Nell.’
So the poor girl wrote, as other poor, forsaken wretches have written before her, thinking to move the heart of a man who was already tired of her. As soon hope to move the heart of a stone as that of a lover hot on a new fancy. Her letter reached him, as we have seen, when the step she deprecated was taken beyond remedy, but it stirred his sense of having committed an injustice if it could not requicken his burnt-out flame. He did not know how to answer it. He had nothing to say in defence of himself, or his broken promises. So, like many a man in similar circumstances, he shirked his duty, and seized the first opportunity that presented itself of putting it on the shoulders of someone else. Since Sterndale had failed in his commission, the newspaper must convey to his cast-off mistress the news she refused to believe. So he posted the little sheet of paper printed for the edification of the British residents in Malta, to her address, and transcribed it in his own hand. She couldn’t make any mistake about that, he said to himself, as he returned to the agreeable task of making love to his countess. But the incident did not increase the flavour of his courtship. There is a sense called Memory that has on occasions an inconveniently loud voice and not the slightest scruple in making itself heard, when least required. The Earl of Ilfracombe had yet to learn if the charms of his newly-wedded wife were sufficiently powerful to have made it worth his while, in order to possess them, to have invoked the demon of Memory to dog his footsteps for the remainder of his life. But for the nonce he put it away from him as an unclean thing. Nora, Countess of Ilfracombe, reigned triumphant, and Nell Llewellyn, disgraced and disherited, was ordered to ‘move on,’ and find herself another home! Meanwhile, she awaited her lover’s answer in his own house. She refused to ‘move on’ until she received it.
It was a very miserable fortnight. She felt, for the first time, so debased and degraded, that she would not leave the house, but sat indoors all day, without employment and without hope, only waiting in silence and despair for the assurance of the calamity that had been announced to her. Her sufferings were augmented at this time by the altered demeanour of the servants towards her. She had always been an indulgent mistress, and they had liked her, so that she did not experience anything like rudeness at their hands. On the contrary, it was the increase of their attentions and familiarity that annoyed and made her more unhappy. She read in it, too surely, the signs of the coming times; the signs that they knew her reign was over, and the marriage of their master a certain thing. Nell felt as if she had been turned to stone in those days, as if the wheels of her life’s machinery had been arrested, and all she could do was to await the verdict. It came all too soon. One lovely night, about a fortnight after she had written to Lord Ilfracombe, a newspaper was put into her hand. This was such a very unusual occurrence, that she tore off the wrapper hastily, and turned the sheets over with trembling fingers. She was not long in finding the announcement of her death warrant.
‘On the 28th of July, at Malta, the Right Honourable the Earl of Ilfracombe, to Leonora Adelaide Maria, fourth daughter of Admiral Sir Richard Abinger, R.N.C.B.’
And in another part of the paper was a long description of the wedding festivities, the number of invited guests, and the dresses of the bride and bridesmaids. Miss Llewellyn read the account through to the very end, and then tottered to her feet to seek her bedroom.
‘Lor’, miss, you do look bad!’ exclaimed a sympathising housemaid, whom she met on the way—it was a significant fact that since the news of his lordship’s intended marriage had been made public in the servants’ hall, poor Nell had been degraded from madam to miss,—‘let me fetch you a cup of tea, or a drop of brandy and water. Now do, there’s a dear. You might have seen a ghost by the look of you.’
‘No, thank you, Sarah,’ replied Miss Llewellyn, with a faint smile; ‘you are very kind, but I have not met a ghost, only the day has been warm and I long for a breath of fresh air. Don’t worry about me. I will go out into the square for half an hour, and that will do me good.’
The servant went on her way, and Nell turned into her bedroom. What a luxurious room it was. The furniture was upholstered in soft shades of grey and pink, and the walls were hung with engravings, all chosen by the earl himself. There was a spring couch by the fireplace before which was spread a thick white fur rug. The toilet-table was strewn with toys of china and glass and silver. It was the room of a lady, but it was Nell’s no longer. She walked deliberately to the toilet-table, and, opening her trinket case, examined its contents, to see if everything she had received at her lover’s hands was in its place. Then she quietly took off her dainty little watch, encrusted with diamonds, and her bangle bracelets, and two or three handsome rings which he had given her, amongst which was a wedding-ring which she usually wore. She put them all carefully in the trinket-case, and scribbling on the outside of an old envelope, in pencil, the words, ‘Good-bye, my only love, I cannot live without you,’ she placed it with the jewellery, and, locking the box, threw the key out of the window.
‘That will prevent the servants opening it,’ she thought. ‘They will be afraid to force the lock, but he will, by-and-by, and then he will guess the truth. I do not rob him much by taking this gown,’ she said, smiling mournfully, as she gazed at her simple print frock, ‘and he would not mind if I did. He was always generous, to me and everybody.’ Then, overburdened by a sudden rush of memory, she sank on her knees by the couch crying, ‘Oh my love, my love! why did you leave me? It is so very, very hard to part with you thus.’
But when her little outburst was over, Nell dried her eyes, and crept softly downstairs. It was dark by this time; the servants were making merry over their supper in the hall; and the crowds, not having yet issued from the theatres, the streets were comparatively free. Nell walked straight but steadily through Piccadilly and the Strand till she came to Waterloo Street. She was dressed so quietly and walking so deliberately that a stranger might have thought she was going to see a friend; certainly no one would have dreamt of the fire of passion that was raging in her breast. No one looked round at her—not an official of the law asked her business, or followed in her track. She even turned to cross Waterloo Bridge without exciting any suspicion in the bystanders. Why should she not be a peaceful citizen like the rest of them, bent on a common errand? Had it been later at night, it might have been different. It was the early hour of ten, and the crowded pathway that lulled all suspicion. Yet Nell was as distraught as any lunatic who ever contemplated suicide. She was walking to her death, and it was only a proof of the state of her mind that she went without a thought excepting that the rest of forgetfulness was so near. As she came to the centre of the bridge, she stopped for a moment and looked over the coping wall at the calm water.