Florence Marryat

“ How terrible is the first dread of the instability of the love on which one has fixed all one’s earthly hopes! Had her lover been within reach, Nell would have rushed to him with the story of her trouble, and received a consolatory reassurance of his affection at once. But she was alone. She could confide in no one, and Mr Portland’s proposal, having made her see in what light men of the world regarded her tie to Lord Ilfracombe, had made her heart question if they could be correct, and he looked on it as they did. ”

“ But your own room is ready for you, Nell. No one has slept in it since you went away,—not even Hetty—and Martha has been setting it to rights for you all the evening. Will you come to it now, my dear, for you look ready to drop with fatigue?’
Nell was only too glad to accept the offer, and Mrs Llewellyn conducted her upstairs, and undressed her, and put her to bed with all the tenderness and solicitude she had shown in performing the same offices when she was a little child.
Is there ever a time when a mother ceases to regard the creature she has brought into the world as other than a child? ”

“ Why, a countryside like Usk is a continual church-going. Every leafy tree is a cathedral—the flowery meadows are altar carpets—each wild bird singing in its thankfulness a chorister. God’s face is reflected in the least of His works. How can we look at them and forget Him?’
‘Ay, ay, my lad,’ responded the farmer, as with a glance at his wife, as much as to say, ‘he’s as mad as a March hare,’ he rose to quit the house for the stables.
Hugh directed his attention more particularly to Nell. ”

“ What pretty woman ever looked so well with neatly arranged hair, as when it is rumpled and blown about? She was half sitting, half reclining on the sofa, and her fine figure was shewn to the best advantage. Portland’s eyes glistened as he gazed at her. What a handsome hostess she would make—what a presider over the destinies of his bachelor establishment! How proud he would be to introduce her to his sporting and Bohemian friends—the only friends whom he affected, and be able to tell them that this glorious creature was his own! ”

“ Look down on them!’ echoed Nell. ‘Oh, dad, you don’t know what you are talking of. It is London that I hate and despise and look down upon. It is the people there who are false and cold and cruel. I want to forget it all. I want to forget I ever went there. I hate service. It is degrading and despicable, and oh! so lonely to be far away from home and mother and you. When I heard Hetty speak of you both I could stand it no longer. ”

“ It is not as if there was a lady at the head of affairs.’
‘Then why doesn’t he marry and get his wife to do all that for him?’ demanded Hetty, with the audacity of ignorance. ‘It does seem strange that a gentleman with such a heap of money should remain a bachelor. What does he do with it all, I wonder? And what is the good of such a big house to a man without a wife? Wouldn’t you rather that he was married, Nell? It must be so funny taking all your orders from a man.’
‘You don’t understand, Hetty,’ said Miss Llewellyn. ‘Lord Ilfracombe does not give me any orders. ”

“ But when they had left London, Nell felt as if she had escaped a great danger, and was only just able to breathe freely again. And had she accompanied them to Usk, and gone to stay at Panty-cuckoo Farm, she would have felt almost as bad. To live under the eyes of her parents day after day; to have to submit to their eager questioning; to evade their sharpness—for country people are sometimes very sharp in matters that affect their domestic happiness and very eager for revenge when their family honour is compromised ”

“ Mr Jack Portland is bound to get his full dues from so perfect a hostess as Lady Ilfracombe, without thrusting his company continually on her. And between ourselves, old fellow, I really think his conversation and ideas are more fit for the stables than the drawing-room.’
‘No, no! I won’t have you say that,’ cried the loyal earl. ‘Jack’s a gentleman, and no man can be more. My wife will learn to like him for my sake. Castelton, old chap! why don’t you get married? It’s the loveliest experience in the world. ”

“ I tell you this because Ilfracombe has often told me that you have an excellent head for business. By George!’ said Mr Portland, again screwing his glass into his unhappy and long-suffering eye, ‘with such beauty as yours, you have no right to know anything about business; still, if you do—there you are, you see!’
‘But what has all this to do with me, Mr Portland,’ remarked Miss Llewellyn with a puzzled air. ‘I am sure any lady you may choose to marry will be a very lucky woman. Ilfracombe has often called you the best fellow he knows. ”

“ Lord Ilfracombe reddened with shame.
‘Of course, of course,’ he said, after a pause. ‘How can you doubt it?’
‘I am aware,’ continued the admiral, ‘that men of the present day think little of such matters—that they believe all that goes on before marriage is of no consequence to anyone but themselves. But it is not so. Some years back, perhaps, our women were kept in such ignorance of the ways of the world, that they only believed what their husbands chose to tell them. Now it is very different. Their eyes seem to have been opened, and they see for themselves, and act for themselves. ”

“ The farmer and his wife had been regarding Hugh Owen during this speech with open-eyed amazement—Nell, with a scared look, half fear and half annoyance.
‘Eh, lad,’ said Mr Llewellyn, ‘but it’s a rare gift, and you’ve got it, there’s no doubt of that. But as for living to eat and drink, we must do it, or we shouldn’t live at all, and we do it for others as well as ourselves. What would become of my missus there, and Nell now for the matter of that, if I didn’t see after the ploughing and reaping, and wife after the dairy and the bakehouse. ”

“ You ought to be in bed, my Nell, instead of cutting such jinks. I shall have you ill to-morrow if you don’t take care.’
‘Ill? Tired?’ cried Nell. ‘Fiddle-de-dee, mother; no such thing. I shall be up at cock-crow to see after the hens and chickens, or to have a ride on Kitty. How’s the dear old mare, father?’
‘Old Kitty, my lass?’ replied Farmer Llewellyn. ‘Why, she’s been dead the best part of a year. Surely your mother or Hetty told you that. ”

“ She had accepted his assurances of fidelity as gospel truth, and she was passionately indignant and sorely outraged because Mr Portland had not considered the tie between her and his friend as inviolable as she did. And yet she was not Lord Ilfracombe’s wife. Beautiful Nell Llewellyn knew this only too well as she lay on the couch, sobbing as if her heart would break. Say what women will in these days of misrule about the charms of liberty, and the horror of being enchained for life, there is a comfortable sense of security in knowing oneself to be honourably united to the man one loves ”

“ My poor Nell. This news will wreck all my happiness.’
‘Lord Ilfracombe,’ exclaimed Mr Sterndale, quickly, ‘I beg of you to compose yourself. What if the servants, or her ladyship, were to enter the room. This unfortunate affair is none of your doing. You have no occasion to blame yourself. You did all, and more than most men would have done to secure the welfare of the young person in question, and if she choose to fling your kindness back in your face, the blame lies at her own door.’
‘Are you sure of it?’ said Ilfracombe presently, as he made a great effort to control his feelings. ”

“ Ilfracombe, you know I was an innocent, good girl when I first came to this house, and that I shouldn’t have ever been otherwise had you not persuaded me that if our hearts were truly each others our marriage would be as lasting as if we had gone to church together. I believed you. I knew it was wrong, but I loved you and I believed you. Oh, my own only darling, don’t desert me now. What is to become of me if you do? I can’t go back to my own people. ”

“ You’ll get more friends through their stomachs than you’ll ever do through their hearts.’
‘Oh, Griffith,’ she replied, ‘that’s a poor way of looking at it; not but what a good meal’s a good thing after all. But I shouldn’t like the Owens to go home and say they hadn’t had enough to eat. And it’s our Hetty’s first visit, too,’ and here Mrs Llewellyn heaved a deep sigh.
‘What’s up now?’ said her husband. ‘You can’t expect to keep your girls with you for ever, you know, Mary; and William Owen is as good a lad as ever stepped in shoe leather, and will keep our Hetty well. ”

“ But when Lord Ilfracombe met his wife in the sanctity of their state-cabin, he alluded again to the subject of Jack Portland.
‘It’s the most extraordinary thing in the world to me, Nora,’ he commenced, ‘that Jack has not told me that he met you in Malta. For I have had two letters from him since our marriage.’
‘Most likely he did not remember my name,’ replied Nora; ‘I was hardly out of the nursery then, remember!’
‘What! at eighteen? Nonsense! You are not a woman for a man to see and forget. He has never said that he met your father. ”

“ You mustn’t think that he obtrudes his sporting proclivities on the drawing-room. No man knows better how to behave in the company of ladies than Jack Portland—indeed, he has rather a character for liking their society too much. See the mischief you have done, Castelton! You have made my wife’s lip curl at the mere idea of our sporting friend.’
‘Indeed, Mr Castelton has done nothing of the sort, Ilfracombe, for, as it happens, I already know Mr Portland, though I had no idea he was one of your friends.’
‘You know Jack Portland!’ cried the earl with unaffected surprise. ”

“ Nora’s disposition had not altered with marriage. What woman’s ever did? The prudence or coldness which had induced her to refuse her lover, a kiss or an embrace before marriage, extended in a great measure to her behaviour to her husband. Ilfracombe, like many another man in the same position, had imagined her coolness to be due to maidenly reserve, and thought that it would all disappear with wifehood. The greatest mistake men ever make. ”

“ If a thought of Nell Llewellyn crossed his mind at this period it was only to hope that her interview with Sterndale had passed off quietly, and that she would have the sense to clear out without any fuss. So intensely selfish does a new passion make a man! The time had been when Nell, who was twice as strong, mentally and physically, as Nora Abinger, was Lord Ilfracombe’s ideal of a woman. ”

“ Can any duty so fulfilled bring any blessing in its train? And many of us are living lies! This seems a hard judgment, but look into your own hearts and say if it is not true! Which of you shows yourself in your true light to the world? Your small meannesses—your hasty tempers—your neglected duties—your backbitings—you put them all aside in public, and let your neighbours think you good mistresses; kind wives and husbands; liberal parents, and faithful friends. But do you imagine you can deceive God—the God of truth, who hates a lie—from whose heaven, we are told, all liars shall be excluded? ”

“ Lord and Lady Ilfracombe had a pleasant time, yachting in the Mediterranean. The weather was perfect; their companions, Captain Knyvett and Mr Castelton, whom they had invited to accompany them, proved to be agreeable and entertaining; and the Débutante was as luxurious a little vessel as can well be imagined. Nora, who was the only lady on board, fascinated the whole crew, gentlemen and sailors alike. Without being in the least masculine, she was as energetic and as much to the fore as any man aboard. ”

“ Visitors passed through it to the dairy, where the shelves were piled with the year’s cheeses, and marble slabs held the mounds of fresh butter, waiting to be made into rolls or pats by the rosy-cheeked dairymaid, and the pans were standing covered with thick, rich, yellow cream, such as Mrs Llewellyn was famed for all the country side. This dairy led across a covered-in yard to the baking-house, and in the centre of the yard stood a well, centuries old, with an Elizabethan cross surmounting its quaint, arched roof. ”