When Mr. Vanderpoel landed in England his wife was with him. This quiet-faced woman, who was known to be on her way to join her daughter in England, was much discussed, envied, and glanced at, when she promenaded1 the deck with her husband, or sat in her chair softly wrapped in wonderful furs. Gradually, during the past months, she had been told certain modified truths connected with her elder daughter's marriage. They had been painful truths, but had been so softened2 and expurgated of their worst features that it had been possible to bear them, when one realised that they did not, at least, mean that Rosy3 had forgotten or ceased to love her mother and father, or wish to visit her home. The steady clearness of foresight4 and readiness of resource which were often spoken of as being specially5 characteristic of Reuben S. Vanderpoel, were all required, and employed with great tenderness, in the management of this situation. As little as it was possible that his wife should know, was the utmost she must hear and be hurt by. Unless ensuing events compelled further revelations, the rest of it should be kept from her. As further protection, her husband had frankly7 asked her to content herself with a degree of limited information.
“I have meant all our lives, Annie, to keep from you the unpleasant things a woman need not be troubled with,” he had said. “I promised myself I would when you were a girl. I knew you would face things, if I needed your help, but you were a gentle little soul, like Rosy, and I never intended that you should bear what was useless. Anstruthers was a blackguard, and girls of all nations have married blackguards before. When you have Rosy safe at home, and know nothing can hurt her again, you both may feel you would like to talk it over. Till then we won't go into detail. You trust me, I know, when I tell you that you shall hold Rosy in your arms very soon. We may have something of a fight, but there can only be one end to it in a country as decent as England. Anstruthers isn't exactly what I should call an Englishman. Men rather like him are to be found in two or three places.” His good-looking, shrewd, elderly face lighted with a fine smile. “My handsome Betty has saved us a good deal by carrying out her fifteen-year-old plan of going to find her sister,” he ended.
Before they landed they had decided8 that Mrs. Vanderpoel should be comfortably established in a hotel in London, and that after this was arranged, her husband should go to Stornham Court alone. If Sir Nigel could be induced to listen to logic9, Rosalie, her child, and Betty should come at once to town.
“And, if he won't listen to logic,” added Mr. Vanderpoel, with a dry composure, “they shall come just the same, my dear.” And his wife put her arms round his neck and kissed him because she knew what he said was quite true, and she admired him—as she had always done—greatly.
But when the pilot came on board and there began to stir in the ship the agreeable and exciting bustle10 of the delivery of letters and welcoming telegrams, among Mr. Vanderpoel's many yellow envelopes he opened one the contents of which caused him to stand still for some moments—so still, indeed, that some of the bystanders began to touch each other's elbows and whisper. He certainly read the message two or three times before he folded it up, returned it to its receptacle, and walked gravely to his wife's sitting-room11.
“Reuben!” she exclaimed, after her first look at him, “have you bad news? Oh, I hope not!”
He came and sat down quietly beside her, taking her hand.
“Don't be frightened, Annie, my dear,” he said. “I have just been reminded of a verse in the Bible—about vengeance13 not belonging to mere14 human beings. Nigel Anstruthers has had a stroke of paralysis15, and it is not his first. Apparently16, even if he lies on his back for some months thinking of harm, he won't be able to do it. He is finished.”
When he was carried by the express train through the country, he saw all that Betty had seen, though the summer had passed, and there were neither green trees nor hedges. He knew all that the long letters had meant of stirred emotion and affection, and he was strongly moved, though his mind was full of many things. There were the farmhouses17, the square-towered churches, the red-pointed hop12 oasts, and the village children. How distinctly she had made him see them! His Betty—his splendid Betty! His heart beat at the thought of seeing her high, young black head, and holding her safe in his arms again. Safe! He resented having used the word, because there was a shock in seeming to admit the possibility that anything in the universe could do wrong to her. Yet one man had been villain18 enough to mean her harm, and to threaten her with it. He slightly shuddered19 as he thought of how the man was finished—done for.
The train began to puff20 more loudly, as it slackened its pace. It was drawing near to a rustic21 little station, and, as it passed in, he saw a carriage standing22 outside, waiting on the road, and a footman in a long coat, glancing into each window as the train went by. Two or three country people were watching it intently. Miss Vanderpoel's father was coming up from London on it. The stationmaster rushed to open the carriage door, and the footman hastened forward, but a tall lovely thing in grey was opposite the step as Mr. Vanderpoel descended23 it to the platform. She did not recognise the presence of any other human being than himself. For the moment she seemed to forget even the broad-shouldered man who had plainly come with her. As Reuben S. Vanderpoel folded her in his arms, she folded him and kissed him as he was not sure she had ever kissed him before.
“My splendid Betty! My own fine girl!” he said.
And when she cried out “Father! Father!” she bent24 and kissed the breast of his coat.
He knew who the big young man was before she turned to present him.
“This is Lord Mount Dunstan, father,” she said. “Since Nigel was brought home, he has been very good to us.”
Reuben S. Vanderpoel looked well into the man's eyes, as he shook hands with him warmly, and this was what he said to himself:
“Yes, she's safe. This is quite safe. It is to be trusted with the whole thing.”
Not many days after her husband's arrival at Stornham Court, Mrs. Va............