The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)Burney, Fanny
History
The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)
Burney, Fanny
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Refugees -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Refugees -- Fiction; War stories
With all of speed in his power, the Baronet hobbled to the chaise. She
covered her face, sinking with every species of confusion and distress.
'Have I the honour,' he cried, 'to address Miss Granville? The
Honourable Miss Granville?'--
'Good Heaven!--' Juliet astonished, and raising her head, exclaimed.
'If so, I have the dulcet commission,' he continued, 'to escort her to
her brother and sister, Lord Melbury, and Lady Aurora Granville.'
'Is it possible? Is it possible?' cried Juliet, in an ecstacy that
seemed to renovate her whole being: 'I dare not believe it!--Oh Sir
Jaspar! dear, good, kind, generous Sir Jaspar! delude me not, in pity!'
'No, fairest syren!' answered Sir Jaspar, in a rapture nearly equal to
her own; 'if there be any delusion to fear, 'tis poor I must be its
victim!'
'Oh take me, then, at once,--this instant,--this moment,--take me to
them, my benevolent, my noble friend! If, indeed, I have a brother, a
sister,--give me the heaven of their protection!--'
Sir Jaspar, enchanted, invited her to honour him by accepting a seat in
his chaise. With glowing gratitude she complied; though the just
returning roses faded from her cheeks, as she alighted, upon perceiving
Harleigh, aloof and disconsolate, fixed like a statue, upon a small
planted eminence. Yet but momentarily was the whiter hue prevalent, and
her skin, the next instant, burned with blushes of the deepest dye.
This transition was not lost upon Harleigh: his eye caught, and his
heart received it, with equal avidity and anguish. Ah why, thought he,
so sensitive! why, at this period of despair, must I awaken to a
consciousness of the full extent of my calamity! Yet, all his resentment
subsided; to believe that she participated in his sentiments, had a
charm so softening, so all-subduing, that, even in this crisis of
torture and hopelessness, it dissolved his whole soul into tenderness.
Juliet, faintly articulating, 'Oh, let us be gone!' moved, with cast
down eyes, to the carriage of the Baronet; forced, from remaining
weakness, to accept the assistance of his groom; Sir Jaspar not having
strength, nor Harleigh courage, to offer aid.
Sir Jaspar demanded her permission to stop at Salisbury, for his valet
and baggage.
'Any where! any where!' answered the shaking Juliet, 'so I go but to
Lady Aurora!'
Astonished, and thrilled to the soul by these words, Harleigh, who,
unconsciously, had advanced, involuntarily repeated, 'Lady Aurora?--Lady
Aurora Granville?'--
Unable to answer, or to look at him, the trembling Juliet, eagerly
laying both her hands upon the arm of the Baronet, as, cautiously, he
was mounting into the carriage, supplicated that they might be gone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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