Sevenoaks: A Story of Today

by J. G. Holland

Mrs. Dillingham was walking back and forth alone through her long drawing-room. She was revolving in her mind a compliment, breathed into her ear by her friend Mrs. Talbot that day. Mrs. Talbot had heard from the mouth of one of Mrs. Dillingham's admirers the statement, confirmed with a hearty, good-natured oath, that he considered the fascinating widow "the best groomed woman in New York."

The compliment conveyed a certain intimation which was not pleasant for her to entertain. She was indebted to her skill in self-"grooming" for the preservation of her youthful appearance. She had been conscious of this, but it was not pleasant to have the fact detected by her friends. Neither was it pleasant to have it bruited in society, and reported to her by one who rejoiced in the delicacy of the arrow which, feathered by friendship, she had been able to plant in the widow's breast.

She walked to her mirror and looked at herself. There were the fine, familiar outlines of face and figure; there were the same splendid eyes; but a certain charm beyond the power of "grooming" to restore was gone. An incipient, almost invisible, brood of wrinkles was gathering about her eyes; there was a loss of freshness of complexion, and an expression of weariness and age, which, in the repose of reflection and inquisition, almost startled her.

Her youth was gone, and, with it, the most potent charms of her person. She was hated and suspected by her own sex, and sought by men for no reason honorable either to her or to them. She saw that it was all, at no distant day, to have an end, and that when the end should come, her life would practically be closed. When the means by which she had held so many men in her power were exhausted, her power would cease. Into the blackness of that coming night she could not bear to look. It was full of hate, and disappointment, and despair. She knew that there was a taint upon her—the taint that comes to every woman, as certainly as death, who patently and purposely addresses, through her person, the sensuous element in men. It was not enough for her to remember that she despised the passion she excited, and contemned the men whom she fascinated. She knew it was better to lead even a swine by a golden chain than by the ears.

She reviewed her relations to Mr. Belcher. That strong, harsh, brutal man, lost alike to conscience and honor, was in her hands. What should she do with him? He was becoming troublesome. He was not so easily managed as the most of her victims. She knew that, in his heart, he was carrying the hope that some time in the future, in some way, she would become his; that she had but to lift her finger to make the Palgrave mansion so horrible a hell that the wife and mother would fly from it in indignant despair. She had no intention of doing this. She wished for no more intimate relation with her victim than she had already established.

There was one thing in which Mr. Belcher had offended and humiliated her. He had treated her as if he had fascinated her. In his stupid vanity, he had fancied that his own personal attractions had won her heart and her allegiance, and that she, and not himself, was the victim. He had tried to use her in the accomplishment of outside purposes; to make a tool of her in carrying forward his mercenary or knavish ends. Other men had striven to hide their unlovely affairs from her, but the new lover had exposed his, and claimed her assistance in carrying them forward. This was a degradation that she could not submit to. It did not natter her, or minister to her self-respect.

Again and again had Mr. Belcher urged her to get the little Sevenoaks pauper into her confidence, and to ascertain whether his father were still living. She did not doubt that his fear of a man so poor and powerless as the child's father must be, was based in conscious knavery; and to be put to the use of deceiving a lad whose smile of affectionate admiration was one of the sweetest visions of her daily life, disgusted and angered her. The thought, in any man's mind, that she could be so base, in consideration of a guilty affection for him, as to betray the confidence of an innocent child on his behalf, disgraced and degraded her.

And still she walked back and forth in her drawing-room. Her thoughts were uneasy and unhappy; there was no love in her life. That life was leading to no satisfactory consummation. How could it be changed? What could she do?

She raised her eyes, looked across the street, and there saw, loitering along and casting furtive glances at her window, the very lad of whom she had been thinking. He had sought and waited for her recognition, and instead of receiving it in the usual way, saw a beckoning finger. He waited a moment, to be sure that he had not misunderstood the sign, and then, when it was repeated, crossed over, and stood at the door. Mrs. Dillingham admitted the boy, then called the servant, and told him that, while the lad remained, she would not be at home to any one. As soon as the pair were in the drawing-room she stooped and kissed the lad, warming his heart with a smile so sweet, and a manner so cordial and gracious, that he could not have told whether his soul was his own or hers.

She led him to her seat, giving him none, but sitting with her arm around him, as he stood at her side.