But what of Olivia? Was she dead to feeling at this strange mysterious
moment? Did no rushing torrent of ideas suddenly overwhelm her? The
man whose loss she had lamented not in his grave; that man again her
saviour, her guardian genius in the dark hour of dread and danger;
acquainted in a way the most extraordinary with her thoughts, and
favourable wishes; or, as she was too severely inclined to term it,
her passion and its folly; a witness that she did not credit all
which malice could urge against him, nor listen in base silence when
her perhaps too partial heart pleaded in his behalf; nay more, that
man the protector of her aunt, by whom he had been so often and so
bitterly reviled; that man travelling in obscurity; in familiar
society with a carpenter, yet braving peril in her behalf, and
shunning the thanks which the uncommon services he had rendered might
boldly make him claim; avoiding them most certainly because of the
mean condition to which he was reduced; faithful in his affection; for
such his behaviour spoke him; but unfortunate, depressed, despised;
sinking under poverty; languishing away his youth; or crushed
by accumulating disasters!--Did no such fears, no such tender
recollections, assail her bosom?--I have described her ill indeed if
that could be supposed. I must pursue my narrative: for how can I
picture what most indubitably must have passed in her heart, since I
feel myself so very incapable of delineating my own!
This adventure did not entirely end here. I wished to have gone
forward on foot to Hounslow without delay: but Clarke interceded, for
a glass of brandy. He said the water had chilled him; and he was still
more importunate with me to take the same preventative. I had no fear
for myself; for I had no such feeling: but, as I did not think I had
any right to trifle with his health, I returned with him; taking the
precaution to go through the passage to the kitchen door.
Here, just as we came to the threshold, who should be coming in face
of us, carrying a pair of candles, but my quondam servant, Philip!
The instant he beheld me, he turned pale, trembled, set down the
lights, stood aghast for a moment, and then took to his heels.
Though not so terrified, I was almost as much surprised as he; and
suffered him to escape before I had the presence of mind to know how
to act. As however it was my plan to avoid being known myself for the
present, I thought proper to make no other enquiry than to ask whose
servant he was? and was answered that he came with the ladies, who had
just returned from the coach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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