Winter Evening Tales

Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and excitement had come—­the master was returning with a young bride, whom report spoke of as “bewitchingly beautiful.”  It was easy to believe report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty.  It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor and extravagant.

For once report was correct.  Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers, had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds, was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.

It was Clementina’s beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty seasons of flirtation.  He was entangled in the meshes of her golden hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners.  He was blind to all her faults; deaf to all his friends—­in the glamour of her enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.

Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over, nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the reward of her seductive attentions came.

“Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview.”

She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made herself marvelous.

“Mother,” she said, as she left her dressing-room, “you will have a headache.  I shall excuse you.  I can manage this business best alone.”

In an hour she came back triumphant.  She put her feet on the fender, and sat down before the cheerful blaze to “talk it over.”

“It is all right, mother.  Good-by to our miserable shifts and shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses.  He will settle Kurston Chace and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month.”

“Impossible, Tina!  No modiste in the world could get the things that are absolutely necessary ready in that time.”

“Everything is possible in New York—­if you have money—­and Uncle Gray will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes.  Besides, I am going to run no risks.  If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow.  There is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering dinners and running up bills, the better.”

“Poor Philip Lee!”

“Mother, why did you mention him?  Of course he will be angry, and call me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor lawyer—­especially when I had such a much better offer.  I suppose he will be here to-night.  You must see him, mother, and explain things as pleasantly as possible.  It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr. Kurston’s affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations he is sure to indulge in.”

In this supposition Clementina was mistaken.  Philip Lee took the news of her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish for her happiness.  He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.

This was Clementina’s first drop of bitterness in her cup of success.  She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said.  It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should be feeling a contempt for her duplicity—­that he should use her to cure his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper.  She felt at moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.

It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the engagement opened everyone’s heart and home.  Congratulations came from every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.

The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding.  Henceforward Clementina Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.

This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting it.  To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.

Well, the wedding was over.  She had abundantly gratified her taste for splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home, which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in the country.

Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed.  Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty, supported by wealth and position.

Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.

For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called “wife,” there was another woman at Kurston whom he called “daughter,” that he loved quite as dearly, in a different way.  In fact, of his daughter, Athel Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.

No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent.  A strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now been many years dead.

Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her.  However—­though she knew it not—­no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston’s heir; indeed, nothing in her father’s conduct sanctioned such a conclusion.  True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.

She was as old as his new wife, willful, proud, accustomed to rule, not likely to obey.  He had said nothing to Clementina of her existence; he had said nothing to his daughter of his marriage; and now both facts could no longer be concealed.

But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with either of them.  So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.

To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing.  The elegantly dressed young lady who met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a genuine surprise.  Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed her.  But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground; she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the vantage-ground of her retirement sent Félicité to take observations.

The little French maid found no difficulty in arriving at the truth, and Mrs. Kurston, not unjustly angry, entered the drawing-room fully prepared to defend her rights.

“Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we arrived?”

This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner she had always found omnipotent.

“That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina.”

This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the defensive generally assume.

“Miss Kurston?  Your sister, Frederick?”

“No; my daughter, Clementina.”

“But you were never married before?”

“So people say.”

“Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person of—­”

“I see no reason why you should not—­that is, if you live in the same house with me.”

A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the infatuated husband was willing to promise anything—­everything—­that his charmer demanded—­that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston’s influence was really stronger than her step-mother’s, and the promises extorted from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler feelings.

A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.

One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her, assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum; but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.

This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband.  He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for her—­a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.

A splendid house was taken, and Mrs. Kurston at once assumed the position of a leader in the world of fashion.  Greatly to her satisfaction, Philip Lee was a favorite in the exclusive circle in which she moved, and she speedily began the pretty, penitent, dejected rôle which she judged would be most effective with him.  But, though she would not see it, Philip Lee was proof against all her blandishments.  He was not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity’s holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very antipodes of the married siren.

Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master.  Gradually, as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.

Two years passed away.  There was no longer on Clementina’s part, any pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted herself to her own interests and amusements.  He wearied with a hopeless search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive him of life.

His wife now regretted that she had married so hastily; the settlements promised had been delayed; she had trusted to her influence to obtain more as his wife than as his betrothed.  She had not known of a counter-influence, and she had not calculated that the effort of a life-long deception might be too much for her.  Quarrels had arisen in the very beginning of their life at Kurston, the disappearance of Athel had never been forgiven, and now Mrs. Kurston became violently angry if the settlement and disposing of his property was named.

One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel’s disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston to sign.  He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful.  He signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock the door and sit down.

“I am going,” he said, “to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust.  I do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that makes to me the bitterness of death.  I have a daughter—­the lawful heiress of the Kurston lands—­whom my wife drove, by subtle and persistent cruelty, from her home.  By no means have I been able to discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in possession of her rights.”

“But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?”

“They are all in this box—­everything that is necessary.  Take it with you to your office to-night.  Her mother—­ah, me, how I loved her—­was a Polish lady of good family; but I have neither time nor inclination now to explain to you, or to excuse myself for the paltry vanities which induced me to conceal my marriage.  In those days I cared so much for what society said that I never listened to the voice of my heart or my conscience.  I hope, I trust, I may still right both the dead and the living!”

Mr. Kurston’s presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank gradually during the following week, and died—­his last word, “Remember!” being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying injunction, to Philip Lee.

A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of a sentimental woman to her first and—­as she chose to consider it—­her only true affection.  She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer, dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of the Kurston property.

Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered.  The world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.

He found himself, indeed, becoming gradually entangled in a net of circumstances it would soon be difficult to get honorably out of.

The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his engagement.  There was but one way to free himself from the toils the artful widow was encompassing him with—­he must marry some one else.

But whom?  The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him; yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again.  He had half a mind to do so, and “half a mind” in love is quite enough to begin with.

So he put on his hat and went to his sister’s house.  He knew she was out driving—­had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park.  Then what did he go there for?  Because he judged from experience, that at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister’s daughters, was at home and alone.

He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it by the other.  The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his suit, pouring into Pauline’s ears such a confused account of his feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.

“But, Philip,” said Pauline, “do you mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston makes love to you?  Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best friend and patron?”

“Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!”

“Dead! dead!  Oh, Philip!  Oh, my father! my father!” And the poor girl threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.

This was a revelation.  Here, in Pauline Alexes, the girl he had fondly loved for nearly three years, Philip found the long-sought heiress of Kurston Chace!

Bitter, indeed, was her grief when she learned how sorrowfully her father had sought her; but she was scarcely to be blamed for not knowing of, and responding to, his late repentance of the life-long wrong he had done her.  For Philip’s sister moved far outside the narrow and supreme circle of the Kurstons.

She had hidden her identity in her mother’s maiden name—­the only thing she knew of her mother.  She had never seen her father since her flight from her home but in public, accompanied by his wife; she had no reason to suppose the influence of that wife any weaker; she had been made, by cruel innuendoes, to doubt both the right and the inclination of her father to protect her.

It now became Philip’s duty to acquaint the second Mrs. Kurston with her true position, and to take the necessary steps to reinstate Athel Kurston in her rights.

Of course, he had to bear many unkind suspicions—­even his friends believed him to have been cognizant all the time of the identity of Pauline Alexes with Athel Kurston—­and he was complimented on his cleverness in securing the property, with the daughter, instead of the widow, for an incumbrance.  But those may laugh who win, and these things scarcely touched the happiness of Philip and Athel.

As for Mrs. Kurston she made a still more brilliant marriage, and gave up the Kurston estate with an ostentatious indifference.  “She was glad to get rid of it; it had brought her nothing but sorrow and disappointment,” etc.

But from the heights of her social autocracy, clothed in Worth’s greatest inspirations, wearing priceless lace and jewels, dwelling in unrivalled splendor, she looked with regret on the man whom she had rejected for his poverty.

She saw him grow to be the pride of his State and the honor of his country.  Loveless and childless, she saw his boys and girls cling to the woman she hated as their “mother,” and knew that they filled with light and love the grand old home for which she had first of all sacrificed her affection and her womanhood.