'Would it be a breach of faith for me to break my engagement?' she said.
'You ask?'
'It is a breach of sanity to propound the interrogation,' said her father.
She looked at Willoughby. 'Now?'
He shrugged haughtily.
'Since last night?' she said.
'Last night?'
'Am I not released?'
'Not by me.'
'By your act.'
'My dear Clara!'
'Have you not virtually disengaged me?'
'I who claim you as mine?'
'Can you?'
'I do and must.'
'After last night?'
'Tricks! shufflings! jabber of a barbarian woman upon the evolutions of a serpent!' exclaimed Dr. Middleton. 'You were to capitulate, or to furnish reasons for your refusal. You have none. Give him your hand, girl, according to the compact. I praised you to him for returning within the allotted term, and now forbear to disgrace yourself and me.'
'Is he perfectly free to offer his? Ask him, papa.'
'Perform your duty. Do let us have peace!'
'Perfectly free! as on the day when I offered it first.' Willoughby frankly waved his honourable hand.
His face was blanched: enemies in the air seemed to have whispered things to her: he doubted the fidelity of the Powers above.
'Since last night?' said she.
'Oh! if you insist, I reply, since last night.'
'You know what I mean, Sir Willoughby.'
'Oh! certainly.'
'You speak the truth?'
''Sir Willoughby! ' her father ejaculated in wrath. 'But will you explain what you mean, epitome that you are of all the contradictions and mutabilities ascribed to women from the beginning! 'Certainly', he says, and knows no more than I. She begs grace for an hour, and returns with a fresh store of evasions, to insult the man she has injured. It is my humiliation to confess that our share in this contract is rescued from public ignominy by his generosity. Nor can I congratulate him on his fortune, should he condescend to bear with you to the utmost; for instead of the young woman I supposed myself to be bestowing on him, I see a fantastical planguncula enlivened by the wanton tempers of a nursery chit. If one may conceive a meaning in her, in miserable apology for such behaviour, some spirit of jealousy informs the girl.'
'I can only remark that there is no foundation for it,' said Willoughby. 'I am willing to satisfy you, Clara. Name the person who discomposes you. I can scarcely imagine one to exist: but who can tell?'
She could name no person. The detestable imputation of jealousy would be confirmed if she mentioned a name: and indeed L?titia was not to be named.
He pursued his advantage: 'Jealousy is one of the fits I am a stranger to, — I fancy, sir, that gentlemen have dismissed it. I speak for myself. — But I can make allowances. In some cases, it is considered a compliment; and often a word will soothe it. The whole affair is so senseless! However, I will enter the witness-box, or stand at the prisoner's bar! Anything to quiet a distempered mind.'
'Of you, sir,' said Dr. Middleton, 'might a parent be justly proud.'
'It is not jealousy; I could not be jealous!' Clara cried, stung by the very passion; and she ran through her brain for a suggestion to win a sign of meltingness if not esteem from her father. She was not an iron maiden, but one among the nervous natures which live largely in the moment, though she was then sacrificing it to her nature's deep dislike. 'You may be proud of me again, papa.'
She could hardly have uttered anything more impolitic.
'Optume; but deliver yourself ad rem,' he rejoined, alarmingly pacified. 'Firmavit fidem. Do you likewise, and double on us no more like puss in the field.'
'I wish to see Miss Dale,' she said.
Up flew the Rev. Doctor's arms in wrathful despair resembling an imprecation.
'She is at the cottage. You could have seen her,' said Willoughby.
Evidently she had not.
'Is it untrue that last night, between twelve o'clock and one, in the drawing-room, you proposed marriage to Miss Dale?' He became convinced that she must have stolen down-stairs during his colloquy with L?titia, and listened at the door.
'On behalf of old Vernon?' he said, lightly laughing. 'The idea is not novel, as you know. They are suited, if they could see it. — L?titia Dale and my cousin Vernon Whitford, sir.'
'Fairly schemed, my friend, and I will say for you, you have the patience, Willoughby, of a husband!'
Willoughby bowed to the encomium, and allowed some fatigue to be visible. He half yawned: 'I claim no happier title, sir,' and made light of the weariful discussion.
Clara was shaken: she feared that Crossjay had heard incorrectly, or that Colonel De Craye had guessed erroneously. It was too likely that Willoughby should have proposed Vernon to L?titia.
There was nothing to reassure her save the vision of the panic amazement of his face at her persistency in speaking of Miss Dale. She could have declared on oath that she was right, while admitting all the suppositions to be against her. And unhappily all the Delicacies (a doughty battalion for the defence of ladies until they enter into difficulties and are shorn of them at a blow, bare as dairymaids), all the body-guard of a young gentlewoman, the drawing-room sylphides, which bear her train, which wreathe her hair, which modulate her voice and tone her complexion, which are arrows and shield to awe the creature man, forbade her utterance of what she felt, on pain of instant fulfilment of their oft-repeated threat of late to leave her to the last remnant of a protecting sprite. She could not, as in a dear melodrama, from the aim of a pointed finger denounce him, on the testimony of her instincts, false of speech, false in deed. She could not even declare that she doubted his truthfulness. The refuge of a sullen fit, the refuge of tears, the pretext of a mood, were denied her now by the rigour of those laws of decency which are a garment to ladies of pure breeding.
'One more respite, papa,' she implored him, bitterly conscious of the closer tangle her petition involved, and, if it must be betrayed of her, perceiving in an illumination how the knot might become so woefully Gordian that haply in a cloud of wild events the intervention of a gallant gentleman out of heaven, albeit in the likeness of one of earth, would have to cut it: her cry within, as she succumbed to weakness, being fervider, 'Anything but marry this one!' She was faint with strife and dejected, a condition in the young when their imaginative energies hold revel uncontrolled and are projectively desperate.
'No respite!' said Willoughby, genially.
'And I say, no respite!' observed her father. 'You have assumed a position that has not been granted you, Clara Middleton.'
'I cannot bear to offend you, father.'
'Him! Your duty is not to offend him. Address your excuses to him. I refuse to be dragged over the same ground, to reiterate the same command perpetually.'
'If authority is deputed to me, I claim you,' said Willoughby.
'You have not broken faith with me?'
'Assuredly not, or would it be possible for me to press my claim?'
'And join the right hand to the right,' said Dr. Middleton; 'no, it would not be possible. What insane root she has been nibbling, I know not, but she must consign herself to the guidance of those whom the gods have not abandoned, until her intellect is liberated. She was once… there: I look not back — if she it was, and no simulacrum of a reasonable daughter. I welcome the appearance of my friend Mr. Whitford. He is my sea-bath and supper on the beach of Troy, after the day's battle and dust.'
