Denounced A Romance

It was a wild and stormy sea through which the bluff-bowed Galliot laboured, as, tossed first from one wave to another, she, with the best part of her gear stowed away and no sail on her but a close-reefed main-topsail and a spanker, endeavoured to make her way towards the Suffolk coast. On the poop, the captain--a young man of not more than thirty--hurled orders and oaths indiscriminately at his crew, every man of which was a good deal older than himself, while the crew themselves worked hard at hauling up the brails, going out on the gaff to pass the gaskets, and stowing the mainsail-yard. But still she laboured and rolled and yawed, her forefoot pointing at one moment almost to the Dutch coast and at another to the English--she had left Calais thirty hours before, intending to fetch Dover, and had been blown thus far out of her course--and it seemed as though she would never get any nearer to the land she wished to reach. And, to make matters worse, lying some distance off on her starboard beam--though too far to be distinguished through the haze in the air and the spume of the waves--was a large vessel about which those on board could not decide as to whether she was one of King George's sloops or--a privateer. The young captain trusted it was the first, since he had no quarrel with either his Majesty or his navy, and had no men who could be pressed, while the passengers in the cabin--but this you shall read. In that cabin there sat four persons, three men and a woman--the last of whom shall be first described. A woman young--of not more than twenty-four years of age--fair and well-favoured, her wheat-coloured hair brought back in a knot behind her head, above which, as was still the custom of the time for ladies when travelling, she wore a three-cornered hat. Wrapped in a long, collarless coat, square cut and possessing no pockets--also the custom of the time--it was still easy to perceive that, underneath, was a supple, graceful figure, and, when--as was occasionally the case--this long coat was thrown open so that the wearer might get a little relief from the stuffiness of the cabin, the beauty of that figure might plainly be perceived beneath the full scarlet waistcoat embroidered with gold lace, which, by its plenitude of pockets, atoned for the absence of any in the coat. Her face was, as has been said, a well-favoured one, oval, and possessing large blue eyes and delicate, thin lips, and with upon it even here, on this tossing sea, a fair rose and milk complexion, while in those large eyes the observer might have well imagined he saw a look of unhappiness. Also, too, a look of contempt whenever they rested on the man who, as she leant an elbow on one side of the table between them, leant one of his on the other.

Excerpt from Denounced: A Romance I want nothing, her ladyship replied, lifting 'her eyes to him with almost as contemptuous a glance as when She had previously raised them to her husband, and then relapsing again into silence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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With all the pomp and ceremony that should accompany the dying hours of a great lady of France, the Princesse de Rochebazon--Marquise du Gast d'Ançilly, Comtesse de Montrachet, Baronne de Beauvilliers, and possessor of many other titles, as well as the right to the tabouret--drew near her end. A great lady of France, yet a woman against whom scandal had never breathed a word; a woman whose name had never been coupled with that of any courtier in a manner disadvantageous to her fame, but who instead, since first she came into the family a bride, had always been spoken highly of. As a saint by some--nay, by many; as a Christian by all; as a good servant of the Church. Now, the priests said, she was about to reap her reward in another existence, where her exalted rank would count as nothing and the good deeds of her life as everything.

In the small southern town of Chin-kiang, two young girls from very different worlds collide and become inseparable companions. Willow is hardened by poverty and fearful for her future; Pearl is the daughter of a Christian missionary who desperately wishes she was Chinese too. Neither could have foreseen the transformation of the little American girl embarrassed by her blonde hair into the Nobel Prize-winning writer and one of China's modern heroines, Pearl S. Buck. When the country erupts in civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, Pearl and Willow are brutally reminded of their differences. Pearl's family is forced to flee the country and Willow is punished for her loyalty to her 'cultural imperialist' friend. And yet, in the face of everything that threatens to tear them apart, the paths of these two women remain intimately entwined.