But at this adjuration Mrs Llewellyn ruffled up her feathers like an old hen when her chickens are attacked.
‘You needn’t come for to give such advice to any girl of mine, Mrs Hody!’ she exclaimed, quite hotly, ‘for it isn’t needed. Believe any rubbish a gentleman born might say to her! I should think not, indeed. Nell is much too sensible for that. She knows that gentleman’s compliments mean no good for poor girls, and would not encourage such a thing for a moment. My lasses are not like the Simpsons, Mrs Hody, nor yet the Manleys. They’ve never been allowed to run loose for anyone to talk to, but been reared in a God-fearing way and taught that His eye is on them everywhere. There’s no occasion for you to caution them. I can assure you, I would rather see Nell stretched dead at my feet, than think her capable of such folly. Why, who knows what it might lead to? Gentlemen have flattering tongues sometimes for country girls, and put all sorts of silly ideas into their heads. If I thought our Nell would even speak to such lodgers as you may choose to send us, Mrs Hody, I wouldn’t let my rooms to you, not if you gave me ten pounds a week for them, there!’
And Mrs Llewellyn, quite exhausted by her efforts, stopped talking and wiped her steaming face with her apron.
‘Oh, mother, dear, why make so much of it?’ said Nell, with cheeks of crimson. ‘I am sure Mrs Hody never thought that I or Hetty would behave ourselves in an unseemly way with your lodgers. It was only a kindly caution on her part. And you need have no fear for me, believe me.’
‘No, indeed, Mrs Llewellyn,’ interposed the housekeeper, anxious to make peace with her hostess, ‘I only put in my little word on account of your Nell here being so handsome, and I, knowing but too well what some of the gentlemen as come to the Hall are. Why, didn’t one of ’em wrong poor little Katie Brown only last autumn twelvemonth, stuffing the poor child’s head up with some nonsense about marriage not being necessary, and that he’d stick to her all his life, and then going off when the shooting was over and leaving her with a baby at her back. Tom Brown was after bringing an action against the gentleman—Mr Frank Leyton, it was—and getting some money out of him for his daughter’s shame; but the lawyer advised him not, for there was no evidence except Katie’s word, and that wouldn’t be enough in a court of justice, he said. I’ve taken good care not to have any pretty girls about the Hall since, and if your Nell had come up to help me, I would have kept her out of their way, for such a set of unprincipled vagabonds I never see before!’
‘No, thank you, Mrs Hody,’ replied Mrs Llewellyn, grandly, ‘no amount of wages would make me send a girl of mine up to the Hall after what you’ve told me. My daughters have been very humbly born and bred, but they are good, virtuous lassies, though, perhaps, I should not be the one to say it. It would break my heart if I could think them capable of taking up with folks as never meant to marry them, and as for their father, well, I do believe he’d take a gun and shoot ’em if he knew of it. So, our Nell, she’ll keep down at Panty-cuckoo, if you please, whilst your family’s at home, and do her duty by keeping the lodgers’ rooms clean and tidy, instead of making the acquaintance of their occupants.’
‘There, there, mother, say no more about it, pray!’ cried Nell in real distress, as she carried off the tea-tray in order to hide her burning cheeks.
It was such conversations as these that made her fearful to think what might happen if her secret ever became known to her parents; which made her contemplate the thought of South Africa with something very much like gratitude, and even remember the condition attached to it without a shudder. She had quite made up her mind by this time that she should never see the Earl of Ilfracombe again. She had never heard him mention Usk, nor even Wales. It was not likely, in her simple ideas, that he would ever find his way there; she thought that they were as widely separated as if the sea divided them. She had but two alternatives—either to end her days at Panty-cuckoo Farm, in the maddeningly quiet manner she was passing them now, or to become Hugh Owen’s wife and go away with him, far, far from everything that could possibly remind her of the happy, thoughtless time she had believed would never end; and, of the two, the last appeared to be the best to her. Yet not without her parents. That was, of course, plainly understood between Hugh and herself. But her father still talked despondingly of his prospects, and of the ultimate necessity of his making some change, and Nell seemed to see the future looming before her, even though it was as yet no larger than a man’s hand. Hugh Owen had resumed his visits to the farm, much to the content of Mrs Llewellyn, and, sometimes, he and Nell took a stroll together in the summer evenings. Only as friends, though. Notwithstanding the half promise she had made him, Nell would not permit him to consider himself anything more than her friend until the matter was finally settled between them, and the young man was quite content it should be so. Perhaps he required a little time also, to recover the great shock experienced on hearing Nell’s story, and preferred to gain her complete confidence and friendship before asking for any closer privilege. But he was happy in knowing that she trusted him, and never doubted but that the end for both of them would be a perfect union.
So the time went on until May was over, and Mrs Hody announced that she would require Mrs Llewellyn’s bedrooms for two gentlemen on the following day. The task of preparing them was confided to Nell. There was no rough work to be done—Mrs Llewellyn’s rooms being always kept in spick-and-span order—but the linen sheets had to be taken out of the old walnut-wood press, where they had lain for the last year between sprigs of sweet lavender, and aired before the kitchen fire, and the creases ironed out before they were put upon the beds. Then the fair white toilet-covers, trimmed with lace made by the farmer’s great-grandmother, were spread upon the dressing-tables and chest of drawers, and every speck of dust flicked off the polished furniture. Clean lace curtains were hung before the windows, about which clambered the honeysuckles and roses, which poor Nell used to see in her London dreams, and before which lay the beds of flowers which adorned the side of the farmhouse. These two rooms, as has been said before, lay apart from the rest of the domain, and opened into the bricked passage at the back of the parlour. They had a little private entrance of their own, and, when they were occupied, the lodgers were allowed to come in and out as they chose. This was absolutely necessary with the guests of Sir Archibald Bowmant, as the revelries of Usk Hall were kept up so late, that the Llewellyns could not possibly have sat up for them. So, in that primitive place, where latch-keys were unknown and robbery was unheard of, the simple farmers left their side-door unfastened, and scarcely ever set eyes on their lodgers. When the two sleeping chambers were clad in their white adornments, Nell fancied they looked too cold and colourless, so she fetched some old-fashioned vases of blue china from her mother’s store closet, and filled them with roses and lilies, overshadowed by graceful branches of crimson fuchsias and tufts of sword grass. She placed one upon each toilet-table, and heaved a sigh to see how pure and sweet and clean the rooms looked, like an unstained conscience in the bosom of a child.
‘Nell! Nell!’ called her mother, from the parlour, ‘open the side-door, there’s a good lass. There’s one of the Hall gardeners bringing over the gentlemen’s luggage.’