Lord Avondale wrote to Glenarvon, desiring an immediate interview.
He followed him to England; and it was some months before he could
find where he was. He sought him in every place of public resort,
amidst the gay troop of companions who were accustomed to surround
him, and in the haunts of his most lonely retirement. At length he
heard that he was expected to return to Ireland, after a short cruize.
Lord Avondale waited the moment of his arrival; watched on the eve
of his return, and traced him to the very spot, where, alas! he had
so often met his erring partner.
It was the last evening in June. Glenarvon stood upon the high cliff;
and Lord Avondale approached and passed him twice. “Glenarvon,”
at length he cried, “do you know me, or are you resolved to appear
ignorant of my intentions?” “I presume that it is Lord Avondale whom
I have the honour of addressing.” “You see a wretch before you, who
has neither title, nor country, nor fame, nor parentage. You know my
wrongs. My heart is bleeding. Defend yourself; for one of us must
die.” “Avondale,” said Lord Glenarvon, “I will never defend myself
against you. You are the only man who dares with impunity address me
in this tone and language. I accept not this challenge. Remember that
I stand before you defenceless. My arm shall never be raised against
yours.”
“Take this, and defend yourself,” cried Lord Avondale in violent
agitation. “I know you a traitor to every feeling of manly principle,
honour and integrity. I know you; and your mock generosity, and lofty
language shall not save you.” “Is it come to this?” said Glenarvon,
smiling with bitterness. “Then take thy will. I stand prepared. ’Tis
well to risk so much for such a virtuous wife! She is an honourable
lady—a most chaste and loving wife. I hope she greeted thee on thy
return with much tenderness: I counselled her so to do; and when we
have settled this affair, after the most approved fashion, then bear
from me my best remembrances and love. Aye, my love, Avondale: ’tis
a light charge to carry, and will not burthen thee.”
“Defend yourself,” cried Lord Avondale fiercely. “If it is thy mad
wish, then be it so, and now stand off.” Saying this, Glenarvon
accepted the pistol, and at the same moment that Lord Avondale
discharged his, he fired in the air. “This shall not save you,”
cried Lord Avondale, in desperation. “Treat me not like a child.
Glenarvon, prepare. One of us shall die.—Traitor!—villain!” “Madman,”
said Glenarvon scornfully, “take your desire; and if one of us
indeed must fall, be it you.” As he spoke, his livid countenance
betrayed the malignity of his soul. He discharged his pistol full at
his adversary’s breast. Lord Avondale staggered for a moment. Then,
with a sudden effort, “The wound is trifling,” he cried, and, flying
from the proffered assistance of Glenarvon, mounted his horse, and
gallopped from the place.
No seconds, no witnesses, attended this dreadful scene. It took place
upon the bleak moors behind Inis Tara’s heights, just at the hour of
the setting sun. “I could have loved that man,” said Glenarvon, as he
watched him in the distance. “He has nobleness, generosity, sincerity.
I only assume the appearance of those virtues. My heart and his must
never be compared: therefore I am compelled to hate him:—but O! not
so much as I abhor myself.” Thus saying, he turned with bitterness
from the steep, and descended with a firm step by the side of the
mountain.
Glenarvon stopped not for the rugged pathway; but he paused to look
again upon the stream of Elle, as it came rushing down the valley: and
he paused to cast one glance of welcome upon Inis Tara, Glenarvon bay,
and the harbour terminating the wide extended prospect. The myrtles
and arbutes grew luxuriantly, intermixed with larch and firs. The
air was hot: the ground was parched and dry. The hollow sound of the
forests; the murmuring noise of the waves of the sea; the tinkling
bell that at a distance sounded from the scattered flocks—all filled
his heart with vague remembrances of happier days, and sad forebodings
of future sorrow. As he approached the park of Castle Delaval, he
met with some of the tenantry, who informed him of Calantha’s death.
Miss St. Clare stood before him. Perhaps at that moment his heart was
softened by what he had just heard: I know not; but approaching her,
“St. Clare,” he cried, “give me your hand: it is for the last time I
ask it. I have been absent for some months. I have heard that which
afflicts me. Do not you also greet me unkindly. Pardon the past. I
may have had errors; but to save, to reclaim you, is there any thing
I would not do?” St. Clare made no answer. “You may have discomforts
of which I know not. Perhaps you are poor and unprotected. All that I
possess, I would give you, if that would render you more happy.” Still
she made no reply. “You know not, I fancy, that my castles have been
restored to me, and a gallant ship given me by the English court. I
have sailed, St. Clare: I only now return for a few weeks, before I
am called hence for ever. Accept some mark of my regard; and pardon
an involuntary fault. Give me your hand.”—“Never,” she replied: “all
others, upon this new accession of good fortune, shall greet and
receive you with delight. The world shall smile upon you, Glenarvon;
but I never. I forgave you my own injuries, but not Calantha’s and
my country’s.
“Is it possible, that one so young as you are, and this too but a
first fault, is it possible you can be so unrelenting?”—“A first
fault, Glenarvon! The lessons you have taught were not in vain: they
have been since repeated; but my crimes be on you!”—“Is it not for
your sake, miserable outcast, alone, that I asked you to forgive me?
What is your forgiveness to me? I am wealthy, and protected: am I not?
Tell me, wretched girl, what are you?”—“Solitary, poor, abandoned,
degraded,” said Miss St. Clare: “why do you ask? you know it.”—“And
yet when I offer all things to you, cannot you bring that stubborn
heart to pardon?”—“No: were it in the hour of death, I could not.”—“Oh,
Elinor, do not curse me at that hour. I am miserable enough.”—“The
curse of a broken heart is terrible,” said Miss St. Clare, as she
left him; “but it is already given. Vain is that youthful air; vain,
my lord, your courtesy, and smiles, and fair endowments:—the curse
of a broken heart is on you: and, by night and by day, it cries to
you as from the grave. Farewell, Glenarvon: we shall meet no more.”
Glenarvon descended by the glen: his followers passed him in the well
known haunt; but each as they passed him muttered unintelligible sounds
of discontent: though the words, “ill luck to you,” not unfrequently
fell upon his ear.