Effie Adelaide Rowlands

“ And the flood of nonsense would flow on till Polly had succeeded in winning a smile from her mother’s wan, sad face, and then the girl was content.
“I must make her happy again. I must—I must!” Polly would say, to herself at night, when she lay awake in the small room adjoining her mother’s. “How I wish I were big and strong, like Mr. Ambleton. One can command so much when one is big, but when one is small, and a girl, too—well, there is not much one can do but hope and pray, and pray and hope!” ”

“ Valentine began, but the other went rushing into speech.
“We married—put the blame on whom you will—we married; yes, but my heart was never given in marriage. I had given it long before. Have you ever seen Polly?” he queried, suddenly. “It is Polly I love—Polly I have loved from the first!”
“Take care, man!” Valentine said, in a stifled sort of way. By what chance did this thing come to him now?
“Oh! I do no harm by saying this to you,” Hubert said, half recklessly. “You are the sort of friend one trusts to death. Yes, it is Polly I have loved, and yet I married Winnie. ”

“ Then Valentine went on, hurriedly. “I love your sister, Polly, Lady Wentworth, and I am happy to tell you she consents to be my wife.”
Christina’s lips were very thin. For an instant she could not speak, then she turned and left the room.
“I congratulate you both,” she said, as she went, but her tone was so cold, so strangely hard, that her mother looked pained.
“Poor Chrissie,” she said, wistfully, “she does not mean to be cold; but her sorrow is so new—too new, perhaps, to let her find happiness anywhere.” ”

“ Christina looked after his retreating figure with an expression on her face that was not wholly anger. There was a touch of something like pity in her look—the pity [Pg 141] was for herself. She was, in truth, far from being easily accustomed to the fact that already her power over her husband was gone. Such a realization was too humiliating for her to grasp all at once. She had made such a thorough conquest of Mark Wentworth at the beginning that she may be forgiven for imagining her sovereignty would be perpetual. ”

“ I hope my darling mother does not think me unkind; it is wrong to run away just because one is tired and troubled, and yet—yet, oh! it is nice to be away! to be safe from things that hurt one to hear and see. Mother would forgive me if she knew, and I shall go back to her cured, quite cured,” Polly assured herself, severely; and she shed more tears as she said this, for being quite cured meant sweeping even the remembrance of Valentine out of her thoughts, and that was something that would take long to accomplish, if indeed it was ever accomplished at all. ”

“ Given two natures so honest, so proud and yet so open to influence as Kestridge’s and Polly’s, it will be seen at a glance that Winifred’s task of alienating them even before they had thoroughly realized what lay in their hearts, and substituting herself in the guise of the necessary sympathy, was not a phenomenally difficult one. Worked by her sister’s slender, iron, little hands, Polly was transformed into a sharp-tongued, bad-tempered creature, in whose eyes Hubert could do nothing but wrong. ”

“ Winnie’s visit had upset Mrs. Pennington very much. Matrimony had enforced all Winnie’s little peculiarities.
Mrs. Pennington had had no intention of reproaching her daughter, and, indeed, on the contrary, she had shown a pleasure and eagerness to see Winnie again. Mothers have a trick of forgetting and forgiving where others would be less amenable.
But Winnie did nothing to minister to the sorrow that reigned in her mother’s heart. She was cold, unsympathetic and self-centered.
Polly caught her mother shedding bitter tears after Winnie had gone, and the girl’s heart had ached with a new ache. ”

“ Polly’s eloquent face took an expression of pain and tears.
“Chris does not mean to vex you, mother darling; I am sure of it,” she said, eagerly; but her eagerness was not to defend Chrissie as in former times, but to give pleasure and solace to her mother’s heart.
Mrs. Pennington smiled faintly.
“Ah! Polly, dear,” she said, with a little break in her voice, “we all make big, sad mistakes sometimes. Pray God my Chris may never live to regret the mistake she is making.” ”

“ I am sorry to leave you, mother, dear, but I suppose I must go, must I not?”
When Christina put a little pleading into her sweetly toned voice she was quite irresistible, to her mother at least.
“Oh, my dear, of course you must go. It is only right and proper that you should be at Sunstead as often as possible, since it is to be your future home. We—we shall miss you, that you know only too well,” Mrs. Pennington said, with a faint smile breaking the troubled look on her face, “but we must not be selfish.” ”

“ Grace left her reluctantly. Duties in the house claimed her from time to time. Death may creep slowly up to the threshold, but life demands attention incessantly.
There were many things Grace had to do.
Valentine was going to London. He must have luncheon, and Sacha, too, did not quite understand why his home should be turned upside down for strangers. All these mundane things fell naturally to Grace’s lot to arrange.
In her hurry to see to Valentine’s comfort, she had not time to realize the lack of sympathy that characterized Sacha’s attitude at this moment. ”

“ She sat expecting Valentine all the afternoon, and as dinner drew near and he had not come, she got cross as well as bored, and she fell back upon Polly as a vent for her ill temper.
Poor Mrs. Pennington, who had felt the void in her life the very hour of Polly’s leaving her, said all that was in her heart for her youngest girl; but the mother’s tender recognition of Polly’s love did not impress Christina.
“After all, there is nothing to make a fuss about,” she said to herself. “Polly has to look after mother, whether she likes it or not. It is her duty.” ”

“ After a moment of silent reproach from Winifred, Polly broke forth into speech again.
“Oh, how I hate Mondays! How I loathe Mondays! [Pg 7] How I wish one could skip every Monday that ever comes!”
“Tuesdays would be just the same,” said Winifred, with her superior smile.
“There ought to be no beginning to the week at all. What good does it serve? Why can’t we run straight along in one unbroken line, I should like to know? There must be something vicious about a Monday. Look what a bad effect it has on all of us.” ”

“ Thus it was that she worked to make things even for herself by having Sacha about her as much as possible.
But, after all, it was a poor consolation to fight a one-sided battle, and when Christina found that Grace accepted all she did in utter silence, she began to be annoyed in another way.
“Harold must come and stay here,” she said to herself. “After all, Mark is more powerful than Valentine Ambleton. He can do more for the boy’s future. I shall write and tell him I expect him. It will disappoint Miss Grace a little when she sees how quickly Harold obeys me.” ”

“ Pennington’s worn face had a flush on it, a flush and a look that was akin to anger.
“I confess I do not understand you, Polly,” she was saying, and her tone was fretful in the extreme. “No one has been more severe than you have been on the faults of others. When you have been so pleased, you have accused your sisters of great lack of consideration, of selfishness and many other disagreeable things; and now, when it is your turn to act differently, you take an attitude which I am sure neither Christina nor Winifred would have adopted. I am both surprised and hurt with you!” ”

“ Grace flushed at this.
“I hope you are wrong, Ellen,” she said. “I should not care to think so badly of Lady Wentworth, or any other person.”
“I hope I am wrong, but I know I am right,” Ellen said, with obstinacy; then her voice changed as she talked of Polly.
“What a difference. Is it possible they can be sisters, Miss Grace? Poor little creature, it makes my heart ache to see her face. She looks very ill herself. I don’t think she is fit to sit in that close room, but there’s no way of moving her. Is Mr. Valentine going to bring the mother with him, Miss Grace?” ”

“ Whatever comes or goes, Winnie has cut me away from all chance of happiness.”
“She is your wife,” Valentine reminded him.
“What is your definition of a wife?” Kestridge asked, recklessly. “A woman who tells you frankly to your face that you are abhorrent to her, that she only consented to be your wife because of such material advantages as might come to her through you; a woman who confesses to have worked mischief between you and the one creature you love; a woman who refuses flatly to live in your home, and who sends you to Jericho or the devil, it matters not which?” ”

“ Nevertheless, he was not a man to be won as she had won Mark Wentworth.
It was not merely physical loveliness that would have sway with this man; there must be a nature as well, just that gentle, half-timid nature that the conventional man credits the conventional woman with possessing. Valentine was, so Christina quickly determined, one of those men who did not care for independence in a woman, but who would lose his head and his heart to a delicate, clinging creature who dared make no step alone.
“He to care for Polly!” ”

“ Polly said, sympathetically. “A move is a real calamity. I should hate it. We are told by all our relations that we have no business here, and that we ought to move; but I won’t let my mother budge. I know everybody considers we ought to bury ourselves in a tiny house in the suburbs, but mother has lived in this big house ever since I can remember anything, and I mean to keep her here as long as I can. But why have you moved?” she queried, in her frank, direct way. “Hubert Kestridge made us all envious by his description of your dear old home in Dynechester. ”

“ She was conscious of making her sister wince more than once, but when she condescended to personal remarks then Polly only laughed.
“My dear Winnie, I think you had better go. You evidently have come here because you imagined it was your duty. Now, please, understand you owe us no duty at all. Mother and I can live our lives without you, thank God! and we mean to do it. You are very pretty, and prosperous and happy, so you may go away and enjoy yourself; we are neither pretty nor prosperous, nor happy, and yet we would not change places with you for anything in the wide world! ”

“ This gave her no heartache, since for many a week now she realized that she hated this man she had married, hated him thoroughly. But death robbed her of more than a husband. It took from her power and wealth, and worse than this, it restored to those whom she had dominated, all that had once been theirs, morally, if not actually.
With Sir Mark’s death his title would die, as he left no son, and there was no other heir, and with his death Sunstead and all its domains would pass to his Cousin Valentine, eldest son of his father’s sister. ”