The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Of course at one time his marriage with Mrs. Robinson had been regarded as a certainty, but, as the years had gone on, the gossips admitted their mistake, and, according to their fancy, declared either the lovely widow or Winfrith disappointed.

Alone, Wantley arrived very near the truth. He was sure that there had been no renewal of the offer made and accepted so ardently in the days when the two had been boy and girl; but a subtle instinct warned him that Winfrith still regarded Penelope as nearer to himself than had been, or could ever be, any other woman; and of the many things which he envied his cousin, the young peer counted nothing more precious than the chivalrous interest and affection of the man who most realized his own ideal of the public-spirited Englishman who, born to pleasant fortune, is content to work, both for his country and for his countrymen, for what most would consider an inadequate reward.

David Winfrith's existence formed a contrast to his own life of which Wantley was ashamed. He was well aware that had the other been in his place, even burdened with all his own early disadvantages, Winfrith would by now have made for himself a position in every way befitting that of the successor of such a man as had been Penelope's father.

III

On the evening of his unexpected return to the villa, an evening long to be remembered by him, Wantley dressed early and made his way into the Picture Room. He went expecting to find an ill-assorted party, for Mrs. Robinson was one of those women whose own personal relationship to those whom they gather about them is the only matter of moment, and whose guests are therefore rarely in sympathy one with another.

All that Wantley knew concerning those strangers he was about to meet was that he would be called upon to make himself pleasant to an elderly Roman Catholic spinster, and to her niece, a girl closely associated with the work of the Melancthon Settlement; and the double prospect was far from being agreeable to him.

He was therefore relieved to find the Picture Room empty, save for the immobile presence of Lady Wantley. She was sitting gazing out of the window, her hands clasped together, absorbed in meditation. As he came in she turned and smiled, but said no word of welcome; and he respected her mood, knowing well that she was one of those who feel the invisible world to be very near, and who believe themselves surrounded by unseen presences.

Lady Wantley's personality had always interested and fascinated the young man. Even as a child he had never sympathized with his mother's dislike of her, for he had early discerned how very different she was from most of the people he knew; and to-night, fresh as he was from the company of cheerful dowagers who were of the earth earthy, this difference was even more apparent to him than usual.

Penelope's mother doubtless owed something of her aloofness of appearance to her singular and picturesque dress, of which the mode had never varied for twenty years and more. The long sweeping skirts of black silk or wool, the cross-over bodice and the lace coif, which almost wholly concealed her banded hair, while not hiding the beautiful shape of her head, had originally been designed for her by the painter to whom, as a younger woman, she had so often sat. Since the great artist had first brought her the drawing of the dress in which he wished once more to paint her, she had never given a thought to the vagaries of fashion, so it came to pass that those about her would have found it impossible to think of her in any other garments than those composing the singular, stately costume which accentuated the mingled severity and mildness of her pale cameo-like face.

After Melancthon Robinson's death, his widow had at once made it clear that she had no intention of returning to her mother; but every winter saw the two ladies spending some weeks together in London, and each summer Lady Wantley became her daughter's guest at Monk's Eype.