St. Ronan's Well by Walter Scott (ebook offline reader .txt) 📕

longer regard you as my father's daughter. Think what you are giving up—the affection and protection of a brother—and for what?—merely for an idle point of etiquette.—You cannot, I suppose, even in the workings of your romantic brain, imagine that the days of Clarissa Harlowe and Harriet Byron are come back again, when women were married by main force? and it is monstrous vanity in you to suppose that Lord Etherington, since he has honoured you with any thoughts at all, will not be satisfied with a proper and civil refusal—You are no such prize, methinks, that the days of romance are to come back for you.”

“I care not what days they are,” said Clara—“I tell you I will not see Lord Etherington, or any one else, upon such preliminaries as you have stated—I cannot—I will not—and I ought not.—Had you meant me to receive him, which can be a matter of no consequence whatever, you should have left him on the footing of an ordinary visitor—as it is, I will not see him.”

“You shall see and hear him both,” said Mowbray; “you shall find me as obstinate as you are—as willing to forget I am a brother, as you to forget that you have one.”

“It is time, then,” replied Clara, “that this[Pg 65] house, once our father's, should no longer hold us both. I can provide for myself, and may God bless you!”

“You take it coolly, madam,” said her brother, walking through the apartment with much anxiety both of look and gesture.

“I do,” she answered, “for it is what I have often foreseen—Yes, brother, I have often foreseen that you would make your sister the subject of your plots and schemes, so soon as other stakes failed you. That hour is come, and I am, as you see, prepared to meet it.”

“And where may you propose to retire to?” said Mowbray. “I think that I, your only relation and natural guardian, have a right to know that—my honour and that of my family is concerned.”

“Your honour!” she retorted, with a keen glance at him; “your interest, I suppose you mean, is somehow connected with the place of my abode.—But keep yourself patient—the den of the rock, the linn of the brook, should be my choice, rather than a palace without my freedom.”

“You are mistaken, however,” said Mowbray, sternly, “if you hope to enjoy more freedom than I think you capable of making a good use of. The law authorizes, and reason, and even affection, require, that you should be put under restraint for your own safety, and that of your character. You roamed the woods a little too much in my father's time, if all stories be true.”

“I did—I did indeed, Mowbray,” said Clara, weeping; “God pity me, and forgive you for upbraiding me with my state of mind—I know I cannot sometimes trust my own judgment; but is it for you to remind me of this?”[Pg 66]

Mowbray was at once softened and embarrassed.

“What folly is this?” he said; “you say the most cutting things to me—are ready to fly from my house—and when I am provoked to make an angry answer, you burst into tears!”

“Say you did not mean what you said, my dearest brother!” exclaimed Clara; “O say you did not mean it!—Do not take my liberty from me—it is all I have left, and, God knows, it is a poor comfort in the sorrows I undergo. I will put a fair face on every thing—will go down to the Well—will wear what you please, and say what you please—but O! leave me the liberty of my solitude here—let me weep alone in the house of my father—and do not force a broken-hearted sister to lay her death at your door.—My span must be a brief one, but let not your hand shake the sand-glass!—Disturb me not—let me pass quietly—I do not ask this so much for my sake as for your own. I would have you think of me, sometimes, Mowbray, after I am gone, and without the bitter reflections which the recollection of harsh usage will assuredly bring with it. Pity me, were it but for your own sake.—I have deserved nothing but compassion at your hand—There are but two of us on earth, why should we make each other miserable?”

She accompanied these entreaties with a flood of tears, and the most heart-bursting sobs. Mowbray knew not what to determine. On the one hand, he was bound by his promise to the Earl; on the other, his sister was in no condition to receive such a visitor; nay, it was most probable, that if he adopted the strong measure of compelling her to receive him, her behaviour would probably be such as totally to break off the projected match, on the[Pg 67] success of which he had founded so many castles in the air. In this dilemma, he had again recourse to argument.

“Clara,” he said, “I am, as I have repeatedly said, your only relation and guardian—if there be any real reason why you ought not to receive, and, at least, make a civil reply to such a negotiation as the Earl of Etherington has thought fit to open, surely I ought to be intrusted with it. You enjoyed far too much of that liberty which you seem to prize so highly during my father's lifetime—in the last years of it at least—have you formed any foolish attachment during that time, which now prevents you from receiving such a visit as Lord Etherington has threatened?”

“Threatened!—the expression is well chosen,” said Miss Mowbray; “and nothing can be more dreadful than such a threat, excepting its accomplishment.”

“I am glad your spirits are reviving,” replied her brother; “but that is no answer to my question.”

“Is it necessary,” said Clara, “that one must have actually some engagement or entanglement, to make them unwilling to be given in marriage, or even to be pestered upon such a subject?—Many young men declare they intend to die bachelors, why may not I be permitted to commence old maid at three-and-twenty?—Let me do so, like a kind brother, and there were never nephews and nieces so petted and so scolded, so nursed and so cuffed by a maiden aunt, as your children, when you have them, shall be by aunt Clara.”

“And why not say all this to Lord Etherington?” said Mowbray; “wait until he propose such a terrible bugbear as matrimony, before you refuse to[Pg 68] receive him. Who knows, the whim that he hinted at may have passed away—he was, as you say, flirting with Lady Binks, and her ladyship has a good deal of address, as well as beauty.”

“Heaven improve both, (in an honest way,) if she will but keep his lordship to herself!” said Clara.

“Well, then,” continued her brother, “things standing thus, I do not think you will have much trouble with his lordship—no more, perhaps, than just to give him a civil denial. After having spoken on such a subject to a man of my condition, he cannot well break off without you give him an apology.”

“If that is all,” said Clara, “he shall, as soon as he gives me an opportunity, receive such an answer as will leave him at liberty to woo any one whatsoever of Eve's daughters, excepting Clara Mowbray. Methinks I am so eager to set the captive free, that I now wish as much for his lordship's appearance as I feared it a little while since.”

“Nay, nay, but let us go fair and softly,” said her brother. “You are not to refuse him before he asks the question.”

“Certainly,” said Clara; “but I well know how to manage that—he shall never ask the question at all. I will restore Lady Binks's admirer, without accepting so much as a civility in ransom.”

“Worse and worse, Clara,” answered Mowbray; “you are to remember he is my friend and guest, and he must not be affronted in my house. Leave things to themselves.—Besides, consider an instant, Clara—had you not better take a little time for reflection in this case? The offer is a splendid one—title—fortune—and, what is more, a fortune which you will be well entitled to share largely in.”[Pg 69]

“This is beyond our implied treaty,” said Clara. “I have yielded more than ever I thought I should have done, when I agreed that this Earl should be introduced to me on the footing of a common visitor; and now you talk favourably of his pretensions. This is an encroachment, Mowbray, and now I shall relapse into my obstinacy, and refuse to see him at all.”

“Do as you will,” replied Mowbray, sensible that it was only by working on her affections that he had any chance of carrying a point against her inclination,—“Do as you will, my dear Clara; but, for Heaven's sake, wipe your eyes.”

“And behave myself,” said she, trying to smile as she obeyed him,—“behave myself, you would say, like folks of this world; but the quotation is lost on you, who never read either Prior or Shakspeare.”

“I thank Heaven for that,” said Mowbray. “I have enough to burden my brain, without carrying such a lumber of rhymes in it as you and Lady Pen do.—Come, that is right; go to the mirror, and make yourself decent.”

A woman must be much borne down indeed by pain and suffering, when she loses all respect for her external appearance. The madwoman in Bedlam wears her garland of straw with a certain air of pretension; and we have seen a widow whom we knew to be most sincerely affected by a recent deprivation, whose weeds, nevertheless, were arranged with a dolorous degree of grace, which amounted almost to coquetry. Clara Mowbray had also, negligent as she seemed to be of appearances, her own art of the toilet, although of the most rapid and most simple character. She took off her little[Pg 70] riding-hat, and, unbinding a lace of Indian gold which retained her locks, shook them in dark and glossy profusion over her very handsome form, which they overshadowed down to her slender waist; and while her brother stood looking on her with a mixture of pride, affection, and compassion, she arranged them with a large comb, and, without the assistance of any femme d'atours, wove them, in the course of a few minutes, into such a natural head-dress as we see on the statues of the Grecian nymphs.

“Now let me but find my best muff,” she said, “come prince and peer, I shall be ready to receive them.”

“Pshaw! your muff—who has heard of such a thing these twenty years? Muffs were out of fashion before you were born.”

“No matter, John,” replied his sister; “when a woman wears a muff, especially a determined old maid like myself, it is a sign she has no intentions to scratch; and therefore the muff serves all the purposes of a white flag, and prevents the necessity of drawing on a glove, so prudentially recommended by the motto of our cousins, the M'Intoshes.”[4]

“Be it as you will, then,” said Mowbray; “for other than you do will it, you will not suffer it to be.—But how is this!—another billet?—We are in request this morning.”

“Now, Heaven send his lordship may have judiciously considered all the risks which he is sure to encounter on this charmed ground, and resolved to leave his adventure unattempted,” said Miss Mowbray.

[Pg 71]

Her brother glanced a look of displeasure at her, as he broke the seal of the letter, which was addressed to him with the words, “Haste and secrecy,” written on the envelope. The contents, which greatly surprised him, we remit to the commencement of the next chapter.[Pg 72]

CHAPTER V. PRIVATE INFORMATION.

——Ope this letter;
I can produce a champion that will prove
What is avouched there.——

King Lear.

The billet which Mowbray received, and read in his sister's presence, contained these words:—