Lady Betty Across the Water | Page 2

I can tell
I may have to stay in till I'm a hundred, or leak out slowly when
nobody is noticing, as Vic says girls do in the middle classes. This time
I didn't mind, however, for I couldn't see how the letter concerned me;
and as I was dying for a sight of Berengaria's puppies, which were born
last night, I was glad when Mother told me not to fidget after I'd

finished breakfast, but to run down to the kennels if I liked.
Soon I forgot all about the letter, for the puppies were the dearest ducks
on earth (can puppies be ducks, I wonder?), and besides, it was such a
delicious June morning that I could have danced with joy because I was
alive.
I often feel like that; but there's nobody to tell, except the trees and the
dogs, and my poor pony, who is almost too old and second-childish
now to understand. She was my brother Stanforth's pony first of all, and
Stanforth is twenty-eight; then she was Vic's, and Vic is--but Mother
doesn't like Vic's age to be mentioned any more, though she is years
younger than Stan.
I took a walk in the park and afterwards went through the rose-garden,
to see how the roses were getting on. There were a lot of petals for my
pot-pourri, and gathering them up kept me for some time. Then, as the
jar stands in Vic's and my den (she calls it her den, but it has to be part
mine, as I have no other), I was going in by one of the long windows,
when I heard Mother's voice. "The question is," she was saying, "what's
to be done with Betty?"
I turned round and ran away on my tiptoes across the lawn, for I didn't
want to be an eavesdropper, and it would be nearly as bad to have
Mother know I had heard even those few words; she would be so
annoyed, and Mother chills me all the way through to my bones when
she's annoyed. It is wonderful how she does it, for she never scolds; but
the thermometer simply drops to freezing-point, and you feel like a
poor little shivering crocus that has come up too soon, by mistake, to
find the world covered with snow, and no hope of squeezing back into
its own cosy warm bulb again.
I stopped out of doors till luncheon, and played croquet against myself,
wishing that Stan would run down; for although Stan rather fancies
himself as a Gorgeous Person since poor father's death gave him the
title, he is quite nice to me, when it occurs to him. I'm always glad
when he comes to the Towers, but he hardly ever does in the Season;
and then in August and September he's always in Scotland. So is Vic,

for the matter of that, and she hates being in the country in May and
June, though Surrey is so close to town that luckily she doesn't miss
much; but this year we seem to have been horribly poor, for some
reason. Vic says it's Stan's fault. He is extravagant, I suppose. However,
as everything is really his, I don't see that we ought to complain; only,
it can't be pleasant for him to feel that Mother is worrying lest he
should marry and make her a frumpy dowager, before we two girls are
off her hands.
At luncheon, Mother mentioned to me that she had wired to ask Mrs.
Stuyvesant-Knox and her cousin, Miss Sally Woodburn, down for
dinner and to stay the night. "You will be pleased, Betty, as you like
Miss Woodburn so much," she said.
"I like her, but I don't like Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and I don't know how
to pronounce her," said I.
"For goodness sake, don't call her Mrs. Ess Kay to her face again," cut
in Vic.
"I didn't mean to; it slipped out," I defended myself. "Besides, it was
you who nicknamed her that."
"Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox is a very charming person, and a thorough
woman of the world," Mother asserted, in that way she has of saying
the word which you had better leave for the last if you know what is
good for you.
I did leave it for the last so far as answering was concerned, but inside,
where, thank goodness, even her eyes can't see, I was wondering hard
when Mother had formed that flattering opinion. A fortnight ago I
heard her announce that Americans "got upon her nerves," and she
hoped she would not soon be called upon to meet any more. As she had
made this remark directly after bidding Mrs. Ess Kay good-bye, I
naturally supposed that lady to be the immediate cause for it. But now,
it seemed, this was not