Florence Marryat

“ She was immensely proud that so clever and popular a writer should have chosen her from out the world of women to be his wife, and she loved him for the excellent qualities he had displayed towards his fellow men, as well as for the passionate warmth he had shewn for herself. She was a happier girl than she had ever been in all her life before, as she stood, flushed and triumphant, in front of her mirror and saw the beautiful light in her dark eyes, and the luxuriant growth of her dusky hair, and the carmine of her lips, and loved every charm she possessed for Anthony’s sake. ”

“ Olga Brimont, Mrs. Pullen, Miss Leyton, and Ralph, all gone! No one to talk to—no one to walk with—except the Baroness and her stupid husband! Of course this interpreted simply, meant that Captain Pullen had left the place without leaving a word behind him, to say the why or wherefore, or hold out any prospect of their meeting again. Of course it was impossible but that they must meet again—they should meet again, Harriet Brandt said to herself between her closed teeth—but meanwhile, what a wilderness, what a barren, dreary place this detestable Heyst would seem without him! ”

“ Margaret Pullen looked at Miss Leyton thoughtfully. Did she really mean what she said, or did her jealousy of the West Indian heiress render her capable of uttering untruths? Surely, she must see that Harriet Brandt was handsome—growing handsomer indeed, every day, with the pure sea air tinting her cheeks with a delicate flush like the inside of a shell—and that her beauty, joined to her money, would render her a tempting morsel for the men, and a formidable rival for the women. ”

“ I do wish someone would speak to Mamma about the way she treats me. It’s cruel—to strike me with her stick before all those people, as if I were a baby, and to call me such names! Even the servant William laughs at me! Do all mothers do the same, Miss Leyton? Ought a man to stand it quietly?”
“Decidedly not!” cried Elinor, without hesitation.
“O! Elinor! remember, she is his mother,” remonstrated Margaret, “don’t say anything to set him against her!” ”

“ I do not think so,” said Margaret, with a bewildered air, “we had chairs close to the side. And Miss Brandt was telling me of her life in Jamaica, when such an extraordinary sensation came over me! I can’t describe it! it was just as if I had been scooped hollow!”
At this description, Harriet Brandt burst into a loud laugh, but Elinor frowned her down.
“It may seem a laughing matter to you, Miss Brandt,” she said, in the same cold tone, “but it is none to me. Mrs. Pullen is far from strong, and her health is not to be trifled with. However, I shall not let her out of my sight again.” ”

“ The bastard of a man like Henry Brandt, cruel, dastardly, Godless, and a woman like her terrible mother, a sensual, self-loving, crafty and bloodthirsty half-caste—what do you expect their daughter to become? She may seem harmless enough at present, so does the tiger cub as it suckles its dam, but that which is bred in her will come out sooner or later, and curse those with whom she may be associated. I beg and pray of you, Margaret, not to let that girl come near you, or your child, any more. ”

“ He was very desperately and truly in love with Harriet Brandt. Like most men who use their brains in fiction, his work, whilst in course of progression, occupied his energies to such an extent that he had no time or thought for anything else. But the burden once lifted, the romance written, the strain and anxiety removed, the pendulum swung in the other direction, and Anthony Pennell devoted all his attention to pleasure and amusement. ”

“ As she sat there, with a pensive, thoughtful look upon her face, Harriet Brandt, dressed in a costume of grass-cloth, with a broad-brimmed hat, nodding with poppies and green leaves, that wonderfully became her, on her head, entered the balcony with an eager, excited appearance.
“O! Mrs. Pullen! have you seen the Baroness?” she exclaimed. “We are going to bathe this morning. Aren’t you coming down to the sands?”
“No! Miss Brandt, not to-day. I am unhappy about my dear baby! I am sure you will be sorry to hear that she has been quite ill all night—so restless and feverish!” ”

“ And Pennell, on the other hand, though he had been much sought after and flattered by the fair sex for the sake of the fame he had acquired and the money he made, had never lost his heart to any woman as he had done to his little unknown wife. He had never met anyone like Hally before. She combined the intelligence of the Englishwoman with the espièglerie of the French—the devotion of the Creole with the fiery passion of the Spanish or Italian. He could conceive her quite capable of dying silently and uncomplainingly for him, or anyone she loved ”

“ The fulfilment of the prophecy came sooner than even Doctor Phillips had anticipated. As they were all sitting at dinner that evening, Madame Lamont, her eyes over-brimming with tears, rushed unceremoniously into the salle à manger, calling to Margaret.
“Madame! Madame! please come up to your room at once! The dear baby is worse!”
Margaret threw one agonised glance at Doctor Phillips and rushed from the room, followed by himself and Elinor Leyton. The high staircase seemed interminable—more than once Margaret’s legs failed under her and she thought she should never reach the top. ”

“ But be a sensible girl—make up your mind to marry me, and give the lie to all this nonsense, and I’ll write a book that will astonish the world! Come, Hally, is it to be ruin or success for me?—Ruin to spend my life without the only woman I have ever cared for, or success to win my wife and a companion who will help me in my work and make my happiness complete? ”

“ Madame Gobelli who, whilst at the Lion d’Or, had appeared to think nothing good enough for her, was now devouring fried steak and onions, as if they had been the daintiest of fare. But the champagne made amends, on that night at least, for the solids which accompanied it, and the girl was quite ready to believe that the poverty of the table was only due to the fact that they had arrived at the Red House unexpectedly. As they reached the upper corridor, her host and hostess parted with her, with much effusion, and passing into their own room, shut the door and locked it noisily. ”

“ It would be cowardly to desert a girl, just because her father and mother happened to be brutes. It is not her fault!”
“I quite allow that! Neither is it the fault of a madman that his progenitors had lunacy in their blood, nor of a consumptive, that his were strumous. All the same the facts affect their lives and the lives of those with whom they come in contact. It is the curse of heredity!”
“Well! and if so, how can it concern anyone but the poor child herself?”
“O! yes, it can and it will! And if I am not greatly mistaken, Harriet Brandt carries a worse curse with her even than that! ”

“ Ralph Pullen bowed again, and said he felt certain that Madame was right and he looked forward to the fulfilment of her promise with the keenest anticipation.
Harriet Brandt meanwhile, sitting almost opposite to the stranger, was regarding him from under the thick lashes of her slumbrous eyes, like a lynx watching its prey. She had never seen so good-looking and aristocratic a young man before. ”

“ Never in the course of their acquaintanceship had Harriet Brandt seemed so sweet, so pathetic, so unselfish to Anthony Pennell as then. If he had resolved not to resign her from the first, he did so a thousand times more now. He threw his arms around her kneeling figure and lowered his head until it lay upon the crown of her dusky hair.
“My darling! my darling! my own sweet girl!” he murmured, “our destinies are interwoven for ever! No one and nothing shall come between us! ”

“ She passed that night through the agonies of Death—not the death that overtakes the believer in a God and a Future—but the darkness and uncertainty that enwraps the man who knows he is full of sin and yet has no knowledge that His Lord has paid his debt to the uttermost farthing—the doubt and anxiety that beset the unbeliever when he is called upon to enter the dark Valley. The poor child saw her destiny entangling her as in a net—she longed to break through it, but saw no means of escape—and she rebelled against the cruel lot that heredity had marked out for her. ”

“ Elinor, stay with me! If you are tired we can sit in the balcony. I have seen nothing of you yet!” remonstrated her lover.
She consented to sit in the balcony with him for a few minutes, but she would not permit his chair to be placed too close to hers.
“The waiters pass backward and forward,” she said, “and what would they think?”
“The deuce take what they think,” replied Captain Pullen, “I haven’t seen you for two months, and you keep me at arms’ length as if I should poison you! What do you suppose a man is made of?” ”

“ But from end to end, she saw only cinders, Flemish country women with huge baskets of fish or poultry on their arms, priests in their soutanes and broad-brimmed hats, and Belgians chattering and screaming to each other and their children, as they crossed the line. Still, she alighted with her party, expectant and happy, and traversed the little distance between the entrepôt and the Hotel, far quicker than the Baroness and her husband could keep up with her. She rushed into the balcony and almost fell into the arms of the proprietaire, Madame Lamont. ”

“ Pennell had supplied the novelty by talking to her as if her intellect were on a level with his own—as if she were perfectly able to understand and sympathise with his quixotic plans for the alleviation of the woes of all mankind—with his Arcadian dreams of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,—and might help them also, if she chose, not with money only, but by raising her own voice in the Cause of the People. ”

“ I ’ave ways and means of knowing things that I keep to myself! I ’ave friends about me too, who can tell me everything—who can ’elp me, if I choose, to give Life and Fortune to one person, and Trouble and Death to another—and woe to them that offend me, that’s all!”
But if the Baroness expected to impress Miss Brandt with her hints of terror, she was mistaken. Harriet did not seem in the least astonished. She had been brought up by old Pete and the servants on her father’s plantation to believe in witches, and the evil eye, and “Obeah” and the whole cult of Devil worship. ”

“ As for Harriet Brandt, the boy’s evident admiration flattered and pleased her. The tigress deprived of blood, will sometimes condescend to milder food. And the feelings with which she regarded Captain Pullen were such as could be easily replaced by anyone who evinced the same reciprocity. Bobby Bates was not a beau sabreur, but he was a male creature whom she had vanquished by her charms, and it interested her to watch his rising passion, and to know that he could never possibly expect it to be requited. ”

“ She had no friends of her own to go to, and the prospect of living by herself, in an unknown city, was rather lonely. She was full of anticipation also that by means of the Red House and the Baroness’s influence, she would soon hear of, or see, Captain Pullen again—full of hope that Madame Gobelli would write to the young man and force him to fulfil the promises he had made to her. She did not want to know Prince Adalbert or Prince Loris—at the present moment, it was Ralph and Ralph only, and none other would fill the void she felt at losing him. ”

“ The Baroness Gobelli’s temperament was as inconsistent as her dress. Under the garb of jocose good-humour, which often degenerated to horse-play, she concealed a jealous and vindictive disposition, which would go any lengths, when offended, to revenge itself. She was wont to say that she never forgot, nor forgave an injury, and that when she had her knife (as she termed it) in a man, she knew how to bide her time, but that when the time came, she turned it. ”