Self-Raised; Or, From the DepthsSouthworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
General
Self-Raised; Or, From the Depths
Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
Fiction
The train started again and sped on its way through the darkness of
the night towards Aberdeen, where they arrived about eight o'clock.
"Here at last the railway journey ends, thank Heaven," sighed
Claudia, as the train slackened its speed and crawled into the
station. And the usual bustle attending its arrival ensued.
Fortunately for Claudia, the viscount found himself too much
fatigued after about sixteen hours' ride to go farther that night.
So he directed Mr. Frisbie to engage two cabs to take himself and
his party to a hotel.
And when they were brought up he handed Claudia, who was scarcely
able to stand, into the first one, and ordered Frisbie to put the
"gorillas" into the other. And they drove to a fourth- or fifth-rate
inn, a degree or two dirtier, dingier, and darker than the one they
had left at Liverpool.
But Claudia was too utterly worn out in body, mind, and spirit to
find fault with any shelter that promised to afford her the common
necessaries of life, of which she had been deprived for so many
hours.
She drank the tea that was brought her, without questioning its
quality. And as soon as she laid her head on her pillow she sank
into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion.
She awoke late the next morning to take her first look at the old
town through a driving rain that lashed the narrow windows of her
little bedroom. Lord Vincent had already risen and gone out.
She rang for her servants. Old Katie answered the bell, entering
with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaiming:
"Well, my ladyship! if this ain't the outlandishest country as ever
was! Coming over from t'other side we had the ocean unnerneaf of us,
and now 'pears to me like we has got it overhead of us, by the fog
and mist and rain perpetual! And if this is being of lords and
ladyships, I'd a heap leifer be misters and mist'esses, myself."
"I quite agree with you, Katie," sighed Lady Vincent, as, with the
old woman's assistance, she dressed herself.
"It seems to me like as if we was regerlerly sold, my ladyship,"
said old Katie mysteriously.
"Hush! Where are we to have breakfast--not in this disordered room,
I hope?"
"No, my ladyship. They let us have a little squeezed-up parlor that
smells for all the world as if a lot of men had been smoking and
drinking in it all night long. My lordship's down there, waiting for
his breakfast now. Pretty place to fetch a 'spectable cullored
pusson to, let alone a lady! Well, one comfort, we won't stay here
long, cause I heard my lordship order Mr. Frisbie to go and take two
inside places and four outside places in the stage-coach as leaves
this mornin' for Ban. 'Ban,' 'Ban'; 'pears like it's been all ban
and no blessin' ever since we done lef' Tanglewood."
Lady Vincent did not think it worth while to correct Katie. She knew
by experience that all attempts to set her right would be lost
labor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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