Once in Brussels, they must contrive somehow to find Austin
Lovel.
Of her plans for the future--how she was to live separated from her
husband, and defying him--Clarissa thought nothing. Her mind was wholly
occupied by that one consideration about her child. To secure him to
herself was the end and aim of her existence.
It was only at Jane's suggestion that she set herself to calculate ways and
means. She had scarcely any ready money--one five-pound note and a handful
of silver comprised all her wealth. She had given her brother every
sixpence she could spare. There were her jewels, it is true; jewels worth
three or four thousand pounds. But she shrank from the idea of touching
these.
While she sat with her purse in her hand, idly counting the silver, and not
at all able to realise the difficulties of her position, the faithful Jane
came to her relief.
"I've got five-and-twenty pounds with me, ma'am; saved out of my wages
since I've been in your service; and I'm sure you're welcome to the money."
Jane had brought her little hoard with her, intending to invest some part
of it in presents for her kindred--a shawl for her mother, and so on; but
had been disappointed, by finding that the Parisian shops, brilliant as
they were, contained very much the same things she had seen in London, and
at higher prices. She had entertained a hazy notion that cashmere shawls
were in some manner a product of the soil of France, and could be bought
for a mere trifle; whereby she had been considerably taken aback when the
proprietor of a plate-glass edifice on the Boulevard des Italiens asked her
a thousand francs for a black cashmere, which she had set her mind upon as
a suitable covering for the shoulders of Mrs.
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