Miss Betty
Book Description
Miss Betty is a romance novel by Bram Stoker, written in 1898. It was published one year after the release of Stoker's Dracula. *** a selection from the beginning of the first chapter: GRANDFATHERS STORY OF all the incidents of her early life none had so great or lasting an effect on Betty Pole as those of that evening in Cheyne Walk on which she had been accused of breaking the blue china jar. Th...
MoreMiss Betty is a romance novel by Bram Stoker, written in 1898. It was published one year after the release of Stoker's Dracula. *** a selection from the beginning of the first chapter: GRANDFATHERS STORY OF all the incidents of her early life none had so great or lasting an effect on Betty Pole as those of that evening in Cheyne Walk on which she had been accused of breaking the blue china jar. This was one of those beautiful pieces, brought from Holland, which had been given to her grandfather by the Dutch Minister when on some diplomatic mission to King William III. Great store had been set on it by the household generally, and Betty's mother had often, during her lifetime, enjoined on the children special care of the beautiful piece of oriental china. She always said that it was to be looked upon as a sort of heirloom in the family. The charge against Miss Betty was made by Abigail, she coming right into the back sitting room after supper, when the dusk was beginning to fall through the trees in the garden of the King's House in Chelsea. Abigail's manner was at all times a pronounced one, for all her kindness of heart; but she was not feared so much by the children, who knew the softness as well as the weight of her hand, as by the two men whom she controlled in the despotic manner which purely domestic women assume to lonely men - men who have not wives to protect them. Abigail had in the motherless household the honour and privileges of one whom the mother had trusted, and who by faithful service had earned the trust. As a rule she was a just woman, but on this occasion the violence of her demeanour almost implied to those who knew her that she was herself not quite blameless in the matter. They all knew that she would not wilfully and deliberately lie, but they felt that the occasion was a grave one, and one in which no one would willingly be under the imputation of guilt if it could be avoided. Some of them, face to face with the charge, would have held it justifiable to have deflected the current of public thought if they could not on such an occasion have stemmed it. The young people, one and all, with wonderful unanimity, denied the charge which had at first been made in the general form of ' one of the children.' The two men were concerned, as men ever are regarding the breakages of things they value. Betty's father, Charles Pole, was as near anger as his gentle nature and the sorrow of his too recent loss would let him be. He spoke severely of the need of care, and reminded the children that their dear mother had ever told them to be careful of this thing that she loved; and then the sight of their little black clothes seemed to smite him and he stopped speaking, for he knew that to that mother's heart one moment of any of his children's happiness was dearer than all the vessels which had ever grown under the potter's hand. She had accepted on her marriage the motherhood of the four children of her husband's first wife, and treated them all just as she afterwards treated her own little Betty, her only child. After a spell of silence Betty's grandfather, Dudley Stanmore, spoke- " I am sorry that the jar, which had for me very dear memories, has been broken; but we must not forget to be just. Tell me, children; which of you broke it?" There was no answer....
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