The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Penelope frowned. 'I know, I know! You've said all that to me before. As to the money required, of course there will be plenty of money. You have never liked Cecily; but still, even you must admit that she has done very well, and, after all, both Philip Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret agree that something of the kind she suggests is badly needed. I remember that I myself, in old days, always considered that we thought far too much of our protégés' minds and morals, and far too little of their bodies; and I know I heartily sympathized with the poor wretches who, when they discovered that there were to be no more doles, broke all the windows of good Mr. B.'

Winfrith vehemently disagreed, but it was an old quarrel between them, and he refused to be drawn.

'To return to the main question,' he said quietly, 'it seems to me to be entirely one of money. If you endow the Settlement, as I understand you mean to do—that is, adequately—your own income will be greatly lowered, and even so large, so immense a fortune as that left you by your husband'—he brought out the word with a gulp—'will be seriously affected. You know sometimes, as it is, you have not found matters very easy.'

He hesitated, for here he felt on delicate ground. The way in which this, to him, dearest of women, dowered with apparently such simple personal tastes, so over-spent her large income as to find it difficult sometimes to meet the claims of the Settlement, had been to him for years a matter of profound astonishment.

'Well, I shall have to manage better in future.' She sighed a little wearily. 'As you said just now the money was really left to me in trust;' and, when Winfrith made a gesture of negation, she said, 'Well, most of it was.' And then, with complete change of tone, she said slowly, 'And now I intend to be shut of it all.'

As he looked at her, perplexed, she added: 'You don't know the expression? Ah well, if you had ever lived at the Settlement, even for a short time, you would be quite familiar with it, for there women are always longing to be "shut" of things—principally, of course, of their husbands and babies. But seriously, David, what I want you to tell me and to help me to do concerns the practical side of this great renouncement.'

There had come again into her voice, during the last few moments, the satirical ring he dreaded and disliked. 'We will take all your remonstrances and reproaches as said'—she softened the discourtesy of her words by the touch for a moment of her hand on his arm. 'And I want it all done at once—within the next few weeks.'

Winfrith smiled, not unkindly. 'So I should suppose,' he said quietly; 'but of course that will be quite impossible.'

'But you have often helped me to get things done quickly,' she cried urgently, 'and it really is most important that these changes and new arrangements should be made now, as soon as possible.'

Winfrith laughed outright. He wondered for a moment, with a certain complacency, whether any man, however foolish and lacking in knowledge of business, could be found to propose so absurd a thing as this clever, and sometimes so shrewd, woman had done.