Duke.--Sir Valentine! Thur.--Yonder is Silvia, and Silvia’s mine.
Val.--Thurio, give back.--The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
“I think, Mamma,” said Lady Flora to her mother, “that as the morning is
so beautiful, I will go into the pavilion to finish my drawing.”
“But Lord Ulswater will be here in an hour, or perhaps less: may I tell
him where you are, and suffer him to join you?”
“If you will accompany him,” answered Lady Flora, coldly, as she took up
her portefeuille and withdrew.
Now the pavilion was a small summer-house of stone, situated in the
most retired part of the grounds belonging to Westborough Park. It was
a favourite retreat with Lady Flora, even in the winter months, for
warm carpeting, a sheltered site, and a fireplace constructed more for
comfort than economy made it scarcely less adapted to that season than
to the more genial suns of summer.
The morning was so bright and mild that Lady Flora left open the door
as she entered; she seated herself at the table, and, unmindful of her
pretended employment, suffered the portefeuille to remain unopened.
Leaning her cheek upon her hand, she gazed vacantly on the ground, and
scarcely felt the tears which gathered slowly to her eyes, but, falling
not, remained within the fair lids, chill and motionless, as if the
thought which drew them there was born of a sorrow less agitated than
fixed and silent.
The shadow of a man darkened the threshold, and there paused.
Slowly did Flora raise her eyes, and the next moment Clarence Linden was
by her side and at her feet.
“Flora,” said he, in a tone trembling with its own emotions, “Flora,
have years indeed separated us forever, or dare I hope that we have
misconstrued each other’s hearts, and that at this moment they yearn to
be united with more than the fondness and fidelity of old? Speak to me,
Flora, one word.”
But she had sunk on the chair overpowered, surprised, and almost
insensible; and it was not for some moments that she could utter words
rather wrung from than dictated by her thoughts.
“Cruel and insulting, for what have you come? is it at such a time that
you taunt me with the remembrance of my past folly, or your--your--” She
paused for a moment, confused and hesitating, but presently recovering
herself, rose, and added, in a calmer tone, “Surely you have no excuse
for this intrusion: you will suffer me to leave you.”
“No,” exclaimed Clarence, violently agitated, “no! Have you not wronged
me, stung me, wounded me to the core by your injustice? and will you not
hear now how differently I have deserved from you? On a bed of fever
and pain I thought only of you; I rose from it animated by the hope of
winning you! Though, during the danger of my wound and my consequent
illness, your parents alone, of all my intimate acquaintances, neglected
to honour with an inquiry the man whom you professed to consecrate with
your regard, yet scarcely could my hand trace a single sentence before I
wrote to you requesting an interview, in order to disclose my birth and
claim your plighted faith! That letter was returned to me unanswered,
unopened. My friend and benefactor, whose fortune I now inherit,
promised to call upon your father and advocate my cause. Death
anticipated his kindness. As soon as my sorrow for his loss permitted
me, I came to this very spot! For three days I hovered about your house,
seeking the meeting that you would fain deny me now. I could not any
longer bear the torturing suspense I endured: I wrote to you; your
father answered the letter. Here, here I have it still: read! note well
the cool, the damning insult of each line. I see that you knew not of
this: I rejoice at it! Can you wonder that, on receiving it, I subjected
myself no more to such affronts? I hastened abroad. On my return I met
you. Where? In crowds, in the glitter of midnight assemblies, in the
whirl of what the vain call pleasure! I observed your countenance, your
manner; was there in either a single token of endearing or regretful
remembrance? None! I strove to harden my heart; I entered into politics,
business, intrigue; I hoped, I longed, I burned to forget you, but in
vain!”
“At last I heard that Rumour, though it had long preceded, had not
belied, the truth, and that you were to be married,--married to Lord
Ulswater! I will not say what I suffered, or how idly I summoned pride
to resist affection! But I would not have come now to molest you, Flora,
to trouble your nuptial rejoicings with one thought of me, if, forgive
me, I had not suddenly dreamed that I had cause to hope you had
mistaken, not rejected my heart; that--you turn away, Flora, you blush,
you weep! Oh, tell me, by one word, one look, that I was not deceived!”
“No, no, Clarence,” said Flora, struggling with her tears: “it is
too late, too late now! Why, why did I not know this before? I have
promised, I am pledged; in less than two months I shall be the wife of
another!”
“Never!” cried Clarence, “never! You promised on a false belief: they
will not bind you to such a promise. Who is he that claims you? I am
his equal in birth, in the world’s name,--and oh, by what worlds
his superior in love! I will advance my claim to you in his very
teeth,--nay, I will not stir from these domains till you, your father,
and my rival, have repaired my wrongs.”
“Be it so, sir!” cried a voice behind, and Clarence turned and beheld
Lord Ulswater! His dark countenance was flushed with rage, which he in
vain endeavoured to conceal; and the smile of scorn that he strove
to summon to his lip made a ghastly and unnatural contrast with the
lowering of his brow and the fire of his eyes. “Be it so, sir,” he said,
slowly advancing, and confronting Clarence. “You will dispute my claims
to the hand Lady Flora Ardenne has long promised to one who, however
unworthy of the gift, knows, at least, how to defend it. It is well; let
us finish the dispute elsewhere. It is not the first time we shall have
met, if not as rivals, as foes.”
Clarence turned from him without reply, for he saw Lady Westborough had
just entered the pavilion, and stood mute and transfixed at the door,
with surprise, fear, and anger depicted upon her regal and beautiful
countenance.
“It is to you, madam,” said Clarence, approaching towards her, “that I
venture to appeal. Your daughter and I, four long years ago, exchanged
our vows: you flattered me with the hope that those vows were not
displeasing to you; since then a misunderstanding, deadly to my
happiness and to hers, divided us. I come now to explain it. My birth
may have seemed obscure; I come to clear it: my conduct doubtful; I come
to vindicate it. I find Lord Ulswater my rival. I am willing to compare
my pretensions to his. I acknowledge that he has titles which I have
not; that he has wealth, to which mine is but competence: but titles and
wealth, as the means of happiness, are to be referred to your daughter,
to none else. You have only, in an alliance with me, to consider my
character and my lineage: the latter flows from blood as pure as that
which warms the veins of my rival; the former stands already upon an
eminence to which Lord Ulswater in his loftiest visions could never
aspire. For the rest, madam, I adjure you, solemnly, as you value your
peace of mind, your daughter’s happiness, your freedom from the agonies
of future remorse and unavailing regret,--I adjure you not to divorce
those whom God, who speaks in the deep heart and the plighted vow, has
already joined. This is a question in which your daughter’s permanent
woe or lasting happiness from this present hour to the last sand of life
is concerned. It is to her that I refer it: let her be the judge.”
And Clarence moved from Lady Westborough, who, agitated, confused, awed
by the spell of a power and a nature of which she had not dreamed, stood
pale and speechless, vainly endeavouring to reply: he moved from her
towards Lady Flora, who leaned, sobbing and convulsed with contending
emotions, against the wall; but Lord Ulswater, whose fiery blood
was boiling with passion, placed himself between Clarence and the
unfortunate object of the contention.
“Touch her not, approach her not!” he said, with a fierce and menacing
tone. “Till you have proved your pretensions superior to mine, unknown,
presuming, and probably base-born as you are, you will only pass over my
body to your claims.”
Clarence stood still for one moment, evidently striving to master the
wrath which literally swelled his form beyond its ordinary proportions;
and Lady Westborough, recovering herself in the brief pause, passed
between the two, and, taking her daughter’s arm, led her from the
pavilion.
“Stay, madam, for one instant!” cried Clarence, and he caught hold of
her robe.
Lady Westborough stood quite erect and still; and, drawing her stately
figure to its full height, said with that quiet dignity by which a
woman so often stills the angrier passions of men, “I lay the prayer and
command of a mother upon you, Lord Ulswater, and on you, sir, whatever
be your real rank and name, not to make mine and my daughter’s presence
the scene of a contest which dishonours both. Still further, if Lady
Flora’s hand and my approval be an object of desire to either, I make
it a peremptory condition with both of you, that a dispute already
degrading to her name pass not from word to act. For you, Mr. Linden,
if so I may call you, I promise that my daughter shall be left free and
unbiased to give that reply to your singular conduct which I doubt not
her own dignity and sense will suggest.”
“By Heaven!” exclaimed Lord Ulswater, utterly beside himself with rage
which, suppressed at the beginning of Lady Westborough’s speech, had
been kindled into double fury by its conclusion, “you will not suffer
Lady Flora, no, nor any one but her affianced bridegroom, her only
legitimate defender, to answer this arrogant intruder! You cannot think
that her hand, the hand of my future wife, shall trace line or word to
one who has so insulted her with his addresses and me with his rivalry.”
“Man!” cried Clarence, abruptly, and seizing Lord Ulswater fiercely by
the arm, “there are some causes which will draw fire from ice: beware,
beware how you incense me to pollute my soul with the blood of a--”
“What!” exclaimed Lord Ulswater.
Clarence bent down and whispered one word in his ear.
Had that word been the spell with which the sorcerers of old disarmed
the fiend, it could not have wrought a greater change upon Lord
Ulswater’s mien and face. He staggered back several paces, the glow
of his swarthy cheek faded into a deathlike paleness; the word which
passion had conjured to his tongue died there in silence; and he stood
with eyes dilated and fixed on Clarence’s face, on which their gaze
seemed to force some unwilling certainty.
But Linden did not wait for him to recover his self-possession: he
hurried after Lady Westborough, who, with her daughter, was hastening
home.
“Pardon me, Lady Westborough,” he said, as he approached, with a tone
and air of deep respect, “pardon me; but will you suffer me to hope that
Lady Flora and yourself will, in a moment of greater calmness, consider
over all I have said? and-that she--that you, Lady Flora” (added
he, changing the object of his address), “will vouchsafe one line of
unprejudiced, unbiased reply, to a love which, however misrepresented
and calumniated, has in it, I dare to say, nothing that can disgrace
her to whom, with an enduring constancy, and undimmed, though unhoping,
ardour, it has been inviolably dedicated?”
Lady Flora, though she spoke not, lifted her eyes to his; and in that
glance was a magic which made his heart burn with a sudden and flashing
joy that atoned for the darkness of years.
“I assure you, sir,” said Lady Westborough, touched, in spite of
herself, with the sincerity and respect of Clarence’s bearing, “that
Lady Flora will reply to any letter of explanation or proposal: for
myself, I will not even see her answer. Where shall it be sent to you?”
“I have taken my lodgings at the inn by your park gates. I shall remain
there till--till--”
Clarence paused, for his heart was full; and, leaving the sentence to
be concluded as his listeners pleased, he drew himself aside from their
path and suffered them to proceed.
As he was feeding his eyes with the last glimpse of their forms, ere a
turn in the grounds snatched them from his view, he heard a rapid step
behind, and Lord Ulswater, approaching, laid his hand upon Linden’s
shoulder, and said calmly,--
“Are you furnished with proof to support the word you uttered?”
“I am!” replied Clarence, haughtily.
“And will you favour me with it?”
“At your leisure, my lord,” rejoined Clarence.
“Enough! Name your time and I will attend you.”
“On Tuesday: I require till then to produce my witnesses.”
“So be it; yet stay: on Tuesday I have military business at W----, some
miles hence; the next day let it be; the place of meeting where you
please.”
“Here, then, my lord,” answered Clarence; “you have insulted me grossly
before Lady Westborough and your affianced bride, and before them my
vindication and answer should be given.”
“You are right,” said Lord Ulswater; “be it here, at the hour of
twelve.” Clarence bowed his assent and withdrew. Lord Ulswater remained
on the spot, with downcast eyes, and a brow on which thought had
succeeded passion.
“If true,” said he aloud, though unconsciously, “if this be true, why,
then I owe him reparation, and he shall have it at my hands. I owe it to
him on my account, and that of one now no more. Till we meet, I will
not again see Lady Flora; after that meeting, perhaps I may resign her
forever.”
And with these words the young nobleman, who, despite of many evil and
overbearing qualities, had, as we have said, his redeeming virtues, in
which a capricious and unsteady generosity was one, walked slowly to the
house; wrote a brief note to Lady Westborough, the purport of which the
next chapter will disclose; and then, summoning his horse, flung himself
on its back, and rode hastily away.