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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Marrying From Four BeU Svndlcat -WNU freMuret "Rose-Marie u i.tlwt to marry a fine young lawyer, uho ulready shou t tignt of political advancement, lie it rich, handsome, devoted." By KATHLEEN NORRIS I "T""OVERTYwas the cause r-of the miserable cir-cumstance cir-cumstance of which I am writing you," says the letter of a Portland mother. "My husband died in 1932, leaving me with two children, a boy of 14 and a girl of 10. Destitute, I had to work hard for some years to support them, and at 16 my girl took a job in a law office. The boy had then won a scholarship and was living in another town. "Four months after she started work my daughter confessed to me her love for the office boss, her relationship with him and that she expected a child. I was then keeping keep-ing a boarding-house in which my oldest boarder was a man of 76 who had considerable property. He had long wanted to marry me, and in my desperation I now consented to the marriage, closed my house, and Insisted that he and I and Rose-Marie go on a trip to Mexico. Where we really went was to a big eastern city, where the baby was born. At this time my husband was stricken with paralysis; we came back to our home, where all our interests were, and I represented the child as mine. At the time I was only 38, so that that statement was not questioned. This man lived until a few months ago. "The situation now is that Rose-Marie Rose-Marie wishes to marry a fine young lawyer, who already shows signs of political advancement. He is rich, handsome, devoted. Meanwhile Mean-while the contemptible married man who was Rose-Marie's boss has been widowed; he is 61, a I successful business man, but to me ! he would be personally disagreeable disagree-able even if I did not bitterly re-' re-' sent his betrayal of my little girl I when she was only 16. The man she ! has now promised to marry knows nothing of her story, and if 1 can prevent it, never will, but the older man, Harold my splendid little granddaughter's real father, Is quietly blackmailing me into a third marriage; the thought is un-j un-j speakably revolting to me, but by ! marrying this tiresome, self-satisfied little man of Gl I feel that I can absolutely safeguard my daughter's new happiness. Rose-Marie's Future. "It Is great happiness, it is real happiness, Mrs. Norris. Rose-Marie has grown, has developed In these bitter years. She truly hives this j new man, she wants to share a dig-i dig-i nifierl and interesting life with him; ! she can do it, I know she can and ! she will. But It will be at terrible I cost to me. Harold knows that this ' darling eight-year-old girl is his child, for my heart-broken Rose-j Rose-j Marie naturally told him of her ngonilng plight. He ran hold this I knowledge over us all; he has let-' let-' ters to prove it. "Can you advise me? Just luo I points more Jane, the little girl, ! intensely dislikes Harold And Rose-Marie, believe ine when I i say this, is a gentle, line, clean-I clean-I hearted girl, far stronger in char.ie-1 char.ie-1 ter than many giih her ago who ! have been nioie f itunato. As 1 ' began by saying, poverty wrought i this terrible und perplexing pattern "Thi tirrwme lutle man of 6'. . . A DREADFUL PROSPFXT Covering up the first false step generally means that a chain of difficulties has been started. So it uas for the un-happy un-happy mother whose letter is answered in this column. Rose, the daughter, is engaged en-gaged to a young lawyer whom she loves dearly. He is hand-some, hand-some, rich and politically ambitious. am-bitious. A dark secret in Rose's past threatens to mar her happiness, hap-piness, however. She has a child, born when she was only 16. Her mother, a widow, married an old man, and passed the child off as her own to protect Rose's name. Now Rose's seducer, a middle-aged middle-aged man who was her employer, em-ployer, threatens to expose Rose unless her mother will marry him. and surely it it cruel to have the generations go on paying so bitter- ly for what is no one's fault." Poverty la hard, my dear Janet; I know it well. But no girl gives herself to a middle-aged married man in the first weeks of their acquaintanceship Just because of poverty. Rose-Marie should have been better armed for the fight with life. Your Idea of marrying her seducer Is fantastic; he has no legal claim upon her or upon the child. Rose-Marie can clear this whole thing up and I think in Justice to you she must by telling tell-ing her present sweetheart the whole story. Harold Can't Do Much Harm. It Is possible that he will break the engagement and leave her. Political careers and histories like this one don't mix. Or it is possible pos-sible that he will look at the situation situ-ation honestly and generously. Nobody No-body knows these facts except Harold. Har-old. Even if he were contemptible enough to start a whispering campaign, cam-paign, the probabilities ore all against his getting very far with it. Jane is established as your child, the child of your late marriage to the old man. To break out with evidence evi-dence of her real parenthood would mark Harold as a scurrilous blackmailer, black-mailer, and hurt him incurably with all decent folk. The chance of hit doing this is. I believe, negligible; that is, if he knows Rose Marie has made it all char to her promised husband. If she marries him keeping these facts a secret then Harold really holds against her happiness and security a deadly weapon, that may well ruin her life. It is too had that women must pay so high for the mistakes of girlhood, but we are made that way, and everything that emancipation and independence can do cannot seem to lessen that .situation. For your sake and tho sake of innocent little J ine I can only advise an honest explanation to Rose'a young man, und tl.en a confident going forward in the lu'pe that any scandal started hv Harold would react against himself more than against the gill he betrayed. Fur you to make two loveli s ni.ir-nagcs ni.ir-nagcs to save the situation would merely complicate everything. |
