The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel

"You don't understand me, Nelly-nay, I will call you Nelly when no one is by to hear! – I will answer for their discretion; but indeed and indeed, we shall not be seen!"

While he speaks, she is walking towards the house, and he is by her side. After them, through the path where the shadows lie, steals the gardener's son, quivering with excitement. If he could but hear what these two were saying to each other! He loves Nelly Marston with all the strength of his nature. He not only loves her; he respects her. The very ground she walks upon is sacred in his eyes. Until lately he had fed hopefully upon small crumbs of comfort which the girl, wittingly or unwittingly, had given him. Nelly had spoken pleasantly to him; Nelly had smiled upon him as she tripped past him; Nelly wore a flower he gave her. But he had never found the courage to open his heart to her, she being in his estimation so far above him, and now he fears that a rival has stepped in, and that what he yearns for with all his soul is slipping from him.

"Mr. Temple," says Nelly, when they are near the house, "you said just now that you were starving of hunger. You had best bribe one of the servants, and get something to eat. Then I should advise you to quit Springfield, and not return till you are sent for."

"Should you!" he replies, defiantly and yet beseechingly. "Advice is a cheap gift. You would not send for me, I warrant."

"By what right should I?"

"Hungry for food I am," he says, "but I have another kind of hunger upon me which makes me regardless of that."

"Indeed!" she exclaims, with a pretty gesture of surprise.

"Nelly, you are merciless. You see that I am starving of love for you, and you systematically-"

She stays to hear no more, and gliding from him, passes into the house. But he, stung by her avoidance of him, steps swiftly after her, and before she is aware of his presence, stands with her in the sick chamber, where Lady Temple lies sleeping.

Within this man is working the instinct of our common nature. The more difficult to win becomes the prize-without question of its worth: the measure of difficulty gauges that-the more ardent is he in its pursuit, and the greater value it assumes. And being piqued in this instance, all the forces of his intellect come to his aid.

And Nelly? Well, loving him already, she loves him the more because of his persistence, and because of the value he by his recklessness appears to place upon her.

"O Mr. Temple," she whispers, deeply agitated, "how can you so compromise me? Go, for Heaven's sake, before she wakes!'

"On one condition," he answers, lowering his voice to the pitch of hers; "that you meet me by the brook in an hour from this."

"Anything-anything! – but go!"

"You promise, then?"

"Yes, yes-I promise."

He is about to seal the promise, she being at his mercy, when Lady Temple moves restlessly, and opens her eyes. He has barely time to slip behind the curtains at the head of the bed before the sick lady speaks.

"Is that you, Miss Marston?"

"Yes, Lady Temple."

"I thought I heard voices!"

"I have this moment come in."

"I went to sleep without taking my medicine, Miss Marston. Why did you let me go to sleep without it?"

"You fell asleep suddenly, Lady Temple, and I thought it best not to wake you."

"Give it to me now."

Nelly takes a bottle from a table at the head of the bed, pours out the medicine, and gives it to the sick lady. As she replaces the bottle, Mr. Temple, with unthinking and cruel audacity, seizes her hand, and kisses it. Lady Temple, with the medicine at her lips does not drink, but gazes suspiciously at Nelly, who cannot keep the colour from her cheeks.

"What sound is that?" asks Lady Temple. "What makes your face so red, Miss Marston?"

Nelly busies herself-her hand being released-about the pillows, and replies:

"You should not gaze at me so strangely. You are full of fancies to-night, Lady Temple."

"Maybe, maybe. Hold up the candle, so that I may see the room-higher, higher!"

Her inquisitive eyes peer before her, but she sees nothing to verify her suspicions, Mr. Temple being safely concealed behind the curtains.

"That will do, Miss Marston. Put down the candle-the glare hurts my eyes. Full of fancies!" she murmurs. "It is true I see shadows; I hear voices: I am not certain at times whether I am awake or asleep. But what I said to you to-day," she exclaims in a louder tone, "is no fancy, Miss Marston."

"There is no occasion for you to repeat it, Lady Temple."

"I am the best judge of that, Miss Marston, and I do not intend to be misunderstood. I tell you now, plainly, that I sent my nephew away because I saw what was going on between you."

"Lady Temple!" cries Nelly indignantly.

"You must not agitate me, Miss Marston. Oblige me by holding this glass while I speak. If you wish to leave the house, you may do so."

"It is so generous and good of you to threaten me!" says the girl scornfully; "knowing my position. If I had any shelter but this, I would not stop with you another day."

"You are only showing your ingratitude, Miss Marston, I do not threaten you, and I will not be contradicted. I promised your mother before she died that you should have a home here while I live, and I will not turn you away. If you go, you go of your own accord. I tell you again I know perfectly well what is stirring within that busy head of yours. You are like your mother, no better, and no worse, and I knew her well enough; never content, never content unless every man she saw was at her feet."

"And yet," says Nelly more quietly, "you have spoken slightingly of her more than once because she sacrificed herself, as you term it, for love."

"Yes, she was caught at last, and was punished."

"It was a happy punishment, then. She would not have changed her lot with yours, Lady Temple."

"She was punished, I tell you. As you will be, if you do not take care. You will live to prove it, if you are not mindful of yourself. You have a pretty face-psha! we are women and no one but ourselves hears what I say. I had a pretty face once, and I knew its power, and used it as you wish to do. But not with my nephew, Miss Marston, mark that! You have all the world to choose from, with the exception of my nephew. And you fancy you know him, I have no doubt-simpleton! You know as much as a baby of the world and of men of the world. Take an old woman's counsel-marry in your own station-"

"My mother was a lady," interrupts Nelly, with a curl of her lip, "and I am one."

"Pooh! Nonsense! You have no money. You are a poor girl, and no lady-as ladies go," she adds unconsciously uttering a truism in her attempt to soften the effect of her words. "There's the gardener's son. You can't do better than marry him. His father has been all his life at Springfield, and has saved money I hear. He is continually making you presents of flowers, and the housekeeper tells me-"

With a burning consciousness that these words are reaching other ears than her own, Nelly again interrupts her mistress:

"When you have finished insulting me, Lady Temple, I shall be glad to leave the room."

"You shall not leave the room till I am asleep. Marry whom you like except my nephew. If he marries you he is a beggar by it. I am tired of talking. I will take my medicine."

She empties the glass, and sinks back on her pillow. The medicine is an opiate, but even while she yields to its influence, she continues to murmur, in a tone so low that only Nelly now can hear her.

"Marriage, indeed! As if he means it, and as if, meaning it even, he dared to thwart me! A pair of fools! They will rue the day!"

Thus she mutters until sleep overpowers her, and she takes her theme with her into the land of dreams.

Mr. Temple steals from his hiding-place.