Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1880 — A FATAL INHERITANCE. [ARTICLE]

A FATAL INHERITANCE.

BY LEIGH L. BROOKNER.

“Is this artist’s blouse becoming to me?” asked Drusilla Sterling of her Cousin Lucreoe. “ What matter whether a garment becomes you or not ? Your attitudes are always graceful and, fascinating. If it were for this alone it would be worth while to be the daughter of a dancer. I wonder what Maxwell St. Ives would say if he knew that ?” Drusilla’s anger was at white heat, but so great was her self-control that to an ordinary observer she would have seemed perfectly calm. Her voice was unusually smooth and low as she replied to Lucrece’s scornfid sjieech : “Thank you for your compliment, though it is not by any means new for me to be told that lam graceful. As for St. Ives knowing the story of my parentage, I mean to tell him as soon as occasion demands ; at present he is too little interested in me or my affairs to care about the story.” Poor Lu felt that her thrust had been without effect. It was rarely she allowed herself to be so bitter, but surely she had occasion. Here was this squinteyed, pale-faced, ill-born and ill-bred creature, who, by some elfish witchery, had won Lucerce’s handsome lover from her. From the first moment Roy Sebert heard Drusilla’s voice he had be en ready to follow her through the world. Only two months from England, and already so unfortunate as to have caused an affianced lover to be unfaithful to his vows ! It was rumored that a young curate on the other side of the water hail committed suicide for her sake. When her cousin left the room Drusilla sat down before the pier-glass and looked at herself steadily, sadly. “My fate follows me. I am doomed to make trouble wherever I go. Lu is jealous, and, therefore, unjust. I have never, by the slightest conscious act, tried to win her lover. Yet Roy is handsome, and the temptation has been very strong sometimes.” It was a source of deep humiliation to Drusilla that her mother had been an actress, and, when she remembered her cousin’s taunt, she resolved to try and make her more unhappy. “I will deny myself the pleasure of being amiable to Roy Sebert no longer. If Cousin Lu, with those lovely dark eyes of hers, cannot enchain a lover, wewill see what the daughter of a dancer can do 1 ” She lifted a small green-velvet shade from the toilet table and placed it over her eyes. An intense and unremitting devotion to philosophical studies had made her nearly blind. Certainly, her eyes were not pleasant to look at, and she said, “ I certainly wish to shock no one by my hideousness.” Perhaps she was also aware that the dark velvet shade would make her forehead the fairer by contrast. She was tall and well deveioped, not at all the sort of woman one would take, to be a coquette. This was what her female friends called her, but the gentlemen without exception denied it.

“She is simply a lovable woman, ami wins our interest without effort,” said her gentleman admirers. “ She is so artful as to conceal ait,” said the bitter and unloved of her own sex. One day, as she sat talking to Maxwell St. Ives, the door opened and little 5-year-old Floy said, “Mr. Devine is come. ” Maxwell’s lip curled, and he remarked : “ I did not know this was public-recep-tion day. I will call again. ” “Pray be seated, Mr. St. Ives. I have something to say to you when my young friend is gone. Fred is privileged, and comes at any time; you honor me with your presence more rarely.” The caller had for excrse a pair of Drusilla’s white kid gloves, that she had left in the village reading-room. She took them with thanks for his thoughtfulness, and as she talked twisted them carelessly in her hands. Fred was pained by this seemingly trival incident. He was romantic and not a little superstitious, for between the palms of the gloves he had placed a dainty blue violet, saying to himself, I will let this blossom be the symbol of my fate. If she places it at her throat or in her hair, if it in any way receives attention or gives pleasure, I shall hope. As she tossed the gloves aside the flower fell broken and unnoticed at her feet. Ah, how different is our dream from the reality. It was the first violet of the year, as it was the first love of Jiis life ! As he aroseuto go she said : “If you will please take me by the hand I will accompany you to the head of the stairs. I want to scold you a little for something I have heal'd. With this dreadful shade that lam obliged to wear I cannot find my way without stumbling. Will you excuse me for the merest moment, Mr. St. Ives?” Now, it was not really necessary for Drusilla to be led about in a house where she was perfectly familiar, but she wished to influence Fred, and knew of no way more certain. How her soft, magnetic hand thrilled him. Why, her lightest touch was like a caress. She talked very earnestly to him about his growing fondness for cards and wine. Said she had heard such rumors, but would not believe them. Would he promise that the gossip should be without foundation ? He would promise anything. He would reform ! Re-entering the parlor, she remarked to Maxwell: “My college boys are so much to me like brothers, I can reprove and admonish them in truly orthodox style without their resenting it. They need some one to scold them a little sometimes.” Maxwell said, in his abrupt, argumentative way: “ Fred Devine does not consider himself merely a boy friend; he thinks himself a man and comes a wooing.” The color crept into Drusilla’s pale face : “Hush, Maxwell St. Ives, I will not believe it. My own regard for this lad is so different. I want him to regard me as a friend ; I want him to look Wto me, and come to ma for counsel

and sympathy; 1 want his esteem; in short, I want earnest, respectful, beautiful friendship, instead of fickle, passionate, fatal love I” She was much excited. All the control she had shown when Lu taunted her was swept away. She had suffered so much through love that she could bear no mention of what had darkened her whole life. “ Whenever and wherever I try to establish a friendship, it is shortly transformed into reckless and despairing love.” All that she said was received in utter silence. Surely he was not man but marble. All this was such deep grief to her, and he did not care. Any other man would have expressed some sympathy ; not so this impassive Northerner, who, cynical and bitter, thought it a fine bit of acting. He had been drawn toward her at first, but an anonymous letter had told him to “beware of Drusilla Sterling,” that she was an actress by birth, and by education, and utterly without heart. From that time he had been on his guard. “Pardon my emotion,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “ Pardon me also if I go on to say more of myself. “ I want you to know if there is any sufficient reason in the past why my present should be so full of passion and pain ! You have before now accused me of being a cdquette ! Upon my honor I do not mean to be. What Ido I cannot help. It is a deep and sad fatality. Let me tell you the story of my birth that you may judge for yourself how I came to inherit my birthright of sorrow. “ My father was an English artist and marriee a woman who made her living by singing and dancing at the theaters. She was as deceitful as she was beautiful. My old nurse Jeandtte has often told me how mother would say to her : ‘ The Englishman is an ogre.’ But to him she would say: ‘You are grand like the gods.’ She won him, not because she loved him, but because he was supposed to be wealthy. He loved her with liis imagination rather than with his heart. He was very susceptible -to beauty and gracefulness, and both were her’s to a remarkable degree. The fact that she was married did not prevent men loving her. She died when I was but three days old, and father and Jeanette brought me to England. “From my tenth year I have been conscious of possessing my mother’s fatal fault of fascination. There is nothing I so much deplore, for I have my father’s honest English heart, and would win love only where I could return it. Until the last few months I have never known what that word meant. You are still silent. I have lost your esteem by confessing my mother’s profession. Oh, Maxwell St. Ives, I trusted you ! Are you not still my friend ?”

In her earnestness she laid both her little caressing hands over both of his. All his reserve and skepticism were swept away. He pressed her hands like rose leaves in liis own, and answered : “ For life—for death 1” Before they parted they were betrothed lovers. Drusilla had some misgivings, and said: “ Can you go to your proud mother and tell her that you have espoused the daughter of a dancer?” “ Drusilla Sterling, I can say anything to anybody. If only you are true to me there is no obstacle to our union that I will not easily overcome. I have given myself to you, body and soul, and God help him who comes between us !” rtlie felt her heart grow cold as he spoke. Was this love also to prove unhappy ? O, it was too sad that in this first glad hour of betrothal there should be a shadow of impending evil. She loved him so ! It was cruel that she could not be free from forebodings. At the moment of farewell she sobbed as if her heart were breaking, and he had scarcely reached his home when a note followed him, saying : ‘ ‘ Maxwell St. Ives : As I love you I must never see you again. I would only bring you unhappiness. It is my sad fate. Forget me and farewell. “ Yours, with love and regret, “Drusilla Sterling.” It was hardly the kind of letter to send a man the world’s width from his heart’s desire! No possible combination of words could have been more certain to bring him to her side. No pleading, no tenderness, could have been more potent than this deeply-despondent dismissal. What would he not venture for her affection ! Other men might love her—they must love her if they but entered her presence—but as for Drusilla herself, she should be so sheltered by his devotion, so hedged about by his attentions and tenderness that she could love no one else. He would not visit her to morrow nor for many days. He would wait until her mood had changed and she was subdued by a desire to see him. He had some power over her that he knew. But his own will was weakest. He must see her. He must hold her in his arms, if only for a moment. It was evening, two weeks from his last visit. That very afternoon Roy Sebert had returned from a fishing excursion, and at 8 o’clock he found Drusilla alone in the brilliantlylighted parlor. Never had he seen her so well dressed, she was careless about her attire in general. Bhe had put on her one rich dress, a myrtle green silk, bought, I think, to match her emerald ring and necklace, Drusilla had persuaded herself that Maxwell would visit her that evening. Oh, could she but have known on what a fatal errand, she would never have let Roy lift her hand to examine the quaint device on her ring. Before she could prevent it, Roy had pressed her hand to his lips. She snatched it angrily away, and at that instant the words flashed through her brain, “ God help him who comes between us. ” At Drusilla’s command Roy instantly left the room. He had been gone but a moment when she heard the report of a pistol, and, fearing she knew not what, she rushed into the hall only to find her worst fears confirmed. Roy Sebert lay there upon the floor in a last agony, the blood issuing from a wound in his heart. Swift as Drusilla had been Lucrece was there before her. She was down upon her knees trying to stanch the blood. Her face was distorted with horror and grief. She was still as death until she found her efforts vain, and, when her lover fell a lifeless burden from her arms, such a shriek echoed through the house as could never be forgotten by those who heard it. Father and mother knew in that instant that their beloved only daughter was a hopeless maniac. Glaring, wildly around, her glance fell upon Drusilla, and, regarding her cousin as the murderer of her lover, she. sprang toward her with insane fury. It required the united strength of Mr. Sterling and his farmhand to loosen her hold of Drusilla’s, throat! O what a night of horror was that! Drusilla lying between life and death, Lucrece raving of her lover, and accusing Drusilla as his murderer. Only one person knew the truth of the affair; that was John Miller, the hired man. He had been to the village, and, on his return, he saw Maxwell St. Ives standing by the gate, looking toward the house. The man glanced up to find what attracted his attention, and there, plain as day, saw Boy Sebert kiss Drusilla’s hand. The next instant Maxwell went rapidly up the walk, entered the house without announcement, and, almost immediately afterward, retraced his steps, mounted his horse,-Sind rode rapidly away. All this was elicited the following day at the Coroner’s inquest, and the fact that Maxwell St. Ives was missing was all that was needed to confirm the yer.

diet, and free Drusilla from any suspicion of direct complicity in the murder. Yet when, after weeks of illness, she came back to reason and life, she felt that she could no longer remain under her uncle’s root “I must live by myself,” she said, sadly ; “I bring sorrow and death into every household I enter.” So it was planned that a cottage should be bought, and Jeanette should be sent for as companion and servant. I was visiting a friend in the country who told me the story. She said to me, one afternoon when we were out driving, “ Would you like to call on Drusilla Sterling? there is the cottage. ” It was a beautiful place. There were English roses trained about the low porch. A woman in French cap met us at the door and conducted us into the room where her mistress sat reading. A stately woman, wearing a black dress and a small black cap, that, with its coronet outline marked by tiny pearls, looked like a small royal crown. The eyes were clear and dark, but infinitely sad. Of late years Jeanette had read to her mistress until Drusilla’s overtaxed eyes had, by rest and carefulness, become as bright as in youth. Her mouth was large, but curved and sweet. She was so grateful to us for coming; she admitted that her life was lonely at times. When my friend said, “I have told Miss Brookner your storv, and she gives you her love and sympathy,’’she reached her right hand out to me. I can never forget the clasp of those soft, caressing fingers. By-and-by she was led to talk of the past and of Maxwell St. Ives. A n an answering to the advertised description of him had died of yellow fever in New Orleans one year after that sum-mer-night tragedy.