English fiction -- 19th century; Marriage -- Fiction
May none these marks efface,
For they appeal from Tyranny...’
‘We start at noon to-day. Sailing orders have been issued, and I could
only have resisted them in my own person by casting myself overboard.
I go like the boat behind the vessel. You were expected yesterday, at
latest this morning. I have seen boxes in the hall, with a name on them
not foreign to me. Why does the master tarry? Sir, of your valliance you
should have held to your good vow,--quoth the damozel, for now you see
me sore perplexed and that you did not your devoir is my affliction.
Where lingers chivalry, she should have proceeded, if not with my
knight? I feast on your regrets. I would not have you less than
miserable: and I fear the reason is, that I am not so very, very sure
you will be so at all or very hugely, as I would command it of you for
just time enough to see that change over your eyebrows I know so well.
‘If you had seen a certain Henrietta yesterday you would have the
picture of how you ought to look. The admiral was heard welcoming a
new arrival--you can hear him. She ran down the stairs quicker than any
cascade of this district, she would have made a bet with Livia that
it could be no one else--her hand was out, before she was aware of the
difference it was locked in Lord F.’s!
‘Let the guilty absent suffer for causing such a betrayal of
disappointment. I must be avenged! But if indeed you are unhappy and
would like to chide the innocent, I am full of compassion for the poor
gentleman inheriting my legitimate feelings of wrath, and beg merely
that he will not pour them out on me with pen and paper, but from his
lips and eyes.
‘Time pressing, I chatter no more. The destination is Livia’s beloved
Baden. We rest a night in the city of Mozart, a night at Munich, a night
at Stuttgart. Baden will detain my cousin full a week. She has Captain
Abrane and Sir Meeson Corby in attendance--her long shadow and her
short: both devoted to Lord F., to win her smile, and how he drives
them! The captain has been paraded on the promenade, to the stupefaction
of the foreigner. Princes, counts, generals, diplomats passed under him
in awe. I am told that he is called St. Christopher.
‘Why do we go thus hastily?--my friend, this letter has to be concealed.
I know some one who sees in the dark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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