would it matter if
she should meet him? He had never been anything to her, really--so
she assured herself--and she had certainly been, in reality, quite as
little to him. Yet she did unreasonably dread such a meeting with
him, and felt anxious to know where he was.
Accordingly, one morning she asked Parlett, in a casual way, if she
ever heard from Mr. Horace.
"Oh yes, my lady; he writes to me now and then," replied the
housekeeper. Bettina had not expected to hear this; her only thought
was to draw out some information gained by hearsay.
"He is at St. Petersburg?" she asked, indifferently.
"No, my lady; at Simla," was the unexpected answer. "He has been
there a good while. I had a pamphlet from him the other day. When he
has not time to answer my letters, he often sends me a paper, or
something like that, to show me what he has been doing. I can't
always understand them, but he knows I like to have them just because
he wrote them."
Bettina was unwilling to show her ignorance, so she did not say that
she had no knowledge that he ever wrote for publication, and when
Parlett went on to offer her the reading of the pamphlet she said,
with an indifferent kindness,
"Yes, bring it to me, by all means. I am very glad that Mr. Horace
keeps up his intercourse with the old place, which of course may yet
be his. I shall take an interest in seeing what he writes."
She went on to speak of certain changes which she wished made in some
of the sleeping-apartments, and then dismissed her housekeeper with
something less than her usual graciousness of manner.
Bettina felt a strong desire to be alone. These tidings of Horace,
slight as they were, had been disturbing to her. Indeed, as time
went on and her knowledge of Lord Hurdly increased, the fear that
he might have dealt insincerely with his cousin or with herself grew
steadily. She saw proofs every day of the ruthlessness with which he
sacrificed men, and even what should have been principles, to gain
his ends. By the light of the same knowledge she realized how his
meeting with her had disturbed him in his customary calmness of
poise, and she argued from this fact how important it had been to him
to gain his object of making her his wife.
In the midst of these reflections a house-maid tapped at her door,
with some folded papers on a tray.
"If you please, my lady, Mrs. Parlett sends you these," she said.
She was a sweet-faced, rosy-cheeked English girl, with a soft voice
and very pretty manner, and at present she was gently agitated by the
privilege of speaking to her lady, whom she, as well as all the rest
of the maids, regarded as a sort of cross between angel and goddess.
Bettina thanked her with a kind smile which sent her away completely
happy; then, in the privacy of her own chamber, she opened the
papers. One was a diplomatic pamphlet on a public question in the
line of the writer's professional work. The other was an article
which went very thoroughly into the question of the best means of
relieving the famine then raging in India.
It seemed to Bettina that she had vaguely heard that there was such a
famine, but she had not felt more than a kindly casual interest in it
as an unfortunate matter which she could not help. Now, however, as
she read the account which this paper gave, and the lines which it
followed in the effort to render help, her heart burned within her.
Here was a man who had no more power than herself to give money
help--far less, indeed, perhaps. Yet how he was spending his soul,
his strength, his time, his talent, his very heart-beats, on this
effort to go to the rescue of these perishing thousands! No one who
read the throbbing sentences of that paper could have a doubt of the
writer's earnest desire to help, or of his ability to move the hearts
and wills of others to come to his aid. It wrought upon her
strangely.
How much money could she lay her hands on? She had no idea, but she
would make it her business to find out. There was her own little
income, which she had taken no account of since her marriage, and
there was the money which Lord Hurdly had put to her credit in the
bank. She would get all she could and send it--anonymously, of
course--to the famine fund which she had casually heard mentioned.
But, oh, what a pitiful offering it seemed compared with what this
man was giving with such lavish self-devotion! From the fervor of his
printed words, and his report of what had so far been accomplished,
she saw that the very passion of his heart was in it. Of his ardent
temperament, his quick sympathies, she had knowledge in her own
experience. Perhaps it had been these very traits of his which had
led him to the conduct which had separated them.
At this thought, that faint suspicion that he had been misrepresented
to her rose in her heart again; but she choked it back. That would be
too awful. Besides the hideous self-accusations which would have
followed the admission of this doubt, there was another argument
against it which still had its powerful hold on her. She had grown
accustomed to her great position in the social world, and her inborn
instinct for power and admiration was deliciously gratified by the
brilliancy of her present circumstances. She found it very agreeable
to be Lady Hurdly, with all that that name and title implied, and she
did not, even in this moment of such unwonted emotion, lose sight of
that fact.
Yet the reading of this little paper had stirred a feeling in
Bettina's heart which she had not felt for so long a time--a
yearning tenderness for some object outside herself: a longing that
her health and strength might avail for others bereft of these
blessings. It was akin to the emotion she had felt by her mother's
dying bed, and as it swept over her she wept as she had not done
since she had knelt beside that sacred spot.
Instinctively now she fell upon her knees. She tried to pray--but for
what? She could not compose a form of prayer or articulate a definite
wish. All she could do was to pray to God--the God in whom her mother
had trusted--to give her this thing, this unknown boon which He knew
her passionate need of.
When she rose from her knees she put her hands to her head, and,
pressing her temples hard, looked about her, as if in search of some
object which might help her to the comprehension of her own mood.
Then, running her fingers inside the collar of her dress, she drew
out, by a slight chain, a small locket, which contained her mother's
picture and a lock of her white hair. It was a sort of talisman whose
mere touch gave her a sense of comfort. She did not open it now, but
held it between her palms and pressed her cheek against it, standing
there alone, and presently she whispered:
"What is it, mother darling? What is it that you seem trying to say
to me? Oh, if you can ever speak to me, speak now, and I will listen
as I did not do when you were here beside me! There is something that
I ought to do, and I am not doing it. There is something I am doing
which distresses you. That is the feeling that I have. Oh, my
mother--my lovely, precious, good, good mother--if I had you here,
you would tell me what it is that I ought to do--and I would do it!"
She ceased her half-inarticulate whispers, and stood intensely
still--almost, it seemed, as if she waited for an answer to them.
But there came no answer save the still, small voice within her soul,
which had so often tried to speak before, and which even yet she
could not, would not listen to.
This voice suggested to her with persistent iteration that she should
even now look strictly into the evidence which had so quickly
sufficed to convince her that the young and ardent lover who had
wooed her so passionately, and promised her such loyalty and faith
and devotion, had been false to his professions and his promises
alike.
Suppose she should investigate; suppose she should get proof that
she as well as he had been falsely dealt with, that he had been true
in every word and thought--what then? Could she endure to keep, after
that, the position of wife to the man who had so deceived and injured
two beings who had believed him? Assuredly she could not. What, then,
would be her alternative? To leave him and go back to the poor life
at home, which her mother's presence had justified and glorified, but
which without that presence, and with the contrast of her present
position in her mind, would be too intolerable a thought to
contemplate.
No, she had no sufficient reason to doubt the representations that
her husband had made to her. She would try to accept them more
implicitly for the future, and so fight against such disturbing
ideas. There were ample means of diversion within her reach. Her
sojourn abroad would soon begin, and she must fight against any
recurrence of her present mood of weakness.
If she was to win this fight, however, there was one precaution which
she felt that she must take. This was to avoid the very name of
Horace Spotswood, and, as far as might be possible, every thought of
him as well.
Her foreign travels began, and she then had the assurance that this
effort would not be difficult of accomplishment. There were a
thousand new issues for Bettina's interest and feelings in her
constantly changing surroundings, and these were sufficiently
absorbing to do away with lately disturbing considerations. The world
had still its powerful charm for Bettina, and she was now seeing the
world in a very fascinating aspect.