A Crown of Shame, Volume II

A Crown of Shame, Volume II by Florence Marryat

Liz Fellows, daughter of a plantation doctor on the island of San Diego in the West Indies, finds herself in a devastating position following her father's sudden death from heart failure. Before dying, he extracted a solemn oath from her never to reveal the identity of the mother of an infant girl left in their care. The child belongs to Maraquita, Liz's adopted sister and the pampered daughter of the wealthy planter Mr Courtney, who fathered her benefactor's debt and consequently holds great power over Liz's circumstances. The infant's father is Henri de Courcelles, the plantation overseer, with whom Liz herself had been secretly engaged for over a year. When rumours circulate that the baby is Liz's own illegitimate child, de Courcelles uses this as a pretext to break off his engagement to her, though he knows she is innocent. Bound by her oath and her family's profound obligation to the Courtneys, Liz cannot clear her name without exposing Maraquita, who is on the verge of marrying Sir Russell Johnstone, the Governor of San Diego, a match her ambitious mother has carefully engineered. When Liz appeals directly to Maraquita to confess the truth, Maraquita flatly denies all knowledge of the child, with her mother reinforcing the lie and threatening to brand Liz's late father as a felon and expose his criminal past if she speaks out. Mrs Courtney has long known the family secret, which she now weaponises to protect her daughter's advantageous marriage. Liz is effectively barred from the White House and publicly shamed while Maraquita's guilt remains concealed. When de Courcelles, facing dismissal unless he marries Liz, comes to renew his proposal, Liz refuses him utterly. Maraquita has revealed to her that de Courcelles is the child's father, confirming that his engagement to Liz had always been a convenient facade while he conducted his affair with Maraquita. Liz, devastated but resolute, chooses to raise the infant as her own rather than abandon a helpless child, viewing it as the fulfilment of her dying father's wishes. The situation is further complicated by Jerusha, an East Indian coolie on the plantation, who has also been seduced and abandoned by de Courcelles and bears his child. Old Jessica, Maraquita's lifelong nurse, knows the full truth of the affair and, feeling slighted at being left behind when Maraquita retreats to the hill range before her wedding, begins hinting at her knowledge. When Maraquita carelessly threatens her, Jessica demands higher wages and a position at Government House as the price of her silence, reducing the relationship to one of mercenary complicity. De Courcelles, dismissed from the plantation, makes veiled threats to expose Maraquita at the altar, driving her into a prolonged state of fear. However, he eventually disappears without carrying out his threats, and the wedding preparations proceed grandly. Mr Courtney, an essentially decent man who retains genuine faith in Liz's innocence, insists she be invited to the wedding despite his wife and daughter's protests. Liz declines the invitation, unwilling to return to a household that has treated her with such calculated cruelty. Throughout, Liz endures her shame with quiet dignity, devoting herself to medical work among the plantation's coloured workers and raising Maraquita's child in solitude. She is sustained only by the steadfast friendship of Captain Hugh Norris, a ship's captain who has declared his love for her and offered marriage regardless of the scandal, an offer she tenderly refuses, still too wounded and too honest to accept affection she cannot fully return.

By Florence Marryat · First published 1876 · Genre: Victorian Fiction, Drama, Social Commentary · 9 chapters · 41,652 words

First lines

He left Liz weeping over the dead body of her father. How paltry all other troubles seemed to be, as she did so. She had no power, at that moment, to realise any fact but one, -- that he had left her, and without a warning. He, who had been her sole protector and companion, beside whom she had walked every moment of her life, sharing his knowledge, and his duties, and his cares, had gone forth into the dreamland without her, and for the future she must struggle through life as best she might, alone. Liz was not ignorant of the cause of her father's death, but she had been quite unprepared for it. She had known for some time past that he had a weak heart, but men lived with such, sometimes to their three score years and ten. He had passed a tranquil and unexciting life. The passions which had raged stormily perhaps in his youth had forsaken him in his latter days, and he had appeared likely to live on to a good old age. But the events of the last week had greatly upset him. Liz had no doubt, as she looked at his pale, calm features, that his sudden death lay, in a great measure, at Maraquita's door, and the fact did not make her feel more tenderly towards her adopted sister. But the infant was wailing in her arms, and she felt that something must be done at once. This was no time for weeping, or inaction. She turned on her heel, with set features, and teeth closely clenched together, and passed into the outer room to summon her negress attendant Chloe to her aid. Chloe was conspicuous only by her absence, but on the threshold of the outer door she found the yellow girl, Rosa, slowly rocking herself to and fro.

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Victorian fiction · 19th-century literature · British novel · romance · melodrama · domestic drama · social class · marriage · family secrets · honor · scandal · betrayal

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