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
A petition thus seconded, from so adored a suppliant, was irresistible;
he kissed each fair hand that thus honoured him; and had just accepted
the offer of Harleigh, to aid his arrangements; when the furious
prisoner, struggling with the peace-officers, and loudly swearing,
re-appeared at the inn-door, clamorously demanding his wife.
The tortured Juliet, with an impulse of agony, cast, now, the hands that
were just withdrawn from the Baronet, upon the shoulder of Harleigh, who
was himself fastening the chaise-door, tremulously, and in a tone
scarcely audible, pronouncing, 'Oh! hurry us away, Mr Harleigh!--in
mercy!--in compassion!'
Harleigh, bowing upon the hands which he ventured not to touch, but of
which he felt the impression with a pang indescribable, called to the
postilion to drive off full gallop.
With a low and sad inclination of the head, Juliet, in a faultering
voice, thanked him; involuntarily adding, 'My prayers, Mr Harleigh,--my
every wish for happiness,--will for ever be yours!'
The chaise drove off; but his groan, rather than sigh, reached her
agonized ear; and, in an emotion too violent for concealment, yet to
which she durst allow no vent, she held her almost bursting forehead
with her hand; breathing only by smothered sighs, and scarcely sensible
to the happiness of an uncertain escape, while bowed down by the sight
of the misery that she had inflicted, where all that she owed was
benevolence, sympathy, and generosity.
Not even the delight of thus victoriously carrying off a disputed prize,
could immediately reconcile Sir Jaspar to the fear of even the smallest
disorder in the economy of his medicines, anodynes, sweetmeats, and
various whims; which, from long habits of self-indulgence, he now
conceived to be necessaries, not luxuries.
But when, after having examined, in detail, that his travelling
apparatus was in order, he turned smilingly to the fair mede of his
exertions; and saw the deep absorption of all her faculties in her own
evident affliction, he was struck with surprise and disappointment; and,
after a short and mortified pause, 'Can it be, fair ænigma!' he cried,
'that it is with compunction you abandon this Gallic Goliah?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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