English fiction -- 19th century; Marriage -- Fiction
And upon that, suddenly comes a cyclonic gust; and gossip twirls, whines,
and falls to the twanging of an entirely new set of notes, that furnish a
tolerably agreeable tune, on the whole. O hear! The Marchioness of
Arpington proclaims not merely acquaintanceship with Lord Fleetwood's
countess, she professes esteem for the young person. She has been heard
to say, that if the Principality of Wales were not a royal title,
a dignity of the kind would be conferred by the people of those mountains
on the Countess of Fleetwood: such unbounded enthusiasm there was for her
character when she sojourned down there. As it is, they do speak of her
in their Welsh by some title. Their bards are offered prizes to
celebrate her deeds. You remember the regiment of mounted Welsh
gentlemen escorting her to her Kentish seat, with their band of the
three-stringed harps! She is well-born, educated, handsome, a perfectly
honest woman, and a sound Protestant. Quite the reverse of Lord
Fleetwood's seeking to escape her, it is she who flies; she cannot
forgive him his cruelties and infidelities: and that is the reason why he
threatens to commit the act of despair. Only she can save him! She has
flown for refuge to her uncle, Lord Levellier's house at a place named
Croridge--not in the gazetteer--hard of access and a home of poachers,
where shooting goes on hourly; but most picturesque and romantic, as she
herself is! Lady Arpington found her there, nursing one of the wounded,
and her uncle on his death-bed; obdurate all round against her husband,
but pensive when supplicated to consider her country endangered by Rome.
She is a fervent patriot. The tales of her Whitechapel origin, and
heading mobs wielding bludgeons, are absolutely false, traceable to
scandalizing anecdotists like Mr. Rose Mackrell. She is the beautiful
example of an injured wife doing honour to her sex in the punishment of a
faithless husband, yet so little cherishing her natural right to deal him
retribution, that we dare hope she will listen to her patriotic duty in
consenting to the reconcilement, which is Lord Fleetwood's alternative:
his wife or Rome! They say she has an incommunicable charm, accounting
for the price he puts on her now she holds aloof and he misses it. Let
her but rescue him from England's most vigilant of her deadly enemies,
she will be entitled to the nation's lasting gratitude. She has her
opportunity for winning the Anglican English, as formerly she won the
Dissenter Welsh. She may yet be the means of leading back the latter to
our fold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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