The Shuttle & The Making of a Marchioness. Frances Hodgson Burnett

was what Captain Osborn said. If you don’t mind, I should like to ask you something.”

      “I don’t mind. You are a reasonable woman, Emily. One’s safe with you.”

      “It is something connected with the Osborns.”

      “Indeed!” chilling slightly. “I don’t care about them, you know.”

      “You don’t dislike her, do you?”

      “No-o, not exactly.”

      “She’s—the truth is, she is not at all well,” with a trifle of hesitance; “she ought to be better taken care of than she is in lodgings, and they are obliged to take very cheap ones.”

      “If he had been a more respectable fellow his circumstances would have been different,” rather stiffly.

      Emily felt alarmed. She had not dreamed of the temerity of any remark suggestive of criticism.

      “Yes,” hastily, “of course. I am sure you know best; but—I thought perhaps—”

      Walderhurst liked her timidity. To see a fine, tall, upstanding creature colour in that way was not disagreeable when one realised that she coloured because she feared she might offend one.

      “What did you think ‘perhaps’?” was his lenient response.

      Her colour grew warmer, but this time from a sense of relief, because he was evidently not as displeased as he might have been.

      “I took a long walk this morning,” she said. “I went through the High Wood and came out by the place called The Kennel Farm. I was thinking a good deal of poor Mrs. Osborn because I had heard from her this morning, and she seemed so unhappy. I was looking at her letter again when I turned into the lane leading to the house. Then I saw that no one was living there, and I could not help going in to look—it is such a delightful old building, with its queer windows and chimneys, and the ivy which seems never to have been clipped. The house is so roomy and comfortable—I peeped in at windows and saw big fireplaces with benches inside them. It seems a pity that such a place should not be lived in and—well, I thought how kind it would be of you to lend it to the Osborns while they are in England.”

      “It would indeed be kind,” remarked his lordship, without fervour.

      Her momentary excitement led Emily to take the liberty of putting out her hand to touch his. She always felt as if connubial familiarities were rather a liberty; at least she had not, so far, been able to overcome a feeling rather of that order. And this was another thing Walderhurst by no means disliked. He himself was not aware that he was a man with a good deal of internal vanity which enjoyed soothing food. In fact, he had not a sufficiently large brain to know very much about himself or to be able to analyse his reasons for liking or disliking people or things. He thought he knew his reasons for his likes and dislikes, but he was frequently very far away from the clear, impersonal truth about them. Only the brilliant logic and sensitiveness of genius really approaches knowledge of itself, and as a result it is usually extremely unhappy. Walderhurst was never unhappy. He was sometimes dissatisfied or annoyed, but that was as far as his emotions went.

      Being pleased by the warm touch of Emily’s hand, he patted her wrist and looked agreeably marital.

      “The place was built originally for a family huntsman, and the pack was kept there. That is why it is called The Kennel Farm. When the last lease fell out it remained unlet because I don’t care for an ordinary tenant. It’s the kind of house that is becoming rare, and the bumpkin farmer and his family don’t value antiquities.”

      “If it were furnished as it could be furnished,” said Emily, “it would be beautiful. One can get old things in London if one can afford them. I’ve seen them when I’ve been shopping. They are not cheap, but you can get them if you really search.”

      “Would you like to furnish it?” Walderhurst inquired. The consciousness that he could, if he chose, do the utmost thing of its kind in this way, at the moment assumed a certain proportion of interest to him under the stimulation of the wonder and delight which leaped into Emily’s eyes as the possibility confronted her. Having been born without imagination, his wealth had not done for him anything out of the ordinary everyday order.

      “Would I like to do it? Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “Why, in all my life I have never dreamed of being able to do such things.”

      That, of course, was true, he reflected, and the fact added to his appreciation of the moment. There were, of course, many people to whom it would be impossible to contemplate the spending of a sum of money of any importance in the indulgence of a wish founded on mere taste. He had not thought of the thing particularly in detail before, and now that he realised the significance of the fact as a fact, Emily had afforded him a new sensation.

      “You may do it now, if you wish,” he said. “I once went over the place with an architect, and he said the whole thing could be made comfortable and the atmosphere of the period wholly retained for about a thousand pounds. It is not really dilapidated and it is worth saving. The gables and chimneys are very fine. I will attend to that, and you can do the rest in your own way.”

      “It may take a good deal of money to buy the old things,” gasped Emily. “They are not cheap in these days. People have found out that they are wanted.”

      “It won’t cost twenty thousand pounds,” Walderhurst answered. “It is a farmhouse after all, and you are a practical woman. Restore it. You have my permission.”

      Emily put her hands over her eyes. This was being the Marchioness of Walderhurst, and made Mortimer Street a thing still more incredible. When she dropped her hands, she laughed even a trifle hysterically.

      “I couldn’t thank you,” she said. “It is as I said. I never quite believed there were people who were able to think of doing such things.”

      “There are such people,” he said. “You are one of them.”

      “And—and—” She put it to him with a sudden recollection of the thing her emotions had momentarily swept away. “Oh! I must not forget, because I am so pleased. When it is furnished—”

      “Oh! the Osborns? Well, we will let them have it for a few months, at any rate.”

      “They will be so thankful,” emotionally. “You will be doing them such a favour.”

      “I am doing it for you, not for them. I like to see you pleased.”

      She went to take off her hat with moisture in her eyes, being overpowered by his munificence. When she reached her room she walked about a little, because she was excited, and then sat down to think of the relief her next letter would carry to Mrs. Osborn. Suddenly she got up, and, going to her bedside, knelt down. She respectfully poured forth devout thanks to the Deity she appealed to when she aided in the intoning of the Litany on Sundays. Her conception of this Power was of the simplest conventional nature. She would have been astonished and frightened if she had been told that she regarded the Omnipotent Being as possessing many of the attributes of the Marquis of Walderhurst. This was, in fact, true without detracting from her reverence in either case.

      Chapter Ten

       Table of Contents

      The Osborns were breakfasting in their unpleasant sitting-room in Duke Street when Lady Walderhurst’s letter arrived. The toast was tough and smoked, and the eggs were of the variety labelled “18 a shilling” in the shops; the apartment was also redolent of kippered herring, and Captain Osborn was scowling over the landlady’s weekly bill when Hester opened the envelope stamped with a coronet. (Each time Emily wrote a note and found herself confronting the coronet on the paper, she blushed a little and felt that she must presently awake from her dream.) Mrs. Osborn herself was looking far from amiable. She was ill and nervous and irritable, and had,