Lady Wynde

“ I have a question to ask you, Octavia, before [30] I show the letter to you. Sir Harold Wynde adores you. He loads you with gifts. He lays his heart under your feet. You are his world, his life, his very soul. And now I want to ask you—do you love him?”
The ashen eyes shot a piercing glance into the handsome brunette face, but the black eyes met hers boldly and the full lips curled in a contemptuous smile.
“Love him?” repeated Lady Wynde. “You know I do not. Love him? You know that I love another even as Sir Harold loves me! Love him? ”

“ Lady Wynde nodded assent.
“And,” continued Artress, “I am to enter society with you, to remain with you as your guest instead of companion. I have been necessary to you in playing this game. I have lived with you some three years now, and though people know that I am a lady born, no one suspects that I am own cousin to Craven Black, and soon to be your cousin by marriage. We have joined our forces and wits together in this game, and we shall enjoy our success together.” ”

“ When Lady Wynde had worn mourning a year in most decorous fashion, Craven Black and his son came up to Wyndham, and early in September there were great festivities at Hawkhurst, at the third marriage of Lady Wynde. There was a ball at the great house, and a ball for the tenantry on the lawn, with music and fire-works. It was for all the world an affair such as might have greeted the coming of age of an heir to a grand property, rather than the marriage of a widow from the house of her late husband to a notorious adventurer. ”

“ Lady Wynde steadily pursued her preparations for her marriage, keeping a keen watch upon her lover, whom she more than suspected of faithlessness to her. She loved him with all her wicked soul, and was anxious to secure him in matrimonial chains, but her engagement to him had not yet been announced, and even Neva did not know of it.
By the exercise of Lady Wynde’s influence, the Blacks, father and son, were invited to all the parties given in Neva’s honor, and Rufus Black and Lord Towyn were ever at the side of the young heiress. ”

“ Two years and six months ago you were a poor widow, unable to marry me because of our mutual poverty. Now you are again a widow, rich, respected, honored throughout Kent, and can marry whom you please. I am as poor as I was three years ago, and yet, Octavia, I know that you prefer me to all other men. Is it not so?”
Lady Wynde blushed as she murmured assent. She was essentially bad, being unprincipled and unscrupulous, but she loved Craven Black with her whole heart, and with a fervor that astonished herself.
After the death of her first husband, Lady Wynde had first met Craven Black. ”

“ Mr. Atkins looked disgusted. Lord Towyn’s warm blue eyes were directed toward Neva rather than toward Lady Wynde, but he lost nothing of the conversation.
“I have performed only my duty in warning you, Lady Wynde,” said Sir John, after a pause. “You are bent upon this marriage with a man who was a stranger [193] to you three months since, and so soon after the tragic death of Sir Harold Wynde in India?”
“I have waited a year and three months before marrying again,” declared Lady Wynde, impatiently. “Why should I wait longer? Surely a year of mourning is all that custom requires. ”

“ She made known her whole life to me. She was the daughter of a naval officer, and the niece of Mrs. Hyde, a lady of good family and position, who lives a very retired life in Bloomsbury Square, London. We ate our wedding breakfast in Mrs. Hyde’s house. Lady Wynde’s first husband was the Honorable Charles Hathaway, the younger son of a Viscount. Lady Wynde’s family connections both by birth and marriage are excellent. I knew all this beyond a peradventure before I married her. And yet you call her an adventuress!”
“And so she was, Sir Harold,” exclaimed Atkins. ”

“ The hideous widow’s cap, not at all becoming to her ladyship, was exchanged for lavender ribbons in her hair, and jewels took the place of the orthodox mourning ornaments of jet. In her “half mourning,” Lady Wynde appeared more than ever a strikingly handsome woman.
“Artress,” she said one morning to her gray companion, as she looked out of her sitting-room window upon the fair domain of Hawkhurst, “this dreaded year [59] is over at last. I have satisfied the demands of society; I have hoodwinked the jealous and envious eyes of neighbors, and am free at last. ”

“ His gains were, however, precarious, and he declined entering upon marriage with a person even poorer than himself.
Lady Wynde, in the days of her first widowhood, had been but little better than an adventuress. It is true that [64] she had a respectable name, high connections, and a home in her aunt’s house in Bloomsbury Square; but she was ambitious of social position, she chafed at her poverty, and had too much worldly wisdom to marry Craven Black in the then state of their fortunes, even had he desired it. ”

“ As your late husband’s most intimate friend, I desire to ask you if you have well considered this step you are about to take?”
Lady Wynde bowed a cold assent.
“Your knowledge of the character of Mr. Black can be but slight,” persisted Sir John Freise, leaning his chin upon the gold knob of his walking-stick, and regarding the handsome widow with troubled eyes. “He has been at Wyndham but a few months. I grant that he is of attractive exterior, Lady Wynde, but what do you know of his character? I have not come here to make any charges against Mr. Black but those I am prepared to substantiate. ”

“ Lord Towyn from his marine villa and Mr. Atkins from Canterbury to accompany me into your presence, and assist me to impart to you the unpleasant news. Lady Wynde, this Craven Black, your accepted lover, is a scoundrel, a gamester, a man unworthy your consideration for a moment.”
“Indeed!” said Lady Wynde, with a slight sneer. “Mr. Black, to my knowledge, goes in the first society. He visited at the Duke of Cheltenham’s last year, and the duke is a perfect Puritan, as every one knows.” ”

“ You can play the tender step-mother to his children. His daughter is sure to dislike you, and she may cause her father to distrust you. All this will no doubt be pleasant to you—”
“Hush, hush!” breathed Lady Wynde, with a tempestuous look in her eyes. “Let me alone, Artress. You always stir up the demon within me. Forty years of a dull, staid, respectable existence, when I might be a queen of society in London, might be married to one I have loved for years! Forty years! Why, one year seems to me an eternity. It seems a lifetime since I was married to Sir Harold. I—I will act upon the letter.” ”

“ While Craven Black was successfully pursuing his machinations to destroy the happiness of two young lives, Lady Wynde had been active in carrying out her part in the infamous plot against Neva. The little packet of forged letters which had cost Lady Wynde’s fellow-conspirator a night of toil, and which had been sent to Hawkhurst by a special messenger, had been safely delivered into the hands of Mrs. Artress, who had been waiting at the gate lodge to receive it. ”

“ Atkins and Sir John, who had now mounted. “But Sir John Freise was determined to make an effort to save Lady Wynde from a union which she is likely to regret. Her ladyship is too pure and true to comprehend the character of her suitor, and she will cling to him all the more determinedly because of our well-meant warning.”
By this it will be seen that Lord Towyn, with his frank nature, and honest soul, had not the slightest suspicion of the real character of Lady Wynde. If Craven Black was bad, she was also bad. She could never have loved or been wholly at ease in the society of a good man. ”

“ Do you remember the handsome widow, Mrs. Hathaway, whom you saw once at the theatre in my charge? She married Sir Harold Wynde. He died in India last year, leaving her well-jointured. I came down to see her the other day, and it seems she remembers me with her old affection. In short, Rufus, I am engaged to marry Lady Wynde, and the wedding is to take place in October. She is her step-daughter’s guardian, as I said, and will have unbounded influence to back up your suit. The field is clear before you. ”

“ Although young, handsome [46] and admired, presiding over one of the finest places in the county, with no one to direct or thwart her movements, the most censorious tongue could find nothing to condemn in her.
The only recreation she allowed herself were her weekly visits to London, ostensibly to see Madame Elise, but as the ashen-eyed Artress always accompanied her, they excited no comment even in her own household.
Easter drew near, and Lady Wynde wrote to her step-daughter that it would not be convenient to have her at Hawkhurst during the holidays, and ordered her to remain at her school. ”

“ I do decline to make further provision for you, but not because I do not love and appreciate you, for I [38] do both. So long as there is no issue to our marriage, the sum settled on you is ample for your own wants. If Providence sends us children, they will be provided for separately. We will let the discussion end here, Octavia, with the understanding that Neva will spend her Easter at Hawkhurst.”
Lady Wynde compressed her lips and looked sullen, but, as Sir Harold suggested, the discussion was dropped. The baronet was troubled, and disappointed in the wife he had believed faultless. ”

“ In Bamborough Castle there once lived a King who had two children, a son named Childe Wynde, and a daughter who was called May Margret. Their mother, a fair woman, was dead, and the King mourned her long and faithfully. But, after his son Childe Wynde went to seek his fortune, the King, hunting in the forest, came across a lady of such great beauty that he fell in love with her at once and determined to marry her. ”

“ What is she like?"
"Tall and pale, with an expressive face," replied Wyndham, lightly. "She is lady-like, and even striking-looking until she opens her lips—then——" he made an expressive grimace.
"Poor girl, as if she could help that," replied Val. "She has never been educated, you know. Her father is poor, and he can't give her advantages. Does old Helps love his daughter very much, dad?"
"I suppose so, Val. Yes, I think I may say I am sure he does."
"I am so interested in only girls with fathers," continued Mrs. Wyndham. "I wish I had seen Esther Helps. I hope you were kind to her, Gerald." ”

“ I cannot bear my friends should resign themselves too soon. Lady Williams Wynne, with whom I passed some days at her sister’s, is sixty-eight, eats green apples, kneels down through our long church service, walks out in October without hat or cloak in a muslin gown, and takes long walks alone many miles through roads, and villages, and fields, wears artificial flowers and three flounces, never speaks of time with reference to his effects on herself; yet never appears to make herself the least young, and is a model of propriety, and of the English matron. ”

“ Odalite, Wynnette and Elva came in, in their poke bonnets and buttoned coats.
“Oh, Miss Grandiere, excuse us, but yours was the only light we saw gleaming around the edges of the blinds, and so we knocked at your door,” said Wynnette, who always took the initiative in speaking, as in other things.
“My dear child! how is it that you children are out, after dark?” inquired the lady.
“We have been making the rounds to bid good-by to the neighbors. Mamma and papa went out yesterday, and we to-day. ”

“ Thus out, some fellows—Forest of Dean dwellers—offered them insult; from which a gentleman angler, who chanced to be whipping the stream close by, saved them—he no other than le Capitaine Ryecroft. With such commencement of acquaintance, a man couldn’t be much worth, who didn’t know how to improve it—even to terminating in marriage if he wished. And with such a rich heiress as Mademoiselle Gwendoline Wynn—to say nought of her personal charms—there are few men who wouldn’t wish it so to end. ”

“ How much love I give thee in return thou knowest, but to pay in this coin will never beggar us. I love thee because thou art all I can desire, and again because thou lovest me, and again for this same dear reason which is all I can say to excuse my mother-folly. Thy father is well, but weary of this great town; and we both long to be at home.”
Then there was more about my Aunt Wynne, and some woman-talk for her friends about the new fashions, which do not concern her, she being not of this world. “Am I not?” ”

“ Rosemary was poetic, romantic and sentimental to a degree. She was devoted to Wynnette and Elva Force; and she could not bear the idea of Wynnette “throwing herself away” on such a rustic.
“He is my own dear cousin, Wynnette, and I love him dearly as a cousin; but, indeed, I could not marry him to save my soul! And though he is a good boy, I do not think he is a proper match for you,” said Rosemary, one morning, when she had come to spend the day at Mondreer, and the two girls were tête-à-tête in Wynnette’s room, where she had taken her visitor to lay off her bonnet. ”

“ He an't the kind to consort wi' such as they, for all o' their bein' big folks now."
"But there were other ladies livin' at Llangorren. What ha' become o' they?"
"They ha' gone to another house somewhere down the river—a smaller one, it's sayed. The old lady as wor Miss Wynn's aunt ha' money o' her own, and the other be livin' 'long wi' her. For the rest there's been a clean out—all the sarvints sent about their business; the only one kep' bein' a French girl who wor lady's-maid to the old mistress—that's the aunt. She's now the same to the new one, who be French, like herself." ”