“I understand you, sir,” said Captain Jekyl; “you mean the affair of Miss Mowbray?”
“Spare me on that subject, sir!” said Tyrrel. “Hitherto I have disputed my most important rights—rights which involved my rank in society, my fortune, the honour of my mother—with something like composure; but do not say more on the topic you have touched upon, unless you would have before you a madman!—Is it possible for you, sir, to have heard even the outline of this story, and to imagine that I can ever reflect on the cold-blooded and most inhuman stratagem, which this friend of yours prepared for two unfortunates, without”—He started up, and walked impetuously to and fro. “Since the Fiend himself interrupted the happiness of perfect innocence, there was never such an act of treachery—never such schemes of happiness destroyed—never such inevitable misery prepared for two wretches who had the idiocy to repose perfect confidence in him!—Had there been passion in his conduct, it had been the act of a man—a wicked man, indeed, but still a human creature, acting under the influence of human feelings—but his was the deed of a calm, cold, calculating demon, actuated by the basest and most sordid motives of self-interest, joined, as I firmly believe, to an early and inveterate hatred of one whose claims he considered as at variance with his own.”
“I am sorry to see you in such a temper,” said Captain Jekyl, calmly; “Lord Etherington, I trust, acted on very different motives than those you impute to him; and if you will but listen to me, perhaps something may be struck out which may accommodate these unhappy disputes.”
“Sir,” said Tyrrel, sitting down again, “I will listen to you with calmness, as I would remain calm under the probe of a surgeon tenting a festered wound. But when you touch me to the quick, when you prick the very nerve, you cannot expect me to endure without wincing.”
“I will endeavour, then, to be as brief in the operation as I can,” replied Captain Jekyl, who possessed the advantage of the most admirable composure during the whole conference. “I conclude, Mr. Tyrrel, that the peace, happiness, and honour of Miss Mowbray, are dear to you?”
“Who dare impeach her honour!” said Tyrrel, fiercely; then checking himself, added, in a more moderate tone, but one of deep feeling, “they are dear to me, sir, as my eyesight.”
“My friend holds them in equal regard,” said the Captain; “and has come to the resolution of doing her the most ample justice.”
“He can do her justice no otherwise, than by ceasing to haunt this neighbourhood, to think, to speak, even to dream of her.”
“Lord Etherington thinks otherwise,” said Captain Jekyl; “he believes that if Miss Mowbray has sustained any wrong at his hands, which, of course, I am not called upon to admit, it will be best repaired by the offer to share with her his title, his rank, and his fortune.”
“His title, rank, and fortune, sir, are as much a falsehood as he is himself,” said Tyrrel, with violence —“Marry Clara Mowbray? never!”
“My friend's fortune, you will observe,” replied Jekyl, “does not rest entirely upon the event of the lawsuit with which you, Mr. Tyrrel, now threaten him.—Deprive him, if you can, of the Oakendale estate, he has still a large patrimony by his mother; and besides, as to his marriage with Clara Mowbray, he conceives, that unless it should be the lady's wish to have the ceremony repeated to which he is most desirous to defer his own opinion, they have only to declare that it has already passed between them.”
“A trick, sir!” said Tyrrel, “a vile infamous trick! of which the lowest wretch in Newgate would be ashamed—the imposition of one person for another.”
“Of that, Mr. Tyrrel, I have seen no evidence whatever. The clergyman's certificate is clear—Francis Tyrrel is united to Clara Mowbray in the holy bands of wedlock—such is the tenor—there is a copy—nay, stop one instant, if you please, sir. You say there was an imposition in the case—I have no doubt but you speak what you believe, and what Miss Mowbray told you. She was surprised—forced in some measure from the husband she had just married—ashamed to meet her former lover, to whom, doubtless, she had made many a vow of love, and ne'er a true one—what wonder that, unsupported by her bridegroom, she should have changed her tone, and thrown all the blame of her own inconstancy on the absent swain?—A woman, at a pinch so critical, will make the most improbable excuse, rather than be found guilty on her own confession.”
“There must be no jesting in this case,” said Tyrrel, his cheek becoming pale, and his voice altered with passion.
“I am quite serious, sir,” replied Jekyl; “and there is no law court in Britain that would take the lady's word—all she has to offer, and that in her own cause—against a whole body of evidence direct and circumstantial, showing that she was by her own free consent married to the gentleman who now claims her hand.—Forgive me, sir—I see you are much agitated—I do not mean to dispute your right of believing what you think is most credible—I only use the freedom of pointing out to you the impression which the evidence is likely to make on the minds of indifferent persons.”
“Your friend,” answered Tyrrel, affecting a composure, which, however, he was far from possessing, “may think by such arguments to screen his villainy; but it cannot avail him—the truth is known to Heaven—it is known to me—and there is, besides, one indifferent witness upon earth, who can testify that the most abominable imposition was practised on Miss Mowbray.”
“You mean her cousin,—Hannah Irwin, I think, is her name,” answered Jekyl; “you see I am fully acquainted with all the circumstances of the case. But where is Hannah Irwin to be found?”
“She will appear, doubtless, in Heaven's good time, and to the confusion of him who now imagines the only witness of his treachery—the only one who could tell the truth of this complicated mystery—either no longer lives, or, at least, cannot be brought forward against him, to the ruin of his schemes. Yes, sir, that slight observation of yours has more than explained to me why your friend, or, to call him by his true name, Mr. Valentine Bulmer, has not commenced his machinations sooner, and also why he has commenced them now. He thinks himself certain that Hannah Irwin is not now in Britain, or to be produced in a court of justice—he may find himself mistaken.”
“My friend seems perfectly confident of the issue of his cause,” answered Jekyl; “but for the lady's sake, he is most unwilling to prosecute a suit which must be attended with so many circumstances of painful exposure.”
“Exposure, indeed!” answered Tyrrel; “thanks to the traitor who laid a mine so fearful, and who now affects to be reluctant to fire it.—Oh! how I am bound to curse that affinity that restrains my hands! I would be content to be the meanest and vilest of society, for one hour of vengeance on this unexampled hypocrite!—One thing is certain, sir—your friend will have no living victim. His persecution will kill Clara Mowbray, and fill up the cup of his crimes, with the murder of one of the sweetest——I shall grow a woman, if I say more on the subject!”
“My friend,” said Jekyl, “since you like best to have him so defined, is as desirous as you can be to spare the lady's feelings; and with that view, not reverting to former passages, he has laid before her brother a proposal of alliance, with which Mr. Mowbray is highly pleased.”
“Ha!” said Tyrrel, starting—“And the lady?”—
“And the lady so far proved favourable, as to consent that Lord Etherington shall visit Shaws-Castle.”
“Her consent must have been extorted!” exclaimed Tyrrel.
“It was given voluntarily,” said Jekyl, “as I am led to understand; unless, perhaps, in so far as the desire to veil these very unpleasing transactions may have operated, I think naturally enough, to induce her to sink them in eternal secrecy, by accepting Lord Etherington's hand.—I see, sir, I give you pain, and am sorry for it.—I have no title to call upon you for any exertion of generosity; but, should such be Miss Mowbray's sentiments, is it too much to expect of you, that you will not compromise the lady's honour by insisting upon former claims, and opening up disreputable transactions so long past?”
“Captain Jekyl,” said Tyrrel, solemnly, “I have no claims. Whatever I might have had, were cancelled by the act of treachery through which your friend endeavoured too successfully to supplant me. Were Clara Mowbray as free from her pretended marriage as law could pronounce her, still with me—
