CHAPTERVI
‘Areyou living,’ he repeated, ‘or—or—dead?’
In the excitement of his subsequent conversation with Lady Ilfracombe he had forgotten the suspicions she had communicated to him with regard to this woman, and now stood before her, dazed and trembling. Men who are given to drinking are always terribly afraid of the supernatural.
‘Don’t alarm yourself,’ replied Nell scornfully, ‘I am alive.’
‘Alive!Then Lady Ilfracombe was correct when she assured me she had met you. Though she had never seen you before, your description tallied so exactly with the girl she saw here that she felt certain you must be the same person.’
‘She was right,’ said Nell quietly.
‘And how did it all happen?’ asked Jack Portland eagerly. ‘You will forgive my curiosity, when you remember that your death was not only currently reported, but, as it was supposed, proved beyond a doubt. We—that is, Ilfracombe and all your friends—felt your loss very much. It was terrible for us to think you had come to so sad an end. You will believe so much, will you not?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘But you are standing, Miss Llewellyn; pray sit down. You will not be afraid to bestow a few moments on me in order to satisfy my great curiosity. Tell me first, how is it we find you here?’
‘That is easily accounted for, Mr Portland. Usk is my native place. I was born at Panty-cuckoo Farm. Mr and Mrs Llewellyn are my father and mother. So it was only natural, when I lost the home I thought was mine, that I should return to them.’
‘But how was it that the rumour ofyour death became so widely circulated?’
‘Oh, don’t talk of that,’ she said wearily. ‘Ididthrow myself into the water. I thought it would be better for all concerned, myself especially; but some well-meaning people pulled me out again, and when I found that the world believed me to be gone, I thought it just as well not to undeceive it. That is all. Of course I had no idea you would ever come here, or meet me again. As it is, all I wish is that you should leave Usk without betraying my secret to my parents.’
‘You may depend on me, Miss Llewellyn,’ said Portland. ‘But does Ilfracombe know of your proximity?’
A gleam of pleasure lighted up her features.
‘Yes. I met him yesterday, quite by accident, and he was as surprised to see me as you are. But he was glad—very glad.’
(‘Hullo!’ thought Jack to himself;‘then this accounts for his sudden determination to go?’)
But aloud he said,—
‘Of course he would be, as we all are. And now, may I ask what you were doing in my room, Miss Llewellyn?’
‘Yes,’ she answered boldly. ‘I came down here in your absence to see if I could find the packet of letters which you refused to give to Lady Ilfracombe.’
‘The packet of letters!’ he exclaimed, completely startled out of his usual prudence. How can you know anything about her letters? Who can have told you?’
‘No one has told me. My bedroom window is up there, and I overheard you talking to her to-night. I did not miss a single word of your conversation.’
‘By George!’ cried Portland. ‘Well, then, there would be no use in my disguising the matter. She has been a horrid little flirt; but there’s no harm about her now. Understand that plainly.’
‘Then why did you tempt her to meetyou here to-night? You must know what a rupture it would make between her and the earl if it became known?’
‘I shall take good care it does not get known. But I want to pay her out for her past conduct to me. She is the sort of lady that it is as well to keep the whip hand over.’
‘When you want to make money out of her husband. Yes; I understand perfectly. So you have not let poor Ilfracombe out of your clutches yet, Mr Portland. How much longer is he to be fleeced?’
‘You speak boldly, Miss Llewellyn; but, if I remember rightly, you always used to do so.’
‘Inhiscause, yes.’
‘And so you meant to steal my property, eh? and restore it to her ladyship?’
‘If it were possible. But I begin to be afraid you spoke the truth when you said the letters were not here. They are not in the dispatch-box, at all events. Oh, MrPortland, if you have them, do give them to me.’
‘In order that your heartless little rival—the woman who has supplanted you with Ilfracombe—may go scot-free? What do you suppose she will do for you in return? What she has already done—persuaded her husband to leave Usk at once. They go to-morrow!’
Nell drew a long breath.
‘To-morrow? Oh, that is soon. Nevertheless let her have back her letters, Mr Portland, if only in return for all the kindnesshehas shown you. You could never use them against her. It would be impossible; and withholding them might urge her on to confide the matter to her husband, which would mean a break-up of your long intimacy with him.’
‘By Jove! you are an eloquent pleader, Nell!’ exclaimed her companion, looking at her admiringly, ‘and there’s more good in your little finger than in her ladyship’s whole body. You’re doing this for Ilfracombe’s sake, I can spot that fast enough;but if you believe all her protestations about loving him you are easily gulled. She cares for no one but herself; she never did; but she’s in a mortal fright lest I should peach and make ructions between them. Which there would be, I can assure you, when I tell you that if it were in my power, I would not marry the woman who wrote such letters as I have in my possession. By George! you should see them. They would make your eyes open. You would not have written such epistles to save your life.’
‘Perhaps not,’ she answered quietly. ‘Letter-writing was never much in my line. But if what you say is true, it is all the more necessary that they should be destroyed. Give them to me, Mr Portland, I implore you, for the old time’s sake.’
‘Do you know what you are asking, Miss Llewellyn? To be allowed to do the best turn in your power (or the power of anyone) to the woman who inveigled Ilfracombe from you; to make a heartless, reckless girl, who is only afraid of imperillingher position in society, at her ease for evermore; to set her free to bamboozle some other man as she bamboozled me.’
‘Oh, no, no. I do not believe that. 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. That’s the long and the short of it.’
‘But you told her just now that it wasIwhom he loved,’ cried Nell quickly.
‘Did I? That was only to make her ladyship waxey. Ilfracombe has forgotten all about you long ago—’
‘I—I—think you are mistaken,’ repliedNell in a constrained tone; ‘but you cannot blame the countess for wishing to keep him as much with her as possible. And—and—since it is all over for you and me, Mr Portland—since you have losther, and I have losthim—would it not be better and nobler to leave them alone for the future, and put no obstacle in the way of their happiness?’
‘And what would you do with the packet of letters if I did deliver them over to you?’
‘I would take them to her at once and give them her on the promise that she would never be so foolish as to meet you secretly again.’
‘And you think she would thank you—that she would be grateful?’
‘Hewould, if he knew it,’ she replied.
‘Ah, it’s all forhimstill, though he cast you off, like a worn-out glove. 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?’
‘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. I admire you—not only personally, but your courage, your pride, your determination. I admire the ease with which you accepted your equivocal position under Ilfracombe’s roof—the humility with which you deferred to his will, even when it came to leaving you alone in London for four months whilst he gallivanted after Miss Nora Abinger.’
‘Oh, spare me, Mr Portland, spare me!’ cried Nell,’let the past alone, it is too painful a recollection to me. I know I was furious with you. I had a right to be, but my high spirits are all gone. If it were so, I should not stay to listen now.’
‘But I am not going to say one word that the most virtuous matron in England might not hear. I repeat that you are the only woman for whom I have ever experienced any genuine feeling, and if you really want to save your late friend from a very painful humiliation (which will inevitably come some day, by the exhibition of those letters), I will give them to you to do with as you will—if you will marry me.’
‘What?’ she exclaimed, starting backward.
‘I mean what I say. I know that my former proposal was a different one, but I have altered my mind since them. I offer to marry you—to give you my name, which is, at all events, that of a gentleman, though I’m afraid a rather shady one, and—Lady Ilfracombe’s letters.’
‘But Mr Portland, you do not know what you are asking. My heart is not the least changed since those days. Ilfracombe’s conduct—his marriage—have made no difference to me. I wish they had. I wishI had got over my trouble, and could go to you, or any man, with a clear conscience and say, “I love you.” But I cannot, I never shall. My soul is bound up in that of Ilfracombe. He ismyhusband—not that woman’s. I think of him every day; pray for him every night by that name. I know he has deserted me, but I have never deserted him, and there were reasons in his case that made marriage a necessity. It has not destroyed his love for me; that is as true and strong as ever. And it would be impossible to me, whilst his love lasts, to be any other man’s wife.’
‘Who told you that Ilfracombe loves you still—that is, if he ever loved you.’
‘He told me so himself, only last night when we met in the meadow. He said he wished he had married me when he felt disposed to do it, years ago.’
‘If he said that, he’s a scoundrel and a liar,’ cried Jack Portland.
‘Mr Portland, how dare you speak so? No one shall call Lord Ilfracombe such names in my presence. He was neverdishonest or untrue. 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. That is my hold over her. Ilfracombe loses a great deal of money to me. I don’t deny it. His money is useful to me, and it is in my power to ruin him if I choose. Indeed I have done a little that way already. Two years ago in Malta I met his wife, then Nora Abinger, and had a pretty hot flirtation with her. There was no real harm in it, but there was not much bloom left on the plum for the next comer, and she compromised herself in so many ways that no prejudiced personwould think our acquaintanceship had been an innocent one. A case of circumstantial evidence, certainly, but so are most cases that end fatally for the actors in them. Well, to speak plainly, this is how I stand with the earl and countess. I could ruin them both to-morrow if I chose, and it is for you to render me harmless—draw the dragon’s teeth, in fact, and transform him into a lamb.’
Nell had grown very white as Portland alluded to Ilfracombe’s affection for his wife, but still she shook her head and repeated,—
‘I couldn’t—indeed, I couldn’t’
‘When I spoke to you last,’ persisted Portland, ‘things were quite different. Then you expected your lover to return to you any day, and you were horrified at the idea of stepping from one equivocal position to another. Now all is changed. Ilfracombe will never live with you again. You are sure of that. He has left you unprotected, and thrown you back upon a life for which he unfitted you without any prospects for the future—a ruined woman, yet with all theinstincts of a lady. And I offer you marriage—an honest position if nothing else, and a return to some of the luxuries of life to which you have been so long accustomed. Is it not worth thinking over?’
Nell looked at Jack Portland steadily. She had always hated and despised him, and never more so than at the present moment—but he held the fate of Ilfracombe in his hands. He could ruin his fortunes and destroy his domestic happiness—and he put it in her power to save him. What if she could do it? Would it be a greater sacrifice than flinging herself into the water had been? Could it be a crueller fate than that which she endured now? Could anything—even marriage with Jack Portland, prove more bitter than her present existence and the bare outlook for the future?
‘What security would you give me—in case of my complying with your proposal—that my sacrifice would not be wasted, that you would not continue to lead Ilfracombe into extravagance and folly until you had ruined him?’
‘Your best security would lie in the possession of her ladyship’s letters,’ was the reply. ‘She has such a wholesome dread of my producing them at present that she dares not influence her husband to give up my acquaintance. But Madam Nora hates me too genuinely to delay setting her own machinery in motion one minute after she knows she has no more to fear from me. Set your mind at ease on that score, Miss Llewellyn. The whole matter lies in a nutshell—my possession of those letters. They are the locks of Samson—the heel of Achilles. Once take them out of my hands and I am powerless to harm—my vulnerable spot is found.’
‘Tell me all your conditions,’ continued Nell in a low voice.
Jack Portland’s eyes glistened as he exclaimed eagerly,—
‘They shall not be difficult ones, my dear. If you will consent to come with me and be married at the registrar’s office the letters are yours.’
‘No, no, I will not trust you, MrPortland. I must have the letters first.’
‘I have greater faith than you have. I believe Icantrust you. You are too noble a woman to deceive me.’
‘If I say I will marry you I will marry you. You may rely on that. My worst enemies never called me a liar. But I promise nothing more.’
‘I ask for nothing more,’ replied Mr Portland. ‘Come, I will make a bargain with you, Nell. I will ride into Newport to-morrow morning and get the licence. We must give them twenty-four hours’ notice; and the next day we will be married, and as soon as the ceremony is over the letters shall be placed in your hand. Will that satisfy you?’
‘No; I must be allowed to examine them first, to make sure they are the original ones, and I must have your attestation in writing that you have never received any others from Miss Abinger, and that if at any time such should crop up they will be forgeries. Else how canI be sure that it—it—might not all be in vain?’
‘You know how to drive a hard bargain, Nell, but I agree. Give me yourself, and I am willing to give up everything on earth in exchange. So it is a bargain then. To-morrow, or rather to-day (for the dawn is breaking), is Thursday, and to-morrow, Friday, will be our wedding day.’
‘An unlucky day,’ said Nell, with a slight shiver. ‘But I have not promised yet. You must give me till this afternoon to think it over, Mr Portland. It has been too hurried a proposal.’
‘Oh, come, I say, that’s too bad. You’ve as good as said you’d consent. I’m in downright earnest, Nell, ‘pon my soul I am, and as far as in me lies I’ll make you a good husband. Now don’t be afraid. I know you never had a great opinion of me, but I’m going to reform now, on my word I am, and turn over a new leaf if you’ll only help me. Come now, say it’s a settled thing.’
‘Not till this afternoon,’ she reiterated. ‘Be here at two o’clock, and I will give you my final answer then. But only under the conditions I have named. I must have the letters beforehand to examine, and the assurance that you have kept none of them back, and then you shall deliver them to me in the registrar’s office. On no other terms will I meet you there.’
‘All right, I agree to them. 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, andhave loved you all along. You think such a word from my lips a sacrilege, but still it is true, and I shall try to make you love me in return. I am a wild, reckless, perhaps dishonourable fellow, but I have one soft spot in my heart, and that is for you. I shall be here without fail at two o’clock this afternoon. Mind you have your answer ready. And mark you, Nell,’ he continued rather fiercely, ‘if it is “No” the fate of the Ilfracombes is sealed. I shall not be able to bear the disappointment. I shall lay it at his door, and I will take my revenge without delay. You understand?’
‘Yes, perfectly. And Ithinkmy answer will not be “No.”’
She passed away through the narrow passage as she spoke, and Jack Portland stood and watched her disappear with a new feeling in his heart.
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 unexpectedlyentered 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 desired his happiness and welfare above all earthly things. She had been ready to throw her life away when she heard he had deserted her. She was ready now, for his sake, and to save the honour of his name, to take upon herself a marriage the very thought of which she loathed and abhorred; but she could not bear the idea that he was happier in his love for his wife than he had been with her, that he had forgotten, in fact, the days which they had spent together, or was glad that they were gone. Her inward cry still was, ‘Tell me you love me best of all theworld, and the other woman can have your title and your money.’
To hear Jack Portland expatiating on the earl’s infatuation for his countess had been the bitterest thing Nell had yet been called upon to bear—the motive which had made her consent, against her will, to become his wife. But yet she did not quite believe it. She recalled Ilfracombe’s affectionate words of the evening before, his pleasure at meeting her again, his regret that he had not done the right thing by her years before, and was resolved to know the truth for herself before she finally sealed her fate by consenting to Mr Portland’s proposal. As she cogitated thus, all in a cold tremble and flutter, Nell came to the desperate resolve to seek an interview with the earl, and tell him of this proposal, and ask his advice whether she should marry or not. Then she should see, she said to herself, by his look, his manner, his sorrow or his joy, if he loved her still. But he would not let her marry, she felt certain of that, and smiled as she thought of it; but thenthe letters, those fatal letters, what would become of him and the countess if she declined? She sat by the window until it was time to dress herself anew without being able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion.