THE SHUTTLE
BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE
II. A LACK OF PERCEPTION
III. YOUNG LADY ANSTRUTHERS
IV. A MISTAKE OF THE POSTBOY'S
V. ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC
VI. AN UNFAIR ENDOWMENT
VII. ON BOARD THE "MERIDIANA"
VIII. THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER
IX. LADY JANE GREY
X. "IS LADY ANSTRUTHERS AT HOME?"
XI. "I THOUGHT YOU HAD ALL FORGOTTEN"
XII. UGHTRED
XIII. ONE OF THE NEW YORK DRESSES
XIV. IN THE GARDENS
XV. THE FIRST MAN
XVI. THE PARTICULAR INCIDENT
XVII. TOWNLINSON & SHEPPARD
XVIII. THE FIFTEENTH EARL OF MOUNT DUNSTAN
XIX. SPRING IN BOND STREET
XX. THINGS OCCUR IN STORNHAM VILLAGE
XXI. KEDGERS
XXII. ONE OF MR. VANDERPOEL'S LETTERS
XXIII. INTRODUCING G. SELDEN
XXIV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF STORNHAM
XXV. "WE BEGAN TO MARRY THEM, MY GOOD FELLOW!"
XXVI. "WHAT IT MUST BE TO BE YOU--JUST YOU!"
XXVII. LIFE
XXVIII. SETTING THEM THINKING
XXIX. THE THREAD OF G. SELDEN
XXX. A RETURN
XXXI. NO, SHE WOULD NOT
XXXII. A GREAT BALL
XXXIII. FOR LADY JANE
XXXIV. RED GODWYN
XXXV. THE TIDAL WAVE
XXXVI. BY THE ROADSIDE EVERYWHERE
XXXVII. CLOSED CORRIDORS
XXXVIII. AT SHANDY'S
XXXIX. ON THE MARSHES
XL. "DON'T GO ON WITH THIS"
XLI. SHE WOULD DO SOMETHING
XLII. IN THE BALLROOM
XLIII. HIS CHANCE
XLIV. A FOOTSTEP
XLV. THE PASSING BELL
XLVI. LISTENING
XLVII. "I HAVE NO WORD OR LOOK TO REMEMBER"
XLVIII. THE MOMENT
XLIX. AT STORNHAM AND AT BROADMORLANDS
L. THE PRIMEVAL THING
THE SHUTTLE
CHAPTER I
THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE
No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and
heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held
and guided by the great hand of Fate. Fate alone
saw the meaning of the web it wove, the might of it, and
its place in the making of a world's history. Men thought
but little of either web or weaving, calling them by other
names and lighter ones, for the time unconscious of the strength
of the thread thrown across thousands of miles of leaping,
heaving, grey or blue ocean.
Fate and Life planned the weaving, and it seemed mere
circumstance which guided the Shuttle to and fro between
two worlds divided by a gulf broader and deeper than the
thousands of miles of salt, fierce sea--the gulf of a bitter
quarrel deepened by hatred and the shedding of brothers'
blood. Between the two worlds of East and West there was
no will to draw nearer. Each held apart. Those who had
rebelled against that which their souls called tyranny, having
struggled madly and shed blood in tearing themselves free,
turned stern backs upon their unconquered enemies, broke all
cords that bound them to the past, flinging off ties of name,
kinship and rank, beginning with fierce disdain a new life.
Those who, being rebelled against, found the rebels too
passionate in their determination and too desperate in their
defence of their strongholds to be less than unconquerable,
sailed back haughtily to the world which seemed so far the
greater power. Plunging into new battles, they added new
conquests and splendour to their land, looking back with
something of contempt to the half-savage West left to build its
own civilisation without other aid than the strength of its own
strong right hand and strong uncultured brain.
But while the two worlds held apart, the Shuttle, weaving
slowly in the great hand of Fate, drew them closer and held
them firm, each of them all unknowing for many a year, that
what had at first been mere threads of gossamer, was forming
a web whose strength in time none could compute, whose
severance could be accomplished but by tragedy and convulsion.
The weaving was but in its early and slow-moving years
when this story opens. Steamers crossed and recrossed the
Atlantic, but they accomplished the journey at leisure and with
heavy rollings and all such discomforts as small craft can
afford. Their staterooms and decks were not crowded with
people to whom the voyage was a mere incident--in many
cases a yearly one. "A crossing" in those days was an event.
It was planned seriously, long thought of, discussed and rediscussed, with and among the various members of the family
to which the voyager belonged. A certain boldness,
bordering on recklessness, was almost to be presupposed in the
individual who, turning his back upon New York, Philadelphia,
Boston, and like cities, turned his face towards "Europe."
In those days when the Shuttle wove at leisure, a man
did not lightly run over to London, or Paris, or Berlin, he
gravely went to "Europe."
The journey being likely to be made once in a lifetime, the
traveller's intention was to see as much as possible, to visit
as many cities cathedrals, ruins, galleries, as his time and
purse would allow. People who could speak with any degree
of familiarity of Hyde Park, the Champs Elysees, the Pincio,
had gained a certain dignity. The ability to touch with an
intimate bearing upon such localities was a raison de plus for
being asked out to tea or to dinner. To possess photographs
and relics was to be of interest, to have seen European
celebrities even at a distance, to have wandered about the
outside of poets' gardens and philosophers' houses, was to be
entitled to respect. The period was a far cry from the time when
the Shuttle, having shot to and fro, faster and faster, week by
week, month by month, weaving new threads into its web
each year, has woven warp and woof until they bind far
shore to shore.
It was in comparatively early days that the first thread we
follow was woven into the web. Many such have been woven
since and have added greater strength than any others, twining
the cord of sex and home-building and race-founding.
But this was a slight and weak one, being only the thread of
the life of one of Reuben Vanderpoel's daughters--the pretty
little simple one whose name was Rosalie.
They were--the Vanderpoels--of the Americans whose
fortunes were a portion of the history of their country. The
building of these fortunes had been a part of, or had created
epochs and crises. Their millions could scarcely be regarded
as private property. Newspapers bandied them about, so to
speak, employing them as factors in argument, using them
as figures of speech, incorporating them into methods of
calculation. Literature touched upon them, moral systems
considered them, stories for the young treated them gravely as
illustrative.
The first Reuben Vanderpoel, who in early days of danger
had traded with savages for the pelts of wild animals, was
the lauded hero of stories of thrift and enterprise. Throughout
his hard-working life he had been irresistibly impelled to
action by an absolute genius of commerce, expressing itself
at the outset by the exhibition of courage in mere exchange
and barter. An alert power to perceive the potential value
of things and the possible malleability of men and circumstances,
had stood him in marvellous good stead. He had bought
at low prices things which in the eyes of the less discerning
were worthless, but, having obtained possession of such things,
the less discerning had almost invariably awakened to the
fact that, in his hands, values increased, and methods of
remunerative disposition, being sought, were found. Nothing
remained unutilisable. The practical, sordid, uneducated
little man developed the power to create demand for his own
supplies. If he was betrayed into an error, he quickly retrieved
it. He could live upon nothing and consequently could travel
anywhere in search of such things as he desired. He could
barely read and write, and could not spell, but he was daring
and astute. His untaught brain was that of a financier, his
blood burned with the fever of but one desire--the desire to
accumulate. Money expressed to his nature, not expenditure,
but investment in such small or large properties as could be
resold at profit in the near or far future. The future held
fascinations for him. He bought nothing for his own pleasure
or comfort, nothing which could not be sold or bartered
again. He married a woman who was a trader's daughter
and shared his passion for gain. She was of North of England
blood, her father having been a hard-fisted small tradesman
in an unimportant town, who had been daring enough to
emigrate when emigration meant the facing of unknown dangers
in a half-savage land. 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. They were the
founders of the fortune which a century and a half later was
the delight--in fact the piece de ...
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