Lady Good-for-Nothing

Lady Good-for-Nothing, by A. T.
Quiller-Couch

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Quiller-Couch
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Title: Lady Good-for-Nothing
Author: A. T. Quiller-Couch
Release Date: March 2, 2005 [eBook #15228]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY
GOOD-FOR-NOTHING***
E-text prepared by Lionel Sear

LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING
A Man's Portrait of a Woman

by
ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH ('Q')
First Published in 1910.
This story originally appeared in the weekly edition of the "Times," and
is now issued in book form by arrangement with the Proprietors of that
Journal.

TO My Commodore and old Friend Edward Atkinson, Esq. of
Rosebank, Mixtow-by-Fowey.
NOTE
Some years ago an unknown American friend proposed my writing a
story on the loves and adventures of Sir Harry Frankland, Collector of
the Port of Boston in the mid-eighteenth century, and Agnes Surriage,
daughter of a poor Marble-head fisherman. The theme attracted me as it
has attracted other writers--and notably Oliver Wendell Holmes, who
built a poem on it. But while their efforts seemed to leave room for
another, I was no match for them in knowledge of the facts or of local
details; and, moreover, these facts and details cramped my story. I
repented, therefore and, taking the theme, altered the locality and the
characters--who, by the way, in the writing have become real enough to
me, albeit in a different sense. Thus (I hope) no violence has been
offered to historical truth, while I have been able to tell the tale in my
own fashion.
"Q."

CONTENTS.
BOOK I.--PORT NASSAU.
I. THE BEACH.

II. PORT NASSAU.
III. TWO GUINEAS.
IV. FATHER AND SON.
V. RUTH.
VI. PARENTHETICAL--OF THE FAMILY OF VYELL.
VII. A SABBATH-BREAKER.
VIII. ANOTHER SABBATH-BREAKER.
IX. THE SCOURGE.
X. THE BENCH.
XI. THE STOCKS.
XII. THE HUT BY THE BEACH.
XIII. RUTH SETS OUT.
BOOK II.--PROBATION.
I. AFTER TWO YEARS.
II. MR. SILK.
III. MR. HICHENS.
IV. VASHTI.
V. SIR OLIVER'S HEALTH.
VI. CAPTAIN HARRY AND MR. HANMER.
VII. FIRST OFFER.

VIII. CONCERNING MARGARET.
IX. THE PROSPECT.
X. THREE LADIES.
XI. THE ESPIAL.
XII. LADY CAROLINE.
XIII. DIANA VYELL.
XIV. MR. SILK PROPOSES.
XV. THE CHOOSING.
BOOK III.--THE BRIDALS.
I. BETROTHED.
II. THE RETURN.
III. NESTING.
IV. THE BRIDEGROOM.
V. RUTH'S WEDDING DAY.
VI. "YET HE WILL COME--".
VII. HOUSEKEEPING.
VIII. HOME-COMING.
BOOK IV.--LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.
I. BATTY LANGTON, CHRONICLER.
II. SIR OLIVER SAILS.

III. MISCALCULATING WRATH.
IV. THE TERRACE.
V. A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING.
VI. CHILDLESS MOTHER.
BOOK V.--LISBON AND AFTER.
I. ACT OF FAITH.
II. DONNA MARIA.
III. EARTHQUAKE.
IV. THE SEARCH.
V. THE FINDING.
VI. DOCUMENTS.
VII. THE LAST OFFER.
EPILOGUE

"An innocent life, yet far astray." Wordsworth's Ruth.

BOOK I.

PORT NASSAU.
Chapter I.
THE BEACH.

A coach-and-six, as a rule, may be called an impressive Object. But
something depends on where you see it.
Viewed from the tall cliffs--along the base of which, on a strip of beach
two hundred feet below, it crawled between the American continent
and the Atlantic Ocean--Captain Oliver Vyell's coach-and-six
resembled nothing so nearly as a black-beetle.
For that matter the cliffs themselves, swept by the spray and humming
with the roar of the beach--even the bald headland towards which they
curved as to the visible bourne of all things terrestrial--shrank in
comparison with the waste void beyond, where sky and ocean weltered
together after the wrestle of a two days' storm; and in comparison with
the thought that this rolling sky and heaving water stretched all the way
to Europe. Not a sail showed, not a wing anywhere under the leaden
clouds that still dropped their rain in patches, smurring out the horizon.
The wind had died down, but the ships kept their harbours and the
sea-birds their inland shelters. Alone of animate things, Captain Vyell's
coach-and-six crept forth and along the beach, as though tempted by
the promise of a wintry gleam to landward.
A god--if we may suppose one of the old careless Olympians seated
there on the cliff-top, nursing his knees--must have enjoyed the comedy
of it, and laughed to think that this pert beetle, edging its way along the
sand amid the eternal forces of nature, was here to take seizin of
them--yes, actually to take seizin and exact tribute. So indomitable a
fellow is Man, improbus Homo; and among men in his generation
Captain Oliver Vyell was Collector of Customs for the Port of Boston,
Massachusetts.
In fairness to Captain Vyell be it added that he--a young English blood,
bearing kinship with two or three of the