Vera Nevill | Page 2

as good as giving her a ninety-nine years' lease of
her quarters. The thin end of the wedge thus inserted, Mrs. Daintree
mère became immovable as the church tower or the kitchen chimney,
and the doomed members of the family began to understand that

nothing short of death itself was likely to terminate the old lady's
residence amongst them. For the future her son's house became her
home.
But, even thus, things were not at their worst. Marion Daintree was a
soft-hearted, gentle-mannered little woman. It cannot be said that she
regarded the permanent instalment of her mother-in-law in her home
with pleasurable feelings; she would have been more than human had
she done so. But then she was unfeignedly fond of her husband, and
desired so earnestly to make his home happy that, not seeing her way to
oust the intruder without a warfare which would have distressed him,
she determined to make the best of the situation, and to preserve the
family peace and concord at all risks.
She succeeded in her praiseworthy efforts, but at what cost no one but
herself ever knew. Marion's whole life became one propitiatory
sacrifice to her mother-in-law. To propitiate Mrs. Daintree was a very
simple matter. Bearing in mind that her leading characteristics were a
bad temper and an ungovernable desire to ride rough-shod over the
feelings of all those who came into contact with her, in order to secure
her favour it was only necessary to study her moods, and to allow her
to tread you under foot as much as her soul desired. Provided that she
had her own way in these little matters, Mrs. Daintree became an
amiable old lady. Marion did all that was needful; figuratively speaking,
she laid down in the dust before her, and the Juggernaut of her fate
consented to be appeased by the lowly attitude, and crushed its way
triumphantly over her fallen body.
Thus Marion accepted her fate, and peace was preserved in her
husband's house. But by-and-by there came somebody into the family
who would by no manner of means consent to be so crushed and
trodden under foot. This somebody was Vera Nevill.
In order duly to set forth who and what was this young woman, who
thus audaciously set at defiance the powers that were, it will be
necessary that I should take a brief survey of Marion's family history.
Marion, then, be it known, was the eldest of three sisters; so much the

eldest, that when Mr. Daintree had met her and married her in Rome
during one of his brief holidays, the two remaining sisters had been at
the time hardly more than children. Colonel Nevill, their father, had
married an Italian lady, long since dead, and had lived a nomad life
ever since he had become a widower; moving about chiefly between
Nice, Rome, and Malta. Wherever pleasant society was to be found,
there would Colonel Nevill and his daughters instinctively drift, and
year after year they became more and more enamoured of their foreign
life, and less and less disposed to venture back to the chill fogs and
cloudy skies of their native land.
Three years after Marion had left them, and gone away with her
husband to his English vicarage; Theodora, the second daughter, had at
eighteen married an Italian prince, whose lineage was ancient, but
whose acres were few; and Colonel Nevill, dying rather suddenly
almost immediately after, Vera, the youngest daughter, as was most
natural, instantly found a home with Princess Marinari.
All this time Marion lived at Sutton-in-the-Wold, and saw none of them.
She wept copiously at the news of her father's death, regretting bitterly
her inability to receive his parting blessing; but, her little Minnie being
born shortly after, her thoughts were fortunately diverted into a happier
channel, and she suffered from her loss less keenly and recovered from
it more quickly than had she had no separate life and no separate
interests of her own to engross her. Still, being essentially affectionate
and faithful, she clung to the memory of the two sisters now separated
so entirely from her. For some years she and Theodora kept up a brisk
correspondence. Marion's letters were full of the sayings and doings of
Tommy and Minnie, and Theodora's were full of nothing but Vera.
What Vera had looked like at her first ball, how Prince this and
Marquis so-and-so had admired her; how she had been smothered with
bouquets and bonbons at Carnival time; how she had sat to some
world-famed artist, who had entreated to be allowed to put her face into
his great picture, and how the house was literally besieged with her
lovers. By all this, and much more in the same strain, Marion perceived
that her young sister, whom she