THE LADY IN BLACK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8403, 18 April 1907, Page 2

THE LADY IN BLACK.

A MYSTERY SOMEWHERE. "And besides, you know, my dear Mrs Rose, there is generally something wrong about a woman who dresses so very well." So spoke Mrs Bonnington, the vicar's wife, laying down the law; a law, indeed, which most Englishwomen are ready to take for granted. Mrs Rose, a tall, thin, pale lady who had "nerves," and who, on this bright April morning wore a woollen shawl half off her shoulders as she sat in the warm sun by the diningroom window, assented readily. "That's what I always say. Especially a widow. I'm sure if anything were to happen to my husband," went on Mrs Rose, euphemistically, "the last thing I should think about .would be my dress. I should be far too unhappy *to trouble myself about the fit of my. dresses or the shape of my bonnets." Now this was perhaps true, as Mrs Rose, though she spent as much money and as much thought upon her clothes as her compeers, never succeeded in looking as if her clothes had been made for her, or as if the subject of "fit" were of any importance. Mrs Bonnington shook her head with vague disquietitude, and resumedjher homily. "I assure you the matter has caused me a good deal of anxiety. You know how solicitous* both the -vicar and I are about the tone of the parish." "I do, indeed," murmured Mrs Rose sympathetically. "You know how hard we work to keep up a high standard. Why, .everybody knows that it was through me that objectionable people at Colwyn Lodge went away, and how we would do anything to rid the place of those terrible Solomons at Stone Court." At the other end of the room, a young face, with gray eyes full of mischief, was turned in the direction of Mrs Bonnington with a satirical smile. Mabin Rose, the overgrown, awkward stepdaughter of Mrs Rose, and who hated the vicar's wife, and called her a busybody and a gossip, brought her darning nearer to the table, and dashed headlong into the fray. "Papa wouldn't thank you if you did drive the Solomons out of the parish, as you did the people at Colwyn Lodge, Mrs Bonnington," broke in the clear young voice that would be heard. "He says Mr Solomon is the best tenant he ever had, and that he wishes that some of the Christians were like him." "Hush, Mabin. Go on with your work, and don't interrupt with your rude remarks," said Mrs Rose sharply. "I am quite sure your father never said such a thing, except perhaps in fun," she went on, turning apologetically to -her visitor. "Nobody is more anxious about 'tone,' and all those things, than Mr Rose, and he was saying only yesterday that he would rather I didn't call upon this Mrs Dale until something more was known about her." Again the young face at the other end of the table looked up mutinously; but this time Mabin controlled her inclination to protest. She looked down again, and began to darn furiously, to the relief of her feelings, but to the injury of the stocking. Mrs Bonnington went on: "you were , quite right. It's not that I wish to be uncharitable." "Of course not," assented Mrs Rose with fervor. "But a woman like yourself, with daughters to take care of, cannot be too careful. Young people are so led away; they think so much of the mere outside. They are so easily dazzled and taken in by appearances." Mabin grew red, perceiving that this little sermon was directed at herself. Her stepsisters, Emily and Ethel, one of whom could be heard "practising" in the drawing-room, were not the sort of girls to be led away by anything. "But why shouldn't a nice face mean something nice?" put in the .rash young woman again. The fact was that Mabin had been charmed with the sweet pink-and-white face and blue eyes of Mrs Dale, their new neighbour at "The Towers," and was mentally comparing the widow's childlike charms with the acidulated attractions of the vicar's dowdy wife. "And why," pursued Mabin, as both the elder ladies seemed to pause to gain strength to fall upon her together, "shouldn't she be just as sorry for her husband's death because she looks nice over it? It seemed to me, when she sat near us at church on Sunday, that she had the saddest face I had ever seen. And as for her corrupting us by her 'tone,' she won't •have anything to do with any of us. Mrs Warren has called upon her, and the Misses Bradley and Mrs Peak and a lot more people and she's always 'not at home,' So, even if she is wicked I should think you might let her stay. Surely, she can't do us much harm just by having her frocks better made than the rest of us." When Mabin had finished this outrageous speech, there was an awful pause. Mrs Rose hardly knew how to administer such a reproof as should be sufficiently scathing; while Mrs Bonnington waited in solemn silence for the reproof to come. Mabin looked from her stepmother's face to that of the vicar's wife, and thought she had better retire before the 1 avalanche descended. So she gathered Up heir work hastily, running her darning-needle into her hand in her excitement, muttered an awkward apology and excuse for her disappearance at the same time, and shot out of the room in the ungainly way which had so often before caused her stepmother to shudder, as she did now. When the doors had closed upon

By FLORENCE WARDEN. Author of "An Infamous Framf," "A T/' rible Family/ "For Love of Jack," "The House on the Mar ah,*' eft'., etc.

the girl. Hosed. with a ban.-if. Mi s Rormington sighed. • "1 !im su'raid," she said, unconsciously timing still more of her usual di rk-iil tone and accent, "that Mabin ir.usv, be a great anxiety to you!" Mrs Rose sighed and closed her eyes for a moment wearily. "If yoi etui Id realize how great an anxiety,'' she murmured, in a solemn tone, would pity me! If it were not that Mr Rose gives his authority to support mine in dealing with her. she would be absolutely unmanageable, I assure you!" "A forward spirit! And one singularly unsusceptible to good influences," said the vicar's wife. "However, we must persevere with her, and hope for a future blessing on our labours, even if it should come too late for us to be witnesses of her regeneration." "I am sure I have always done my best for her, and treated her as I have my own children. But you see with what different results. The seed is the same, but the soil is not. I don t know whether you knew her mother? But I suppose Mabin must take after her. She is utterly unlike her father." "She is, indeed. Mr Rose is such a particularly judicious, upright man. The vicar has the highest respect for him." Mrs Bonnington paused, to give full effect to this noble encomium. Mrs Rose acknowledged it by a graceful bend of her head, and went on: "The great failing about poor Mabin is that she is not womanly. And that is the one thing above all that my husband asks of a woman. 'Let her only be womanly,' he always says, 'and I will forgive everything else.' Now, my own girls are that, above everything." "Ah!" exclaimed Mrs Bonnington, with decision; "but that is just the fault of our age, Mrs Rose. Girls are no longer brought up to be contented to be girls. They must put themselves on the same footing with their brothers. Mabin is in the fashion, and no doubt that is all she desires. You see how this Mrs Dale has caught hold of her imagination, by nothing but fashionable clothes!" Mrs Rose put on a womanly air of absolute helplessness. "Well, what can I do?" said she. Mrs Bonnington came a little nearer. "In a case of this Mrs Dale," said she, in a lower voice, "go on just as you have begun. Do not call upon her. Do not have anything to do with her. To tell you the truth, it was about her that I came to see you this .morning. She has already brought mischief into our own peaceful home. She is a dangerous woman." "Dear me! You don't mean that!" said Mrs Rose, with vivid interest. "Unhappily I do. My son Rudolph came back from his ship only ten days ago, and already he can think of nothing but this Mrs Dale." "After having had the unpardonable insolence to leave your call unreturned, she has got hold of your son?" gasped Mrs Rose. "Well, not exactly that, as far as I know," admitted the vicar's wife. "He says he has never spoken to her. And the dear boy , has never told an untruth before." "But if this dreadful woman has entangled him, of course she might make him say anything !" cried Mrs Rose, in sympathetic agonies.]^ "I should not like to accuse a fellow woman of doing that," replied Mrs Bonnington severely; "but I think it is a bad and unnatual sign when my son, who has never taken the least notice of any of the young girls in the neighbourhood, becomes absorbed, in a few days, in the doings of a person who is a complete stranger to him, and who calls herself a widow." "Then you don't think," purred Mrs Rose, with the eagerness of one who scents a scandal, "that she is a widow?" There was a pause. And Mrs Bonnington spoke next, with the deliberation of bne who has a great duty to perform. "I should be very sorry to have it said of me that I was the first to start a rumour which might be thought unchristian or unkind," she said,with a deprecatory wave of the brown cotton gloves she wore in the mornings. "But I have thought it my duty to make enquiries, and I deeply regret that I have found out several things which lead me to the conclusion that this person has settled down in our midst under false pretences." (To be Continued."