TRANSKRİPT 🔗
WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.690 --> 00:00:11.710
CHAPTER IX. LADY JANE GRAY. It seemed upon the whole
2
00:00:11.810 --> 00:00:14.480
even absurd that after a shock so awful and a
3
00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:17.300
panic wild enough to cause people to expose their very
4
00:00:17.379 --> 00:00:21.679
souls— for there were, of course, endless anecdotes to be related afterwards,
5
00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.839
illustrative of grotesque terror, cowardice, and utter abandonment of all
6
00:00:25.899 --> 00:00:29.500
shadows of convention— that all should end in an anticlimax of
7
00:00:29.579 --> 00:00:32.640
trifling danger, upon which in a day or two jokes
8
00:00:32.700 --> 00:00:36.600
might be made. Even the tramp-steamer had not been seriously injured,
9
00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:39.060
though its injuries were likely to be less easy of
10
00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:43.579
repair than those of the Meridiana. Still, a passenger remarked
11
00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:46.509
when she steamed into the dock at Liverpool, we might
12
00:00:46.600 --> 00:00:49.049
all be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean this morning.
13
00:00:49.590 --> 00:00:52.229
Just think what columns there would have been in the newspapers.
14
00:00:52.789 --> 00:00:57.109
Imagine Miss Vanderpool's being drowned. I was very rude to
15
00:00:57.149 --> 00:00:59.640
Louise when I found her wringing her hands over you'
16
00:00:59.939 --> 00:01:03.729
And I was rude to Blanche,' Bettina said to Mrs. Worthington.'
17
00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:06.120
In fact, I believe I was rude to a number
18
00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:10.409
of people that night.' I am rather ashamed.'' You called
19
00:01:10.469 --> 00:01:13.030
me a donkey,' said Blanche.' But it was the best
20
00:01:13.090 --> 00:01:15.549
thing you could have done.' You frightened me into putting
21
00:01:15.629 --> 00:01:18.010
on my shoes' instead of trying to comb my hair
22
00:01:18.069 --> 00:01:20.969
with them.' It was startling to see you march into
23
00:01:21.010 --> 00:01:23.849
the stateroom,' the only person who had not been turned
24
00:01:23.890 --> 00:01:27.019
into a gibbering idiot.' I know I was gibbering, and
25
00:01:27.060 --> 00:01:30.579
I know Mari was.' We both gibbered at the red-haired
26
00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:33.439
man when he came in, said Mari. We clutched at
27
00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:36.549
him and gibbered together. Where is the red-haired man, Betty?
28
00:01:36.609 --> 00:01:38.989
Perhaps we made him ill. I've not seen him since
29
00:01:39.049 --> 00:01:43.709
that moment. He's in the second cabin, I suppose, Bettina answered,
30
00:01:44.069 --> 00:01:47.030
but I have not seen him either. We ought to
31
00:01:47.069 --> 00:01:49.189
get up a testimonial and give it to him, because
32
00:01:49.230 --> 00:01:52.069
he did not gibber, said Blanche. He was rude and
33
00:01:52.109 --> 00:01:55.730
as sensible as you were, Betty. They did not see
34
00:01:55.769 --> 00:01:58.549
him again, in fact, at that time. he had reasons
35
00:01:58.590 --> 00:02:01.769
of his own for preferring to remain unseen. The truth
36
00:02:01.849 --> 00:02:04.370
was that the nearer his approach to his native shores,
37
00:02:04.709 --> 00:02:08.349
the nastier he was perfectly conscious his temper became, and
38
00:02:08.370 --> 00:02:11.050
he did not wish to expose himself by any incident
39
00:02:11.129 --> 00:02:13.879
which might cause him stupidly and obviously to lose it.
40
00:02:14.849 --> 00:02:18.210
The maid Louise, however, recognised him among her companions in
41
00:02:18.229 --> 00:02:21.550
the third-class carriage in which she travelled to town. To
42
00:02:21.590 --> 00:02:25.090
her mind, whose opinions were regulated by neatly arranged standards,
43
00:02:25.550 --> 00:02:28.759
he looked morose and shabbily dressed. Some of the other
44
00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:32.539
second-cabin passengers had made themselves quite smart in various, not
45
00:02:32.599 --> 00:02:36.460
too distinguished ways. He had not changed his dress at all,
46
00:02:36.759 --> 00:02:39.250
and the large valise upon the luggage-rack was worn and
47
00:02:39.310 --> 00:02:42.469
battered as if with long and rough usage. The woman
48
00:02:42.509 --> 00:02:45.150
wondered a little if he would address her, and inquire
49
00:02:45.250 --> 00:02:48.110
after the health of her mistress, but being an astute
50
00:02:48.189 --> 00:02:51.229
creature she only wondered this for an instant. The next
51
00:02:51.310 --> 00:02:54.030
she realised that, for one reason or another, it was
52
00:02:54.110 --> 00:02:56.250
clear that he was not of the tribe of second-rate
53
00:02:56.330 --> 00:02:59.610
persons who pursue an accidental acquaintance with their superiors in
54
00:02:59.689 --> 00:03:04.120
fortune through sociable interchange with their footmen or maids. When
55
00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:06.919
the train slackened its speed at the platform of the station,
56
00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.199
he got up, reaching down his valise and leaving the carriage,
57
00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:13.560
strode to the nearest handsome cab, waving the porter aside.
58
00:03:14.300 --> 00:03:17.349
Charing Cross, he called out to the driver, jumped in
59
00:03:17.610 --> 00:03:21.039
and was rattled away. During the years which had passed
60
00:03:21.099 --> 00:03:24.469
since Rosalie Vanderpool first came to London as Lady Anstruthers,
61
00:03:25.009 --> 00:03:28.610
numbers of huge, luxurious hotels had grown up, principally as
62
00:03:28.689 --> 00:03:31.389
it seemed that Americans should swarm into them and live
63
00:03:31.430 --> 00:03:34.159
at an expense which reminded them of their native land.
64
00:03:35.099 --> 00:03:38.139
Such establishments would never have been built for English people,
65
00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:41.099
whose habit it is merely to stop at hotels, not
66
00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:44.080
to live in them. The tendency of the American is
67
00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:47.009
to live in his
Load full transcript
hotel, even though his intention may
68
00:03:47.050 --> 00:03:49.939
be only to remain in it two days. he is
69
00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:53.960
accustomed to doing himself extremely well in proportion to his resources,
70
00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:57.259
whether they be great or small, and the comforts, as
71
00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:00.819
also the luxuries he allows himself and his domestic appendages,
72
00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:04.039
are in a proportion much higher in its relation to
73
00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:07.750
these resources than it would be were he English, French, German,
74
00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:11.810
or Italian. As a consequence, he expects when he goes forth,
75
00:04:11.889 --> 00:04:16.029
whether holiday-making or on business, that his hostelry shall surround him,
76
00:04:16.430 --> 00:04:20.110
either with holiday luxuries and gaiety, or with such lavishness
77
00:04:20.170 --> 00:04:22.560
of comfort as shall alleviate the wear and tear of
78
00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:26.920
business cares and fatigues. The rich man demands something almost
79
00:04:26.980 --> 00:04:29.259
as good as he has left at home. The man
80
00:04:29.300 --> 00:04:33.579
of moderate means something much better. Certain persons, given to
81
00:04:33.620 --> 00:04:37.089
regarding public wants and desires as foundations for the fortune
82
00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:41.329
of business schemes, having discovered this, the enormous and sumptuous
83
00:04:41.389 --> 00:04:44.800
hotel evolved itself from their astute knowledge of common facts.
84
00:04:45.649 --> 00:04:49.420
At the entrances of these hotels, omnibuses and cabs laden
85
00:04:49.459 --> 00:04:53.180
with trunks and packages frequently bearing labels marked with red
86
00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:58.079
letters s s so-and-so stateroom hold baggage-room drew up and
87
00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:02.139
deposited their contents and burdens at regular intervals then men
88
00:05:02.180 --> 00:05:06.009
with keen and often humorous faces or almost painfully anxious
89
00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:10.230
ones their exceedingly well-dressed wives and more or less attractive
90
00:05:10.290 --> 00:05:14.949
and vivacious-looking daughters their eager little girls and un-english-looking little
91
00:05:14.990 --> 00:05:18.699
boys passed through the corridors in flocks and took possession
92
00:05:18.720 --> 00:05:22.689
of suites of rooms sometimes for twenty-four hours sometimes for
93
00:05:22.730 --> 00:05:26.550
six weeks the worthingtons took possession of such a suite
94
00:05:26.610 --> 00:05:30.850
in such a hotel betty vanderpoel's apartments faced the embankment
95
00:05:31.610 --> 00:05:33.750
from her window she could look out at the broad
96
00:05:33.829 --> 00:05:37.610
splendid muddy thames slowly rolling in its grave stately way
97
00:05:37.670 --> 00:05:42.060
beneath its bridges bearing with it heavy lumbering barges excited
98
00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:46.180
tooting little penny steamers and craft of various
shapes and sizes,
99
00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:49.100
the errand or burden of each meaning a different story.
100
00:05:49.879 --> 00:05:52.139
It had been to Bettina one of her pleasures of
101
00:05:52.199 --> 00:05:55.509
the finest Epicurean flavour, to reflect that she had never
102
00:05:55.569 --> 00:05:58.689
had any brief and superficial knowledge of England, as she
103
00:05:58.730 --> 00:06:00.670
had never been to the country at all in those
104
00:06:00.750 --> 00:06:04.209
earlier years, when her knowledge of places must necessarily have
105
00:06:04.230 --> 00:06:07.620
been always the incomplete one of either a schoolgirl traveller
106
00:06:07.959 --> 00:06:10.959
or a schoolgirl resident, whose views were limited by the
107
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:15.019
walls of restriction built around her. if relations of the
108
00:06:15.139 --> 00:06:18.660
usual ease and friendliness had existed between lady anstruthers and
109
00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:22.560
her family bettina would doubtless have known her sister's adopted
110
00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:25.720
country well it would have been a thing so natural
111
00:06:25.779 --> 00:06:28.439
as to be almost inevitable that she would have crossed
112
00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:32.139
the channel to spend her holidays at stornham as matters
113
00:06:32.189 --> 00:06:35.250
had stood however The child herself, in the days when
114
00:06:35.269 --> 00:06:38.250
she had been a child, had had most definite private
115
00:06:38.290 --> 00:06:41.329
views on the subject of visits to England. She had
116
00:06:41.389 --> 00:06:44.009
made up her young mind absolutely that she would not,
117
00:06:44.350 --> 00:06:47.079
if it were decently possible to avoid it, set her
118
00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:50.000
foot upon English soil until she was old enough and
119
00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:52.399
strong enough to carry out what had been at first
120
00:06:52.759 --> 00:06:56.680
her passionately romantic plans for discovering and facing the truth
121
00:06:56.720 --> 00:07:00.259
of the reason for the apparent change in Rosie. When
122
00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:03.350
she went to England she would go to Rosie. As
123
00:07:03.410 --> 00:07:06.029
she had grown older, having in the course of education
124
00:07:06.069 --> 00:07:09.389
and travel seen most continental countries, she had liked to
125
00:07:09.410 --> 00:07:12.009
think that she had saved, put aside for less hasty
126
00:07:12.050 --> 00:07:15.170
consumption and more delicate appreciation of flavours, as it were,
127
00:07:15.649 --> 00:07:18.990
the country she was conscious she cared for most.' It
128
00:07:19.050 --> 00:07:21.649
is England we love, we Americans,' she had said to
129
00:07:21.709 --> 00:07:25.370
her father.' What could be more natural? We belong to it,
130
00:07:25.589 --> 00:07:28.569
it belongs to us. I could never be convinced that
131
00:07:28.610 --> 00:07:32.240
the old tie of blood does not count.' All nationalities
132
00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:34.759
have come to us since we became a nation, but
133
00:07:34.819 --> 00:07:37.759
most of us in the beginning came from England. We
134
00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:41.129
are touching about it, too. We trifle with France and
135
00:07:41.170 --> 00:07:45.829
labour with Germany, we sentimentalise over Italy and ecstasise over Spain,
136
00:07:46.350 --> 00:07:49.449
but England we love. How it moves us when we
137
00:07:49.490 --> 00:07:51.750
go to it, how we gush if we are simple
138
00:07:51.790 --> 00:07:55.089
and effusive, how we are stirred imaginatively if we are
139
00:07:55.129 --> 00:07:58.370
of the perceptive class— I have heard the commonest little
140
00:07:58.410 --> 00:08:03.149
half-educated woman say the prettiest clumsy emotional things about what
141
00:08:03.189 --> 00:08:06.439
she has seen there. A New England schoolma'am who has
142
00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:09.319
made a cook's tour will almost have tears in her
143
00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:12.620
voice as she wanders on with the commonplaces about hawthorn
144
00:08:12.660 --> 00:08:16.670
hedges and thatched cottages and white or red farms. Why
145
00:08:16.750 --> 00:08:21.149
are we not unconsciously pathetic about German cottages and Italian villas?
146
00:08:21.769 --> 00:08:24.470
Because we have not in centuries past had the habit
147
00:08:24.509 --> 00:08:27.189
of being born in them, It is only an English
148
00:08:27.269 --> 00:08:30.670
cottage in an English lane, whether white with hawthorn blossoms
149
00:08:30.730 --> 00:08:33.850
or bare with winter, that wakes in us that little yearning,
150
00:08:33.950 --> 00:08:37.629
grovelling tenderness that is so sweet. It is only nature
151
00:08:37.700 --> 00:08:42.299
calling us home. Mrs. Worthington came in during the course
152
00:08:42.340 --> 00:08:44.820
of the morning to find her standing before her window
153
00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:48.899
looking out at the Thames, the embankment, the handsome cabs themselves,
154
00:08:49.379 --> 00:08:53.399
with an absolutely serious absorption. This changed to a smile
155
00:08:53.440 --> 00:08:57.210
as she turned to greet her.' I' m delighted,' she said.'
156
00:08:57.080 --> 00:09:00.379
I could scarcely tell you how much. The impression is
157
00:09:00.539 --> 00:09:03.840
all new, and I'm excited a little by everything. I'm
158
00:09:03.899 --> 00:09:06.559
so intensely glad that I have saved it so long,
159
00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:09.340
and that I have known it only as part of literature.
160
00:09:10.019 --> 00:09:12.179
I am even charmed that it rains, and that the
161
00:09:12.220 --> 00:09:16.340
cabman's macintoshes are shining and wet.' She drew forward a chair,
162
00:09:16.419 --> 00:09:21.059
and Mrs. Worthington sat down, looking at her with involuntary admiration.'
163
00:09:20.509 --> 00:09:24.740
You look as if you were delighted,' she said. Your eyes,
164
00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:28.240
you have amazing eyes, Betty. I'm trying to
picture to
165
00:09:28.299 --> 00:09:31.100
myself what Lady Anstruthers will feel when she sees you.
166
00:09:31.659 --> 00:09:36.210
What were you like when she married?' Bettina sat down, smiling,
167
00:09:36.250 --> 00:09:39.809
and looking indeed quite incredibly lovely. She was capable of
168
00:09:39.870 --> 00:09:42.289
a warmth and a sweetness which were as embracing as
169
00:09:42.350 --> 00:09:46.259
other qualities she possessed were powerful.' I was eight years old,'
170
00:09:46.269 --> 00:09:48.690
she said.' I was a rude little girl, with long
171
00:09:48.730 --> 00:09:51.840
legs and a high, determined voice. I know I was rude,
172
00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:55.200
I remember, answering back. I seem to have heard that
173
00:09:55.220 --> 00:09:57.139
you did not like your brother-in-law, and that you were
174
00:09:57.159 --> 00:10:01.529
opposed to the marriage. Imagine the undisciplined audacity of a
175
00:10:01.570 --> 00:10:04.460
girl of eight opposing the marriage of her grown-up sister.
176
00:10:05.149 --> 00:10:08.080
I was quite capable of it. You see, in those
177
00:10:08.139 --> 00:10:10.419
days we had not been trained at all, one had
178
00:10:10.500 --> 00:10:14.840
only been allowed tremendous liberty, and interfered conversationally with one's
179
00:10:14.919 --> 00:10:18.059
elders and betters at any moment. I was an American
180
00:10:18.100 --> 00:10:23.769
little girl, and American little girls were really— they really were— with
181
00:10:22.690 --> 00:10:26.090
a laugh whose musical sound was, after all, wholly non-committal.
182
00:10:27.090 --> 00:10:29.710
You did not treat Sir Nigel Amstruthers as one of
183
00:10:29.750 --> 00:10:33.470
your betters? He was one of my elders at all events,
184
00:10:33.970 --> 00:10:36.450
and becomingness of bearing should have taught me to hold
185
00:10:36.509 --> 00:10:39.529
my little tongue. I am giving some thought now to
186
00:10:39.549 --> 00:10:41.700
the kind of thing I must invent as a suitable
187
00:10:41.750 --> 00:10:45.139
apology when I find him a really delightful person full
188
00:10:45.179 --> 00:10:49.570
of virtues and accomplishments. Perhaps he has a horror of me.''
189
00:10:48.789 --> 00:10:52.649
I should like to be present at your first meeting,' Mrs.
190
00:10:52.690 --> 00:10:57.399
Worthington reflected.' You' re going down to Stornham to-morrow?'' That is
191
00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:00.200
my plan. When I write to you on my arrival,
192
00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:03.200
I will tell you if I encountered the horror. Then,
193
00:11:03.259 --> 00:11:05.460
with a swift change of subject and a lifting of
194
00:11:05.500 --> 00:11:09.000
her slender velvet line of eyebrow, I am only deploring
195
00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:12.190
that I have not time to visit the Tower.' Mrs.
196
00:11:12.250 --> 00:11:15.690
Worthington was betrayed into a momentary glance of uncertainty and
197
00:11:16.049 --> 00:11:19.740
almost verging in its significance
on a gasp the tower
198
00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:25.080
of london dear betty bettina's laugh was mellow with revelation
199
00:11:25.940 --> 00:11:28.240
ah she said you don't know my point of view
200
00:11:28.639 --> 00:11:31.639
it's plain enough you see when i delight in these
201
00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:34.230
things i think i delight most in my delight in
202
00:11:34.269 --> 00:11:37.289
them it means that i am almost having the kind
203
00:11:37.350 --> 00:11:40.450
of feeling the fresh american souls had who landed here
204
00:11:40.509 --> 00:11:43.769
thirty years ago and revelled in the resemblance to dickens's
205
00:11:43.850 --> 00:11:47.220
characters they met with in the streets and were historically
206
00:11:47.299 --> 00:11:50.320
thrilled by the places where people's heads were chopped off.
207
00:11:51.059 --> 00:11:54.340
Imagine their reflections on Charles I when they stood in
208
00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:57.519
Whitehall gazing on the very spot where that poor last
209
00:11:57.580 --> 00:12:01.409
word was uttered,' Remember,' and think of their joy when
210
00:12:01.450 --> 00:12:06.129
each crossing-sweeper they gave disproportionate largesse to seemed Joe Allalone's
211
00:12:06.230 --> 00:12:10.289
in the slightest disguise.' You don't mean to say,' Mrs.
212
00:12:10.350 --> 00:12:14.500
Worthington was vaguely awakening to the situation, that the charm
213
00:12:14.539 --> 00:12:16.879
of my visit to myself is that I realise that
214
00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:20.519
I am rather like that. I have positively preserved something
215
00:12:20.590 --> 00:12:23.470
because I have kept away. You have been here so
216
00:12:23.570 --> 00:12:26.129
often and know things so well, and you were even
217
00:12:26.210 --> 00:12:29.250
so sophisticated when you began that you have never really
218
00:12:29.309 --> 00:12:34.110
had the flavours and emotions. I am sophisticated too, sophisticated
219
00:12:34.210 --> 00:12:36.809
enough to have cherished my flavours as a gourmet tries
220
00:12:36.870 --> 00:12:39.889
to save the bouquet of old wine. You think that
221
00:12:39.929 --> 00:12:42.649
the Tower is the pleasure of housemaids on a bank holiday,
222
00:12:43.149 --> 00:12:45.269
but it quite makes me quiver to think of it,
223
00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:48.720
laughing again. That I laugh is the sign that I
224
00:12:48.779 --> 00:12:52.179
am not as beautifully freshly capable of enjoyment as those
225
00:12:52.259 --> 00:12:55.539
genuine first Americans were, and in a way I am
226
00:12:55.620 --> 00:13:01.340
sorry for it. Mrs. Worthington laughed also, and with an enjoyment.'
227
00:13:00.769 --> 00:13:06.279
You' re very clever, Betty,' she said.' No, no,' answered Bettina,'
228
00:13:06.009 --> 00:13:09.639
or if I am, almost everybody is clever in these days.
229
00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:13.710
We are nearly all of us comparatively intelligent.' you are
230
00:13:13.750 --> 00:13:16.809
very interesting at all events and the Anstruthers will exult
231
00:13:16.889 --> 00:13:19.490
in you. If they are dull in the country, you
232
00:13:19.509 --> 00:13:23.169
will save them.'' I am very interested at all events,'
233
00:13:23.090 --> 00:13:27.129
said Bettina,' and interest like mine is quite passé. A
234
00:13:27.169 --> 00:13:29.909
clever American, who lives in England and is the pet
235
00:13:29.950 --> 00:13:33.629
of duchesses, once said to me— he always speaks of Americans
236
00:13:33.710 --> 00:13:39.480
as if they were a distant and recently discovered species—' When
237
00:13:37.370 --> 00:13:40.889
they first came over they were a novelty. Their enthusiasm
238
00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:44.350
amused people.' but now you see it has become vieux jeu,
239
00:13:44.929 --> 00:13:47.690
young women whose specialty was to be excited by the
240
00:13:47.730 --> 00:13:51.509
Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, and not novelties any longer.
241
00:13:52.250 --> 00:13:54.909
In fact it's been done, and it's done for as
242
00:13:54.990 --> 00:13:59.009
a specialty. And I am excited about the Tower of London.
243
00:13:59.590 --> 00:14:01.830
I may be able to restrain my feelings at the
244
00:14:01.889 --> 00:14:04.649
sight of the bee-feeders, but they will upset me a little,
245
00:14:04.789 --> 00:14:09.269
and I must brace myself, I must indeed.' Truly, Betty,'
246
00:14:09.370 --> 00:14:13.129
said Mrs. Worthington, regarding her with curiosity, arising from a
247
00:14:13.190 --> 00:14:16.629
faint doubt of her entire seriousness, mingled with a fainted
248
00:14:16.730 --> 00:14:20.549
out of her entire levity. Betty flung out her hands
249
00:14:20.629 --> 00:14:26.289
in a slight but very involuntary-looking gesture, and shook her head.' Ah,'
250
00:14:25.830 --> 00:14:28.769
she said,' it was all true, you know. They were
251
00:14:28.909 --> 00:14:32.000
all horribly real, the things that were shuddered over and
252
00:14:32.059 --> 00:14:37.720
sentimentalised about.' Sophistication, combined with imagination, makes them materialise again.
253
00:14:38.399 --> 00:14:41.350
To me, at least, now I am here. The gulf
254
00:14:41.409 --> 00:14:43.950
between a historical figure and a man or woman who
255
00:14:43.990 --> 00:14:47.289
could bleed and cry out inhuman words was broad when
256
00:14:47.389 --> 00:14:50.990
one was at school. Lady Jane Grey, for instance, how
257
00:14:51.090 --> 00:14:54.500
nebulous she was and how little one cared. She seemed
258
00:14:54.549 --> 00:14:57.179
invented merely to add a detail to one's lesson in
259
00:14:57.259 --> 00:15:01.000
English history. But as we drove across Waterloo Bridge I
260
00:15:01.059 --> 00:15:03.320
caught a glimpse of the tower— and what do you
261
00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:07.679
suppose I began to think of? It was monstrous. I
262
00:15:07.740 --> 00:15:10.360
saw a door in the tower, and the stone steps
263
00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:13.559
in the square space, and in the chill clear early
264
00:15:13.620 --> 00:15:17.179
morning a little slender helpless girl led out, a little
265
00:15:17.299 --> 00:15:20.919
fair real thing like Rosie, all alone, every one she
266
00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:24.070
belonged to far away, not a man near who dared
267
00:15:24.149 --> 00:15:26.409
utter a word of pity when she turned her awful
268
00:15:26.730 --> 00:15:30.600
meek young desperate eyes upon him. She was a pious child,
269
00:15:30.679 --> 00:15:33.019
and no doubt she lifted her eyes to the sky.
270
00:15:33.679 --> 00:15:36.139
I wonder if it was blue, and its blueness broke
271
00:15:36.179 --> 00:15:38.519
her heart, because it looked as if it might have
272
00:15:38.580 --> 00:15:41.200
pitied such a young, patient girl thing led out in
273
00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:43.980
the fair morning to walk to the hacked block and
274
00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:47.070
give her trembling pardon to the black-visored man with the axe,
275
00:15:47.779 --> 00:15:51.049
and then, commending her soul to God, to stretch her sweet,
276
00:15:51.090 --> 00:15:56.730
slim neck out upon it.' Oh, Betty dear!' Mrs. Worthington expostulated.
277
00:15:57.570 --> 00:16:00.299
Bettina sprang to her and took her hand in pretty appeal.
278
00:16:01.059 --> 00:16:04.409
I beg pardon, I beg pardon, I really do, she exclaimed.
279
00:16:04.850 --> 00:16:08.279
I did not intend deliberately to be painful, but that,
280
00:16:08.559 --> 00:16:12.269
beneath the sophistication, is something of what I bring to England.
281
00:16:13.730 --> 00:16:14.470
End of chapter 9