Miranda of the Balcony

A .E. W. Mason

Description

Originally published in 1899, this vintage love story centers the plight of an isolated widow and the unsuspecting gentleman who tries to win her heart. Despite increasing odds, the couple fights to find their way to one another. Miranda Warriner is the widow of Ralph Warriner, a man whose life was full of secrets and lies. She lives in a small town near Gibraltar where she catches the eye of the dashing Luke Charnock. He is immediately smitten and captivated by her beauty. Unfortunately, their potential union is disrupted by a series of obstacles, some of which are linked to Miranda’s late husband. Miranda of the Balcony: A Story is an emotional rollercoaster led by a charming hero and heroine. A.E.W. Mason delivers an enthralling underdog tale that puts the protagonists through a series of unexpected trials. It is an enduring story about the unwavering power of love. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Miranda of the Balcony: A Story is both modern and readable.

Sujets

• Classiques
• Tous les classiques
• Romance historique
• Fiction
• England
• Romance
• 19th century
• Inglaterra
• Historical

Informations

• Publié par: Mint Editions
• Date de parution: 14 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513286310
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Miranda of the Balcony
A Story
A.E.W. Mason
 
 
 
Miranda of the Balcony: A Story was first published in 1899.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.
ISBN 9781513281292 | E-ISBN 9781513286310
Published by Mint Editions ®
minteditionbooks.com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Project Manager: Micaela Clark
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services
 
C ONTENTS I.  I N W HICH A S HORT- S IGHTED T AXIDERMIST FROM T ANGIER M AKES A D ISCOVERY U PON R OSEVEAR II.  P RESENTS THE H ERO IN THE U NHEROIC A TTITUDE OF A S PECTATOR III.  T REATS OF A G ENTLEMAN WITH AN A GREEABLE C OUNTENANCE , AND OF A W OMAN’S F ACE IN A M IRROR IV.  T REATS OF THE F IRST M EETING B ETWEEN C HARNOCK AND M IRANDA V.  W HEREIN C HARNOCK AND M IRANDA I MPROVE THEIR A CQUAINTANCESHIP IN A B ALCONY VI.  W HILE C HARNOCK B UILDS C ASTLES IN S PAIN , M IRANDA R ETURNS T HERE VII.  I N WHICH M AJOR W ILBRAHAM D ESCRIBES THE S TEPS BY WHICH HE A TTAINED HIS M AJORITY , AND G IVES M IRANDA S OME P ARTICULAR I NFORMATION VIII.  E XPLAINS THE M YSTERY OF THE “T ARIFA’S ” C ARGO IX.  S HOWS THE U SE W HICH A B LIND M AN M AY M AKE OF A D ARK N IGHT A W EEK X.  M. F OURNIER E XPOUNDS THE A DVANTAGES WHICH E ACH S EX HAS O VER THE O THER XI.  I N W HICH M IRANDA A DOPTS A N EW L INE OF C ONDUCT AND THE M AJOR E XPRESSES S OME D ISCONTENT XII.  T HE H ERO , L IKE A LL H EROES , F INDS H IMSELF IN A F OG XIII.  W HEREIN THE H ERO’S P ERPLEXITIES I NCREASE XIV.  M IRANDA P ROFESSES R EGRET FOR A P RACTICAL J OKE XV.  I N W HICH THE M AJOR L OSES HIS T EMPER AND R ECOVERS I T XVI.  E XPLAINS WHY C HARNOCK S AW M IRANDA’S F ACE IN HIS M IRROR XVII.  S HOWS HOW A T OMBSTONE M AY C ONVINCE WHEN A RGUMENTS F AIL XVIII.  I N W HICH THE T AXIDERMIST AND A B ASHA P REVAIL O VER A B LIND M AN XIX.  T ELLS OF C HARNOCK’S W ANDERINGS IN M OROCCO AND OF A W ALNUT- W OOD D OOR XX.  C HARNOCK , L IKE THE T AXIDERMIST , FINDS W ARRINER A NYTHING BUT A C OMFORTABLE C OMPANION XXI.  C OMPLETES THE J OURNEYINGS OF THIS I NCONGRUOUS C OUPLE XXII.  I N W HICH C HARNOCK A STONISHES R ALPH W ARRINER XXIII.  R ELATES A S ECOND M EETING B ETWEEN C HARNOCK AND M IRANDA XXIV.  A M IST IN THE C HANNEL E NDS , AS IT B EGAN , THE B OOK
 
I
I N W HICH A S HORT- S IGHTED T AXIDERMIST FROM T ANGIER M AKES A D ISCOVERY U PON R OSEVEAR
The discovery made a great stir amongst the islands, and particularly at St. Mary’s. In the square space before the Customs’ House, on the little stone jetty, among the paths through the gorse of the Garrison, it became the staple subject of gossip, until another ship came ashore and other lives were lost. For quite apart from its odd circumstances, a certain mystery lent importance to Ralph Warriner. It transpired that nearly two years before, when on service at Gibraltar, Captain Warriner of the Artillery had slipped out of harbour one dark night in his yacht, and had straightway disappeared; it was proved that subsequently he had been dismissed from the service; and the coroner of St. Mary’s in a moment of indiscretion let slip the information that the Home Office had requested him to furnish it with a detailed history of the facts. The facts occurred in this sequence.
At seven o’clock of a morning in the last week of July, the St. Agnes lugger which carries the relief men to and fro between the Trinity House barracks upon St. Mary’s and the Bishop Lighthouse in the Atlantic, ran alongside of St. Mary’s pier. There were waiting upon the steps, the two lighthouse men, and a third, a small rotund Belgian of a dark, shiny countenance which seemed always on the point of perspiring. He was swathed in a borrowed suit of oilskins much too large for him, and would have cut a comical figure had he not on that raw morning looked supremely unhappy and pathetic. M. Claude Fournier was a taxidermist by profession and resided at Tangier; he was never backward in declaring that the evidences of his skill decorated many entrance-halls throughout Europe; and some three weeks before he had come holiday-making alone to the islands of Scilly.
He now stood upon the steps of the pier nervously polishing his glasses as the lugger swung upwards and downwards on the swell. He watched the relief men choose their time and spring on board, and just as Zebedee Isaacs, the master of the boat, was about to push off with his boat-hook, he nerved himself to speak.
“I go with you to the Bishop, is it not?”
Isaacs looked up in surprise. He had been wondering what had brought the little man out in this dress and on this morning.
“There’ll be a head-wind all the way,” he said discouragingly, “and wi’ that and a heavy ground sea we’ll be brave an’ wet before we reach the Bishop, brave an’ wet.”
“I do not mind,” replied M. Fournier. “For the sea, I am dévot ;” but his voice was tremulous and belied him.
Isaacs shook his head.
“It’s not only the sea. Look!” And he stretched out his arm. A variable fog rolled and tumbled upon a tumbling wilderness of sea. “I’ld sooner have two gales lashed together than sail amongst these islands in a fog. I’ld never go to-day at all, but the boat’s more’n three weeks overdue.”
Indeed, as M. Fournier looked seawards, there was no glimpse of land visible. A fortnight of heavy weather had been followed by a week of fog which enveloped the islands like a drenched blanket. Only to-day had it shown any signs of breaking, and the St. Agnes lugger was the first boat, so far as was known, to run the hazard of the sea. It is true that two days before one man had run in to the bar of Tregarthen’s Hotel and told how he had stood upon the top of the Garrison and had looked suddenly down a lane between two perpendicular walls of mist, and had seen the water breaking white upon Great Smith Rock, and in the near distance an open boat under a mizzen and a jib, beating out through the heavy swell towards the west. But his story was in no wise believed.
To all of Isaacs’s objections M. Fournier was impervious, and he was at last allowed to embark.
“Now!” cried Zebedee Isaacs, as the lugger rose. M. Fournier gave a pathetic look backwards to the land, shut his eyes and jumped. Isaacs caught and set him upon the floor of the boat, where he stood clutching the runners. He saw the landing-steps dizzily rush past him up to the sky like a Jacob’s ladder, and then as dizzily shut downwards below him like a telescope.
The boat was pushed off. It rounded the pier-head and beat out on its first tack, across the Road. M. Fournier crouched down under the shelter of the weather bulwark.
“As for the sea I am dévot ,” he murmured, with a watery smile.
In a little the boat was put about. From Sour Milk Ledge it was sailed on the port tack towards Great Minalto, and felt the wind and felt the sea. It climbed up waves till the red lug-sail swung over M. Fournier’s head like a canopy; and on the downward slope the heavy bows took the water with a thud. M. Fournier knelt up and clung to the stays. At all costs he must see. He stared into the shifting fog at the rollers which came hopping and leaping towards him; and he was very silent and very still, as though the fascination of terror enchained him.
On the third tack, however, he began to resume his courage. He even smiled over his shoulder towards Zebedee Isaacs at the tiller.
“As for the sea,” he began to say, “I am—” But the statement, which he was not to verify on this day, ended in a shriek. For at that moment a great green wave hopped exultingly over the bows, and thenceforward all the way to the Bishop the lugger shipped much water.
M. Fournier’s behaviour became deplorable. As Isaacs bluntly and angrily summarised it, “he lay upon the thwarts and screeched like a rook;” and in his appeals to his mother he was quite conventionally French.
He made no attempt to land upon the Lighthouse. The relief men were hoisted up in the sling, the head-keeper and one of his assistants were lowered, and the lugger started upon its homeward run before the wind. The fog thickened and lightened about them as they threaded the intricate channels of the western islands. Now it was a thin grey mist, parting here and there in long corridors, driven this way and that, twirling in spires of smoke, shepherded by the winds; now again it hung close about them an impenetrable umber, while the crew in short quick tones and gestures of the arms mapped out the rocks and passages. About them they could hear the roar of the breaking waves and the rush of water up slabs and over ledges, and then the “glumph glumph” as the wave sucked away. At times, too, the fog lifted from the surface and hung very low, massed above their heads, so that the black hillocks of the islets stood out in the sinister light like headstones of a cemetery of the sea, and at the feet of them the water was white like a flash of hungry teeth.
It was at one such moment, when the boat had just passed through Crebawethan Neck, that M. Fournier, who had been staring persistently over the starboard bulwark, suddenly startled the crew.
“There’s a ship on shore. Tenez —look!” he cried. “There, there!” And as he spoke the mist drove between his eyes and what he declared that he saw.
Zebedee Isaacs looked in the direction.
“On Jacky’s Rock?” he asked, nodding towards a menacing column of black rock which was faintly visible.
“No, no—beyond!—There!” And M. Fournier excitedly gesticulated. He seemed at that moment to have lost all his terror of the sea.
“On Rosevear, then,” said the keeper of the lighthouse, and he strained towards Rosevear.
“I see nothing,” he said, “and—”
“There’s nothing to see,” replied Isaacs, who did not alter his course.
“But it’s true,” exclaimed the little Belgian. “I see it no more myself. But I have seen it, I tell you. I have seen the mast above the island—”
“You!” interrupted Isaacs, with a blunt contempt; “you are blind!” And M. Fournier, before anyone could guess hi