MRS STAMER.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1030, 4 May 1883, Page 4

MRS STAMER.

LITERATURE.

Chapter I. “ But who is she ? and where has she come from ?” asks Mrs Vyvyan, with uplifted brows and a slight acerbity of tone. She actually lays down her novel (and the third volume, too, as she says this as though honestly desirous of information, or scandal. “ She is a widow, I hear,” replies her brother, lazily. He yawns and pulls with languid affection the ears of a small terrier sitting on his knee. “Oh! of course, they always are widows,” said Mrs Vyvyan. “ Well, why shouldn’t they be ? Fellows will die, you know. By-the-bye, did yon hear about Fred’s parsnips ? He—” “Never mind the parsnips. Fred (Fred is her husband) is always making an ass of himself about one thing or the other. Tell me what else yon have heard about this new-comer.” “About Mrs Stamer? Not much. She has taken The Holmes, it appears, and has one little daughter. I know nothing more of her and I shouldn’t have known that if Daventry hadn’t regularly button-holed me and made me listen to him.” “ How odd it is. That sort of woman has always only one child and it is never a son. Why don’t they have two, and why not a boy, sometimes ?” “ Sometimes they have. I know a widow that has three little sons.” “ A widow in society, no donbt. But I this Mrs Stamer has apparently no connections, no antecedents (that can be safely introduced), in fact, nothing !”, “ She has money, and the best place to be had now in the neighbourhood.” “ I suppose,” fretfully, “she will expect us to call.” “ Let her expect, and don’t call. Why should you ? Stay at home and so avoid this grievance.” “ But, if everybody else calls, I shan’t like to feel I am the one ill-natured person in ' the parish. Why on earth can’t she say who she is, or mention a cousin, or a sister or an aunt ? Charlotte Grynde saw her yesterday and says she is too pretty to be proper.” “ If ugliness is is a patent of respectability, Miss Grynde is all one could possibly desire/’ says Captain Block-; wood. She is, beyond all doubt, too proper be pretty.” “ Charlotte is trying, certainly, but I think she is a good soul,” says Mrs Vyvyan carelessly for her “ dearest friend,” “Stamer—Stamer. It is a good name enough, but perhaps assumed.” “ What’s in a name ?”• quotes her brother. “ We have heard about the rose, you know, and, considering what we* have heard she must be superior to any rose. If her surname was Brown Jones or Robinson, it would’nt take the lustre out of her eyes, or add an inch to her nose—which I hear is pure Greek. By-the-bye, she has'got the most questionable Christian name.” “ How questionable ?” “ It'is almost improper,” says Captain Blackwood, wTfETa faint laugh. The day is warm and laughter of the pronounced sort, is beyond him. “She calls heiriself ‘ Audrey.’ It sounds stagey, doesn’t it ? A woman who . respected herself wonld’nt go round ‘Vitk‘.'that name, would she ? It’s so'disgracefully put of the common.”, r A name signifies very little,” says lira Vy vyan, severely, who doesn’t like being ridiculed even by a pet brother. ' Look here, pussy,” says Qaptain Blackwood, “ Don’t you be the first to taboo this poor . little 1 woman. She is only your own age, I hear, twenty-seven,” fMrs yyvyan'is thirty-two.] “so don’t be hard pri'her. : ( No doubt she has had bad! times enough without our coming down heavily upon her.” “I shan’t-do anything, of course, until other people move,” says Mrs Vyvyan, mtich mollified’ by that happy allusion to her—or rather Mrs Stamer’s age. The other people mean the Bishop, Mrs. Bishop, and Lady Mary Gore. “ And don’t be tdo ? ha,sty eVen then,” advises her brother, who is a goodnatured young man, some three’ years her junior. “By-the-bye,” talking of haste/Lwould take three inches 6ft her tail if I were you.- You shouldn’t delay another hour.” w • « Off whose tail ?” startled. “ Gilly’s. These Irish terriers don’t look the ! thing with tails.” “ Oh 1 the dog’s,” says his sister, in a relieved tone. “ I thought yon were speaking of— I don’t understand dogs, but take of Gilly’s tail if you like, only—don’t hurt her.” Here comes Charlotte the Gryhder, so I’ll retire,” says Captain Blackwood, glancing down the avenue through the open window* “She has got on her new black silk, so she means mischief. I won’t have any tea this evening, thanks, nnless you will be so good as to send it, to the library. And, Pussy, a last; word ; if you really want to make your friend thoroughly happy, just expatiate on what you have heard ot Mr Stamer’s beauty.” A sound outside, a well-known semimasculine step, and Captain Blackwood flies to regions dull—but inaccessible. Chapter 11. In spite of its many spinsters society in Pnllingham is eminently goodnatured. Just now it is grieving excessively at having to hold back the right hand of fellowship from the stranger at The Holmes. But as the Larches had not gone to see her in their landau, The Elms have not dared to show her the light of their countenances in their phaston, and so on in the lesser degrees of pride, each member shrinking from the initiative in this matter. At the end of a week, however, things . came to a climax. The Bishop, a wonderfully unworldly man as Bishops go, waking to a sense of the sitnation, drags himself away from the contemplation of his strawberry beds, and persuades Mrs Bishops to put on her best bonnet and come with him to make a formal call at The Holmes. This, poor woman, she does in fear and trembling. Lady Mare

Gore has not, as yet, signified her intention of visiting the new-comer, and Lady Mary is own sister to a Duke ! Supposing Mrs Bishop should be putting her foot in it! Awful thought! She feels a little faint, but having donned the bonnet, in obedience to her Lord, ascends the Noah’s ark they call n. coach and drives away with him toi call upon this unknown woman who may or may not (here the feeling of faintness returns) be respectable; she almost weeps, and certainly scolds all the way there, and finally arrives just in time to meet Lady Mary departing. Yes there is balm in Gilead ! Again the sun shines, the flowers emit the sweetest nerfume. All is changed. She presses Lady Mary’s hand affectionately and murmurs, “ how glad she is to sec that dear Lady Mary; too [the too heavily emphasized] has not gone over to those who seemed bent on ignoring her presence in the country.” Lady Mary nods and blinks, and gives it as heFbpimoh tliaf the poor creature is absolutely charming, and goes on her way rejoicing, with a large smile upon her broad, ugly, lovely old face. After ..the Bishop, Mrs Yyvyan calls,; and after that there is a rush from minor quarters to see the pretty widow, who has dropped down among them as if from the skies. They find her very good to look at : so good that somebody says she cannot be bad, her face is so angelic ; yet every one in his or her secret heart feels that that there may bo something in her past not altogether—well—yon understand ; and this adds piquancy to the acquaintance, though all would have died rather than confess it. There is one great charm about Mrs Stamer. She is always at home, and always to be seen, so every one can gratify his curiosity about her. She is ever to be found seated in a huge rock-ing-chair in her drawing-room, with the windows open—(it is hottest, brightest June).an immense’ peacock fan in her little jewelled hand, and a very tiny child at her feet. She is dressed in deepest mourning, hot crape exactly, but heavy black for all that, relieved here and there by some handsome jet, and old lace frillings at the throat and wrists. She child is in mourning, too; yet she tells every one she has been a widow for a little more than three years. On her left hand, as in duty bound, (this is Miss Grynde’s remark, not mine); she wears a plain wedding-ring ; on her right two magnificent diamonds, worth a small fortune. Miss Grynde is further of opinion that djatoond rings oLsuch value on a: widow of unknown fame are not respectable 1 Pullingham is festive ; it is even lavish in its hospitality. Invitations to stately afternoons, pompons dinners, and frivolous evenings have been showered upon Mrs Stainer—all in vain. She ; has politely so declined ta; join the dance in any form whatever. Indeed she lets it be understood that she means to abjure gaiety, and devotes her exclusively to the cultivation of her child. The child is a decided feature in her programme. There have been, and there are, pretty children in Pullingham, but anything so<etherially lovely:as the litti? fairy who calls Mrs Stamer “ mamma,” Jhasmever yet been seen there; She is a minute thing of five years, with yellow hair'tbat encircles her like a cloud; and out of, which gleam dark eyes, and 'crimson lips, a complexion like a Veritable white rose, and a wistful expression that must have come with her from her own domain of Faerie. (To he continued.)