A college widow, a novel

Front matter

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT

FRANK HOWARD HOWE.

A Goilege WidoW'.

CHAPTER I. “ Isn’t that splendid, Jessica ?”

"What ?”

" That effect of sunlight falling through the clouds upon the green of the trees on College Hill yonder.”

Miss Jessica Druce lifted her face from the pages of the book she was reading by the last rays of the setting sun, gazed a moment at the bit of light and shade in the landscape toward which her friend was pointing, and responded :

"Yes, I dare say it is. May ; but it isn’t half so splendid as this account of the steeplechase I’m reading. They’re half way through, and Bertie is behind. But I know he will win. He must . Oh, don’t distract me, dear, until Fve seen this lovely horse safe over the last jump.”

With this adjuration, the young lady cuddled herself up in a new attitude of still greater enjoyment, and plunged again into the exciting incidents of her novel. Her companion, with a resigned “ Oh, very well, dear,” turned away and continued to gaze at the panorama which the sun was painting upon the opposite hill-side.

She was a girl of medium height, quite young, and rather pretty. Her features were not regular, hut her eyes were noticeably fine. Her mouth was large but well-formed; and when the lips parted, a set of gleaming white teeth was disclosed. Her complexion was of that dusky olive tint which is so attractive when kept clear by health and outdoor exercise. With her swarthy skin the girl possessed, strangely enough, a quantity of golden-brown hair, which she wore gathered loosely back from her low, broad forehead and coiled carelessly at the back of her head.

It was the face of a young girl, yet it already possessed a touch of power and of thoughtful-

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ness. As she gazed silently upon the view, the alternating light and shadow that chased each other oyer College Hill seemed to be reflected in her face as thought succeeded thought in the busy brain.

She continued to contemplate the view for some minutes, leaning the while against a stone pillar which was one of the ornaments of the Druce veranda. Presently the other girl threw down her book with a bang and rose with a sigh.

“ Oh, that noble, magnificent horse !” she cried, crossing to where her companion stood.

“ Did he win?”

“Win ! Of course he did. No horse could beat him. My ! I wish I had such a horse. But he’s not the least bit like Dapple.”

“ Oh, but Dapple is such a beauty, Jessica !”

“Yes, but he hasn’t enough blood and go in him. If papa wasn’t such a goose about me and my horseback-riding ! Why, even Fred can beat me on that old cob of his.”

“ And you two do race so horribly, Jessica! I really believe you’ll break your neck one day.”

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“ Bah ! That’s not racing. Dapple couldn’t race if he tried — lie’s too fat. But you’re as big a goose as papa, you dear little May.”

She threw her arm around the shoulder of the other, who responded by encircling her waist. As they stood thus together, they presented a very pretty picture. Perfect contrasts in style and color, each was an excellent foil to the other’s beauty. This may account for the fact that they had “ taken to” each other at once as schoolgirls at Vassar, and had remained fast friends ever since.

Jessica Druce is some inches taller than her friend. She is quite slender, but lithe and supple. Her skin is very white, except where the roses bloom in her cheeks. Her eyes and hair are both dark. The latter she wears in a style similar to her friend’s, except that a minute and carefully trimmed “ bang” accentuates the lines of her forehead. She is a very handsome girl, with a beauty that is brilliant because of the startling contrasts of color which it presents. It is the kind of face and figure that you invariably turn round to look at in the street.

The girls are standing on the piazza of Mr.

Jesse Druce’s mansion in the city of Syracuse, in central New York. Mr. Jesse Druce’s house is one of the show places of that thriving town. It is built substantially of stone, and is situated some distance up the hill on James Street. It cannot be seen from that thoroughfare, however, as it stands some distance back from the road in the midst of a well-kept lawn, and is surrounded by dense growths of handsome shade trees.

The house is built in semi-Gothic style, and the veranda forms a little alcove sheltered between two walls in the lines of its jagged architecture. The view from it extends to the north and west across the valley in which the city lies, until it is finally cut by the horizon-line of the hills that protect the town on that side.

Mr. Jesse Druce’s house speaks well for the depth of Mr. Jesse D race’s pocket, and would speak well for the excellence of that gentleman’s artistic taste if he had possessed any. But this was not the fact. Mr. Druce was a retired salt-manufacturer, who, having begun life very poor and without education, had, by liberal exudations of that elixir sometimes referred to as the sweat of an honest man’s brow, contrived to amass a very considerable fortune. He was a hard-fisted man too, who knew right well how to keep the wealth he had accumulated. He had an abiding faith in and respect for this w T ealth, and he highly approved of himself as the possessor of it. He had a very warm affection for his only child, J essica, whose mother had died while she was a baby. And lastly, he stood in considerable awe of his neighbor, friend, and mentor, Reverend Ithuriel Rathbone, who had been his pastor for the last twenty years.

From childhood Jessica had been consistently and persistently spoiled by her father. But she had fortunately inherited from her mother, together with that lady’s delicate beauty, a certain quality of mental hardness which had prevented her becoming the silly woman her father’s doting fondness was calculated to make of her. When quite young she had been sent to boarding-school, where she had been a great favorite because of the good gift of sweet humility with which nature had endowed her. At Vassar she had met the girl who now stands at her side, Marion

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ii

Curzon. The physical affinity, indicated by their opposite styles, which had first attracted them to each other had fast developed into a strong affection, which had continued after they left school. Jessica had visited Marion at her home in New York. Afterwards she and her father had extended an invitation to Marion and her mother to spend a portion of the summer with them. Mrs. Curzon, who was a widow, possessed a certain amount of social distinction in exclusive city circles. She had hesitated long before accepting this invitation. Her reasons for finally concluding to do so will appear as this story progresses. It is sufficient to say here that her consent was not entirely due to her daughter’s entreaties, though these were not wanting.

“ Jess,” called a voice from the room just back of the veranda on which the girls stood.

“ Yes, papa ?”

“ Won’t you go and ask Thomas to bring lights ? Me and Mrs. Curzon can’t hardly see to peg our points.”

The young girl passed through the open window into a richly furnished room, evidently, from the bookcases which lined its

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walls, the library of the house. Here an elderly man sat at a table, playing cribbage with a handsome woman of middle age.

Mr. Jesse Druce was a man of sixty years, distinguished, as to his personal appearance, by the quantity of jowl and waistcoat he was able to support. His face, which was very broad and fat, was covered as to the lower part of it by a stubby white beard. His forehead, which had always been of noble proportions, now extended nearly to the nape of his neck, from which it was only separated by a narrow hedge of short white hair. His eyes, small and blue, looked from the midst of his great colorless face with a kindly twinkle. They seemed like oases in the immense Sahara of his cou-ntenance, across which his mouth wandered like a vast, irregular crevice.

Mrs. Jerome Curzon, his vis-a-vis , was a very distinguished-looking person indeed. In her youth she had been a beauty, and she had not yet lost the simper which that beauty had engendered. A quantity of iron-gray hair piled upon the top of her well-shaped head gave her the air of a grande dame . On her rather prominent nose she wore a pince-

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nez without rims, attached to her corsage by a small gold chain. Through this she surveyed alternately her cards and the solemn face of her host intent upon his game and the pegging-board. Mrs. Curzon's features were not regular. Her complexion was dark, her mouth large, and her teeth were white like her daughter's. She smiled frequently, partly to show the even white teeth and partly because she was in a very good humor and found it necessary to punctuate her conversation with a good deal of laughter. Mr. Druce seemed to be much in awe of his handsome guest. He was perspiring visibly in his efforts to entertain her.

At this moment a slight scuffle and scream were heard from the piazza.

“ What's that ?" called J essica, moving toward the window.

“ Only me — and Nimrod," responded a man's voice from without.

The next moment an enormous St. Bernard dog thrust his head through the window. He came up to J essica, wagging his tail by way of a salutation, and thrust his big muzzle into her hand. She immediately threw herself on

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the floor and clasped the great dog’s head in her arms. Marion now appeared through the window, followed by a good-looking young fellow of five or six and twenty.

“ I beg your pardon/’ he was saying as they entered. “ I didn’t intend to scare you, you know. I thought it was you, Jess. You’re both dressed in white, you see, and I couldn’t tell in the dusk. I knew J ess wouldn’t care. But it was a rather unceremonious way for you to be introduced to a great brute like that. Miss Marion.”

Fred Rathbone was a typical young American of good birth. He had the good looks of the type, with its close-cropped brown hair, regular features, carefully-tended mustache, and clear skin. There was nothing to distinguish him from his fellows. He was simply a wholesome, good-humored young man who possessed a sound digestion, hated books, loved horses, dogs, and sport of all kinds, and exerted the intellectual part of him only so far as to “ get the hang of the street,” as he called it. He and a friend had been for some years associated together as a firm of stockbrokers in New York, and had not been, rumor said, unsuccessful in their voyaging upon the pools of agio.

“ Good evening, Mrs. Curzon. Good evening, Uncle Jesse,” added this young man, depositing his tennis-cap on the table.

“ Where's your pa, Fred ?” asked Mr. Druce. “ Ain't he coming over this evening ?"

“ Yes, he's on his way now. The Major's with him.”

“ When did lie come ?” put in Jessica.

“ Came up on the evening train. And, dash it all ! I've got to go back with him next week. Never mind, we'll make things hum during the interval; won't we, Jess?”

“ Hum !” queried the young lady, assuming a look of mock severity. “ What an expression to be used by a young gentleman fresh from the metropolis ! I'm sure he wouldn't dare talk that way in New York; would he, Marion ?”

“ Here, Thomas,” called the young gentleman to the servant, who had just finished lighting the lamps, “ show Nimrod down to the kitchen, and take care of him for me until I get ready to go home. Then fix up the orchestrion in the music-room. The

Major wants to have a dance with you, Jessica.”

“ And lie’s such a delicious dancer !” said the young lady, turning to Marion.

“ Yes,” assented Fred, a trifle pensively; “that and swimming are the only decent things the Major knows how to do.”

“ He’s just my height, too,” continued Jes sie, in the same tone. “ Fred’s not quite tall enough for me. But the Major — oh, delightful !”

Fred looked at her a moment, turned a trifle red, and then grinned. The elders had pushed the card-table aside from the moment of the entrance of the breezy young man. The cards had done their full duty in furnishing post-prandial amusement. Mrs. Curzon did not care for games, and just now she had her reasons for studying young Mr. Rathbone.

“ Will you take me into the music-room ?” she said to him. “ There’s a certain waltz I want Thomas to begin with. I cannot remember the name, but I shall know it when I see it on the cylinder.”

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“ Who is it ?” said Marion to Jessica, when they had gone.

“ Who is who ?”

“ The gentleman who is coming with Mr. Rathbone.”

“ Oh, Fredas partner.”

“ Oh, yes,” vaguely.

u And we all like him so much ! Isn’t he nice, papa?”

“ A very good man he is, and a level-headed one too,” assented Mr. Druce, ponderously.

“ Papa is a silent partner in the firm, you know,” continued Jessica. “He went in with them to please Fred’s father.”

“ Seems to me,” observed Mr. Druce, “ you were a silent partner with the Reverend Ithuriel in that transaction, my dear.”

“ He is a good deal older than Fred,” continued J essica, ignoring her father’s remark. “ I suppose he is the real man of business in the firm. Papa and Fred put in the money. But Fred is very quick on the board, too. I’ve heard the Major say so.”

At this moment a ring at the door-bell was followed by the entrance of two gentlemen. The elder, the Rev. Ithuriel Rathbone, rector of St. Luke’s, was a tall, courtly gentleman with a sedate face framed in curly gray hair and side-whiskers. Besides his suit of black broadcloth, cut in the severest clerical fashion, the Beverend Ithuriel wore an extremely High-church expression of countenance. He was precise both in his movements and in his forms of speech. He was the kind of clergyman who is universally regarded, both in his home and in his diocese, as a credit to the cloth he wears, and for whom his friends always confidently anticipate the highest episcopal honors.

When greetings had been exchanged between the Hruces and the Reverend Ithuriel and his companion, the latter was introduced by Jessica to Marion:

“This is Major Vernay, May. We’ve been talking about you, Major. Do your ears tingle ?”

Marion found herself looking up at a tall, gaunt gentleman, whose eyes were smiling pleasantly at Jessica as their owner answered her question. When the eyes turned toward her she noticed that they were blue and sharp, so sharp indeed that they gave her a

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sensation as of gimlets piercing her brain through her eyes. Major Vernay was a man apparently of thirty-five years of age, whose dark-brown hair was just beginning to be sprinkled with gray. He wore a mustache and heavy imperial, and there was a certain leonine grace about him that Marion did not know whether to admire or dislike.

“ Where is your lady mother ?” murmured the Reverend Ithuriel, taking Marion’s hand when it had been released by Major Vernay.

“ In the music-room with your son.”

“ Then would you have the kindness, dear young lady, to lead me to her ?” The reverend gentleman propounded this query in the tones in which he habitually recited the lessons for the day, at the same time extending his arm to her as if bestowing a blessing.

“Come, Major,” cried Jessica, as the sound of waltz music floated in from the orchestrion. “ That’s our favorite, ‘ II Bacio.’ ”

Major Vernay gave her his arm, and the two departed for the music-room, where they were presently joined by the others. Marion and Fred joined the dance, which had already been begun by Jessica. The door-bell rang,

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and presently two young gentlemen, acquaintances of Jessica, were announced. While these were being presented, the door-bell rang again. This time the Dunbartons from across the street were the callers. They were a lively brother and two lively sisters, and needed no introductions. They knew everybody. The dancing continued and quadrilles were introduced.

Other young people dropped in and joined in the dancing. The Druce mansion was a sort of liberty hall and Jessica was very popular. Her new friend from the city was also vastly admired — by the men. Another quadrille was formed, and the Eev. Ithuriel and Mrs. Curzon were forced into service to fill up a set. The Eeverend Ithuriel transacted his part of the dance sedately, like a benignant bishop, while Mrs. Curzon went through her steps with the seductive grace of a bayadere.

“ You darling child,” she said to Jessica, later on, as they sat fanning themselves in a corner, “how delightfully you entertain, and what a lovely home you have ! I so wish dear Tom were here this evening.”

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“ Ah, but he'll be here on Thursday.”

“ You'll like my Tom so, Jessica darling. He's such a clever, splendid fellow.”

“ Why, of course. How could I help it, since he is May's brother and your son ?”

“ Darling!” whispered May's mother, squeezing the young girl's hand affectionately.

A little while later Mrs. Curzon stood by her daughter's side. They were watching Jessica and Major Yernay, who happened to be the only couple on the floor, and who were in consequence enjoying their waltz with that zest which only a free floor and good music can impart to the skilled dancer.

“They make a very handsome couple,” was Mrs. Curzon's comment. “ Is there any — anything between them, do you think, Marion ?”

“ Oh, no, mamma, I'm quite sure not. Indeed, I know it couldn't be.”

“ Why ?”

“ Why ! Can't you see? Mr. Rathbone— Fred — is in love with her. And she — ”

“ Yes ?”

“ W ell, they've known each other all their

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lives. I am sure it is intended that they shall marry. They love each other and — ”

“ Who intends they shall marry ?”

“ Why, they do, and I think their fathers do.”

“ But Elinor Curzon intends quite the contrary.” This thought wa« not put into words, but the widow's sparkling eyes, as they looked at the dancers through her pince-nez, were - quite expressive.

“When Tom comes,” she said aloud, “I want her to like him. I expect that you will see that she does like him.”

“ Mamma, why she already likes him very much, though she has never seen him.”

“ Hem ! I do not mean that.”

“ Mamma!”

“Hush ! Here comes the Reverend Mr„ Rathbone.”

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Chapter II

Ox Thursday morning the students from Rochester College came down to play the students of Syracuse College a game of baseball. Each of these cities contains its full complement of baseball enthusiasts, inasmuch as each city is the happy possessor of a professional baseball club. The games at Syracuse were attended by people from all circles of society. On the occasion in question a championship game was scheduled. Under ordinary circumstances the segment of Syracuse young-ladyhood which enjoyed baseball would have been present at the grounds of the professional club, but the college boys were to play in a neighboring lot, and college boys mean, to young ladies in a college town, brothers and sweethearts ; and brothers and sweethearts are of course more important to the female mind than technical excellence. So all the pretty girls of Syracuse congregated on that vacant lot that

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Thursday afternoon, together with many of the younger men and a goodly sprinkling of the elders of both sexes.

Fred and Major Vernay called for the two young ladies at the Druce mansion, as had been agreed. They came with the Kathbone family carriage, it haying been also arranged that Mr. Druce and Mrs. Curzon should call for Mr. Kathbone. Mr. Druce was himself an enthusiast on the baseball question. He had succeeded in discovering the difference between a home run and a foul tip, and was rapidly mastering the difficulties of base-running and sacrifice-hitting. The minister was not much interested in the game, but he was fast becoming interested in the handsome widow who sympathized both with his assthetic tastes and with his High-church views.

The game was in hot progress as the carriage containing our young people drove into the grounds and took its position in company with a number of others containing most of the young people of the town, besides many of the elders.

“ How’s it going ?” called out Fred to Ned

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Dunbarton, who was standing near, surrounded by a bevy of fair Syracusans.

“Oh, we’re away behind,” was the glum response.

Ned was' a college boy and, though not a player, an enthusiastic admirer of his college nine.

4 4 What’s the matter ? Isn’t Charley Campion pitching? Yes, there he is.”

44 Yes, he’s pitching fast enough, but they’re knocking the leather off the ball all the same. There’s one little beggar in particular — that third baseman ; he isn’t bigger than a peanut, but he’s made a home run, a three-baser, and a two-bagger, and only three times at bat.”

44 AVhat does he mean?” inquired Marion, mystified by these technical expressions.

Major Yernay explained them to her to the best of his ability. Fred and Jessica had meanwhile left them, and were mingling with the young men and women who lined the playing field in front of the clump of carriages.

44 Which is their third-baseman ?” demanded Jessica, eagerly.

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“It’s that young fellow at the end of the bench," responded Neddy Dunbarton. “See, he’s playing monkey-shines with the tin dipper.” And he pointed to a young man on the players’ bench of the Rochester nine, who was balancing a dipper on the end of his nose.

“ Oh, isn’t he lovely?” exclaimed Jessica ; at which Fred only shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette in a painfully careless way.

By this time the Rochester nine were “out,” and proceeded to the field, while the Syracuse boys came in to perform their alternate duty at the bat.

“It’s all up with our boys,” said Jessica, returning to the carriage. “ The Roches ters are nine to our two, and they say it’s mostly due to the playing of that little man over there on third base. Oh, see him !”

At this point a huge batter of the Syracusans smote the ball fiercely. It sped rapidly along the grass in the direction of the young man referred to by Jessica. It went so viciously that Marion expected him to get out of the way of it. To her astonishment he made a vigorous run toward it, seized it.

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almost turning a somersault in doing so, and threw it to a big young man who stood on a canvas bag not far from where she was. A great burst of cheering and hand-clapping followed this performance, in the midst of which the tall batsman, who had been running in the direction of the player who stood on the bag and caught the ball, wheeled round and returned to the players* bench.

“ By gash !** cried Neddy Dunbarton, when he had stopped clapping his big gloved hands, “ that was a great pick-up, eh ? That’s that same little duffer again.**

Marion was standing up in the carriage.

“ It can*t be — and yet — ** she was murmuring to herself. “Yes, it is, it is !** she exclaimed, as the third-baseman, whose back had been turned to her, now faced round and assumed that intent attitude, with a hand on either knee, which seems to be de rigeur among baseball players. “Mamma, mamma !** she cried excitedly to Mrs. Curzon in the carriage near by, “ it’s Tom — see ! — over there! ** Mrs. Curzon, oblivious of the sport, was engaged in conversation with the Beverend Ithuriel. She now raised her pince-nez and gazed in the direction indicated by her daughter.

“ Well, I declare, it is Thomas,” she said; “I didn’t know he could play baseball.”

“ Which is he?” inquired the clergyman, with interest.

“ That one over there,” she replied, pointing to the tliird-baseman.

“Not him ?” put in Mr. Druce, who had been an absorbed spectator of the game and had taken in its good points with relish. “You don’t mean to say that little third-baseman is your son Tom we’re expecting to-day ?”

Mrs. Curzon nodded and laughed.

“Well, well,” continued the old gentleman, “I want to know! Why, he’s — he’s immense — perfectly immense.”

Mrs. Curzon nodded and laughed again.

“ But lie’s thrown away up there at Rochester,” protested Mr. Druce. “You ought to send that boy to Yale — to Yale, ma’am !”

Mrs. Curzon acknowledged the old gentleman’s praises of her child with a pleased simper.

“I should have sent him to one of the larger universities if I had consulted my own wishes,” she said ; “ but his father willed otherwise. He was educated at Rochester College, and he wanted Tom to go there too. He*s just through. He graduates this month. And he is such a dear !”

Marion had left the carriage, and with Jessica had joined the group of young people in front.

“Tom, Tom !” she called across the field, at the same time jumping up and down and waving her handkerchief.

The young man responded by a comic wave of his cap, then resumed the game and the paralytic attitude referred to above.

When the game was over and the collegians had duly saluted each other, Marion and Jessica, accompanied by a little crowd of their friends, hurried across the field and fished out Tom. He was duly introduced by his sister to the others, who gave him a little ovation which he acknowledged with various blushes and grins. He was then escorted to the carriages, where he was received by his mother with open arms, by the Reverend I th Uriel with a benignant smile, and by

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Mr. Druce with unfeigned admiration. The latter at once called him by his Christian name.

“ Begad, Tom,” said he, “ that was a great stop and throw of yours in the fourth.”

Young Curzon ducked and grinned, but said nothing. Marion was hanging on his shoulder, and his other hand was held by his mother. It was not difficult to see that this young man was the idol of two female hearts at least. He was not particularly handsome. His figure was short and strongly built. He had just reached the age of citizenship. His round, red face was innocent of hirsute adornment. The hair upon his head was blond and closely cropped. His mouth was very large and filled with strong, white teeth. He had a habit of laughing much, which was largely due to nervousness. His mouth and his laugh were very like his mother’s.

“Well, get in, Tom,” said Mr. Druce. “We must get home to dinner.”

Then a little strife ensued between Mrs. Curzon and Marion as to which carriage Tom should ride home in. Fred offered to let

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Tom have his place, but Mrs. Curzon was obstinate. Marion yielded, and, with a parting squeeze of her arm, Tom mounted opposite his mother. The carriage took its place in the procession of those that were filing out of the grounds.

“When did you learn to play baseball, Tom ?” asked his mother.

“ When the season opened this spring some of our fellows insisted I should go in for it. So I thought Fd try. I haven't done so badly. Baker, our captain, says Fve got a quick eye.”

“You put up a great game to-day, Tom,” said Mr. Druce. As a director of the local professional club the old gentleman had picked up all the slang of the ball field, and was rather proud of his accomplishment.

“ Thank you,” said Tom, modestly.

“ Do you like it ?” asked his mother. “ It seems to be very rough.”

“Oh, I like it well enough. But I like tennis better. That's my game.”

At this Mr. Druce looked a trifle disgusted ; but Mrs. Curzon said gayly :

“ Yes, I know you're a good tennis player.

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And think, Tom, Jessica has gotten up a tennis-party on purpose for you. They’re to play all day to-morrow, and there’s to be an impromptu tournament with prizes. Mr. Druce’s tennis-courts are very nice.”