Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1898 — WOMANS ERROR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WOMANS ERROR

By Marion V. Hollis.

CHAPTER HI.

Selwyn Castle crowns the summit of a tall hill, whose sides, covered with trees and flowers, slope down to the sea. No park surrounds it, but the pleasure grounds are extensive and magnificent. There is, too, a deep, clear lake of vast extent, bordered by drooping trees whose branches touch the water. Though there is no park, the Thornleigh woods are close and the River Thorne runs at the foot of the hill. On this morning, a fair one in June, the windows of the breakfast room at the Castle were thrown wide open; the wind came in, in great perfumed gusts; the flowers outside seemed as though they bowed their heads in greeting; lilies and roses were at their fairest; the sunbeams swept through the flower shaded windows, and they fell upon a quiet, pretty scene that spoke of home, affluence and elegance. They fell first upon the proud, imperious face of an elderly lady, the mother of the earl, the Honorable Mrs. Gerald Selwyn, a lady who sits calm and erect. There is not a bend in her figure, not a wrinkle in her calm, patrician face; one can see that she is proud to a fault, scrupulous, ambitious, worldly and fond of life. The sunbeams fall on something else—on the proud, high-bred face of a young girl, who is arranging some lillqs so as to form a bouquet—on a beautiful oval face, with a short upper lip and a fresh, ripe under one. with clear, calm, proud eyes, and straight brows —a girl with a long, graceful, white throat and small white hands, with every mark of race about her —a thorough patrician; no smiling, dimpled beauty, full of wild, fresh impulse, such as Violante Temple. A court beauty, this—-an aristocrat, with all the haughty loveliness and dignity of a queen. And this young lady, who moves with such calm, serene, proud grace, is called Beatrice Leigh. She is the niece of Mrs. Selwyn, and cousin of Lord Vivian. Next to her own son, Mrs. Selwyn loved Beatrice Leigh better than any one else in the world, and from the first moment the child entered her house, she had one wish, and it was that her proud, beautiful niece should marry her son. As children, Vivian and Beatrice spent much of their time together. When Jie finally went to Oxford, and then into the army, they were separated, Vivian retaining for his beautiful little playfellow a warm, kindly, brotherly affection. She, fed by his mother’s continual praises of him, and constant reiteration of her wishes, gradually came to love the brave young captain better than all the world besides. She looks very fair and serene, as the sunbeams kiss the beautiful face and the white dress; her hair, dark and shining like the wing of a rare bird, is braided round her beautiful head, after the fashion of a Grecian statue, leaving the two pretty, pearly ears to be seen. “Letters!” cried Beatrice, as the footman entered. “I wonder if Vivian has written; if he is still lingering at that wonderful place—what is it—Woodeaves, in Leicestershire? What possible attraction can he’find there? Ah! this is his handwriting, I am sure.” From a number of envelopes she selected the one having his writing upon it. Mrs. Selwyn smiled as she did so. “How quickly you have found out, Beatrice!” she cried. “Now, what does he say?” She read the letter hastily. “He is coming to-night,” she. went on; “and, Beatrice, he says he has a surprise for us. What can it be?’ “A surprise!” she cried, a sudden gleam of light making her face stilf more lovely; “perhaps he has brought you something, auntie.” But Mrs. Selwyn shook her head. “It do not fancy that is it,” she replied. “I fancy, Beatrice, it is something about himself. What has he been staying at this place for? Listen to what he says: ‘I hope to be with you on Tuesday night; prepare yourself, dear mother, for a surprise that will, I hope, be a pleasant one.’ What can this surprise be, Beatrice?” continued Mrs. Selwyn; “he has done something that he thinks will please me, rely on it.” Beatrice had regained all her calm. “We shall know to-night, aunt,” she said quietly; “and the day is too warm for conjectures.”

CHAPTER IV. The clock on the Castle tower had struck seven, the cook had sent more than ■one messake to say that dinner was ready, and the Honorable Mrs. Selwyn, who had expected her son at six, began to grow anxious. Suddenly carriage wheels sounded, stopped—there was a confused noise, the hurrying of servants; then the drawing room door opened, nnd Vivian entered. He looked very handsome in his traveling dress. He went up to Mrs. Selwyn and kissed her. “I am late,” he said; “but there was a delay in the Thornleigh train. How well you look, mother!” / Then he turned to Beatrice, and as he looked at her he started in surprise. “Beatrice,” he said, “it would be an oldfashioned compliment to say that every time I see you you have improved, but it Is the truth.” Her beautiful eyes grew bright with pleasure. “You shall pay us as many compliments as you like after diuner,” interrupted Mrs. Selwyn; "now go to your dressing room—you must be famished.” No word was said of himself during dinner, but they talked of the young hero, Bertie Temple, and of his early home. “It must have been a comfort to his father to have seen you,” said Mrs. Selwyn, with the proud, quiet complacency of patronage. “They are people quite in humble circumstances, I suppose?” The young earl's face flushed; a quick word rose to his lips, then he checked himself. What need to feel angry? If they were in humble circumstances, he could soon remedy shat. “They are not millionaires, mother,” be

replied, “nor even what the world calls rich. The father, Mr. Temple, is a gentleman; not only well educated, but a scholar; he is a lawyer by profession, and lives in a very pretty house called Oaksidc.” “And the sister?” said' Mrs. Selwyn, after a few minutes. His dark face flushed. “She is older than I thought to find her,” he replied; “and she has hair just like poor Bertie’s.” Beatrice looked up at him with a quick, keen glance, but the flush bad died away then, and Vivian was most composedly eating his dinner. Bnt when dinner was over, and they had returned to the drawing room, he did not seem quite so much at his ease. Beatrice drew an easy chair to the open window, and looked out at tho blooming flowers. Mrs. Selwyn reclined upon a couch near her, and Vivian sat down upon a little low stool at his mother's feet. She laid her hand caressingly on the dark hair. “And now, Vivian,” she said, “what is the surprise?” Again his face flushed. “That is the very thing I was waiting to speak of,” he replied. “I hope you will be pleased to listen to my story—pleased as I am to tell it. “I am in love at last,” he continued. “All my life long I have wondered what this strange passion men call love was like. I used to believe it would pass me by, and I shotild never know, but when I went down to poor Bertie’s borne, I met my fate.” Not a stir, not a word from Beatrice Leigh. Mrs. Selwyn moved uneasily. “I hope what you Call your fate is worthy of you,” she said. “Remember, you are head of an ancient and glorious racehead of a grand old family that has never known anything save honor. There is no duchess in England who would not proudly give you a -daughter.” “It is no duchess’ daughter that I have learned to love,” he replied with a smile. “Oh, mother, you must not be disappointed. You must not damp my happiness. 1 love Violante Temple, and have asked her to be my wife.” “A lawyer’s daughter!” cried Mrs. Selwyn; “a simple country girl! Oh, Vivian, what an end to all my dreams and plans for you!” • He laughed; bowing his handsome, stately head down to her. “Now, mother,” he cried, “you are to kiss me and wish me joy.” ' “I cannot!” she cried. “I cannot, Vivian. I am most bitterly disappointed to think, when you might have chosen from the fairest and noblest in the land, you have thrown yourself away so cruelly.” “Nay,” he said, with imperturbable good humor, “do not say so. You cannot judge —you have not seen my love.” “I know wdiqt country lawyers and their daughters are like, as a rule,” she replied; “and, Vivian. I am in despair.” There was an awkward silence which lasted some minutes. “Is it irrevocable?” asked Mrs. Selwyn. “Have you really pledged your word?’ “In all honor.” he replied. “I have even asked that my marriage may take place in September.” Mrs. Selwyn positively groaned. “It is useless for me to interfere,” she said. “I cannot forbid it. are your own master. It would be nonsense for me to say that I shall not allow it; you will do as you like; but I must express my stern dislike and disapproval. It is an alliance quite unworthy of you, and you might have aspired no matter how high.” "Beatrice,” he said, “help me to convince my mother. You are young and beautiful, and love will come to you some day, as it has come to me. Tell her—help me to make her believe that love is the only thing for which a man should ever marry. Help her to make her like my love.” There was a world of dreary pain in the dark eyes raised to his, a world of anguish and untold love. “I should not know what to say,” she replied in a strange voice unlike her own. And then Lord Vivian Selwyn of Selwyn Castle stood embarrassed and uncertain what to do. He had some misgivings as he homeward that his mother would not think he had done anything to add to the family renown. All the Ladies Selwyn had been women of high birth; he was the first to break the rule. “Well,” said Mrs. Selwyn, with a resigned smile, “it is bad news—worse could not have come to me; but if it be irrevocable, 1 must make the best of it. 1 would far rather you had chosen a wife from your own class. 1 regret most deeply the choice you have made. Yet I promise you, having said this, I will spy no more. 1 will do my best to like your wife, Vivian, and to make her as happy as I can.” 1 And with these cold words, the master of Selwyn Custle was forced to be content. Long after he slept that night, the two ladies, aunt and niece, sat up talking in low tones of what he had done, and Mrs. Selwyn concluded with the words: “It will not end happily, I fear!”

CHAPTER V. They talk about it now in the pretty, picturesque town of Woodeaves—that wonderful wedding, the like of which was never seen there before or since. The wedding of the young earl with Lawyer Temple’s daughter. ’They tell you of the bright morning, the blue sky, that had no cloud; the golden sun, that seemed to rain down blessings; of the western wind, that might have blown straight from the spice lands, it was so fragrant; of the birds that sang as though the wedding had been in the garden of Paradise; of flowers that bloomed so fresh and fair, as though in honor of the golden-haired bride herself, the fairest flower of all. Dim eyes are reading my pages noweyes that look back through the long vista of years—eyes dimmed and dulled with heavy tears; and they rook back through weary years of trouble, of toil, and of wrong upon the wedding day. The day that they believed was to be the last of sorrow, the first opening into a golden life of hope and promise. There were grand friends'of the young

earl, officers In glittering uniforms, lords whose names filled the simple country people with awe. The bridegroom’s mother was not there; she, it was rumored, was busily engaged in superintending the wedding fetes given at the Castle. There was a whole string of bridesmaids, the prettiest girls in the county; who were proud of the honor of attending one who was so soon to be Lady Selwyn. The old parish church, with its tall spire and gray walls, looked its best; it was filled with a brilliant crowd. Little children flung flowers under the feet of the bride, flowers whose thorns pricked her sorely in the sad after days; and then, as she stood in the center of that magnificent group, while the words of the marriage service were read over her, every one saw from the eastern window a golden sunbeam streaming in and forming a halo round her fair young head. Some smiled as they saw it, but it brought tears into other eyes. People looked at each other and said: "Happy the bride the sun shines on.” While, as they went into the vestry to sign the books, Vivian whispered to his wife: “Even the sunbeams kissed you, my darling, and no wonder.” Horace Temple was like a man in a dream; lie had been in a dream ever since the night Lord Vivian Selwyn asked him for his daughter, and he could not recover from it, and now the grand climax had arrived; his little Violante, his fairfaced, sunny-haired child, whose laugh and song were both wild as a bird, was married; married to a rich and handsome young nobleman whom any lady in the land might have been proud to have called her husband? He was so bewildered that he did not even recognize his own house. Lord Vivian had done as he liked even with that. “Take no heed, give yourself no trouble about the wedding breakfast,” he said. "The easiest and simplest plan will be for me to send to Gunter; he will supply everything needful.” So Hora<e Temple, on this his daughter's wedding day, sat at the head of his own table—a table laden with delicacies, with ripe fruits from every clime under the sun. with rare wines, the names of which had never penetrated Woodeaves — a table whereon silver shone, and richly cut glass sparkled, and he said to himself it must be a dream. When she remembered it in after years it was to Violante a dream of sunshine, and song, and fragrance; of love, that she thought almost divine in its tenderness; a dream whereon brilliant figures and strange faces were all confused: only her father’s face, shining out from the group with the wondering, anxious expression she remembered so well, and the handsome face of her husband shining down on hers. The speeches were ended. The sun was full in the sky when the traveling carriage that was to take the bride and bridegroom away drove up to the door. Most of the guests were going by train a few minutes afterward. There was no inothet* to clasp her loving arms around the young girl just crossing the threshold of another life; no sister to kiss the fast-paling face and whisper golden prophecies. But when his daughter had changed’ her dress and stood in her room, looking round for the last time, Horace Temple asked if he might come in. “Vivian is very good,” said Mr. Temple, “and he loves you so much, my darling. I have no fear. You will be very happy.” But she clung to him with weeping eyes. “If you are not,” he continued, gravely, “always remember, Violante, while I live there is a home nnd the 'dearest of welcomes for you here; always remember you come back to me whenever you will; and if this gay, new, bright world frowns upon you, you have a home hero.” But she shook her head gravely. "You are all that is kind, papa,” she said; “but there is no going back; what is done is done forever; there is no going back. I shall be happy, lam sure; but who could say farewell to such a pleasant, happy, sunshiny life as mine has been without tears?” She kissed him, leaving hor warm tears wet upon his face, and then passed out of the pretty, white, fragrant room, where the happy hours of her innocent childhood hud been spent. The dream of her wedding day finished by a crowd of smiling fates, a chorus of good wishes, her husband’s animated farewells. Another minute and she was in the traveling carriage; Oakside had disappeared, and Lord Vivian Selwyn had clasped her to his heart, saying: "All mine at last! Violante —my wifel’k To the Scotch lakes they went. And amid such glorious loveliness of sea and sky as Violante had never even dreamed of she finished the lesson of love she had begun to learn nt Wootreavcs. There, alone in the sweetest solitude under heaven. Lord Vivian grew almost to worship his beautiful young wife. He could see no fault, no shadow of imperfection in her. There were no envious eyes near to note when she did not feel quite at her ease, and he thought her shy, blushing, timid mannr more winning, more charming than anything he had ever seen. When the chill days of November came and they went home to Selwyn Castle, Lord Vivian was more deeply in love than ever with his fair young Violante. (To be continued.)