Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1897 — A WOMANS HEART [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A WOMANS HEART

CHAPTER V. The new baronet’s mother, Mrs. Ewell, lived M’ith her five daughters on three hundred a year, in a small cottage at Surbiton, where she had retreated on the death of her husbaml. She had found it a hard task since then to feed and clothe herself and her children like gentleu-omen, and many a sigh had she directed even toward the pittance which her son received from the Government, thinking how much more comfortably they might all live together if Wilfrid would only join his income to hers. But Wilfrid had had his own reasons for continuing to live hy himself. When Mrs. Ewell, however, M’as apprised of her son’s M’Olulerful and unexpected good fortune, all her difficulties seemed to vanish. She made sure then that Sir Wilfrid Mould provide a home for herself and his sisters at Lamhscote Hall, or failing that, M’onld make such an addition to their income as to place them above M’ant, And the girls, too. What views they entertained of halls ami theaters and neu - dresses, and long visits to Somerset, and eligible young men that should lay their fortunes at their feet. Their years varied from five-and-twenty to fifteen, hut not one of them had ever mixed in the gaiety usual to young people of their age. Neither before their father’s death nor after it had there been the requisite money forthcoming for such pleasures, and the announcement that their only brother had suddenly been transformed into a wealthy baronet gave them nlmost as much joyful anticipation os it had done to him. Mrs. Ewell had M’ritten more than onee begging him to run dou-ii to Surbiton and receive her congratulations in person, and when, on the morning following his return to Chelsea, he u-alked into her tiny sitting room, he M’as almost overn’helmed by the family greeting. His sisters hung about his neck like leeches, as they poured upon him a volley of kisses’and questions, which they gave him time neither to return nor< aijSMer. But his mother sat in her armchair, pale, silent, and almost tearful at the prospect that she believed had opened before her. “Yes,” he said, answering the thought M’hich he read in every countenance, “it has been rather a stroke of good luck, hasn’t it? Fancy poor Bob going off in that unexpected way. He Mas only ill tM'elve hours. And the little hoy, too! Poor Carrie feels it awfully, of course. So did I at first: but a man can’t remain inconsolable for an event which has come as such a blessing to himself.” “A blessing, indeed,” murmured Mrs. Eu-ell fervently; “ami after the poverty we have suffered since your poor father’s death, it seems too good to be true. Will you not have to make the widow some indemnification, Wilfrid?” “I think not,” lie nnswered carelessly, and M’ithout the apparent recognition of any moral obligation in the matter. “Parfitt has said nothing nbout it. And, hang it all, you know, she" is living rent free, and Mill do so for the next two months.” “Oh, shan’t u r e see Lamhscote for two M’hole months?” exclaimed Rosie. Rosie M’as Sir Wilfrid’s youngest and prettiest sister. She M’as also liis favorite, but he did not vouchsafe to ausM’er her remark. “How many rooms are there at the Hall, Wilfrid?” asks his sister Edith. “I am sure I don’t knoM\ More than you can count.” “And do you get the horses and carriages and everything?” said Flora. “'Yes; all the property that has been purchased with the income becomes personal to the estate. I believe there are ten or tM’elve horses in the stables. How I M ill hunt next season!” “And oh, Wilfrid, may I learn to ride?” cried Rosie. “Yes, dear, that you shall. Mother must let you come nnd stay with me in the autumn, and I’ll make a horseM’oman of you.” “Not before the autumn?” pouted Fanny. It M’as becoming patent to all of them that Lamhscote Hall M’as not to he a freehold property for the whole family, and Mrs. EM-ell developed, a certain snappishness under the discovery. “Don’t M’orry your brother, Fanny,” she Interposed. “The Hall is his own, and he will do as he pleases with it. Though I think you M’ill find, Wilfrid, that you cannot get on so well M’ithout ladies us you seem to imagine. No house can be properly managed M’ithout a woman at the head of it.” “But who said I M’as going to try and get on M’itliout ladies?” he retorted, M’ith a smile. “Don’t he afraid, mother, Lainbscote M’ill have a mistress in good time.” At this announcement a chasm, of which Mrs. EM’ell had not yet dreamed, opened at her feet. Of course she had expected that Sir Wilfrid M'ould marry—some day—but he M-as only tn’enty-two, and she had hoped that the evil M’as quite in the distance. The calm certainty with M’hich he mentioned the prospect made her gasp. “But not yet, dear, I hope,” she ejaculated. “What you allude to cannot take place for several years to come. Why, you M-ere only twenty-tu’o last birthday!’’’ “I knoM’ that, mother.” “It M’ould be impossible for you to marjy under thirty.” * , “Do you think so?” “I mean it would be very (inadvisable. Marriage is a serious undertaking, Wilfrid. Once done, it is not to be undone, and the consequences abide by you, for M’eal or M’oe, to your life’s end.” “So I have heard,” he ansu’ered, ya Mining slightly behind his hand. “Mamma. 1 am sure that Wilfrid is already in love,” exelnimed Edith. “He looks dreadfully conscious. And non- he is blushing— actually blushing! Oh.’Wilfrid, is it true?” “Is what true? That I am in love? No, decidedly not. Will that content you?” “And I trust that you M’ill not even think of marriage for many years to come,” said Mrs. EM-ell. “I can’t promise you that, mother. Lamhscote requires a mistress, as you said just now, and J do not think it M’ill be long before you see one established there.” “Of course, now that you are rich, you M’ill he surrounded by harpies, all eager to M’in you, or rather, your money,” said his mother, quite unconscious that she was a harpy herself, or wished to be, “and whatever you do, Wilfrid, be careful! Try to raise your family, my dear, not lou-er it, and look out for a M’oman M’ith an independence of her own. I hope I should be the last person to approve of mercenary motives in marriage. But yet, you see, you have many claims upon you, Wilfrid, and seven thousand a year, though it appears a large income, does not go very far with a place like Lambscote.” They were almost the same words, and certainly the same sentiments, which the lawyer had used to him the day before, ud though Kir Wilfrid had not yet

BY FLORENCE MARYATT

thought it possible to rectify the error he had iuade, he was beginning to think it was a serious error, and one he would be well rid of. “Do you know Lena St. Blase, Wib frid?” asked his mother, presently, rousing him from a reverie. “Yes, slightly—that is, I met her with her mother. Lady Otto, at Lambseote two .years ago.” "Now, that’s the sort of wife I should like you to have,” continued Mrs. Ewell; “well-born, beautiful, and with a little fortune of her own. I think it is five hundred a year.” “Five hundred a year!” echoed the new baronet, contemptuously. “Not enough to keep her in dresses.” “Oh, my dear boy, your ideas are growing too extravagant! But, anyway, Miss St. Blase’s fortune would evade the necessity of any great expenditure on your part in settlements. And she is thfe granddaughter of the Duke of Martyrdom, you know; and her mother comes of an unexceptionable family.” CHAPTER VI. Sir AVilfrid did not consider it expedient to tell his mother that he had done more than admire Lena St. Blase. But the fact was that he had met her before his marriage with Jane Warner, and she had raised one of those wild, mad passions in his breast which most boys feel at some time or other for women older than themselves. Lena St. Blase was a beautiful, heartless dirt of five-and-twenty. She cared for nobody in the world —not even her mother; but she was inordinately proud of her birth and station, and vain to excess of her own person. She had coquetted and played with the young Government clerk, as such women will, until she had quite turned his brain; and then, when he could keep silence no longer, and his passion burst forth in words, she had struck* him dumb with her look of cold astonishment at his temerity. She hud wounded his pride so bitterly, that he had rushed away from Lambseote to the shelter of to be made much of and assiduously waited on by Jane AVarner. It was from that very episode in his life that his marriage had originated. AVhen we are most cruelly hurt in the battle of life, we are most anxious to forget it—even to the cutting of our throat, or the sxjoiling of the remaiuder of our existence. Sir AVilfrid had fancied he loved Jane AVarner before that visit to Lambseote Hall: and, after it, he persuaded himself that he did love her, and the other had been but an unholy dream. And so perhaps it was. It was certainly a very different sentiment from any he hud ever felt for his wife. It made him shrink from the remembrance of Lena St. Blase as we shrink from recalling some horrible fraud or act of treachery in which we have been worsted. But he could not tell his mother all that! So he only said—what was not true —that he considered her rude and disagreeable, and Mrs. Ewell took umbrage at the words.

Chambers in the Adelphi proved to be all that Sir AVilfrid could possibly desire. They had just been vacated by a fashionable young diplomat ordered off on foreign service, and furnished according to his fancy. There was nothing for the baronet to do but to sign the agreement and take possession. He had no sooner seen the rooms than he decided to engage them, and authorized Mr. Parfitt to secure for him also the services of the valet and cook who had been in the employment of their late owner. Meanwhile he repaired to a hotel to keep sundry appointments with tailors and bootmakers, and to answer his voluminous correspondence. AVhen Sir AVilfrid looked in his mirror on the evening of the AVesterleys’ dinner .party, he smiled with satisfaction. And so far as his appearance went, he had every reason to be satisfied. The tailor and hosier and bootmaker had done their utmost to turn him out a fashionable gentleman, and the only ornament he wore, a diamond solitaire, which blazed in his shirt front, was the perfection of taste. IJe had improved, too, personally, since he had parted with Lena St. Blase. Two years had added manliness to a set of rather effeminate features, and covered the short upper lip with a mustache. Indeed, as he first entered the drawing room of the AA 7 esterieys’ house, the young woman who had scorned his boyish passion hardly knew him again.

“That young Ewell?” she whispered to her mother, as the baronet was announced. “Why, how good-looking he has grown!” Lady Otto and her daughter had had more than one conversation on the subject of Sir Robert's successor since they had heard the news. Gen. Westerley had extolled Siy Wilfrid to the skies, and openly advised his niece to catch him if she could. And Lady Otto had backed up the opinion of her cousin.' Of course, it was perfectly right of dear Lena to have refused Mr. Ewell at Lambscote. She could not have married him then. The thing was impossible—too absurd even to think of. But now circumstances were altered. Sir Wilfrid Ewell was in a position to maintain her as she had a right to expect, and dear Lena must not forget she was twenty-five last birthday. “But remember how you made me snub him at Lambscote, mamma! Do you suppose he has forgotten it already? Why, I called him every name I could think of.” “You can make him forget it if you choose. You know the boy was awfjilly in love with you, and you are (if anything) handsomer than you were then. You really must try. I will give nothing for your chance of marriage if you go through another season. And you are not tfye sort of woman, my dear, who will be happy in a single life.” Miss St. Blase made a gesture of contempt' for the honorable condition alluded to, but all she said was: “Poor, dear Jack!” The name seemed to rouse Lady Otto’s anger. “Lena!” she exclaimed authoritatively, “I have told you always that I refuse to hear that man mentioned. Y’ou ought to be ashamed of yourself! A rattle-brained extravagant scapegrace, who lives on his wits, or his friends, and has had his name associated with everything that is most disgraceful! Captain Dorsay is unfit to be the acquaintance of a decent woman, far less the intimate friend you would make of him. I have forbidden him my house, and I lxaye forbidden you to speak of him before me.” When Sir Wilfrid entered the Westerleys’ drawing room that evening, his head, notwithstanding his determination to be brave and cool, was spinning like a humming top, and he very nearly shook hands with a lady he had never seen before in mistake for Mrs. Westerley. Miss St. Blase, Who looked like a white marble statue in a black satin dress, was watching his every movement from her

vantage ground in the corner. And decided at once that Sir Wilfrid's agitation was on her own account. “He has heard I am here,” she thought, “and it has upset him. All right! The game is mine. I have only to go in and win.” AA’hen Sir "Wilfrid took his leave it was with a heart flattered by the unexpected attentions he had received, and a head almost as much filled with the image of the lovely Lena St. Blase as when, in the old days, he had presumed to woo his goddess to come down from her pedestal and mate with a son of a man. CHAPTER VII. Jane, left alone in the old cottage at Chelsea, was happy as a bird. No prophetic vision of coming sorrow clouded her quiet existence. She missed "Wilfrid terribly, and felt quite lost now that he no longer needed her daily attention and care; but her head was filled with the grand prospect before her, and she had no time to think of anything else. The following Saturday evening Sir Wilfrid came down to-Chelsea, and after tea the husband and wife had a secret meeting in the shrubbery path. “Oh, AVill, kiss me!” Jane exclaimed, as they found themselves alone and out of view; “for it seems an age since I have seen your face or heard your voice.” Sir AA’ilfrid took his cigar from his lips and did what she required of him, not coldly, but yet not eagerly. He was nbt yet tired of Jane. Their intercourse had been too limited and broken in upon for that. He kissed her,, but he sighed—and her instinct detected there was something wrong. “AVhat is the matter?” she asked him. “Are you ill?” “No, dear. A sudden change like this, to wealth and position, brings so much responsibility with it. It seems as if the whole world were looking on to see what one will do or say.” “And this secrecy about our marriage makes it worse. I am sure it does,” replied the girl. “AVhen will it be over, AVill ? Surely it is time that people knew I am your wife. It places me in such a false position. How I wish now that everything had been fair and above board from the first.” “So do I—but it is too late to say so, Jane. And you are right, my dear, you are in a false position. It is to speak of that to you that I made a point of coming homo to-night.” “I am. so glad,” said Jane, never dreaming but that he meant the time for disclosure had arrived. “I have been longing for this moment, darling. I knew you could not keep me in suspense one day longer than was necessary.” “No, indeed. And when you have heard what I have to tell you, you .will not be surprised that I have absented myself from Chelsea lately. You asked me why I sighed just now, Jane. I have some cause to sigh, dear. You remember I told you I had confided the secret of opr marriage to Mr. Parfitt?” “To your solicitor? Yes.” “AA 7 ell, he's been talking it over with me, nnd so forth, and he says our marriage was informal—not legal—you understand me?” Jane stopped short in the shrubbery path and stared him in the face. (To be continued.)