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This volume brings together a novella and several short stories from Mary Cholmondeley, an English writer who worked in many genres, including detective fiction, romance, and stories of the supernatural. The title novella, Moth and Rust, follows the drama surrounding a well-to-do young man's selection of a bride. George Trefusis is ecstatic at the prospect of marriage with the beautiful Janet Black, but his mother disapproves of his fiancee.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."
The Vicar gave out the text, and proceeded to expound it. The little congregation settled down peacefully to listen. Except four of their number, the "quality" in the carved Easthope pew, none of them had much treasure on earth. Their treasure for the greater part consisted of a pig, that was certainly being "laid up" to meet the rent at Christmas. But there would hardly be time for moth and rust to get into it before its secluded life should migrate into flitches and pork pies. Not that the poorest of Mr Long's parishioners had any fear of such an event, for they never associated his sermons with anything to do with themselves, except on one occasion when the good man had preached earnestly against drunkenness, and a respectable widow had ceased to attend divine service in consequence, because, as she observed, she was not going to be spoken against like that by any one, be they who they may, after all the years she had been "on the teetotal."
Perhaps the two farmers who had driven over resplendent wives in dog-carts had treasure on earth. They certainly had money in the bank at Mudbury, for they were to be seen striding in in gaiters on market-day to draw it out. But then it was well known that thieves did not break through into banks and steal. Banks sometimes broke of themselves, but not often.
On the whole, the congregation was at its ease. It felt that the text was well chosen, and that it applied exclusively to the four occupants of "the Squire's" pew.
The hard-worked Vicar certainly had no treasure on earth, if you excepted his principal possessions, namely, his pale wife and little flock of rosy children, and these, of course, were only encumbrances. Had they not proved to be so? For his cousin had promised him the family living, and would certainly have kept that promise when it became vacant, if the wife he had married in the interval had not held such strong views as to a celibate clergy.
The Vicar was a conscientious man, and the conscientious are seldom concise.
"He held with all his tedious might,
The mirror to the mind of God."
There was no doubt he was tedious, and it was to be hoped that the portion of the Divine mind not reflected in the clerical mirror would compensate somewhat for His more gloomy attributes as shown therein.
Mrs Trefusis, "Squire's" mother, an old woman with a thin, knotted face like worn-out elastic, sat erect throughout the service. She had the tight-lipped, bitter look of one who has coldly appropriated as her due all the good things of life, who has fiercely rebelled against every untoward event, and who now in old age offers a passive, impotent resistance to anything that suggests a change. She had had an easy, comfortable existence, but her life had gone hard with her, and her face showed it.
Near her were the two guests who were staying at Easthope. The villagers looked at the two girls with deep interest. They had made up their minds that "the old lady had got 'em in to see if Squire could fancy one of 'em."
Lady Anne Varney, who sat next to Mrs Trefusis, was a graceful, small-headed woman of seven-and-twenty, delicately featured, pale, exquisitely dressed, with the indefinable air of a finished woman of the world, and with the reserved, disciplined manner of a woman accustomed to conceal her feelings from a world in which she has lived too much, in which she has been knocked about too much, and which has not gone too well with her. If Anne attended to the sermon-and she appeared to do so-she was the only person in the Easthope pew who did.
No; the other girl, Janet Black, was listening too now and then, catching disjointed sentences with no sense in them, as one hears a few shouted words in a high wind.
Ah me! Janet was beautiful. Even Mrs Trefusis was obliged to own it, though she did so grudgingly, and added bitterly that the girl had no breeding. It was true. Janet had none. But beauty rested upon her as it rests on a dove's neck, varying with every movement, every turn of the head. She was quite motionless now, her rather large, ill-gloved hands in her lap. Janet was a still woman. She had no nervous movements. She did not twine her muff-chain round her fingers as Anne did. Anne looked at her now and then, and wondered whether she-Anne-would have been more successful in life if she had entered the arena armed with such beauty as Janet's.
There was a portrait of Janet in the Academy several years later, which has made her beauty known to the world. We have all seen that celebrated picture of the calm Madonna face, with the mark of suffering so plainly stamped upon the white brow and in the unfathomable eyes. But the young girl sitting in the Easthope pew hardly resembled, except in feature, the portrait that, later on, took the artistic world by storm. Janet was perhaps even more beautiful in this her first youth than her picture proved her afterwards to be; but the beauty was expressionless, opaque. The soul had not yet illumined the fair face. She looked what she was-a little dull, without a grain of imagination. Was it the dulness of want of ability, or only the dulness of an uneducated mind, of powers unused, still dormant?
Without her transcendent beauty she would have appeared uninteresting and commonplace.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth."
The Vicar had a habit of repeating his text several times in the course of his sermon. Janet heard it the third time, and it forced the entrance of her mind.
Her treasure was certainly on earth. It consisted of the heavy, sleek-haired young man with the sunburnt complexion and the reddish moustache at the end of the pew-in short, "the Squire."
After a short and ardent courtship she had accepted him, and then she herself had been accepted, not without groans, by his family. The groans had not been audible, but she was vaguely aware that she was not received with enthusiasm by the family of her hero, her wonderful fairy prince who had ridden into her life on a golden chestnut. George Trefusis was heavily built, but in Janet's eyes he was slender. His taciturn dulness was in her eyes a most dignified and becoming reserve. His inveterate unsociability proved to her-not that it needed proving-his mental superiority. She could not be surprised at the coldness of her reception as his betrothed, for she acutely felt her own great unworthiness of being the consort of this resplendent personage, who could have married any one. Why had he honoured her among all women?
The answer was sufficiently obvious to every one except herself. The fairy prince had fallen heavily in love with her beauty; so heavily that, after a secret but stubborn resistance, he had been vanquished by it. Marry her he must and would, whatever his mother might say. And she had said a good deal. She had not kept silence.
And now Janet was staying for the first time at Easthope, which was one day to be her home-the old Tudor house standing among its terraced gardens, which had belonged to a Trefusis since a Trefusis built it in Henry the Seventh's time.
* * *
This fascinating character sketch from English writer Mary Cholmondeley is neither a religious tract nor an entomological field guide, as the title and subtitle might suggest. Instead, the story focuses on Sibyl Carruthers, a beautiful young woman of marrying age whose heart has latched on an unusual target.
Mary Cholmondeley (8 June 1859 – 15 July 1925) was an English novelist. Her best-selling novel, Red Pottage, satirised religious hypocrisy and the narrowness of country life. Red Pottage caused a scandal when it was first published, in 1899, due to its themes of adultery, the emancipation of women and its satire of the clergy. The Novel follows a period in the lives of two friends, Rachel West and Hester Gresley. Rachel is a wealthy heiress who falls in love with the weak-willed Hugh Scarlett after he has broken off an affair with Lady Newhaven (which he does not originally realize has been discovered by her husband). Hester, a novelist, lives with her judgmental brother, the pompous vicar of the fictional village of Warpington. Hester's brother disapproves of her writing and eventually burns the manuscript of a novel she has been writing. This leads Hester into a prolonged nervous illness...
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In the previous life, Maggie Johnson was so cowardly, gullible and stupid that she was coaxed by her fiance and stepsister and then broke her legs and lost everything including her fortune, love and even life. However, she was so lucky that she was reborn in the year before everything happened. Since her life restarted, how could she repeat a previous tragedy? Therefore, in this life, she took the opportunity to improve herself and take revenge on the ones who had ever insulted her. Facing the people who had humiliated her previously, she became smart and experienced to break their frames and tricks that had caused her to hurt in the previous life. Finally, no one could stop her pace to amaze the world any more.
"I've warned you from the beginning. Don't marry him, but you won't listen." She stood close to me and smiled with concern. "You are not a woman worthy of a man as handsome, rich, smart, and virile as Blaze." My whole body trembled at her words. "Have you no shame?" I asked in a quivering voice. "Take a good look at yourself, Heather." She looked at me in the mirror. "You can't even look at your ugly face. Do you think Blaze can endure a lifetime of looking at that face?" Heather Bailey had a surprise from her husband that night: a divorce agreement. After a year of marriage and facing ups and downs, she couldn't believe Blaze intended to divorce her. But she was devastated when she saw him gazing lovingly at another woman because that person was closest to her. Shortly after she put her signature on their divorce papers, shock waves caught her up. Her flower shop was severely burnt, beyond repair. Her father's company collapsed, and her parents blamed her. She struggled to rebuild her life from the ground up and became more successful than ever. Having many customers who came from influential families, she started her action against Blaze. She won the very thing he wanted. But that was just the beginning.
On her wedding day, Khloe’s sister connived with her groom, framing her for a crime she didn’t commit. She was sentenced to three years in prison, where she endured much suffering. When Khloe was finally released, her evil sister used their mother to coerce Khloe into an indecent liaison with an elderly man. As fate would have it, Khloe crossed paths with Henrik, the dashing yet ruthless mobster who sought to alter the course of her life. Despite Henrik’s cold exterior, he cherished Khloe like no other. He helped her take retribution from her tormentors and kept her from being bullied again.
Everyone was shocked to the bones when the news of Rupert Benton's engagement broke out. It was surprising because the lucky girl was said to be a plain Jane, who grew up in the countryside and had nothing to her name. One evening, she showed up at a banquet, stunning everyone present. "Wow, she's so beautiful!" All the men drooled, and the women got so jealous. What they didn't know was that this so-called country girl was actually an heiress to a billion-dollar empire. It wasn't long before her secrets came to light one after the other. The elites couldn't stop talking about her. "Holy smokes! So, her father is the richest man in the world?" "She's also that excellent, but mysterious designer who many people adore! Who would have guessed?" Nonetheless, people thought that Rupert didn't love her. But they were in for another surprise. Rupert released a statement, silencing all the naysayers. "I'm very much in love with my beautiful fiancee. We will be getting married soon." Two questions were on everyone's minds: "Why did she hide her identity? And why was Rupert in love with her all of a sudden?"
My name is Katia, and I am just trying to survive until my fated mate arrives. Which may be easier said than done. Rejectection is the last straw. Whispering my acceptance of his rejection. I run through the pack house, out across the manicured lawn into the forest. "I'm sorry, my sweet girl," I say to my wolf. I'm sorry you have been stuck with me and have had to suffer everything I have. She whispers," it's not your fault, Katia. We came to a cliff with a waterfall. The hurt keeps pounding at me. I need it to stop. My sweet girl, and I just want peace, I keep running and leap off the cliff. Spreading my arms wide, with tears streaming down my face, I fall, not making a sound, waiting for sweet oblivion where we feel nothing ever again. "I love you, my sweet girl! Until we meet again, "My wolf replied just before we hit the water, "I love you too, Katia. I have never regretted a moment with you." The Snow Moon pack is having their last barbecue of the summer next to the waterfall on their land. The adults are laughing and joking while watching the pups play. The alpha, beta, and gamma are swimming with some of the older children and playing a game of Marco Polo. Someone yells, "Oh my goddess, someone just jumped over the waterfall!" Everyone is frozen as they watch what looks to be a child falling arms spread wide, no one makes a sound. The small body hits the water like a plane crashing into the side of a mountain. The alpha, beta, and gamma, spring into action, swimming towards the area the person went under. The alpha is screaming his wolf is going crazy repeating, "Find her. Find her...find her!" They dive and the beta surfaces with a small person in his arms. Alpha takes the girl from his beta, laying her on the ground. The men are shocked by what they see. She is covered in scars and injuries. Her body is twisted and broken. The Beta asks, "Who could have done this to someone so defenseless?" Alpha drops to his knees, repeating, "MATE...MATE...MATE!"
When Corynn mustered up the courage to tell Elliot about her pregnancy, she unexpectedly found him gallantly helping another woman from his car. Her heart sank as three years of effort to secure his love crumbled before her eyes, compelling her to leave him behind. Three years later, life had taken Corynn down a new path with someone else, while Elliot was left grappling with regret. Seizing a moment of vulnerability, he pleaded, "Corynn, let's get married." Shaking her head with a faint smile, Corynn gently replied, "Sorry, I'm already engaged."