The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Cecily looked doubtfully at the picture. 'Of course he is not nearly so handsome'—Mr. Winfrith spoke rather plaintively—' but I assure you he is really very like her. This portrait was painted before our marriage. Lord Wantley—I mean Mrs. Robinson's father—thought it one of the best ever painted by the artist'—Mr. Winfrith looked puzzled—' I forget his name, though at one time I knew him quite well. I'm sure you would know it, for he's a great man. He was often at Monk's Eype, and painted Lady Wantley several times. But this was one of his early efforts, and I myself'—the old man lowered his voice, fearing lest the stricture should be overheard by his other guest—' much prefer his earlier manner.' And then he led her out into the garden, and handed her over to the care of his son, while he himself turned eagerly, confidingly, to Penelope.

David Winfrith at Shagisham, waiting on his old father, acting as courteous host to his own and that dear father's guest, seemed a very different person from the man who acted as mentor to the Melancthon Settlement.

Only the most unemotional, and, intellectually speaking, limited, human being is totally unaffected by environment. Winfrith, when at home, not only appeared another person to his London self, but he behaved, and even felt, differently. At Shagisham he came under the only influence to which he had ever consciously submitted himself—that of his simple and spiritually minded father, a man so much older than himself that he seemed a survival from a long-past generation.

Another cause, one known fully to very few beside himself, made him a different man when at home. There, at Shagisham, he never forgot certain facts connected with the early life of his parents—facts made known to him in a letter written by his mother before her death, and handed to him by his father when they had returned, forlornly enough, from her funeral. And after the boy—he was sixteen at the time—had read and burnt the letter, he had looked at the lovely valley, the beautiful old church, and the pretty rectory, with altered, alien eyes.

Had Winfrith followed his instinct he would never have come there again, but he had forced himself to keep this feeling hidden from his father, and many times, both when at college and, later, through his working year, he took long journeys in order to spend a few brief hours with the old man.

But he had no love for the place where he had spent his lonely childhood, and he did not like Shagisham any the better when he perceived that he had become in the opinion of the neighbourhood which had once looked askance at Mr. Winfrith and his only child, an important personage, able to influence the fate of lowly folk seeking a job, and that of younger sons of the great folk, bound, with less excuse, on the same errand.

Walking beside Penelope's young friend, he took pains to make himself pleasant, and, happily inspired, he at last observed: 'And so you have made friends with Lord Wantley? He's a very good fellow, and there's much more in him than Mrs. Robinson is ever willing to admit. He might be very useful to the Settlement.' Cecily said to herself that she had perhaps misjudged her companion, and she determined that she would henceforth listen to his criticisms of her schemes with more submission.

But what mattered to David Winfrith the young girl's good opinion? Penelope's unexpected coming had put him in charity with all the world.

Certain men are instinctive monogamists. For this man the world held no woman but she whom he still thought of as Penelope Wantley. There had been times when he would willingly have let his fancy stray, but, unfortunately for himself, his fancy had ever refused to stray.