Emmeline, the Orphan of the CastleSmith, Charlotte
General
Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle
Smith, Charlotte
Gothic fiction; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Single women -- Fiction
She wore a travelling dress of tawdry-coloured silk, trimmed with bright
green ribbands; and her head was covered with an immense black silk hat,
from which depended many yellow streamers; while the plumage, with
which it was plentifully adorned, hung dripping over her face, from the
effects of a thunder shower thro' which she had passed. Her hair, tho'
carefully curled and powdered on her leaving London, had been also
greatly deranged in her journey, and descended, in knotty tufts of a
dirty yellow, over her cheeks and forehead; adding to the vulgar
ferocity of a harsh countenance and a coarse complexion. Her figure was
uncommonly tall and boney; and her voice so discordant and shrill, as to
pierce the ear with the most unpleasant sensation, and compleat the
disagreeable idea her person impressed.
Emmeline saw her enter, handed by the officious Maloney; and repressing
her astonishment, she arose, and attempted to speak to her: but the
contrast between the dirty, tawdry, and disgusting figure before her,
and the sober plainness and neat simplicity of her lost friend, struck
so forcibly on her imagination, that she burst into tears, and was
altogether unable to command her emotion.
The steward having with great gallantry handed in the newly arrived
lady, she thus began:
'Oh! Lord a marcy on me!--to be shore I be got here at last! But indeed
if I had a known whereabout I was a coming to, 'tis not a double the
wagers as should a hired me. Lord! why what a ramshakel ould place it
is!--and then such a monstrous long way from London! I suppose, Sir,'
(to Maloney) 'as you be the steward; and you Miss, I reckon, be the
young Miss as I be to have the care on. Why to be sure I did'nt much
expect to see a christian face in such an out of the way place. I don't
b'leve I shall stay; howsomdever do let me have some tea; and do you,
Miss, shew me whereabout I be to sleep.'
Emmeline, struggling with her dislike, or at least desirous of
concealing it, did not venture to trust her voice with an answer; for
her heart was too full; but stepping to the door, she called to the
female servant, and ordered her to shew the lady her room. She had
herself been used to share that appropriated to Mrs. Carey; but she now
resolved to remove her bed into an apartment in one of the turrets of
the castle, which was the only unoccupied room not wholly exposed to the
weather.
This little room had been sashed by Mrs. Mowbray on account of the
beautiful prospect it commanded between the hills, where suddenly
sinking to the South West, they made way through a long narrow valley,
fringed with copses, for a small but rapid river; which hurrying among
immense stones, and pieces of rock that seemed to have been torn from
the mountains by its violence, rushed into the sea at the distance of a
mile from the castle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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