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
When the carriage was returned, with fresh horses, Sir Jaspar found her
in a situation of augmented dismay, that filled him with concern; though
he also saw, that it was tempered by a grateful softness to himself,
that he thought more than ever bewitching.
He assured her that Mrs Ireton, whom he had adroitly shaken off, had not
perceived her; but the moment that they were re-seated in the chaise,
she communicated to him, with the most painful suffering, the new, and
terrible stroke, by which she was oppressed.
Viewing this as a mere pecuniary embarrassment, the joy of becoming
again useful, if not necessary, to her, sparkled in his eyes with almost
youthful vivacity; though he engaged to send his valet immediately to
the inn, to make enquiries, and offer rewards, for recovering the
strayed goods.
This second loss of her purse, she suffered Sir Jaspar, without any
attempt at justification, to call an active epigram upon modern female
drapery; which prefers continual inconvenience, innumerable privations,
and the most distressing untidiness, to the antique habit of modesty and
good housewifery, which, erst, left the public display of the human
figure to the statuary; deeming that to support the female character was
more essential than to exhibit the female form.
This second loss, also, by carrying back her reflections to the first,
brought to her mind several circumstances, which cast a new light upon
that origin of the various misfortunes and adventures which had followed
her arrival; and all her recollections, now she knew the rapacity and
worthlessness of the pilot, pointed out to her that she had probably
been robbed, at the moment when, impulsively, she was pouring forth,
upon her knees, her thanks for her deliverance. Her work-bag, which,
upon that occasion, she had deposited upon her seat, she remembered,
though she had then attributed it to his vigilance and care, seeing in
his hands, when she arose.
Arrived at the farm-house, they found themselves expected by the farmer
and his wife, who paid the utmost respect to Sir Jaspar; but who saw,
with an air of evidently suspicious surprize, the respect which he
himself paid to Mrs Betty, the nurse-maid; whose beauty, with her rustic
attire, and disordered hair, would have made them instantly conclude her
to be a lost young creature, had not the decency of her look, the
dignity of her manner, and the grief visible in her countenance, spoken
irresistibly in favour of her innocence. They spoke not, however, in
favour of that of Sir Jaspar, whose old character of gallantry was well
known to them; and induced their belief, that he was inveigling this
young woman from her friends, for her moral destruction. They
accommodated her, nevertheless, for the night; but, whatever might be
their pity, determined, should the Baronet visit her the next day, to
invent some other occupation for their spare bedroom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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