_Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_
_London, Dover Street_
Thank you, Fairfax, for your speed and precautions, which I must
request you not to slacken. Do not let the lad escape you: his
appearance here would be ruin. Let but my grand scheme be completed,
and then I care not though the legions of hell were to rise, and mow
and run a tilt at me. I would face their whole fury. The scene would
delight me. Let them come all! I burn to turn upon and rend them! The
more desperate the more grateful.
I told you, Fairfax, she hated me! I have it now from her own mouth!
She feels I am become her foe! My hand is already upon her! My deepest
darkest thoughts of vengeance do not exceed her imagination.
And yet she fears me not! He; words, her looks, her gestures are all
cool, firm defiance! She is a miracle, Fairfax! A miracle! But I will
overmatch her. A heroine! She would have unhorsed Orlando himself had
she lived in the times of the knights Paladin.
I am an insufferable booby, an eternal lunatic, for having first
thought of quarrelling with her. But it is too late! I might have
foreseen the advantages I give a woman like her. She openly,
magnanimously tells me what my intents are, and then spurns at them.
She keeps her anger under indeed, but does not repress its energy; a
proof of the subjection in which she holds her passions. She once
endeavoured to teach me this art, would I but have listened. But that
is past!
I could not have thought it was in woman! The poor, wailing,
watery-eyed beings I had before encountered would not suffer me to
suppose a female could possess the high courage of the daring, noble
mind. Never but one short moment did I overtop her: nor are there any
means but those I then used. Inspire her with the dread of offending
what she thinks principle, and she becomes a coward!
But I will rouse! I will soar above her, will subdue her, will have her
prostrate in humble submission, or perish! In the presence of witnesses
I feel I cannot succeed; but singly, face to face, passion to passion,
and being to being, distinct and eminent as she stands above all
woman-kind, I will yet prove to her she is not the equal of the man
Clifton.
She herself has even thrown the gauntlet. I have had such a scene with
her! A public exhibition! I cannot relate the manner of it. I dare not
trust my brain with the full reminiscence.
Why did I quarrel with her? She meant me well--Tortures!--I am a
lunatic to tease myself with such recollections. This is a damned,
wrong headed, ignorant, blundering, vile world; and I cannot see my way
in it. I should have had no suspicion that it is all this but for her.
That Henley shall never have her! I'll murder him first! Though the
bottomless pit were to gape and swallow me, he shall not have her! The
contemptible buzzard, Sir Arthur, is now completely veered about. But
in vain! It shall not be! By hell it shall not!
This fellow, this Henley must some how or other be disposed of. The
contempt of the arrogant peer, her uncle, will harm him but little; for
the lord, with all his dignity, is no match for the plebeian!
Neither will his lordship hastily seek another combat with his niece.
The only advantage I have, in so insignificant an ally, is that of
hereafter making suspicion alight on Henley, and not on me; for I mean
to carry them both off, Henley and Anna. I know not where or how I
shall yet dispose of them, but there is no other mode of accomplishing
vengeance. They must be confined too. I care not how desperate the
means! I will not retract! They shall be taught the danger of raising
up an enemy like me! I will have them at my feet! Will separate them!
Will glut my revenge, and do the deed that shall prevent their ever
meeting more, except perhaps to reproach each other with the madness of
having injured, aggravated, and defied a Clifton!
My whole days are dedicated to this single object. I have been riding
round the skirts of this shapeless monster of a city, on all sides, in
search of lonely tenantless houses; some two of which I mean to provide
with inhabitants. I have met with more than one that are not ill
situated.
But I want agents! Desperados! Hungry and old traders in violence! I
care not where I go for them; have them I will, though I seek them in
the purlieus of infamy and detestation. To succeed by any other means
is impossible. She will not admit me in the same apartment with
herself, nor I believe in the same world, had she the power to exclude
me.
I met her indeed at Lord Fitz-Allen's, where the scene abovementioned
passed; but it was a plan concerted with his lordship, which she easily
detected, and publicly reproached him with his duplicity. I gloried to
hear her; for she had not injured him. A poor compound of pride and
selfishness! Incapable of understanding the worth of such a niece! But
she made him feel his own insignificance.
Henley and she are now never asunder. I have mentioned the maid Laura
to you. She tells me they have long conversations in the morning, long
walks in the afternoon, and at night they have neither of them the
power to rise and separate. But I will come upon them! My spirit at
present is haunting them, never leaves them, girds at and terrifies
them at every instant, during their amorous dalliance! I know it does!
They cannot get quit of me! I am with them, weighing them down,
convulsing them! They feel they are in my gripe!--Hah! The thought is
heart's ease.
When there is no company, and when Sir Arthur is not sitting with them,
this maid, Laura, has that honour. Whence it appears that even these
immaculate souls have some dread of scandal.
And who is it inspires that dread? It is I! They seem to have
discovered that all circumstances, all incidents wear a double face and
that I am the malignant genius who can make which he pleases the true
one--Yes! I am with them! I send the Incubus that hag-rides them in
their dreams! They gasp and would awake, but cannot!
Why could she not have bestowed all this affection upon me? Why could
she not? I once thought a woman might have loved me!--But it seems I
was mistaken--The things that go by the general name of woman might;
but when I came to woman herself, she could not, though she tried.
Would I were any where but in this infernal gloom! It is a detestable
country! This town is one everlasting fog, and its inhabitants are as
cloudy as its skies! Every man broods over some solitary scheme of his
own, avoids human intercourse, and hates to communicate the murk of his
mind. I am in a wilderness. I fly the herd, and the herd flies me. We
pass and scowl enmity at each other, for I begin to look with
abhorrence on the face of man. There is not a single gleam of
cheerfulness around me. The sun has not once shone since the day of my
disappointment, which was itself thick darkness.
Would I could get rid of myself!--I am going to take a ride, and make a
second examination of a large lonely house beyond Knightsbridge. It
lies to the left, and is at a sufficient distance from the road. I
think it will suit my purpose. I must not have far to convey them; and
Laura informs me their walks are most frequently directed through
Hyde-Park, and among the fields at the back of Brompton.
I must be as quiet and appear as little myself as possible; for which
reason I ride without a servant. And though I have been industrious in
reading advertisements, and getting intelligence of empty houses, I
have not ventured to enquire personally. Laura attends them in their
walks; but she is secure.
They must both be seized at the same time, and in a manner that shall
frustrate all research. It will then be concluded they have gone off
together. He is a powerful fellow, a dangerous fellow, and I must be
well provided. He shall never have her, Fairfax! I would die upon the
wheel, hang like a negro, and parch alive in the sun ere he should have
her!