SHE WOULD DO SOMETHING
Sir Nigel's face was not a good thing to see when he appeared at the dinner table in the evening.As he took his seat the two footmen glanced quickly at each other, and the butler at the sideboard furtively thrust out his underlip.Not a man or woman in the household but had learned the signal denoting the moment when no service would please, no word or movement be unobjectionable.Lady Anstruthers' face unconsciously assumed its propitiatory expression, and she glanced at her sister more than once when Betty was unaware that she did so.
Until the soup had been removed, Sir Nigel scarcely spoke, merely making curt replies to any casual remark.This was one of his simple and most engaging methods of at once enjoying an ill-humour and making his wife feel that she was in some way to blame for it.
"Mount Dunstan is in a deucedly unpleasant position," he condescended at last."I should not care to stand in his shoes."He had not returned to the Court until late in the afternoon, but having heard in the village the rumour of the outbreak of fever, he had made inquiries and gathered detail.
"You are thinking of the outbreak of typhoid among the hop pickers?" said Lady Anstruthers."Mrs.Brent thinks it threatens to be very serious.""An epidemic, without a doubt," he answered."In a wretched unsanitary place like Dunstan village, the wretches will die like flies.""What will be done?" inquired Betty.
He gave her one of the unpleasant personal glances and laughed derisively.
"Done? The county authorities, who call themselves `guardians,' will be frightened to death and will potter about and fuss like old women, and profess to examine and protect and lay restrictions, but everyone will manage to keep at a discreet distance, and the thing will run riot and do its worst.
As far as one can see, there seems no reason why the whole place should not be swept away.No doubt Mount Dunstan has wisely taken to his heels already.""I think that, on the contrary, there would be much doubt of that," Betty said."He would stay and do what he could."Sir Nigel shrugged his shoulders.
"Would he? I think you'll find he would not.""Mrs.Brent tells me," Rosalie broke in somewhat hurriedly, "that the huts for the hoppers are in the worst possible condition.They are so dilapidated that the rain pours into them.There is no proper shelter for the people who are ill, and Lord Mount Dunstan cannot afford to take care of them.""But he WILL--he WILL," broke forth Betty.Her head lifted itself and she spoke almost as if through her small, shut teeth.
A wave of intense belief--high, proud, and obstinate, swept through her.It was a feeling so strong and vibrant that she felt as if Mount Dunstan himself must be reached and upborne by it--as if he himself must hear her.
Rosalie looked at her half-startled, and, for the moment held fascinated by the sudden force rising in her and by the splendid spark of light under her lids.She was reminded of the fierce little Betty of long ago, with her delicate, indomitable small face and the spirit which even at nine years old had somehow seemed so strong and straitly keen of sight that one had known it might always be trusted.Actually, in one way, she had not changed.She saw the truth of things.The next instant, however, inadvertently glancing towards her husband, she caught her breath quickly.Across his heavy-featured face had shot the sudden gleam of a new expression.It was as if he had at the moment recognised something which filled him with a rush of fury he himself was not prepared for.That he did not wish it to be seen she knew by his manner.There was a brief silence in which it passed away.He spoke after it, with disagreeable precision.
"He has had an enormous effect on you--that man," he said to Betty.
He spoke clearly so that she might have the pleasure of being certain that the menservants heard.They were close to the table, handing fruit--professing to be automatons, eyes down, faces expressing nothing, but as quick of hearing as it is said that blind men are.He knew that if he had been in her place and a thing as insultingly significant had been said to him, he should promptly have hurled the nearest object--plate, wine-glass, or decanter--in the face of the speaker.He knew, too, that women cannot hurl projectiles without looking like viragos and fools.The weakly-feminine might burst into tears or into a silly rage and leave the table.There was a distinct breath's space of pause, and Betty, cutting a cluster from a bunch of hothouse grapes presented by the footman at her side, answered as clearly as he had spoken himself.
"He is strong enough to produce an effect on anyone," she said.
"I think you feel that yourself.He is a man who will not be beaten in the end.Fortune will give him some good thing.""He is a fellow who knows well enough on which hand of him good things lie," he said."He will take all that offers itself.""Why not?" Betty said impartially.
"There must be no riding or driving in the neighbourhood of the place," he said next."I will have no risks run." He turned and addressed the butler."Jennings, tell the servants that those are my orders."He sat over his wine but a short time that evening, and when he joined his wife and sister-in-law in the drawing-room he went at once to Betty.In fact, he was in the condition when a man cannot keep away from a woman, but must invent some reason for reaching her whether it is fatuous or plausible.
"What I said to Jennings was an order to you as well as to the people below stairs.I know you are particularly fond of riding in the direction of Mount Dunstan.You are in my care so long as you are in my house.""Orders are not necessary," Betty replied."The day is past when one rushed to smooth pillows and give the wrong medicine when one's friends were ill.If one is not a properly-trained nurse, it is wiser not to risk being very much in the way."He spoke over her shoulder, dropping his voice, though Lady Anstruthers sat apart, appearing to read.
