Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1898 — WOMANS ERROR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WOMANS ERROR

By Marion V. Hollis .

CHAPTER X. Lord Vivian Selwyn little realized how often, and in how many different shapes, that idea came to him—wishing his wife was more like Beatrice Leigh. The Lady Violante was sweet, gentle and of a most loving disposition. She was gifted with a refined mind, a cultivated and poetical taste; but tbpre was no mistaking the fact —she was not, and never would be, a “woman of the world.” They were sitting alone in the pretty breakfast room of Thornleigh House —a room gay with rose-colored chintzes, and stands of fragrant flowers. They had been breakfasting together, for neither Mrs. Selwyn nor Miss Leigh were down. The windows were open, and through them came a soft, western wind, perfumed with the breath of mignonette, “I never can do it, Vivian!” she cried. “I am only just tw'enty, and I never even arranged a dancing party it all my life. What shall I do?” His face grow dark with anger. “Violante,”. he asked, “do you intend always to remain a child? "When do you purpose to assume the duties that belong to you ns my wife?” “Do not be angry,” she said piteously; “I will do my best; but, indeed, I have no notion, no idea” even how to begin.” “It is nonsense,” said Lord Vivian; “you are young, graceful, clever, quick to learn, apt to imitate. Why can you not learn to fulfill your duties?—they seem to me simple enough.” Perhaps after all, it had been a terrible mistake; and if so, there was now no remedy. So he looked blankly into the beautiful, sorrowful face, a dreadful conviction dawning upon him that he had made a foolish mistake. “Do not look so, Vivian,” said Lady Selwyn; “I will do my best, Mrs. Selwyn will help me.” “That is the very thing,” said Lord Vivian; “I want you to learn self-reliance. You will not always have my mother and Miss Leigh to help you. Miss Leigh will marry some day, then what will you do?” “I am heartily glad of it,” replied Violante abruptly; and that answer did not quite please Lord Vivian. He had not the faintest idea that his wife was in -the least degree jealous of Beatrice, guch a thought had never occurred to him. He imagined her slightly envious, perhaps, of Miss Leigh's social qualities; but that Violante should be jealous of her never occurred to him. “Well, you will do the best you can, Violante,” he said, as he rose to leave the room. “You must come to me, if you find yourself in difficulties.” W r hen he had gone she cried to herself In a passion of despair. It was such scenes as these she had foreseen when Lord Vivian first asked her to be his wife, and now her fears were all verified. She was not equal to her duties—never would be, and her husband was disappointed in her. The evening of the ball came. Thanks to vigilant and well-trained servants, everything was in perfect order; and Lady Violante, as she looked round the magnificent suite of rooms, felt her heart lightened of a heavy load. Carriage after carriage drove up to the hall door; one group after another of fair guests entered; everything seemed promising and fair. Lady Violante went creditably through the reception of her guests; even the terrible duchess did not awe her. But as the evening wore on, she grew physically fatigued and exhausted. The difficulty of inventing civil gpeeches to so many people overtaxed her strength. Lord Vivian had wished, too, that she should dance with his most honored guest, Lord Lonsdale. She did wonders. She found partners for those who had none, she made up capital quartettes for the whist table, she talked—timidly, it is true —to the ladies; and, but from a malicious remark she overheard from the duchess, the chances are that she would have gone through the evening successfully. Her Grace of Roxminster was talking busily to Lady Seftone —and the two together could get through more gossip and scandal than any other two women in England. Lady Violante saw them sitting apart, talking in a low voice, and the idea unluckily occurred to her that she ought to go up to them and see if they required amusement in any livelier shape. She went to the back of Lady Seftone’s chair, and was in time to hear the duchess 9 t. •ay:

"Ah, poor Lord Vivian! he most have had a great taste for what Lord Byron would call bread and batter, when he married an unformed girl like that." “She was a mere nobody," rejoined Lady Seftone; “the daughter of some country attorney. No one can imagine what he married her for. She has but a washed-out kind of beauty, after all.” Poor Lady Violante! She did not know that was the common language of the fashionable world; she did not know that envy has no pity, no liking; that elderly beauties who have lost all their own charms have no occupation better than decrying the charms of others. A woman of the world overhearing such a conversation would have smiled to herself, and felt that she was beautiful enough to excite envy. To Lady Violante the words brought a sharp, keen pain. They haunted her; she could not fdrget them.

CHAPTER XI. Sunny Florence wore its gayest aspect. The blue waves of the Arno rolled between banks* of odorous flowers. One bright morning in August Lady Violante stood looking, with a far-off glance, over the Arno to the hills beyond. Near her grew a gladiolus, all scarlet and gold; the bees had buried themselves In the bells, humming for very joy in the bWght sunshine; the blossoms around her were musical with the songs of the nightingales. She herself was beautiful as a poet’s dream; but there was an expression of weariness on her face, a shadow in the violet eyes. A few minu««s more, and Lord Vivian joins her. "Still looking for Rupert, Violanter he asks. "How much trouble you give your-

self over that child. He is six years old now, remember. You cannot expect him to spend all his time in the nursery.” She sighed. Like all mothers, she knew the time must come when her nursling would take flight and pass from her gentle, tender care; yet she dreaded the time. She longed to keep him, to shield him from all the dangers that would beset him; to keep him to heaven and herself. Then her face brightened, and a beautiful color flushed even her brow, a beautiful light flashed in her eyes; for, far off, amid the tall myrtle trees, she heard the clear, ringing voice of a child. “There is Rupert!” cried Lord Vivian. “That is Beatrice with him.”

Then by the golden gladiolus, through the grove of silver-flowered orange trees, comes a woman whose beauty is as gorgeous as a passion flower in the sun; a woman with a face that .would have charmed a Titian, with its glorious coloring; her dark, radiant eyes, straight brows, and magnificent features, her “lips like crimson flowers,” her marvelous loveliness gladdening all who looked upon it. A woman whose every movement was full of imperial grace and dignity, for Beatrice Leigh was in the spring-tide of her life, and nature had lavished every charm upon her.

She made a superb picture as she passed the shimmering orange trees, and Lord Vivian’s eyes brightened with admiration. With one white hand Beatrice held fast the little fingers of a child, evidently a naughty and somewhat refractory child, for he seemed most unwilling to comply with her wishes. “Adhere was he, Beatrice?” asked Lord Vivian, as she came nearer. “I will tell you myself, papa,” cried the young heir of Selwyn. “You have been lost for more than two hours, Rupert,” said Lord Vivian gravely; “where have you been?” But the child could not answer, for Layd Violante had seized him in her arms. She forgot all the world but her boy. She only saw him, and nothing besides. She covered his face with kisses, she murmured sweet words over him, such as only mothers’ lips can frame. Lord Vivian stood by, wondering at this marvelous gift of mother love; and Beatrice Leigh looked on with a sneer on her peerless face. Then Lady Violante sat down on the garden chair, and the child stood by her knee. For the first time she noticed hid face bruised, and one eye swollen ana discolored. “Where have you been, Rupert?” ahe nsked gravely. “I know you will be very cross, mamma,” said the little fellow. “I have been to Luigi’s cottage.” “After I had forbidden you to go there?” said his mother sadly. “Yes,” he replied, and the brave little face flushed hotly. “1 know it was wrong, but Luigi struck me yesterday, and I ran away to fight him to-day.” “To fight T’ she cried in horrified accents; “to fight!” Then the tender mother's heart conquered, the sweet eyes filled with tears, the sweet lips trembled, the tender arms clasped him so tightly. “Oh, Rupert,” she said, “how was it?” “I will tell you, mamma,” said the child. "Do not cry; indeed, he did not hurt me! I took care of that! But yesterday, he, Luigi, said all English boys were cowards, and he struck me; so, today, I went down to his house and asked him to fight. I beat him, though he is the oldest. I fought him for honor, you know, mamma.” But she was looking at him with sweet, frightened eyes. * “You must not fight, Rupert,” she cried eagerly; “never, never again. It is wicked, my boy, wicked and wrong. Say you will never fight again.” “I cannot, mamma,” replied the child. “Suppose, you know, a boy strikes me, what am I to do then ?” In a voice sweeter than the cooing of a ring-dove, she told him those simple, glorious words, spoken by lips divine, words that teach patience under injuries, forgiveness under wrong, “If a boy strikes me,” said the child, “am I not to give it him back again, mamma ?” “No,” she replied eagerly; “you must show patience.” j “But,” interrupted the boy, “he would think I was a coward, mamma.” And she, in her sweet timidity, was startled at this. She hardly knew what to answer. She felt like a woman; he already reasoned like a man. Then Lord Vivian came toward them, and Beatrice Leigh took the child’s hand.

“Nay, Violante,” said her husband, “that is false teaching. You must train my boy to be brave; to be able not only to take his own part, but to defend the weak and the helpless, fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.” A new view of the subject, which seemed to relieve little Rupert wonderfully. Hb raised his earnest eyes, so like his mother’s, to Lord Vivian’s face. “Then you do not think fighting wrong, papa?” he asked anxiously. “Not if it be in a good cause, my son,” was the somewhat puzzling reply. Then spoke Beatrice. “All the men of your race, Rupert, have been brave,” she said. “You must not be the first coward in the family,” “But if mamma cries?*’ said the boy. And the next moment his fair little head was hidden on her breast. “Come with me, Rupert,” said Lord Vivian, “and I will explain to you.” Father and son walked away together. Now was the time for Miss Leigh to plant a sharp dagger in the gentle heart of her onconsdons rival. “He is a splendid little fellow,” she said. “It would be a thousand pities to make a milksop of him.” “I only want him to be good,” Violante replied piteously; “indeed, Beatrice, that is all.” “If Lord Vivian takes my advice,” Mid Miss Leigh, “he will send the boy to s good English school. He will be trained like a man there.” And as she walked away, Lady Vio-

lante looked * after her with despalriai eye*. CHAPTER XII. Imagine, reader, a woman combining the charms of a Greek goddess and • Parisian coquette; a woman wondrous to behold in her superb classical loveliness and easy, graceful, winning manner; the Countess Sitani, the belle of Florence, who might have been Helen of Troy, from the fatal fascination and charm she had for men, “Ah, Lady Selwyn,” she said, in her pretty broken English, “I have found you; Lord Selwyn has told me you were here. I have been smiling to myself at your attitude.” “My attitude!” repeated Lady Violante, flushing crimson, shrinking back, and thinking to herself that she had been guilty of something unconventional. “Yes,” said the countess, with a silvery laugh, “the English are a wonderful people! You are beautiful, young, beloved, rich; there is no fair gift of earth or heaven that is not yours. Your husband is adorable, your child perfection, you can have no shadow of care; yet, as I watched you standing there, no Niobe could have looked more sad. You, the happiest woman in the world, are no sooner left alone than you assume an attitude of desolation. Verily a wonderful people, so given to everything triste. What were you thinking of as you bent over that superb gladiolus, Lady Selwyn?” “Of my home,” was the reply. “In my mind then there was a picture of a green field close to my father’s house; a common green field, I suppose, to others; to me the very light of heaven shines upon it.”

“You are a poetess,” said the countess, gayly. “Do not deny it! How poetry flourishes among English fogs I cannot imagine. Do you know what I have come to see you about? Sit down here, Lady Selwyn, and listen.” They sat down together under the tall syringa trees, the orange blossoms and myrtle leaves falling at their feet; two of the fairest women that ever met, even in that fair clime. “It seems,” said the countess, a smile rippling over her lovely face, “that you, Lady Selwyn, Miss Leigh and myself are the three prettiest women in Florence. I heard yesterday that Prince Cesare called us the ‘Three Graces.’ My idea, the matter on which I came to speak to you, is this —could we not get up some charades, or tableaux vivants, in which we could all three appear? I have mentioned it to some people, and they are charmed with the idea.”

“I do not know; I am not clever,” replied Lady Selwyn, and the wistful look deepened on her fair face. “You need never fear. You frighten yourself without cause. Promise me to join our tableaus. I will bring you through safely. You have but to look pretty, and that will come natural to you. Lord Selwyn would be so pleased.” She had touched the right chord at last. The hardest heart might have been softened at the wistful pleading of Lady Selwyn’s face. “Do you really think,” she said, “that I might do well ?” “I am sure. Give me your promise that you will shake off that foolish timidity and shine as you were meant to do; leave the rest to me. We can meet at my house this evening to discuss and select the scenes that strike us most. We mrfst find one, though, in w hich we can all appear together. Prince Cesare likes Miss Leigh, I think.” “Does he?” asked Lady Selwyn. “She is very beautiful and very gifted. She seems to know everything by instinct. She alw'ays does the right thing at the right time, and says the very words she should say when they ought to be said.” “You are very generous,” cried Countess Sitani, opening her lovely eyes. “Now, if I were yon, I should be horribly jealous of Miss Leigh.” “Why?” asked Lady Violante, calmly, but her heart beat as it had never done before. “I cannot quite tell why,” replied the countess, with a shrug of the pretty shoulders; “only that she seems so often to take your place.” “Because I cannot take ft myself,” interrupted Lady Selwyn. “I would!” said the countess. “1 am not very wise, but I have quick instincts, and I foresee both danger and unhappiness for you unless you make a great effort to assert yourself. Whose will rules your house?—Miss Leigh’s! Who rules your child?—Miss Leigh! Who influences your husband? —Miss Leigh!” “Ah, no!” cried Lady Selwyn, “not that —anything but that.” “Yon must be blind if you do not see it,” said Countess Sitani; “every one else does, and —I must say it—the fault is your own! Instead of shrinking into yourself, as I see you do, and being frightened at every shadow, be bold —know your own rights, and let no one interfere with them. What a sin to sit preaching on this bright day; but a sermon will do you good. Lady Selwyn.,, Remember the committee this evening, and I shall watch you narrowly, to see if my lecture has been of any service to you. Now, goodby.” (To be continued.)