Anthony Hope

“ It was no concern of mine that he had, in confidence, called Miss Gladwin "hard." He had called her "a sportsman," too. Set one off against the other, remembering his position and his cult.
Sir Thomas had been dead a year when Fullard and I first spent a Sunday together at Worldstone Park. He had been there before; so had I: but we had not chanced to coincide. It was May, and spring rioted about us. The girls, too, had doffed some of their funereal weeds; Nettie wore white and black, Beatrice black and white. Life was stirring in the place again. ”

“ Five hundred a year is not despicable, and is good, like other boons, until revoked. But think what Beatrice Gladwin had been two months before—the greatest heiress in the country, mistress of all! So the old will had made her—the old will in my office safe, which, come next Tuesday, would be so much waste paper. I have always found something pathetic about a superseded will. It is like a royal family in exile.
Sir Thomas read over the documents and looked up at me as he took off his spectacles. ”

“ We understand that Miss Gladwin of Worldstone Park, following what she is confident would have been the wish of her lamented father, the late much-respected Sir Thomas Gladwin, Bart., M.P., D.I., J.P., C.A., is presenting the prospective bride with a wedding present which in itself amounts to a fortune. Happy they who are in a position to exercise such graceful munificence and to display filial affection in so gracious a form! ”

“ Did pretty Nettie Tyler know the purport of the new documents? If so, what did she think of it? But the suggestion which this idea carries with it probably asked altogether too much of triumphant youth. It is later in life that one is able to look from other people's points of view—one's own not being so dazzlingly pleasant, I suppose. So I made allowances for Nettie; it was not perhaps so easy for Beatrice Gladwin to do the same. ”

“ But there is a thing different from liking—a thing violent, sudden, and obliterating. It makes liking cease to count.
We talked little on our visit to the home farm. I took occasion once more to point out Miss Gladwin's efficiency. Fullard fidgeted: he did not care about efficiency in women—that seemed plain. I ventured to observe that her investment of money on the estate was likely to pay well; he seemed positively uncomfortable. After these conversational failures, I waited for him. We were on our way back before he accepted the opening. ”

“ She did not appear to think that Beatrice ought to "do anything" for her beyond what she was doing; and that, to my certain knowledge, did not include the gift of even the smallest of all the various sums suggested at the Bittleton Club. All you could say was that the lady who was to have been mistress of Worldstone Park still lived there, and made for the moment remarkably little difference. When one comes to think it over, this was really immensely to her credit. She might have made life there impossible. Or did she know that in such a case Miss Gladwin would send her away quite calmly? ”

“ When the bride and bridegroom—on this occasion again by no means overwhelmed—had departed amidst cheers, when the rout of guests had gone, when the triumphal arch was being demolished and the rustics were finishing the beer, she walked with me in the garden while I smoked a cigar. (There's nothing like a wedding for making you want a cigar.) ”

“ But the new-comers will not take land seriously; they leave that as a prospect for their descendants when the ready money, the city-made money, has melted away.
So I took his instructions for his marriage settlement and his new will without a word, although they seemed to me to be, under the circumstances, pretty stiff documents. The old gentleman—he was not really old, fifty-eight or -nine, I should say, but he looked like a granite block that has defied centuries—had, of course, two excuses. ”

“ The rest of the evening she was as much like velvet as it was in a Gladwin to be. But I waited. I wanted to know how she meant to arrange her fair fight. She wanted one. A sportsman, after all, you see.
Chapter Five SHE was not like velvet when we met the next morning after breakfast in her study: her own room was emphatically a study, and in no sense a boudoir. She was like iron, or like the late Sir Thomas when he gave me instructions for his new will and for the settlement on his intended marriage with Miss Nettie Tyler. ”

“ She was mistress of all.
Chapter Three AS may be imagined, the situation evoked a great deal of sympathy and occasioned an even greater quantity of talk. Killed four days before his wedding! The poor little bride! She had lost so much more than merely Sir Thomas! The general opinion of the Bittleton Club, which may be taken as representative of the views of the county, was that Miss Gladwin ought to "do something" for Miss Tyler. There was much difference as to the extent of this suggested generosity: almost every figure between five thousand and fifty thousand pounds had its supporters. ”

“ Really ideal; and, of course, in no way at all correspondent to the facts of the case. The truth was that Miss Beatrice Gladwin had secured her "fair fight"—and, it seemed, had lost it very decisively and very speedily. As soon as it was reasonably possible—and made so by Miss Gladwin's action—for Fullard to think of marrying Nettie Tyler, he had asked her to be his wife. To which question there could be only one answer. Miss Gladwin had given away too much weight ”

“ It was, however, plain that the change to Miss Beatrice Gladwin must be very considerable. There came back into my mind what my friend, neighbor, and client, Captain Spencer Fullard of Gatworth Hall, impecunious scion of an ancient stock, had said in the club at Bittleton (for we have a club at Bittleton, and a very good one, too) when the news of Sir Thomas's engagement came out. "Rough on Miss Beatrice," said he; "but she'll show nothing. She's hard, you know, but a sportsman." A sportsman she was, as events proved ”