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In one of the walled kitchen gardens she came upon an elderly gardener at work. At the sound of her approaching steps he glanced round and then stood up, touching his forelock in respectful but startled salute. He was so plainly amazed at the sight of her that she explained herself. "Good-morning," she said. "I am her ladyship's sister, Miss Vanderpoel. I came yesterday evening.
She would surely come soon to town. It was too late for the first Drawing-room this year. When did Mrs. Vanderpoel think she would be presented? Would Lady Anstruthers present her? Mrs. Vanderpoel could not bring her back to Rosy, and the nature of the change which had made it difficult to recognise her.
She had excited Reuben Vanderpoel's admiration by taking off her petticoat one bitter winter's day to sell it to a squaw in exchange for an ornament for which she chanced to know another squaw would pay with a skin of value. The first Mrs. Vanderpoel was as wonderful as her husband. They were both wonderful.
The expression Reuben S. Vanderpoel wore made it an agreeable thing to talk to go on. He evidently cared to hear. So Selden did his best, and enjoyed himself in doing it. His style made for realism and brought things clearly before one.
When Bettina came in, Vanderpoel, looking up to smile at her in welcome, was struck by the fact that as a background to an entering figure of tall, splendid girlhood in a ball dress it was admirable, throwing up all its whiteness and grace and sweep of line. He was always glad to see Betty.
All the same its pretty fierce to have to stand alone at the end of it, not able to help yourself, because some of your relations were crazy fools. I don't wonder he feels mad." "Does he?" Mr. Vanderpoel inquired. "He's straight," said G. Selden sympathetically. "He's all right. But only money can help him, and he's got none, so he has to stand and stare at things falling to pieces.
He discovered that she had not apparently been so guilty, but it was evident that there were moments when Mrs. Vanderpoel was uneasy and disposed to ask anxious questions.
The Broadmorlands divorce scandal, having made conversation during a season quite forty years before Miss Vanderpoel appeared at Stornham Court, had been laid upon a lower shelf and buried beneath other stories long enough to be forgotten. Only one individual had not forgotten it, and he was the Duke of Broadmorlands himself, in whose mind it remained hideously clear.
As the first Reuben Vanderpoel had studied the countenances and indicative methods of the inhabitants of the new parts of the country in which it was his intention to do business, so the modernity of his descendant applied itself to observation for reasons parallel in nature though not in actual kind.
But, oh, the slow, penetrating rainfall, and the cold damp clay! She rose, making an involuntary sound which was half a moan. The long mirror set between two windows showed her momentarily an awful young figure, throwing up its arms. Was that Betty Vanderpoel that? "What does one do," she said, "when the world comes to an end? What does one do?"
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