"Hands off, man alive!" cried little Harry, springing in. "Don't lay hands on a woman, sir. The man that lays his hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is a--hallo! it's a letter for Miss Amory.
What's this, Mrs. Lightfoot?"
Mrs. Lightfoot began, in piteous tones of reproach to her husband-- "You unmanly! to treat a woman so who took you off the street. O you coward, to lay your hand upon your wife! Why did I marry you? Why did I leave my lady for you? Why did I spend eight hundred pound in fitting up this house that you might drink and guzzle?"
"She gets letters, and she won't tell me who writes letters," said Mr.
Lightfoot, with a muzzy voice, "it's a family affair, sir. Will you take any thing, sir?"
"I will take this letter to Miss Amory, as I am going to the Park,"
said Foker, turning very pale; and taking it up from the table, which was arranged for the poor landlady's breakfast, he went away.
"He's comin'--dammy, who's a-comin'? Who's J.A., Mrs. Lightfoot --curse me, who's J.A.," cried the husband.
Mrs. Lightfoot cried out, "Be quiet, you tipsy brute, do,"--and running to her bonnet and shawl, threw them on, saw Mr. Foker walking down the street, took the by-lane which skirts it, and ran as quickly as she could to the lodge-gate, Clavering Park. Foker saw a running figure before him, but it was lost when he got to the lodge-gate. He stopped and asked, "Who was that who had just come in? Mrs. Bonner, was it?" He reeled almost in his walk: the trees swam before him. He rested once or twice against the trunks of the naked limes.
Lady Clavering was in the breakfast-room with her son, and her husband yawning over his paper. "Good-morning, Harry," said the Begum. "Here's letters, lots of letters; Lady Rockminster will be here on Tuesday instead of Monday, and Arthur and the major come to-day; and Laura is to go Dr. Portman's, and come to church from there: and--what's the matter, my dear? What makes you so pale Harry?"
"Where is Blanche?" asked Harry, in a sickening voice "not down yet?"
"Blanche is always the last," said the boy, eating muffins; "she's a regular dawdle, she is. When you're not here, she lays in bed till lunch time."
"Be quiet, Frank," said the mother.
Blanche came down presently, looking pale, and with rather an eager look toward Foker; then she advanced and kissed her mother, and had a face beaming with her very best smiles on when she greeted Harry.
"How do you do, sir?" she said, and put out both her hands.
"I'm ill," answered Harry. "I--I've brought a letter for you, Blanche."
"A letter, and from whom is it pray? _Voyons_" she said.
"I don't know--I should like to know," said Foker.
"How can I tell until I see it?" asked Blanche. "Has Mrs. Bonner not told you?" he said, with a shaking voice; "there's some secret. _You_ give her the letter, Lady Clavering."
Lady Clavering, wondering, took the letter from poor Foker's shaking hand, and looked at the superscription. As she looked at it, she too began to shake in every limb, and with a scared face she dropped the letter, and running up to Frank, clutched the boy to her, and burst out with a sob, "Take that away--it's impossible, it's impossible."
"What is the matter?" cried Blanche, with rather a ghastly smile, "the letter is only from--from a poor pensioner and relative of ours."
"It's not true, it's not true," screamed Lady Clavering. "No, my Frank--is it Clavering?"
Blanche had taken up the letter, and was moving with it toward the fire, but Foker ran to her and clutched her arm, "I must see that letter," he said; "give it to me. You shan't burn it."
"You--you shall not treat Miss Amory so in my house," cried the baronet; "give back the letter, by Jove!"
"Read it--and look at her," Blanche cried, pointing to her mother; "it--it was for her I kept the secret! Read it, cruel man!"
And Foker opened and read the letter:
"I have not wrote, my darling Bessy, this three weeks; but this is to give her a _father's blessing_, and I shall come down pretty soon as quick as my note, and intend to see _the ceremony, and my son-in-law_.
I shall put up at Bonner's. I have had a pleasant autumn, and am staying here at an hotel where there _is good company_, and which is kep' _in good style_. I don't know whether I quite approve of your throwing over Mr. P. for Mr. F., and don't think Foker's _such a pretty name_, and from your account of him he seems a _muff_, and _not a beauty_. But he has got _the rowdy_, which is the thing. So no more, my dear little Betsy, till we meet, from your affectionate father,"
"J. AMORY ALTAMONT."
"Read it, Lady Clavering; it is too late to keep it from you now,"
said poor Foker; and the distracted woman, having cast her eyes over it, again broke out into hysterical screams, and convulsively grasped her son.
"They have made an outcast of you, my boy," she said. "They've dishonored your old mother; but I'm innocent, Frank; before God, I'm innocent. I didn't know this, Mr. Foker; indeed, indeed, I didn't."
"I'm sure you didn't," said Foker, going up and kissing her hand.
"Generous, generous Harry," cried out Blanche in an ecstasy. But he withdrew his hand, which was upon _her_ side, and turned from her with a quivering lip. "That's different," he says.
"It was for her sake--for her sake, Harry." Again Miss Amory is in an attitude.
"There was something to be done for mine" said Foker. "I would have taken you, whatever you were. Every thing's talked about in London. I knew that your father had come to--to grief. You don't think it was--it was for your connection I married you? D--it all! I've loved you with all my heart and soul for two years, and you've been playing with me, and cheating me," broke out the young man, with a cry. "Oh, Blanche, Blanche, it's a hard thing, a hard thing!" and he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed behind them.
Blanche thought, "Why didn't I tell him that night when Arthur warned me?"
"Don't refuse her, Harry," cried Lady Clavering. "Take her, take every thing I have. It's all hers, you know, at my death. This boy's disinherited."--(Master Frank, who had been looking as scared at the strange scene, here burst into a loud cry.)--"Take every shilling.
Give me just enough to live, and to go and hide my head with this child, and to fly from both. Oh, they've both been bad, bad men.
Perhaps he's here now. Don't let me see him. Clavering, you coward, defend me from him."
Clavering started up at this proposal. "You ain't serious, Jemima? You don't mean that?" he said. "You won't throw me and Frank over? I didn't know it, so help me----. Foker I'd no more idea of it than the dead--until the fellow came and found me out, the d--d escaped convict scoundrel."
"The what?" said Foker. Blanche gave a scream.
"Yes," screamed out the baronet in his turn, "yes, a d--d runaway convict--a fellow that forged his father-in-law's name--a d--d attorney, and killed a fellow in Botany Bay, hang him--and ran into the Bush, curse him; I wish he'd died there. And he came to me, a good six years ago and robbed me; and I've been ruining myself to keep him, the infernal scoundrel! And Pendennis knows it, and Strong knows it, and that d--d Morgan knows it, and she knows it, ever so long; and I never would tell it, never: and I kept it from my wife."
"And you saw him, and you didn't kill him, Clavering, you coward?"
said the wife of Amory. "Come away, Frank; your father's a coward. I am dishonored, but I'm your old mother, and you'll--you'll love me, won't you?"
Blanche _eploree_, went up to her mother; but Lady Clavering shrank from her with a sort of terror. "Don't touch me," she said; "you've no heart; you never had. I see all now. I see why that coward was going to give up his place in Parliament to Arthur; yes, that coward! and why you threatened that you would make me give you half Frank's fortune. And when Arthur offered to marry you without a shilling, because he wouldn't rob my boy, you left him, and you took poor Harry.
Have nothing to do with her, Harry. You're good, you are. Don't marry that--that convict's daughter. Come away, Frank, my darling; come to your poor old mother. We'll hide ourselves; but we're honest, yes, we are honest."
All this while a strange feeling of exultation had taken possession of Blanche's mind. That month with poor Harry had been a weary month to her. All his fortune and splendor scarcely sufficed to make the idea of himself supportable. She was weaned of his simple ways, and sick of coaxing and cajoling him.
"Stay, mamma; stay, madam!" she cried out with a gesture, which was always appropriate, though rather theatrical; "I have no heart? have I? I keep the secret of my mother's shame. I give up my rights to my half-brother and my bastard brother--yes, my rights and my fortune. I don't betray my father, and for this I have no heart. I'll have my rights now, and the laws of my country shall give them to me. I appeal to my country's laws--yes, my country's laws! The persecuted one returns this day. I desire to go to my father." And the little lady swept round her hand, and thought that she was a heroine.
"You will, will you?" cried out Clavering, with one of his usual oaths. "I'm a magistrate, and dammy, I'll commit him. Here's a chaise coming; perhaps it's him. Let him come."
A chaise was indeed coming up the avenue; and the two women shrieked each their loudest, expecting at that moment to see Altamont arrive.
The door opened, and Mr. Morgan announced Major Pendennis and Mr.
Pendennis, who entered, and found all parties engaged in this fierce quarrel. A large screen fenced the breakfast-room from the hall; and it is probable that, according to his custom, Mr. Morgan had taken advantage of the screen to make himself acquainted with all that occurred.
It had been arranged on the previous day that the young people should ride; and at the appointed hour in the afternoon, Mr. Foker's horses arrived from the Clavering Arms. But Miss Blanche did not accompany him on this occasion. Pen came out and shook hands with him on the door-steps; and Harry Foker rode away, followed by his groom, in mourning. The whole transactions which have occupied the most active part of our history were debated by the parties concerned during those two or three hours. Many counsels had been given, stories told, and compromises suggested; and at the end, Harry Foker rode away, with a sad "God bless you!" from Pen. There was a dreary dinner at Clavering Park, at which the lately installed butler did not attend; and the ladies were both absent. After dinner, Pen said, "I will walk down to Clavering and see if he is come." And he walked through the dark avenue, across the bridge and road by his own cottage--the once quiet and familiar fields of which were flaming with the kilns and forges of the artificers employed on the new railroad works; and so he entered the town, and made for the Clavering Arms.
It was past midnight when he returned to Clavering Park. He was exceedingly pale and agitated. "Is Lady Clavering up yet?" he asked.