English fiction -- 19th century; Marriage -- Fiction
my husband's.'
'Your accident, dearest Riette--how it happened?' Carinthia said,
enfolding her.
'Because, Janey, what have I ever been to Chillon but the good-looking
thing he was proud of? It's gone. Oh, the accident. Brailstone had
pushed little Corby away; he held my hand, kept imploring, he wanted the
usual two minutes, and all to warn me against--I've told you; and he saw
Lord Fleetwood coming. I got my hand free, and stepped back, my head
spinning; and I fell. That I recollect, and a sight of flames, like the
end of the world. I fell on one of the oil-lamps bordering the grass; my
veil lighted; I had fainted; those two men saw nothing but one another;
and little Sir Meeson was no help; young Lord Cressett dashed out the
flames. They brought me to my senses for a second swoon. Livia says I
woke moaning to be taken away from that hated Calesford. It was, oh!
never to see that husband of yours again. Forgive him, if you can.
Not I. I carry the mark of him to my grave. I have called myself "Skin-
deep" ever since, day and night--the name I deserve.'
'We will return to Chillon together, my own,' said Carinthia. 'It may
not be so bad.' And in the hope that her lovely sister exaggerated a
defacement leaving not much worse than a small scar, her heart threw off
its load of the recent perplexities, daylight broke through her dark
wood. Henrietta brought her liberty. How far guilty her husband might
be, she was absolved from considering; sufficiently guilty to release
her. Upon that conclusion, pity for the awakened Riette shed purer tear-
drops through the gratitude she could not restrain, could hardly conceal,
on her sister's behalf and her own. Henrietta's prompt despatch to
Croridge to fetch the babes, her journey down out of a sick-room to stop
Chillon's visit to London, proved her an awakened woman, well paid for
the stain on her face, though the stain were lasting. Never had she
loved Henrietta, never shown her so much love, as on the road to the
deepening colours of the West. Her sisterly warmth surprised the woeful
spotted beauty with a reflection that this martial Janey was after all a
woman of feeling, one whom her husband, if he came to know it and the
depth of it, the rich sound of it, would mourn in sackcloth to have lost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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