CHAPTERVIII.
Thelicence having been procured, the marriage ceremony before the registrar of Usk was accomplished in a very few minutes. Jack Portland had only to meet Nell at the office the following morning, and in half-an-hour they walked out again man and wife. The girl was very calm and collected over the whole affair—so calm indeed, that her new-made husband looked at her with surprise. They walked back to their respective destinations by a by-path, so that they might converse unseen, though nobody in Usk would have been very much astonished if they had encountered one of the gentlemen from the Hall taking a stroll with such a notorious beauty as Farmer Llewellyn’s daughter.
‘Well, Nell,’ commenced Jack Portland,‘so it really isun fait accompli, and you are Mrs Portland. Have you told the old people yet?’
‘No! I waited until, as you say, it should be an accomplished thing.’
‘When shall you break the news to them? Won’t they be very much surprised? How will they take it, do you think?’
‘Oh! they will only feel too honoured at my having made such a good match—at my having married a “real gentleman,”’ replied Nell, with quiet sarcasm. ‘What else should farmers feel?’
‘You’ll have to tell them before you join me at “The Three Pilchards” this evening.’
‘Perhaps! It depends on what humour they may be in. At all events, you can announce the fact to them to-morrow morning.’
‘What a funny girl you are, to want to run away from home in so secret a manner. Is it because of Ilfracombe’s vicinity? Are you afraid he will be jealous? It wouldbe very unjust if he were. A regular dog-in-the-manger sort of business.’
‘No! you are quite mistaken. 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. ‘Well, I prophecy, Mr Portland, that a day will come when you will look back and bless me for having had the courage to buy these letters from you, at whatever cost—a day when you will regard the life you have led hitherto with loathing and abhorrence, and scorn to do a dishonourableact. A day when you will thank heaven that you are an honest man, and live by honest work alone.’
‘I am afraid that day is in the clouds, Nell, that is, if you call play dishonest, for I should never live to see it without.’
‘I am not so sure of that. There must be something better in your nature than you have discovered yet, or you would not have offered to make a ruined woman like myself your wife.’
‘Let us hope there is, for your sake. Now, as for our plans!’
‘These are foolish Lady Ilfracombe’s letters,’ said Nell, handling the packet, ‘and here is your affirmation that there are no more in your possession. Did you make the appointment with her in the meadow for this afternoon at five o’clock?’
‘Yes; I wrote her a note to say I had received the packet from London, and would deliver it to her, without fail, at that hour.’
‘She has good reason to doubt the truth of your promise, but to see you in the meadow will not be compromising, so she will keep the appointment, and I shall be there to meet her. You will not expect to see me at “The Three Pilchards” before nine.’
‘Can’t you come earlier?’
‘Not without exciting the suspicions of my parents, and making my mother resolve to sit up to let me in again. It will be better as I say. At nine o’clock, or a little after, I shall be there. I hope the registrar will not blab the news of our marriage through Usk before that time.’
‘I think not. I pledged him to secrecy with a golden tip. But to-morrow everyone must know it, both at Usk Hall and Panty-cuckoo Farm.’
‘Oh, yes; certainly! To-morrow everyone must know it,’ replied Nell, in the same impassive tone; ‘and now we had better think of going back, Mr Portland.’
‘Not “Mr Portland” now, Nell, surely!’ said her companion. ‘You must call me “Jack.”’
‘“Jack!”’ repeated the girl, as if she were saying a lesson.
They rose together as she spoke, and proceeded towards the Hall. When they reached the farm gates, Nell slipped from him without any further farewell, and entered her father’s house. Jack Portland looked after her a little wistfully. He had married her, certainly, but had he gained her? Had she done it only to save Lord Ilfracombe from further disgrace and ruin—to save his countess’s reputation for the sake of his hitherto unblemished name? He was not quite sure, but he had a shrewd suspicion of the truth, and as Mr Portland turned away, he sighed.
Lady Ilfracombe was in high spirits at luncheon that afternoon. Jack had actually compromised himself to the degree ofwritingto assure her she should receive back her letters, and for the first time,perhaps, she really believed him. Her eyes were dancing, and her cheeks flushed with expectation. When her husband asked her how she intended to spend the afternoon, she actually laughed across the table at Mr Portland, as she replied, that she had promised to take a stroll with his friend.
‘Old Jack and you going botanising together;’ exclaimed Ilfracombe; ‘that is a good joke. Well, I was going to ask him to ride over to Pontypool with me, but I suppose your sex gives you the prior claim.’
‘I should rather think so,’ said the countess; ‘at least, if Mr Portland deserts me, it will be the last time I ever make an appointment with him, so mind that, Mr Portland!’
‘Don’t alarm yourself, Lady Ilfracombe,’ replied Jack Portland, who also appeared to be in unusually good spirits that afternoon, ‘my word is my bond. Besides, as you leave Usk so soon, it may be my last opportunity of enjoying atête-à-têtewith your ladyship for some time to come. Is the date of your departure definitely fixed?’
‘Definitely!’ replied the earl. ‘We starten routefor Wiesbaden by the three o’clock train to-morrow afternoon. We don’t expect to be on the Continent more than a few weeks, Jack, and when we return to Thistlemere for the shooting, you must join us as usual.’
Mr Portland looked important.
‘Well, I’m not quite sure of that, old chap. It’s awfully good of you to ask me, but we will talk of it afterwards. If you don’t start till three to-morrow, I expect I shall have some news to tell you before you go.’
‘News!’ cried Lady Ilfracombe. ‘Oh, Mr Portland, what is it? Do tell us at once. What is it about? Anything to do with us, or does it only concern yourself? Is it good news, or bad? Now don’t keep us in this terrible suspense.’
‘How like a woman,’ exclaimed Mr Portland. ‘How much would you leavefor 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.
‘Well, youhavedrawn on your imagination, Lady Ilfracombe, this time,’ said Sir Archibald. ‘Mr Portland, married! I should as soon think of my kestrel hawk going in for the domesticities.’
‘Jack married,’ laughed the earl. ‘Come, you have indeed thought of the most incredible thing you could conceive. We shall have you writing a novel after this, Nora. You have evidently a gift for imagining the infinitely impossible.’
‘There must be something very ridiculous about me, I fear,’ said Mr Portland,‘that everyone thinks it such a far-fetched idea that I should settle down.’
‘Yousettle down, old man?’ replied Ilfracombe. ‘Yes, when you’re carried to your grave, not before. However, let us change so unprofitable a subject. You are booked then, Nora, for the day, so perhaps Lady Bowmant will permit me to be her cavalier.’
‘With pleasure, Lord Ilfracombe! I shall be delighted to get you to myself for a little, since you are going to be cruel enough to desert us so soon.’
They all rose laughing from table after that, and dispersed to their separate apartments.
It was pleasant and cool when Nora strolled out to the meadow to meet Jack Portland. Her thoughts were pleasant too. On the next day she was going to take her husband far away from the temptation of Mr Portland’s society, and she hoped before they met him again, to have persuaded Ilfracombe to give up play altogether. Those abominable letterswould be destroyed by that time. She was determined that she would burn them to ashes as soon as ever she got them in her hands, and then the coast would be clear before her and Ilfracombe for the rest of their married life. She hummed the air of a popular ditty to herself as she walked through the rich thick grass, expecting to see Mr Portland every moment coming to meet her with the longed-for packet in his hands.
Instead of which, a young woman plainly attired, came up to her and said,—
‘I beg your pardon, Lady Ilfracombe, but are you waiting for Mr Portland?’
Nora turned round exclaiming angrily,—
‘And what business is that of yours?’ when she recognised the speaker. ‘Oh, Miss Llewellyn, is that you? I—I—did not know you at first. Yes, I am waiting for Mr Portland, though I cannot think how you came to know it.’
‘Because he told me so himself, and commissioned me to deliver this packet to you?’
Lady Ilfracombe grew very red, as she took the letters.
‘He commissioned you to give them to me? It is very strange. I do not understand. He said he should be here himself. What on earth made him give this packet to you?’
‘Because I insisted on it; he could not help himself,’ replied Nell. ‘Lady Ilfracombe, do not be angry with me for mentioning it, but my bedroom at the farmhouse is over that occupied by Mr Portland, and I was at my window the night you visited him there, and heard all that passed between you about those letters.’
‘That was eavesdropping,’ exclaimed the countess with crimson cheeks, ‘and you had no right to do it. If you made use of what you overheard you would ruin me with my husband.’
‘Do you think me capable of such a thing? I should not have listened to a single word, unless I had thought I could do you a service by doing so. As soonas I understood the dilemma you were in, and why you had sought that man, I resolved, if possible, to get the letters he was so meanly withholding from you.’
‘Youresolved?’ cried Nora in surprise.
‘Yes, and as soon as you and he had left to return to the Hall, I went down to his room and ransacked it in order to find them. I had not done so when Mr Portland came back and found me there,—after which there was an explanation between us, and I forced him to give them up to me—with a written affirmation that he has no more in his possession.’
‘And he assured me that he had telegraphed to London for them, and only received them this morning.’
‘If he said so, you might have been sure it was untrue.’
‘Miss Llewellyn, you don’t like Jack Portland any more than I do,’ said Nora, looking straight in the other’s face.
‘I have no reason to do so, Lady Ilfracombe.’
‘And you actually did this forme—howgood and sweet of you it was. I have not been used to receive such favours from my own sex. But why did you do it? What am I to you?’
‘You arehiswife,’ answered Nell, in a low voice, ‘and he loves you. Lady Ilfracombe. I believe you know who I am.’
‘Yes, I think I do,’ said Nora with a little confusion; ‘I guessed it; I recognised you, when we first met, from your description. You—you—are Nell Llewellyn, are you not—who—who—’
‘Don’t be afraid of wounding me by saying it,’ replied Nell, gently; ‘and don’t shrink from me, for I shall never intrude on your presence again.’
At these words, so sweetly and humbly spoken, all the generosity of Lady Ilfracombe’s nature was roused at once.
‘Shrink from you, my dear girl, and when you have just rendered me the greatest service possible?’ she exclaimed. ‘What a brute you must think me. Why should I? Neither you nor I is to blame,and you have been so sorely injured. We are both Ilfracombe’s wives, I suppose, in God’s sight, though I happen to bear his name. It is funny, isn’t it, that a Christian country should make such a wide difference between a few words pronounced by the law, and God’s great law of Nature? But Nell, I am sorry for you, indeed I am, and always have been.’
‘I believe you,’ replied Nell. ‘For I heard you say so that night. But I did not come here to speak with you of my own affairs, only to give those letters into your keeping, and to beg of you, as you value your reputation and your husband’s happiness, never to have any secret dealings with Mr Portland again.’
‘Indeed, you may be sure of that. He is a pitiless scoundrel, without heart or honour. I have suffered too much at his hands to trust him again. But how did you manage to get these letters from him? That is what puzzles me. How did you bribe him, or have you got him somehow in your power?’
‘It little matters,’ said Nell, with a shudder of remembrance; ‘he cannot harm me, and I shall not suffer in consequence. But you will let me speak plainly to you, Lady Ilfracombe?’
‘Say anything you like,’ replied Nora, ‘for I can never thank you enough for what you have done for me.’
‘When I lived with Lord Ilfracombe, I saw the bad influence this man had over him—how he led him into extravagance and vice, and took the occasion of their so-called friendship to rob him of his money and make him risk his good name.’
‘I have seen the same, of course,’ said the countess; ‘but Ilfracombe is so infatuated with Portland, that he will believe nothing against him. But now that I have these letters, I will make my husband break with him, if I die for it.’
‘Yes, do—do!’ cried Nell; ‘and if need be, tell him everything, so that he sees him in his true colours. Save Lord Ilfracombe from further contamination, asyou value his happiness and his honour.’
‘And what am I to do for you, dear Nell?’ asked Nora, as she took the other’s hand. ‘How can I make you happy in return for the great happiness you have given me? Let me do something for you. Don’t be proud, as you were that day at the farm, and send me away miserable. Give me an opportunity of proving my gratitude.’
‘Do you mean that? Do you say it in earnest?’
‘Indeed, indeed I do.’
‘Then lovehim, Lady Ilfracombe, love him with all your heart and soul, and never let him cast one regretful look backwards, or blame himself for things which were beyond his control. Tell him, if ever he should speak to you of me, that I acquiesced in all his decisions, and thought them for the best—that he was right to marry, and that I thanked God he had secured a wife who loved him, and whom I heard say so with her own lips.’
‘Youloved him very dearly, Nell?’
Nell’s answer to this question was to sit down suddenly on the grass, and burst into tears, covering her poor face with her attenuated hands, and rocking herself two and fro in her speechless misery. Nora sat down beside her, and threw her arm round her waist. She remembered nothing then but that here was—not her husband’s former mistress—but another woman, as loving and as entitled to happiness as herself, who had lost by her gain.
‘Nell, Nell,’ she whispered. ‘Poor, dear Nell! Don’t cry. Ilfracombe remembers and loves you still. It is a cruel fate that makes our two lots so different. Oh, poor Nell! don’t sob like that or you will break my heart.’
And the countess put her arms round the other’s neck and kissed the tears off her cheeks. The action recalled Nell to herself.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you so much. I shall not forget that youkissed me. But don’t think because I cry that I am discontented, or wish things altered from what they are. I know now they are all for the best. Only love him—love him all you are able, and have no more secrets from him, and may God bless you both!’
‘Idolove him,’ exclaimed Lady Ilfracombe; ‘and now that you have given me back my peace of mind, I shall be able to show my love for him with a freer conscience. Oh! it was terrible to feel his kisses or hear his praises, and know all the time that that horrid man might carry his threats into execution at any moment, and make my husband hate and despise me. I wonder where Mr Portland has gone? What will he find to say for himself when we next meet, I wonder?’
‘Perhaps you may not meet him. Perhaps he will take good care to keep out of your way.’
‘What a horrid, odious man he is!’ cried Nora. ‘I would rather be dead than married to such a man.’
‘So would I,’ said Nell; ‘but my task is done, and I must go. Good-bye, Lady Ilfracombe. I am glad to think I have made you so happy.’
‘But I shall see you again, Nell,’ suggested the countess. ‘We leave Usk to-morrow afternoon; but I shall tell the earl that I have met you, and he will come with me to wish you good-bye.’
Nell’s eyes had a far-away look in them, as she answered,—
‘To-morrow morning, then, Lady Ilfracombe, bring your husband over to the farm to say good-bye to me. And that will be the last, last time, remember. After that I will trouble you no more.’
‘You have never troubled me,’ cried Nora genially; ‘indeed I shall look back on this day in coming years, and say that you are the best friend I have ever had.’
Nell turned to her quite brightly, as she replied,—
‘Yes, yes, I hope you will. I should like to think that you and he thought ofme sometimes as your truest, though humblest friend. For that indeed I am to both of you.’
‘I feel you are; I shall tell Ilfracombe so this very night,’ said Nora. ‘Kiss me once more, Nell, and thank you a thousand times. Oh, how I wish I could repay you!’
‘Youwillrepay me by making him happy. But—you wear a silk handkerchief, Lady Ilfracombe—if you would give me that, in remembrance of this meeting, I should prize it more than I can say.’
Nora tore it impetuously off her throat.
‘Take it!’ she exclaimed, as she knotted it round that of Nell. ‘How I wish you had asked for my jewellery case instead.’
Nell smiled faintly.
‘I never valued jewels,’ she said, ‘though there was a time when I had plenty to wear. But this soft, little handkerchief that has touched your neck, it shall go with me to my grave.’
So they parted, the countess dancing up the meadow steep again, with her letters in her hand, as if earth held no further care for her, and Nell walking slowly down the incline that led to the road, her head bent upon her breast, and her eyes cast downwards. 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. It appears unequal; but it is the way things are worked in this world. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. In the next world there will bedust and ashes for some of the great and fortunate ones of this earth, and crowns for the lowly and the despised. And Nell Llewellyn’s crown will sparkle with jewels as heaven is studded with its stars.