brother, and the desperate circumstances to which he had reduced himself, seemed all to concur to render some horrid act of violence not an improbable termination of this strange interview.
Mowbray folded his arms, without unclenching his hands, or raising his head, while his sister continued on the floor, clasping him round the knees with all her strength, and begging piteously for her life and for mercy.
“Fool!” he said, at last, “let me go!—Who cares for thy worthless life?—who cares if thou live or die? Live, if thou canst—and be the hate and scorn of every one else, as much as thou art mine!”
He grasped her by the shoulder, with one hand pushed her from him, and, as she arose from the floor, and again pressed to throw her arms around his neck, he repulsed her with his arm and hand, with a push—or blow— it might be termed either one or the other,—violent enough, in her weak state, to have again extended her on the ground, had not a chair received her as she fell. He looked at her with ferocity, grappled a moment in his pocket; then ran to the window, and throwing the sash violently up, thrust himself as far as he could without falling, into the open air. Terrified, and yet her feelings of his unkindness predominating even above her fears, Clara continued to exclaim.
“Oh, brother, say you did not mean this!—Oh, say you did not mean to strike me!—Oh, whatever I have deserved, be not you the executioner!—It is not manly—it is not natural—there are but two of us in the world!”
He returned no answer; and, observing that he continued to stretch himself from the window, which was in the second story of the building, and overlooked the court, a new cause of apprehension mingled, in some measure, with her personal fears. Timidly, and with streaming eyes and uplifted hands, she approached her angry brother, and, fearfully, yet firmly, seized the skirt of his coat, as if anxious to preserve him from the effects of that despair, which so lately seemed turned against her, and now against himself.
He felt the pressure of her hold, and drawing himself angrily back, asked her sternly what she wanted.
“Nothing,” she said, quitting her hold of his coat; “but what—what did he look after so anxiously?”
“After the devil!” he answered, fiercely; then drawing in his head, and taking her hand, “By my soul, Clara —it is true, if ever there was truth in such a tale!—He stood by me just now, and urged me to murder thee!—What else could have put my hunting-knife into my thought?—Ay, by God, and into my very hand—at such a moment?— Yonder I could almost fancy I see him fly, the wood, and the rock, and the water, gleaming back the dark-red furnace-light, that is shed on them by his dragon wings! By my soul, I can hardly suppose it fancy—I can hardly think but that I was under the influence of an evil spirit—under an act of fiendish possession! But gone as he is, gone let him be—and thou, too ready implement of evil, be thou gone after him!” He drew from his pocket his right hand, which had all this time held his hunting-knife, and threw the implement into the court-yard as he spoke, then, with a sad quietness, and solemnity of manner, shut the window, and led his sister by the hand to her usual seat, which her tottering steps scarce enabled her to reach. “Clara,” he said, after a pause of mournful silence, “we must think what is to be done, without passion or violence—there may be something for us in the dice yet, if we do not throw away our game. A blot is never a blot till it is hit—dishonour concealed, is not dishonour in some respects.—Dost thou attend to me, wretched girl?” he said, suddenly and sternly raising his voice.
“Yes, brother—yes, indeed, brother!” she hastily replied, terrified even by delay again to awaken his ferocious and ungovernable temper.
“Thus it must be, then,” he said. “You must marry this Etherington—there is no help for it, Clara—You cannot complain of what your own vice and folly have rendered inevitable.”
“But, brother!”—said the trembling girl.
“Be silent. I know all that you would say. You love him not, you would say. I love him not, no more than you. Nay, what is more, he loves you not; if he did, I might scruple to give you to him, you being such as you have owned yourself. But you shall wed him out of hate, Clara—or for the interest of your family—or for what reason you will—But wed him you shall and must.”
“Brother—dearest brother—one single word!”
“Not of refusal or expostulation—that time is gone by,” said her stern censurer. “When I believed thee what I thought thee this morning, I might advise you, but I could not compel. But, since the honour of our family has been disgraced by your means, it is but just, that, if possible, its disgrace should be hidden; and it shall,—ay, if selling you for a slave would tend to conceal it!”
“You do worse—you do worse by me! A slave in an open market may be bought by a kind master—you do not give me that chance—you wed me to one who”——
“Fear him not, nor the worst that he can do, Clara,” said her brother. “I know on what terms he marries; and being once more your brother, as your obedience in this matter will make me, he had better tear his flesh from his bones with his own teeth, than do thee any displeasure! By Heaven, I hate him so much—for he has outreached me every way—that methinks it is some consolation that he will not receive in thee the excellent creature I thought thee!—Fallen as thou art, thou art still too good for him.”
Encouraged by the more gentle and almost affectionate tone in which her brother spoke, Clara could not help saying, although almost in a whisper, “I trust it will not be so—I trust he will consider his own condition, honour, and happiness, better than to share it with me.”
“Let him utter such a scruple if he dares,” said Mowbray—“But he dares not hesitate—he knows that the instant he recedes from addressing you, he signs his own death-warrant or mine, or perhaps that of both; and his views, too, are of a kind that will not be relinquished on a point of scrupulous delicacy merely. Therefore, Clara, nourish no such thought in your heart as that there is the least possibility of your escaping this marriage! The match is booked—Swear you will not hesitate.”
“I will not,” she said, almost breathlessly, terrified lest he was about to start once more into the fit of unbridled fury which had before seized on him.
“Do not even whisper or hint an objection, but submit to your fate, for it is inevitable.”
“I will—submit”—answered Clara, in the same trembling accent.
“And I,” he said, “will spare you—at least at present—and it may be for ever—all enquiry into the guilt which you have confessed. Rumours there were of misconduct, which reached my ears even in England; but who could have believed them that looked on you daily, and witnessed your late course of life?—On this subject I will be at present silent—perhaps may not again touch on it—that is, if you do nothing to thwart my pleasure, or to avoid the fate which circumstances render unavoidable.—And now it is late—retire, Clara, to your bed—think on what I have said as what necessity has determined, and not my selfish pleasure.”
He held out his hand, and she placed, but not without reluctant terror, her trembling palm in his. In this manner, and with a sort of mournful solemnity, as if they had been in attendance upon a funeral, he handed his sister through a gallery hung with old family pictures, at the end of which was Clara's bedchamber. The moon, which at this moment looked out through a huge volume of mustering clouds that had long been boding storm, fell on the two last descendants of that ancient family, as they glided hand in hand, more like the ghosts of the deceased than like living persons, through the hall and amongst the portraits of their forefathers. The same thoughts were in the breast of both, but neither attempted to say, while they cast a flitting glance on the pallid and decayed representations, “How little did these anticipate this catastrophe of their house!” At the door of the bedroom Mowbray quitted his sister's hand, and said, “Clara, you should to-night thank God, that saved you from a great danger, and me from a deadly sin.”
“I will,” she answered—“I will.” And, as if her terror had been anew excited by this allusion to what had passed, she bid her brother hastily good-night, and was no sooner within her apartment, than he heard her turn the key in the lock, and draw two bolts besides.
“I understand you, Clara,” muttered Mowbray between his teeth, as he heard one bar drawn after another. “But if you could earth yourself under Ben Nevis, you could not escape what fate has destined for you.—Yes!” he said to himself, as he walked with slow and moody pace through the moonlight gallery, uncertain whether to return to the parlour, or to retire to his solitary chamber, when his attention was roused by a noise in the court- yard.
The night was not indeed very far advanced, but it had been so long since Shaws-Castle received a guest, that had Mowbray not heard the rolling of wheels in the court-yard, he might have thought rather of housebreakers than of visitors. But, as the sound of a carriage and horses was distinctly heard, it instantly occurred to him, that the guest must be Lord Etherington, come, even at this late hour, to speak with him on the reports which were current to his sister's prejudice, and perhaps to declare his addresses to her were at an end. Eager to know the worst, and to bring matters to a decision, he re-entered the apartment he had just left, where
