First Love: A Novel. Vol. 2 of 3Loudon, Mrs. (Margracia)
General
First Love: A Novel. Vol. 2 of 3
Loudon, Mrs. (Margracia)
Fiction
movement, looked out of the window and whistled. Julia, with tears
starting to her eyes, at length assuming courage, said: “Henry, I will
not endure this persecution! I will complain to grandmamma, and write
to my father too; and you shall not be allowed either to trouble me, or
to—to—injure any body else.”
“You had better, I think,” he replied, “publish to the world your
disgraceful attachment to a beggarly upstart—and who, to do him justice,
has not sought it. And, as to either Lord L⸺, (if he were at home,) or
my aunt not allowing me to quarrel with Edmund, (which is, of course,
what you mean by—injuring any body else,)” mocking her voice and the
hesitation of her manner, “I’d be glad to know how they’d prevent it?
I may be called to account afterwards, you think; but I’ve told you
before, and I tell you again, that, if I am provoked, no consideration
for consequences shall prevent my being revenged at all hazards. As to
your ever marrying me or not, you may please yourself; but I shall take
devilish good care——”
“You know very well, Henry,” she interrupted, now speaking firmly and
scornfully in spite of all her fears, “I never will marry you!”
“I know no such thing!” he rejoined, with a repetition of the laugh and
the look which the evening before had made her shudder, and which now
again caused her blood to run cold. “But I know this,” he continued,
“that you shall never marry Edmund; and further, that I will not be
openly insulted with impunity; nor will I suffer such a fellow, forsooth,
to triumph over me! So hate me in your heart, if you choose; but, at
your peril, (or rather at his peril,) show it before him! Recollect
that hanging me, (if you could do it,) won’t restore him to life after
I have blown his brains out! Your mother little thought,” he continued,
insolently opposing the attempt she was now making to escape his presence
by standing between her and the doorway, “your mother little thought, I
say, when she brought in the beggar brat, and washed him, that she was
preparing a husband for her eldest daughter!—the Lady Julia L⸺!—heiress
to thirty-three thousand per annum! Worth taking better care of than
that, faith! A windfall for his betters, I can tell him!” Julia could
listen no longer: she passed him with a determined effort, and literally
fled from the apartment, with, however, the loss of a scarf which Henry
caught at as she was departing. Thus concluded poor Julia’s last struggle
for liberty: henceforward she never dared to disobey or disoblige her
insolent cousin.
CHAPTER XIX.
“I mourn’d the huntress of Cromla, the sunbeam
Of beauty; who must no more on our hills appear,
But rise on the waves of the north, to light
The stranger’s hall.”
“Have you any commands to Mrs. Montgomery, my Lord?” inquired Edmund, who
was writing at a small table, while most of our party were engaged at a
larger one with breakfast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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