Florence Marryat

“ He was always the best and kindest and most generous of men to me—just as you heard his wife say this evening—and whoever speaks against him must be my enemy.’
‘I am not that,’ replied Jack Portland. ‘Now, look here, Miss Llewellyn. The facts are these: Ilfracombe, whatever he may have said to you is simply infatuated with his wife. He defers to her will—follows her about like a lamb with a blue ribbon round its neck—and obeys her in everything. No one who sees him can help observing how madly in love he is. ”

“ Cannot you be man enough to forgive a girl who has never done you any harm for having caused you a little mortification? Will you not do so—for the sake of Malta and the time when you thought you loved me?’
Nora’s voice was so sorrowful, and yet so full of dignity, as she pronounced these words, that Nell’s heart burned within her to listen to them, and she longed to have the power to steal those letters and restore them to her, spite of all Mr Jack Portland’s machinations. ”

“ One going up to the greatest joy that life holds for any woman, the love and faith of an honest man; the other going downwards to all that was abhorrent and loathly. The success of the one dependent on the failure of the other; the happiness of the one due to the despair of the other; the triumph of the one built on the sacrifice of the other. Nora, who had been so self-willed and rebellious through life, saved from the effects of her escapades by Nell, who had borne her lot so patiently, and taken all her disappointments as righteous retribution. ”

“ We have a sixth sense, called intuition, which, as a rule, we pay too little attention to. The influences to which we have been subject, the experiences we have passed through, all leave a subtle something behind them, which is patent to the intuition of our acquaintances, as theirs is to us. We may not recognise it, but it guides, in a great measure, our feelings and ideas, our likes and dislikes. It was intuition that drew Lady Ilfracombe to Panty-cuckoo Farm, and made her conceive such an unusual interest in Nell Llewellyn. ”

“ It was fate—the fate that, laugh at it or despise it as we will, still goes on silently but surely, weaving the web of all our destinies—that had drawn these actors in the tragedy of life together to one meeting-place, to fulfil the appointed end of the drama which they had written for themselves. The Countess of Ilfracombe went back to Usk Hall rather depressed than otherwise, for it is not pleasant to have an intended kindness thrown back in your face; and intuition told her that there was something more beneath the surface of Nell’s manner than she chose to let her know ”

“ He should not reveal the identity of the latter to Lady Ilfracombe, but all intercourse must be stopped between them. He was sorry for poor Nell—very, very sorry; but, hang it all, Nora was his wife, and the prospective mother of his children, and at all hazards he would keep her for the future out of the other woman’s way.
This is the difference men make between their mistresses and their wives. The one may be the infinitely better woman of the two, but the law does not overshadow her, so she must stand like Hagar apart in the wilderness which she has created for herself. ”

“ Your penitence was all assumed, put on to catch an unwary fool like myself, because there was no one better within reach. Your sorrow, too, for the loss of your lover [Pg 81] was another sham, easily consoled by the kisses of a stranger. You are not a true woman, Nell. You are unfit for the love or consideration of any honest man. You are an outcast and a wanton, and I will never willingly speak to you again.’
‘I will take good care you don’t,’ cried Nell in her turn. ‘I have more powerful friends than you think of—friends who will not see me insulted by a common farmer’s son. ”

“ He had not entertained the faintest idea that Nora would agree to visit him at Panty-cuckoo Farm. Was it possible she still retained an inkling of affection for him, and had her constrained manner since her marriage been a blind for her real feelings? Men are so conceited where the beau sexe is concerned, that Jack Portland, bloated and disfigured as he was by excess and dissipation, was yet quite ready to believe that the Countess of Ilfracombe had been unable to resist the feelings raised in her breast by meeting him again. ”

“ But, however much we may occasionally long to take the law into our own hands, the nineteenth century holds certain obstacles against it. Nora was a woman, also, of finesse and intrigue. She had several times argued whether, in lieu of other ways, she could bring herself to profess a lurking affection for Jack Portland that should bring him once more to her feet, as in the olden days, and make him give for a fancied love what force had no power to wrest from him. ”

“ Is it the prince whom they expected?’
‘The prince, be d—d!’ exclaimed the farmer. ‘What’s the value of a foreign prince beside one of our own English noblemen? I wouldn’t give you that for the prince,’ snapping his fingers. ‘No; it is somebody much better and higher. It’s your old master, the Earl of Ilfracombe, and his lady. What do you think of that?’
‘The Earl of Ilfracombe!’ echoed Nell, in order to gain time. ”

“ As for Nell, when she had reached the sanctuary of her own room, her thoughts were not of this extraordinary engagement to marry—so suddenly and unexpectedly [Pg 137] entered into, and with all men in the world, Jack Portland—she did not think of the sacrifice she was about to make, and for her rival, Lady Ilfracombe. No, her whole mind was bent on solving one question, the only thing which affected her in the whole transaction—did Lord Ilfracombe really love his wife, as Mr Portland said he did? What incomprehensible animals women are! She loved this man with her whole soul. ”

“ She loves her husband. You might hear it in the very tone of her voice.’
‘The very tone of her voice!’ echoed Jack Portland sneeringly. ‘What a judge of character you must be. Why, Nora Ilfracombe is a thorough actress, and can change her voice at will. How Ilfracombe can ever have been so infatuated as to make her his countess beats me. And to see him lolling on the sofa by her side, and devouring her with his eyes is sickening. He’s over head and ears in love with her, and she wants to keep him at her feet. ”

“ She had not been unmindful of Nora’s kindness when she visited her under the guise of Mrs Lumley, though she had so ill-requited it, and now that she knew who she was, and that it was Ilfracombe’s unloved wife who had had her ring and money flung back in her face, Nell’s generous nature asserted itself, and she inwardly vowed that if she could do her a good turn she would. ”

“ Try to believe it now.’
‘No, Nell I cannot, not till I have some better proofs than another’s word. Lady Ilfracombe is always dinning the same thing into my ears, but without effect. Jack has been always true to me so far as I know, and I speak of a man as I find him.’
‘Vernie,’ said Nell, after a pause, ‘is she fond of you?’
He knew she alluded to his wife, and answered,—
‘I think so. I hope so. If people have to pass their lives together, it is best they should be good friends, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ replied the girl, as she slowly moved away. ”

“ He’s a real aristocrat, born and bred, and wouldn’t demean himself to raise a man’s rent to pay for his own extravagances. Whatever we might feel at leaving the old farm, lass, I don’t know if we wouldn’t be wiser to take his lordship’s offer at once, and transplant all our goods and chattels to Huntingdonshire.’
‘But you mustn’t do anything in a hurry, father,’ exclaimed his wife, alarmed by the rapidity of her good man’s ideas; ‘you must wait till we have word from his lordship. But it’s a fine thing you thought of sending our Nell over to the Hall to speak with him. It’s made our fortunes. ”

“ But now you had better go, or Lennox may come rushing in. Good-night. Are you not going to kiss me before you leave?’
Nell shook her head.
‘There will be time for that afterwards,’ she said gravely. ‘And don’t forget, Mr Portland, that I have held back nothing from you to-night, and that I come to you with no disguise. You have seen into my heart. If you elect to buy an empty casket don’t blame the seller.’
‘I shall blame no one and nothing,’ he replied. ‘I am only too pleased to get you on any terms. I see you do not believe me when I say I love you, and [Pg 136] have loved you all along. ”

“ It was what is called a gipsy ring—a broad band of gold, in which three unusually fine, dark-blue, flawless sapphires were sunk—the only ring which Ilfracombe had worn before his marriage. He had put it on Nora’s finger at Malta as soon as he was engaged to her, as proxy for one better suited to her slender hand, and she had refused to give it up again. Now it struck her that it would be just the sort of ring to present to a young woman whose hands were rather large and used to rough work. So she tried to put it on the third finger of Nell’s left hand. ”

“ You women are inexplicable creatures. It seems to me that the worse you are treated the closer you stick.’
‘Never mind that. Will you give me the letters?’
[Pg 126]
‘I will, on one condition.’
‘What is it?’
‘Nell, do you remember what I said to you once in Grosvenor Square and you were so angry with me for saying? I knew then that Ilfracombe was contemplating marriage, and that you would be left without a home, and I loved you. Yes, you may stare as you like, but it is the truth. Such love as it is in my nature to feel, I have felt, and do feel, for you. ”

“ Ilfracombe adored Nell Llewellyn—so did she him. Do you suppose she would have committed suicide else? Would you risk your precious life, or still more precious coronet, for any man on earth?’
‘Yes, I could—for Ilfracombe,’ she answered tremblingly.
‘I can put all that in my eye and [Pg 112] see none the worse,’ continued Portland; ‘but, at any rate, your devotion is thrown away. His lordship cares more for Miss Llewellyn’s memory than he does for your living self. ”

“ I am afraid of no one and nothing. I am my own mistress, and free to do as I choose. It is my fad to have things as I say. But let us sit down here for a minute, whilst we decide exactly what we intend to do.’
She took a seat upon a grassy bank as she spoke, and drew a packet of letters from her pocket. Jack Portland sat down beside her, and regarded them ruefully.
‘There go all my hopes of making any more money out of that muff Ilfracombe. Nell, you ought to think I value you very highly to have struck such a bargain with you as I have.’
‘Do you think so?’ she rejoined. ”

“ This selfish, immoral, dishonourable man had found his match at last in fate. Nell Llewellyn was the one creature who had ever awakened any better or higher feelings in his hardened heart, and he was suffering the agony of thinking that she might have repented of her bargain and meant to play him false as he had played so many other people. The ostler took his time to walk to Panty-cuckoo Farm. ”

“ In a moment Nora had made up her mind. If the great stake at issue, a stake the winning of which meant to [Pg 62] secure the happiness of her whole life, was to be won by finesse, she would put forth all the finesse in her power to gain it, never mind what the consequences might be. So she looked at him coquettishly and said, like the arch actress he had once called her,—
‘What reward do you want, Jack, besides the condition you have already named?’
‘Come, that’s better,’ said Mr Portland. ‘I haven’t seen a smile like that on your ladyship’s face for many a day. ”

“ I will go to Lord Ilfracombe and ask him to intercede with Sir Archibald Bowmant about the raising of your rent.’
This avowal changed the manner of both the old people at once.
‘That’s my good lass!’ exclaimed her [Pg 141] mother. ‘I knew you wouldn’t hold out against father and me for long.’
‘Well done, Nell!’ replied Mr Llewellyn; ‘and you’ll succeed, my girl, for it’s few men, be they lords or ploughboys, that would like to refuse anything to a face like yours.’
‘Lor’! father, don’t go puffing the maid up on her good looks,’ cried his wife. ‘Handsome is as handsome does; that’s my motto. ”

“ A man, a gentleman, who knows the circumstances of my life, and so cannot say afterwards that I have deceived him, has made me an offer of marriage, though I have not yet definitely accepted him.’
‘And do you like him, Nell? Will [Pg 153] he be kind to you?’ said Ilfracombe. He would have liked to see her respectably married, for whilst she lived as she was doing now she was a constant reproach to him, but, like all his sex, though unwilling to accept the responsibility himself, he did not quite like the idea of any other man possessing what had been his. ”

“ I saw Lady Ilfracombe in the fields this afternoon, and she said that she and the earl intended to call here to-morrow morning. They are going to leave Usk Hall to-morrow afternoon, and so I daresay they will take this opportunity to tell father about the farm. You mustn’t go out to-morrow, father, till you have seen him.’
‘I go out,’ exclaimed the farmer, ‘on such an occasion? I should think not. Why no one in the house shall stir till they’re come and gone. Has the parlour been swept to-day, for if not you and mother will have to stay up till it’s done? ”

“ Now don’t keep us in this terrible suspense.’
‘How like a woman,’ exclaimed Mr Portland. ‘How much would you leave [Pg 172] for to-morrow at this rate. No, Lady Ilfracombe, my news must really wait. It will come on you as a great surprise, but I hope it won’t be a disagreeable one. Now, there is food for your curiosity to feed on for the rest of this afternoon. Grand news, remember, and something you have never dreamt of before, the most incredible thing you could conceive.’
‘You’re going to be married,’ cried Nora, with feminine audacity, which set the whole table in a roar. ”

“ To understand her feelings, one must not only be a woman—one must be a woman who has loved and lost, and found that whatever the loss, the love remained as it was. Women have greater faith than men, as a rule, in the unseen and the compensation of an after life. ”

“ They think more of the heart than of the body of the creature they love, and give them the hope of a reunion in another world—of retaining the eternal affections of the man they care for; and they will try and content themselves with the thought of the future. Far better that, [Pg 74] they say, than his companionship on earth, whilst his heart is the property of some other woman. The earl had managed to deceive Nell so well without intending to deceive her, that she was already disposed to pity Lady Ilfracombe, who could only lay claim to his worldly goods. ”

“ Now, to my mind, Nell combines all the perfections of which human nature is capable. She is beautiful, amiable (a bit of a temper, but she very seldom shows it, and a woman is worth nothing without a spice of the devil in her) , dignified, sensible, and modest. She would have made a magnificent countess; beaten Lady D—— and Lady S——, and all the other Court beauties hollow. However, I’m very glad Ilfracombe didn’t see it in that light, and that the crumbs from the rich man’s table [Pg 216] have fallen to my share. ”