Rosa Lambert — page 82: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ROSA LAMBERT. "1 my hand and pressing it with more warmth than, rupted me. “No, no! our separation is eternal. judging by her countenance, she seemed capable of | He will not voluntarily seek me,” she added bit- displaying. ‘‘ Yes—in a short time I shall indeed | terly; “and rest assured that I shall not seek require the succour of such a friend as you have | him.” offered to become—though heaven knows how I “Tf it should happen,” I rejoined, “that you may even be enabled to render that succour avail- | do meet, it will be as well not to mention me in able, and escape for a period from the bosom of | any way. My relatives—my husband too, when my family! Not for worlds would I have my | he returns home—might be vexed and angry if it secret suspected by any scion of that family! It | came to their knowledge that I had been led by is one of the haughtiest and the proudest in all sympathy and friendly feeling to interfere in this England; and my shame—my dishonour—would | matter.” be regarded as the most terrific of calamities !” “Tt would be but an ungrateful return on my After a little more conversation, I gleaned from | part,” responded Lady Lucia, “if I were to do Lady Lucia that in three months more she might | aught contrary to your interests and wishes. No, expect to become a mother—that she felt tole- | dear Mrs. Wilton—I am incapable of such an act! rably confident of being enabled to conceal her | And as for that unprincipled young man—that situation for perhaps two months longer — and | vile, infamous, fiend-like wretch,” she went on to that the only person whose prying eyes she feared, | say with a deep concentrated bitterness of tone; was her maid. I represented to her that it was | “infinite is my regret that I humbled myself to absolutely necessary to admit this maid into her him—that I besought him to make me reparation! confidence: for if she were to dispense with her , Good heavens, such a husband as that! to be tied services at the toilet, it would only confirm what- | to such a man for life ! No, no: exposure and soever suspicion she already entertained—or would | dishonour were even preferable! Would you be- actually engender such suspicion if none were as | lieve, Mrs. Wilton, that some months back—at yet awakened. Besides, I argued that as it would | the very time when arrangements were making be absolutely necessary for Lady Lucia to leave for our nuptials—he was debased and profligate home on some pretext in about two months’ time, | enough to pay his court to some loose, abandoned her maid would have to accompany her; and thus | female—some infamous courtezan IT shudder sconer or later the woman must be taken into her | in giving expression to the word which personifies confidence. It evidently wounded the young lady’s , the foul existence of such a creature in feminine pride in its most sensitive point to contemplate the | shape!” necessity of avowing her condition to a menial: “ You would do well not to excite yourself,” I but she was forced to admit the justice of my | said: and the reader may suppose with what reasoning, and promised to be guided by my | poignant, lacerating, vulture-tearing feelings I was counsel. I then assured her that when the time | inwardly agitated as all those expressions fell upon arrived for her to withdraw for a brief space from | my ears, raining like drops of molten lead upon the world, I would meet her again, to advise with | my heart—piercing like a shower of arrows into her on the best pretext to be advanced to her | my very soul! family; and that I would also provide for her a “You are right, my dear friend,” responded the suitable abode in some secluded place, where, | Earl’s daughter, growing completely calm again: under a feigned name, she might pass through the | “I am wrong to waste my indignation upon either ordeal. Again she thanked me with considerable | so cold-blooded a wretch as Horace Rockingham, fervour : she took my hand, pressed it between both | or so loathsome a creature as that woman to whom her own, and called me her best and dearest! I was alluding. But we must separate now; and friend,—vowing that her gratitude would only | once more I beseech you to accept the assurances terminate with life itself. | of my gratitude—my esteem—my love.” “But if, my dear Mrs. Wilton,” she said,“I| Again she wrung my hands in a fervid manner ; wish to communicate with you before the date of | and we parted,—Lady Lucia proceeding in one any fresh appointment which we may presently | direction, and I takmg another in order to regain make, where will a note find you?” the hackney-coach which was waiting for me. “It would be unsafe to write to me,” I an- | Ah! little did the proud patrician’s daughter sus- swered, being prepared for the question, “to the | pect that the very beimg against whom her ran- house where I am living with my aunt and/corous words were poured forth—the very one cousin: for, to tell the truth, my elderly relative | whom she had thus mercilessly dragged through is somewhat inquisitive—and if I did not happen | the mire, the mud, the dirt, and the feculence of to be in the way when the letter came, she would | her scorn, abhorrence, and disgust—had been scarcely hesitate to open it. Your ladyship had | seated by her side, had been in close contact with better address to me at some post-office, where I | her, and was regarded as some dear friend whom would call occasionally to inquire whether there | heaven had sent to succour her when the hour of be a note for me. Let it be the office in Cavendish | her need should come! Oh, if some bird could Sixeet, Oxtord Street.” have whispered at the time in the ear of Lucia ‘I shall not forget,” answered Lucia: and / Calthorpe—“That countenance on which you gaze again did she pour forth the expressions of her | with interest and pleasure, and which you regard gratitude. ANG as a kind and sympathizing one — those hands = Pardon me,” I said, in a hesitating manner,— | which you so warmly clasp and press in both your pardon me for the question Iam about to put, | own—that form which is in contiguity with your’s and for the allusion which it involves: but think | as you sit together beneath the shade of this tree, you, Lady Lucia, that you are likely again to en- | —all these belong to her against whom you are oan levelling such bitter, merciless, pitiless denun- I know whom you mean,” she quickly inter. | ciations!”—if a little bird, I say, could have thus cS © GOmiicdoo