“Acknowledged! And you yourself must admit that you provoked my resentment. But let us not remain here bandying words, which may only lead to an useless quarrel. Circumstances have opened to me a grand career—a career, in which my happiness and my interests may be alike promoted; and I have accepted the destiny thus favourably prepared for me. In a word, I am about to marry a young Italian nobleman whom I feel I can love—whom I already love, indeed—and who possesses a proud title and princely revenues.”
“Ah! you are about to be married?” said Mrs. Mortimer, speaking as if the project were perfectly natural and without an objection: but in her heart—in the depths of her foul and vindictive soul, she was rejoiced,—for this alliance would place her daughter completely in her power.
The reader will remember that the old woman was aware of Laura’s union with Charles Hatfield, but that the young lady herself was totally unsuspicious of that fact being thus known to her mother.
“Yes,” resumed Laura: “I am about to be married. I leave Paris for England to-morrow morning. I return to London, because I am now independent of the Hatfields; and at my leisure I shall devise means to avenge myself for the insults I have received at their hands. It now remains for you and me to decide upon what terms we are to exist in future. Be friendly—and I shall allow you a handsome income: be hostile—and I shall dare all you can do against me.”
“I am sorry that my daughter should think it necessary to propose such alternatives,” said Mrs. Mortimer. “State what you require me to do.”
“To settle in France—wherever you please,” responded Laura; “and I will grant you an allowance of two hundred pounds every three months.”
“The pecuniary portion of the conditions is liberal enough,” said Mrs. Mortimer; “but the rest is as despotic and galling as the terms which Mr. Hatfield made the other day with you.”
“I much regret that prudence should compel me thus to dictate to you,” returned Laura: “there is, however, no alternative. ’Tis for you to yield to my conditions—or open war will at once commence between us.”
“I consent—I agree,” said the old woman, who knew that the time was not yet come for her to show her teeth in defiance of her daughter.
“So much the better!” exclaimed Laura, but in a tone indicating that the matter was one of perfect indifference to her; for she little knew—little suspected how irretrievably her marriage with the Count of Carignano would place her in her mother’s power. “And now I have one question to ask you.”