Fortune's My Foe: A RomanceBloundelle-Burton, John
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Fortune's My Foe: A Romance
Bloundelle-Burton, John
English fiction -- 19th century
White as a ghost now; himself shaking, as the woman he had married had
shaken before; his face terrible to behold, Bufton turned round,
observing as he did so that all eyes were on him, while, pushing his
wife on one side, he glared at the name she had inscribed in the
register. Yet, it was not Anne Tremlett--a name of hideous memories to
him--but, instead, "Anne Pottle."
"What does it mean?" he cried hoarsely, his voice changed so as to be
utterly unrecognisable. "Speak! Say, wanton! Speak! I say, or I will
kill you!" he continued, almost in a shriek.
"Be still," cried Granger, clasping his arm, "be still; this is a
church."
"I will know all. Speak, I say, or----" and he made as though he would
tear to pieces the woman who stood by his side. "Speak, damn you!"
"Begone from out this house!" cried Symson now. "Though not a duly
consecrated edifice, it shall not be polluted by you. Begone, I say!"
"I will not go," the wretched man snarled, "till I have an explanation
of why I have been trapped, hoodwinked like this. I will know,
or----" and he made a snatch at the register as though to seize the
leaf which recorded his marriage with Anne Pottle. An attempt
frustrated by Symson, who, big and brawny, thrust himself between it
and the duped Beau.
"Let us do as he bids, let us go," his wife said now, her voice calm,
and upon her face a look of intense hatred. Yet she did not go, but,
standing by her mother's side, said, while all who were present
listened open-mouthed--even the curiosity of the Rev. Peter Symson
being aroused:
"Let me speak now. My sister and I--she was nigh blind--came to London
three years ago, I to earn a living by my voice, she to be dependent
on me, since mother could not ask Miss Ariadne to keep us all, though
God knows she would have done so willingly; and this snake--this
thing whom I have married for retaliation--he--well, he deceived her,
ruined her--so--that--she slew herself. Oh, God! my sister--my dead
sister--my little helpless sister!
"It was under the name of Tremlett, my mother's maiden name," she went
on, recovering somewhat from her emotion, "that I earned my living by
singing at Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and, to save trouble and
explanation, she, too, went by that name; while he, meeting her
at the latter place, where she ever waited for me, persuaded her to
evil--ruined her, cursed her life, caused her to kill herself." And
now the newly made wife wept. Then, suddenly, again recovering
herself, she cried:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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