A CROWN OF SHAME.
VOL. I.
A CROWN OF SHAME.
_A NOVEL._
BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT,
AUTHOR OF
‘LOVE’S CONFLICT,’ ‘MY SISTER THE ACTRESS,’
ETC. ETC.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
F. V. WHITE & CO.,
31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1888.
[_All rights reserved._]
EDINBURGH
COLSTON AND COMPANY
PRINTERS
[Illustration]
_CONTENTS._
PAGE
CHAPTER I. 1
CHAPTER II. 29
CHAPTER III. 56
CHAPTER IV. 83
CHAPTER V. 110
CHAPTER VI. 139
CHAPTER VII. 166
CHAPTER VIII. 204
A CROWN OF SHAME.
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=ARMY SOCIETY; or, Life in a Garrison Town.= By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.
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=IN THE SHIRES.= By Sir RANDAL H. ROBERTS, Bart.
=THE OUTSIDER.= By HAWLEY SMART.
=THE GIRL IN THE BROWN HABIT.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD.
=STRAIGHT AS A DIE.= By the same Author.
=BY WOMAN’S WIT.= By Mrs ALEXANDER. Author of ‘The Wooing O’t.’
=KILLED IN THE OPEN.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD.
=IN A GRASS COUNTRY.= By Mrs H. LOVETT-CAMERON.
=A DEVOUT LOVER.= By the same Author.
=TWILIGHT TALES.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD. _Illustrated._
=SHE CAME BETWEEN.= By Mrs ALEXANDER FRASER.
=THE CRUSADE OF ‘THE EXCELSIOR.’= By BRET HARTE.
=A REAL GOOD THING.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD.
=CURB AND SNAFFLE.= By Sir RANDAL H. ROBERTS, Bart.
=DREAM FACES.= By the Hon. Mrs FETHERSTONHAUGH.
=A SIEGE BABY.= By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.
=MONA’S CHOICE.= By Mrs ALEXANDER. Author of ‘The Wooing O’t.’
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[Illustration]
A CROWN OF SHAME.
CHAPTER I.
It was the close of the hot season in San Diego, and the thunderous
clouds that hung over the island rendered the atmosphere still more
oppressive. Liz, the Doctor’s daughter, stood at the open door of
their leaf-thatched bungalow, gazing out into the starless night, and
wondering when the rain would come, to relieve the intense heat and
disseminate the sickness that was so rapidly thinning the population.
The stillness was so unbroken that one might almost be said to feel
it. Not a breath of air stirred the light feathery branches of the
bamboo, not even the chirp of a solitary insect could be distinguished
from their covert in the long grass, nor a note from the songsters
that crowded the surrounding woods. The trailing creepers that hung
like a gorgeous eastern canopy of crimson and purple and orange from
the roof of the verandah, brushed their blossoms against her face, as
she thrust it into the night, but they brought no sense of refreshment
with them. Liz felt stifled for want of air, as she withdrew from the
verandah, and re-entered the bungalow, with a deep-drawn sigh. But
the sigh was for others. She was not a woman to make otherwise than
lightly of her own pain or inconvenience. To witness suffering or
distress, and be unable to relieve it, that was the great drawback of
life to Elizabeth Fellows. She was not a girl, and the existence she
led had tended to make her older than her age. She was five-and-twenty,
and ever since she was a little child she had been motherless, and
brought up to depend upon herself, and to minister to others rather
than be ministered to. Her father, Dr Fellows, was generally considered
to be a reserved, morose, and rather disagreeable man: but Liz knew
otherwise. She was his only child, and ever since she could remember
they two had lived together, and alone, and he had been both mother and
father to her. He was not lively and talkative, even to Liz--but she
had always felt that he was unhappy, though something in his manner
had forbidden her inquiring the cause of his reticence and melancholy.
But he had never said an unkind word to her. Gravely and affectionately
he had brought his daughter up to help him in his work, and Liz, who
possessed an active, clever brain and a large amount of courage, had
taken an immense interest in the science of medicine and surgery,
and knew almost as much about it as himself. Dr Fellows left all the
simple cases in his daughter’s hands, and for a long time past she had
been almost worshipped amongst the negro population of San Diego, as
a species of white angel who came to their women and their children
with healing in her hands. And both the Doctor and his daughter had had
plenty of work to do during the last few months. Fever was reigning
paramount in San Diego. Both Europeans and natives had been falling
around them like rotten sheep; and with the epidemic had come a murrain
on the rice-fields and sugar-cane plantations, so that the people
had to contend with starvation as well as disease; and awful rumours
of mutiny and insurrection had commenced to make the residents and
planters feel alarmed. Inside the Doctor’s cottage were grouped some
score of negresses, most of them with infants in their arms. Their
work was over for the day, and this was the hour when they came to Liz
to have their bottles refilled with medicines, and to show her what
progress their wailing little ones had made.
As she stepped back amongst them, her face assumed an expression of
pity and sympathy for their distress, that did indeed make her look
like an angel of goodness. She was not a beautiful woman--far from
it--but it is not, as a rule, the most beautiful faces that are the
most comforting to look upon in a time of difficulty or danger.
Liz had a tall, well-developed figure, which her plain print dress
showed off to perfection. Her skin was clear, and soft, and white, and
her abundant fair hair was tucked smoothly away behind her ears, and
twisted into a knot at the back of her head. Her grey eyes beamed with
a tender, kindly light, that had no power to conceal her feelings, and
her firm, well-shaped mouth showed firmness and decision. In fact,
she was a typical English woman, with rather a majestic bearing about
her, as if she knew her power and rejoiced in it. But, above all, she
was a woman to love and trust in,--one who would never tell a lie nor
betray a friend, and yet who, once convinced that her own trust had
been betrayed, would stamp the image of the offender from her heart, if
she died under the process. As the negresses caught sight of her again,
they were startled to see the tears upon her cheeks, hardly believing
they were shed for them.
‘Missy feeling ill?’ ‘Missy like a little wine?’ ‘I go calling Massa to
see Missy?’
‘No! No! What are you talking about? I am as well as possible!’ cried
Liz, hastily brushing her tears away. ‘I was only thinking.’
‘Ah, Missy,’ said one poor mother, regarding an attenuated morsel
of humanity which lay just breathing and no more across her lap, ‘I
thinkin’ my little Sambo never run about again!’
‘Don’t lose heart, Chrissie,’ replied Liz, in her grave, sweet voice,
as she knelt down and laid her hand on the baby’s forehead. ‘He is very
weak, poor little fellow, but so long as he can eat, there is hope for
him. I will change his medicine, and perhaps we shall have the rain by
to-morrow. A few cool nights would set him up again.’
‘Ah! Missy very good to say so, but we shall have plenty more weeks hot
weather yet. Poor little Sambo under ground before the rain sets in.’
‘And my poor girl can’t stand no ways!’ cried another; ‘and Rosa’s boy
die this afternoon.’
‘Oh, what can I do--what can I do for you all?’ exclaimed Liz, with her
hands to her head.
At this moment, the group in the Doctor’s bungalow was augmented by a
fresh arrival. This was Rosa, the yellow girl, who rushed in like a
whirlwind, with her dead child in her arms. Liz had taken an interest
in this girl, but it was one which Rosa strongly resented. Her child
was born out of wedlock, and the gentle remonstrances on her conduct
which the Doctor’s daughter had urged upon her, had been taken by the
uneducated creature as an insult rather than a kindness. Her poor
little dead Carlo had been tended as carefully as any of Liz’s other
patients, but the bereaved mother chose to think it otherwise, as she
burst in upon them.
‘He is _dead_!’ she cried frantically, as she almost flung the body
upon the table. ‘And now, perhaps you will be satisfied, Miss Lizzy.
Now you will be glad to think there is one bastard child less on my
massa’s plantation, and that I have nothing--nothing left to remind me
of my lover who has sailed away to America.’
‘Oh, Rosa! how can you so misjudge me?’ said Liz, as she put one arm
round the weeping girl. But Rosa flung it off.
‘It is true!’ she exclaimed fiercely; ‘you said he had better never
have been born, and now you have taken no trouble to keep him in this
world. I suppose you thought it would be a right punishment for my sin.
But I hate you--and the punishment shall come back on your own head!
I hope I shall live to see the day when you shall weep as I weep, and
have nothing left you but the burden of the shame.’
‘Rosa, you are not yourself! You do not know what you are saying,’
replied Lizzy calmly. ‘It is God Who has taken your baby to Himself,
and neither I nor any one could have kept him here. Try and think of
it like that, Rosa. Think of little Carlo, happy and well for ever in
the gardens of heaven, and you will not speak so wildly and bitterly
again.’
‘I shall! I shall!’ cried the girl, in the same tone, as she seized
the body again and strained it in her arms; ‘and I shall never feel
satisfied, Missy Liz, till you suffer as I have done.’
And with that she rushed out again into the darkness.
Liz leant against the table, and trembled. These were the things that
had the power to upset her. To toil for these people early and late; to
be at their beck and call whenever they chose to summons her; to lie
awake at night thinking of the best means to relieve their trouble, and
then to meet with ingratitude and reproaches. It did indeed seem hard!
But it did not make her voice less sweet whilst addressing the others.
The room in which they were assembled was long and narrow--the only
sitting-room in the bungalow--and furnished with severe simplicity.
The matted floor, the cane chairs, and plain unvarnished table, all
told of a life of labour rather than of luxury, and except for Liz
Fellows’ desk and workbox, and a few books which lay scattered about,
it contained few traces of occupation. Yet it was the very absence of
such things that proved the inmates of the cottage were too busy to
think of much beyond their profession. A large cupboard, with a window
in it, at the end of the apartment, served as a surgery, and there Liz
soon turned to mix the febrifuges and tonics required by her patients.
As she did so, she was greeted by a newcomer.
‘Hullo! Miss Fellows, as busy as usual, I suppose, and no time even to
bid a poor mariner welcome.’
Liz turned at the sound of the cheery voice, with her welcome ready in
her eyes.
‘Oh, Captain Norris! Are you back again already? When did you arrive?’
The stranger’s face fell.
‘_Back again already!_ And I’ve been absent from San Diego for at least
six months, and thinking they felt like six years! When did I arrive?
Why, this evening! The “Trevelyan” dropped anchor exactly at six
o’clock, and directly I could get away, I came up to see you.’
‘It is very good of you, and my father will be delighted to see you. I
expect him in every minute. Sit down, Captain Norris, whilst I mix the
medicines for these poor women, who are anxious to get to their homes
again, and then I will hear all your news.’
She looked so cool and collected as, having dismissed her patients, she
drew a chair to the table and sat down beside him, that Captain Norris
did not know where to begin. He was a fine handsome young man, with
dark eyes and hair; the skipper of a merchant vessel, and every inch a
sailor; and he was very much in love with Lizzie Fellows. He carried
several neatly tied up parcels in his hands, but he was too nervous to
allude to them at once.
‘I am sorry to find you have fever in the island,’ he said, by way of a
commencement.
‘Oh, it is terrible--a regular plague!’ replied Lizzie; ‘and though
my father has worked early and late amongst the negroes, we have lost
patients by the dozen. It is sickening to hear of the numbers of
deaths, and to witness the trouble;--enough to break one’s heart.’
‘But you keep well?’ he inquired anxiously.
‘Oh, yes! Nothing ever ails me! I have too much to do, and no time to
be ill. But I am very sad, and somewhat disheartened.’
‘Mr Courtney must have experienced a great loss.’
‘Yes! His plantation is sadly thinned, but the deaths have been chiefly
amongst the children. Mr Courtney is very good to them, and spares
no expense to provide them with comforts. It is no one’s fault. It
is the will of God, and we must wait patiently till He removes the
scourge. But there is great distress, and even starvation, amongst the
native population in other parts of the island, and some degree of
insubordination.’
‘And how is Mr Courtney’s beautiful daughter?’
‘Maraquita! She is not ill, but she has been very languid lately, which
we attribute to the heat. But I have not seen so much of her during the
last few months. I suppose she is too gay to have any time to spare for
us.’
‘And Henri de Courcelles! Is he still the overseer at Beauregard?’
demanded Captain Norris, after a short pause.
Liz coloured.
‘Yes! Why should he not be so? Mr Courtney has every trust and
confidence in him.’
‘So much the worse, I think, for Mr Courtney.’
She fired up directly.
‘Captain Norris, you have no right to make such an insinuation! What
do you know against Monsieur de Courcelles? It is unworthy of you to
try and set his friends against him, behind his back.’
‘I am sorry if you think so, Miss Fellows; I hoped that you might not
be so intimate with De Courcelles as you used to be. But let us talk of
something else. How is your father?’
‘Much the same as usual, Captain Norris. Father is never very lively,
as you know. Sometimes I fancy this climate must disagree with him, he
is so silent and depressed; but he has always been the same, and he
strenuously denies any feeling of illness.’
‘It is a dull life that you lead here with him, Liz.’
‘Don’t say that! A useful life can never be dull, and I have many
pleasures beside.’
‘But you would like to see a little more of the world, would you not?
You would like to visit your native country, England, and make the
acquaintance of your relations?’
Liz looked at him wistfully.
‘I don’t think I should, at least under present circumstances. I am
afraid the pain of leaving San Diego, and all those whom I have known
from childhood, would out-balance the pleasure of seeing fresh people
and places. I have known no other home than San Diego, Captain Norris,
and I don’t think I could bear to leave the--the plantation.’
He did not answer her, but commenced, somewhat nervously, to undo the
packages he held. As their contents came to view, Liz saw spread before
her on the table a handsome morocco desk, a photographic album, and a
complete set of silver ornaments.
‘Oh, how beautiful!’ she could not help exclaiming.
‘They are for you,’ said her companion brusquely; ‘I brought them from
England expressly for you.’
‘_For me!_’ repeated Liz wonderingly. ‘Oh, Captain Norris, how very
good it is of you! Whatever made you think of _me_?’
He seized the hand which was feeling the soft texture of the desk.
‘I do not know, I cannot tell you, but it is the truth, Liz, that
wherever I am, I always think of you. All the time that I have been
away, your face and the sound of your voice has haunted me, and
prevented my being charmed by any other woman. I love you as I have
never loved before--as I never shall love again, because I shall never
meet another woman so worthy of my love and my esteem.’
‘Oh, Captain Norris, pray don’t talk to me like that! You are mistaken;
I am not the good woman you take me for.’
‘I must talk, and you must hear me to the end, Liz! I wanted to say all
this to you last time I was in San Diego, but a grave doubt prevented
me. But now I have come back to find you free, and I cannot hold my
tongue any longer. I am not a boy, to be uncertain of my feelings. I
am a man and my own master, and making a sufficient income to keep you
in comfort. Be my wife, Liz; I won’t ask you to marry in a hurry, but
promise you will be my wife some day, and I will summon up all the
patience I possess, and live on the hope of the future.’
‘I cannot,’ she said, in a low voice.
‘You _cannot_!’ he echoed; ‘and why?’
‘I don’t think you should ask me. I don’t think you have the right to
ask me. But it is impossible. I shall never be your wife.’
‘Does any one stand between us?’
Liz was silent. She would not tell the truth, and she could not tell
a lie. Captain Norris turned on her almost fiercely in his keen
disappointment.
‘There does,’ he exclaimed. ‘I know it, without your speaking, and I
know who it is into the bargain,--the same man who drove me from San
Diego last time without speaking,--Henri de Courcelles.’
‘You have no right to make the assertion, without authority,’ retorted
Liz Fellows; ‘but since you have done so, I will not stoop to deny it.
You are right; I am engaged to be married to Monsieur de Courcelles,
but the fact is not generally known, and so I trust you will respect my
confidence.’
Hugh Norris dropped his head upon his hands.
‘Engaged,’ he murmured, ‘really and truly engaged! My God! why did I
not have the courage to speak before?’
His despair roused her compassion. She drew nearer, and laid her hand
upon his shoulder.
‘Indeed, it would have been of no use, dear friend,’ she said gently;
‘Henri and I have made up our minds upon this matter for some time
past, and should have been married long ago, had his position been a
little better assured.’
‘Oh, of course, I stand no chance against him!’ replied Captain Norris
bitterly. ‘Monsieur de Courcelles, with his handsome face, and dandy
dress, galloping about the plantation on his switch-tailed mustang,
must needs carry everything before him. But he is not true to you,
Liz, all the same--and sooner or later you will find it out. If he is
engaged to be married to you, he is a scoundrel, for he spends half his
time at the great house making love to the planter’s pretty daughter.’
‘How _dare_ you say so?’ cried Liz, springing from her chair, and
standing before him with her face all aflame. ‘What right have you to
take away my lover’s character before me?’
She had been too bashful to call him by that name before, but now that
she heard him (as she thought) so cruelly maligned, she felt he needed
the confession of her love for a protection against his slanderers.
‘Don’t be angry with me, Liz! don’t be offended, but I feel I must
tell you the truth, even at the risk of never speaking to you again.
De Courcelles is not worthy of you. Every one sees it but yourself.
His attentions to Maraquita Courtney are the common talk of the town,
and I heard bets passing pretty freely this evening as to whether the
planter would ever countenance his impudent pretentions to her hand.’
‘It is not true,’ repeated Liz, though her face had turned very pale;
‘but if it were, I know no reason why Mr Courtney should object to
Henri as a son-in-law.’
‘You are wilfully blind to the fact then that he has black blood in his
veins.’
Liz flushed crimson. How impossible it seems, under the most favourable
circumstances, completely to overcome the natural prejudice against the
mixture of blood; but she was true to her colours.
‘I know more about him than you can tell me, Captain Norris! I know
that his father was French and his mother a Spanish Creole. But it
makes no difference to me. If he were all black, he is the man _I
love_, and I will not stand by quietly and hear him defamed.’
‘Who defamed him, Miss Fellows? I merely stated the general opinion as
to De Courcelles’ chances of winning Miss Courtney, though whether he
succeeds or not is a matter of the most perfect indifference to me.
But with regard to yourself, it is a different matter. I may be strong
enough to bear my own disappointment, but I will not see you throw
your happiness away without making an effort to save you. Oh, Liz, my
darling,’ cried Hugh Norris, forgetting himself in his anxiety for her,
‘throw this man over, for Heaven’s sake, or you will rue it your whole
life long!’
‘Your advice has somewhat lost its effect from what preceded it,’
replied Liz coldly, ‘and I must request you to spare it me in the
future, Captain Norris. I also am old enough to know my own mind,
and my friends from my enemies. I am very sorry that you came here
to-night--still more so that you should have presumed to speak as you
have done. I should have liked to keep you as a friend, but you have
made that impossible. Please to relieve me of your presence, and let me
quit the room until you are gone.’
‘Oh, I will go--sharp enough!’ said Captain Norris, as he rose from his
chair and walked towards the door. ‘You shall not ask me to leave you
twice, Liz.’
‘Stay!’ cried the girl impetuously. ‘You have forgotten your presents.
Take them with you.’
‘Won’t you even keep the poor things I have carried so far for you?’ he
asked her humbly.
‘Keep them!’ she echoed scornfully. ‘Keep a reminder always before me
of the man who maligned my dearest friend to me? What do you take me
for? No! If you have any wish left that I should forget this evening,
and the pain you have caused me, take your presents away with you.’
‘You set me a humbling task,’ said Hugh Norris, as he collected his
despised gifts and repacked them in their papers. ‘But I will obey you.
I would rather throw them into the swamp, than leave them here to annoy
you. Only remember, Liz, that _I love you_, and that when the day comes
(as it _will_ come) when your other lover forsakes you, I will prove
what I say.’
He went then without another word, though as he turned his eyes towards
her for a farewell look, Liz saw a misty light beaming in them, which
did not make her feel as triumphant as she thought she should have done
to have gained the victory over him.
She was still standing by the table where he had left her, feeling hot
and cold by turns, as she pondered over the rumour he had repeated,
when a hasty footstep passed over the threshold, and Henri de
Courcelles stood before her.
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