IRVING AND HIS MOTHER.
I knew that the Clares had a town house in Picadilly, and quietly
stealing out in the morning, when Chaleco was out, I called a hackney
coach and drove there at once. A ponderous man, in mourning livery,
opened the door, and looked well disposed to order me down the steps
when he saw my humble equipage. But there was a native haughtiness in me
that men of his class are sure to recognize, and though new to the
world, I was neither timid nor awkward; besides assumption of any kind
was certain to arouse all the contempt and resistance of my fiery
nature.
I inquired for Lady Clare.
“She was in, and at breakfast; would I call again?”
“No; I must see the lady then.”
“An appointment?”
“No; but still my interview with this lady must be at once.”
“He did not think she would admit me, her ladyship and Mr. Irving had
been closeted with their solicitors all the morning.”
“You will send up my name and inquire,” I said weary with his
objections, and conscious that this was my time to speak with Lady
Catherine when fresh from her consultation with the lawyers.
My imperious manner impressed him; he inquired my name.
“Zana.”
His round eyes opened with astonishment. “Miss Zana, is it?” he said,
after a moment of puzzled thought.
“Zana, that is all.”
He beckoned a footman, and whispered with him. The man disappeared up
some mysterious staircase in the back part of the hall. The porter
returned, and seated himself in his great gothic chair, took a position,
and began to eye me as stage kings sometimes survey the suppliants that
come before them.
The footman came back, walking quickly, and with noiseless step, as
well-bred servants usually do in England. Her ladyship would be happy to
receive the young person.
I followed him in silence. Would her son be there? This thought made my
limbs tremble, but I think no visible agitation marked my demeanor or my
countenance.
Lady Catherine was in her dressing-room, with a small breakfast-table
before her, covered with Sèvres china and glittering silver. The
delicate breakfast seemed yet untasted, save that one of the cups was
stained with a little chocolate.
Lady Catherine arose, and though she did not come forward, stood up to
receive me. It might have been the light which fell through curtains of
pale, blue silk, but she certainly looked unusually white and haggard. I
saw her thin hand clutch itself among the folds of her mourning gown,
and her eyes wavered as they met mine.
There was an awkward silence as I advanced toward the table. I think she
was struggling to speak calmly, for her voice was unnatural when she did
address me.
“Be seated,” she said falling back to her lounge, not with her usual
languid ease, but abruptly, as if in need of support, “be seated, I—I am
happy to receive you.”
I sat down, firm and composed. He was absent, and as for that woman,
there was nothing in her to discompose me. We seldom tremble where we do
not respect.
“Your ladyship probably knows upon what subject I came,” were my first
quiet words.
I saw by the motion of her whole body that she could with difficulty
restrain her rage.
“Yes, and I thank you for saving me another interview with your very
singular friend,” she said, with a smile that was intended to be
playful, but faded to a sneer.
“What, madam, has Count Chaleco been with you?”
“If you mean that dark browed man who calls himself your protector, he
has given us the honor of his company more than once.”
“I do mean him, and he is my protector!” I answered, stung by her look
and tone rather than by a comprehension of her words.
“Of course. No one would think otherwise. After eloping with him in the
night from Greenhurst, visiting the Highlands, and domesticating
yourselves together in London, there can be, I fancy, little doubt left
on that point!”
I began to comprehend her meaning. Isolated as I had been from the
world, and independent of its usages, I could not mistake the sneering
expression of that evil face, had the words failed to enlighten me. But
I was not angry. Scorn of the very thought that she applied these vile
imaginings to me curved my lips with a smile. I could not have forced
myself into a word of explanation or defence. The woman seemed to me
only a little more repulsive than before.
“Then, madam, if my friend has preceded me I shall have little to
explain, and our interview will be more brief. You comprehend,
doubtless, that evidence of Lord Clare’s residence with my mother in
Scotland, which constitutes a legal marriage, is in our possession; that
the best counsel consider me, and not your ladyship, the inheritor of
his title and estates. Indeed, the record of my birth, in his own
handwriting, where my mother is mentioned as his wife, is by the laws of
Scotland a marriage in itself.”
“Yes, all these things have been repeated to me; but the opinion of
lawyers, fortunately, is not exactly the decision of legal tribunals.”
“Then you are determined to contest my claims?”
“I am not disposed to yield mine without contest, certainly.”
“Madam,” I commenced; and now every nerve in my body began to tremble,
for the great moment of my fate had arrived—“madam, in this contest, if
it becomes one in an English court of law, the life and reputation of
your only brother must be cruelly brought before the world; would you
make no sacrifice to avoid that?”
“But if this same brother was your father also, it is for you, not me,
to save his name from the scandal of a public court,” she rejoined,
sharply. “The fact that he married Lady Jane while your mother was
alive, I would willingly conceal.”
“No, madam, that you mistake. My mother died months before Lord Clare’s
marriage?”
“How and when did she die?”
“The how does not concern your ladyship. As for the when, I was present
when she died near the City of Granada, and though a child at the time,
can never forget it; would to God it were possible. After that—months
after it must have been, for we had travelled from Spain between the two
events—I saw the cortége pass the tent where I lay, returning from my
father’s marriage with his last wife. In this he committed no legal
fault—and let us hope intended no moral wrong—though a deep wrong it
was, from beginning to end; but he doubtless was unmindful of the
singular law which made his first marriage binding.”
“Then what is there to conceal? Why should we shrink from
investigation?” she cried.
“The wrong done to my poor mother, alas! that remains, and I would do
anything, give up anything rather than have it heaped upon my father’s
memory.”
“And what were these mighty wrongs, if—as you are trying to prove—he
ever acknowledged her, a dancing gipsy beggar, a”——
“Hush!” said I, with a power that must have been imperative, “you shall
not malign my mother.”
“Well,” she answered, waving her hand scornfully, “you are right. Her
history cannot be publicly coupled with that of our house without
leaving infamy upon a noble name.”
“Not _her_ infamy, madam!”
“This is useless and impertinent, miss,” she cried, starting up
fiercely; “you came for some purpose. What is it?”
“I came, if possible, to save the scandal of a law suit regarding the
Clare earldom and estates. I would shield my father’s memory, and
redress the wrongs of one whose fate is dearer than my own, at any
sacrifice.”
“And how is this to be done unless you yield at once these preposterous
claims?”
“Madam, your son!”
“Well, what of him?” she cried sharply, and with gleaming eyes.
“The succession will be his when, when”——
“When I am gone, you wish to say, but that is a frail hope. I married
when a child, and the difference between Irving and myself is so
little.”
This vanity would have seemed out of character to one so full of haughty
malice as the woman before me; but extreme vanity is more frequently
found connected with bad qualities that with good ones, so it did not
surprise me.
“But with your son some compromise may be effected. You would doubtless
rather surrender the unentailed estates to him, than to one so hateful
to your ladyship as I am?”
“That may be readily supposed?”
“Well, madam, to one or the other you must resign them; to me if you
persist in useless and wicked resistance; to him, if—if”——
“Well, if what?”
“If by marriage with the person whom I shall select, he secures the
rights which I claim to himself.”
“That is, if my son, like his uncle, will degrade himself with a gipsy
stroller,” she replied, with insulting bitterness.
“Madam, this is base; that which I propose saves your son from
degradation, does not impose it. It was not of myself I spoke!”
“Of whom, then? Is there another claimant?”
“No. As the legitimate and only daughter of Lord Clare, who died without
will, I have the sole right to all that was his. You know that the
courts will confirm this right, or I had never been thus admitted to
your presence. Your eye wavers; your lips curve in terror rather than
scorn. In your soul you feel that to hold possession of this house for a
day is rank usurpation; your lawyers have told you all this before.”
“How did you learn that?”
“From your face, madam—from the fact that you do not spurn me from your
presence as of old.”
She smiled, not scornfully, her blue lips seemed to have lost all
strength for so strong an expression, but with a sort of baffled spite.
“And so you would take the estates and attach my son as an
appendage—this is kind!”
“Madam, I will resign all right to these estates and title on the
marriage day of your son—not with me, the hated gipsy, but with Cora
Clark, whom he loves, and who loves him. Greenhurst and the title to
rest with you as if I had never existed—all the unentailed property to
be divided between your son and Mr. Morton, whose rights we cannot
honestly waive.”
Her eyes opened wide with astonishment. She fell back on her sofa, and
folded a hand over them, as if ashamed of appearing startled by what I
had said. At last she sat upright again and looked at me searchingly.
“You will do this?”
“I will!”
“Why?—your motives?”
The tears started. I felt them crowding to my eyes.
“I wish to see them happy.”
My voice faltered; but for her presence the agony at my heart would have
burst forth in a wail.
“And that will make you happy?” she said, with an icy sneer. “You will
remain and witness the joy your abnegation gives.”
“Never!” I cried, yielding to the anguish that was oppressing me. “I
will go among my mother’s people—go”—I thought in my innermost heart—“go
to the barrancas of Granada, to die of anguish as she did by violence.”
“And you will leave this country forever?”
“Madam, I will.”
“But this girl, this Cora Clark, where is she now? Mr. Upham, the new
rector, sent down orders that her father should be removed from the
parsonage—where has he gone? How are you sure that Irving cares for her,
or would take her at any price?”
I shrank from exposing my poor friend’s weakness to the knowledge of
that heartless woman; she seemed ignorant of her son’s perfidy, and its
results in giving Cora to my protection. I rejoiced at this, and guarded
the secret of their mutual fault as if it had been my own life.
“I am certain of it.”
“But you are not of age to make a resignation of these fancied claims
legal, even should I consent to unite my son to this nameless girl.”
“I am of age to resist all action, and have a will strong as any law. If
I am silent regarding my claims, who will or can urge them?”
“But we have only your word!” she said, softening in her tone, and
interrupting her questions with intervals of thought.
“But in your heart you know that to be enough. Strive as you will, my
truth will make itself believed.”
She waved her hand, rising.
“Stay here, I will speak with my son. Perhaps you have not breakfasted;
ring and the man will provide fresh chocolate. After all, this is a
strange offer.”