Nevertheless, the doings of so exquisite a creature as Clara de Mowbray, are worthy of the contemplation of our readers, for both in station and disposition she was considerably elevated above the ordinary fragments of the world.
She was a being in whom the best elements were mingled that she might well have been the worshipped idol of the noblest of the other sex. And yet have we seen this female, by one of those curious chances so common in real life, left alone almost in the world, steering her course across the ocean of adventurous deeds, unknown, and, apparently, unappreciated. And is not thin oft-times the case? Do we not oft-times see in the world the most paltry portions of humanity, the most impudent and assuming? The moat common-place, the most vain, and the most unworthy, exacting the most homage? Nay, succeeding in life better than the good and virtuous?
Clara de Mowbray was one worthy of an emperor's love; a creature we do occasionally, but rarely, meet with in the world; a sort of descended angel amongst mortals, sent apparently as the pattern, the model, for the baser worldlings to "dress themselves by." The world, however, would perhaps be likely to censure Clara, and her virtues to stand her but as enemies—her innocence and her regardlessness of form and ceremony, her recklessness of paltry opinion, be considered unmaidenly and bold! and so might the world think and say, for Clara possessed a spirit as undaunted in the resolve to carry out her projects as she was pure in heart and beautiful in person. If she had a fault it was her unbended determination to go through with any thing she once undertook. She was the creature of romance too, and altogether would have been better suited for a more romantic age than that in which she lived. Albeit her own times gave some scope for the exercise of her peculiarities.
We have seen that from childhood she had loved Arderne; she had had so many opportunities of observing his excellence and worth, that spite of her better reason, and against hope, she had loved. It was one of those unselfish passions which hopes all for the being beloved, and nothing for self. She knew that the object of her thoughts had been engaged elsewhere, that his affections were buried in the tomb of Charlotte Clopton, but that altered not her feelings towards him a jot. Whilst he lived, it was something to breathe in the same hemisphere; and to add to his happiness and prosperity, even by stealth, was her study.
Hence have we seen her in disguise seeking to deliver him from the horrors of captivity or starvation on a desolate shore. Herself enduring the extremity of mishap, and then rescued from captivity of the Spaniard. Hence have we seen her bequeathing, in the event of her own death, all she possessed upon the one so beloved, and hence have we seen her, and her extraordinary disposition revelled in such a situation, the disguised comrade, and then the guest of the wonderful man whose course of life it has been our task to follow. And hence we find her, up to the present period of our story, still bending all her energies to restore the fortunes and happiness of Walter Arderne.
In all things, however, Clara de Mowbray, as we have before hinted, chose to follow her own notions comparatively unknown, certainly she thought unloved by the object of her affections. She shrank from all idea of being recognised as the benefactor of Arderne, lest he should consider himself bound to tender her the devotion of the life she had sought to save. She pursued, therefore, an extremely cautious and erratic mode in all her proceeding. Even Shakespeare, the friend, the wonderful man who had saved her from the Spaniard, she feared entirely to place confidence in. The poet, however, had carefully studied the character of this beautiful female, resolved to thwart her ultimate intentions regarding herself, and if possible, to make her happy.
How strangely then flows the tide of human events. Clara de Mowbray alive, in health, and the real possessor of enormous wealth, was apparently dead to the world as to herself, her affections she thought unrequited. On the object of those affections she had conferred all her worldly goods, and herself she had intended to dedicate to Heaven.
She was a Catholic, and she meant, as soon an she saw all her schemes in a fair way of completion, to seclude herself from the world. She had arranged matters so as to retire to a convent in Navarre. With Arderne the case was as singular. This youth, so much thought of for his excellent disposition, albeit he mourned the beautiful Clara as one dead, adored her memory as a reality, and, had he suspected her of being in life, would have put a girdle round the earth to find her out.
"Love like a shadow flies, when substation love pursues,
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues."
And that such should be the case,—that the melancholy Walter should become enamoured of what seemed but a shadow, is not surprising in a man of his disposition. The splendid domains be had succeeded to, the romance of the situation altogether, his remembrance of the sometime heiress of these broad lands, at last caused him to be so enamoured of her bare memory that the subject of her beauty formed the entire subject of his thoughts. It seemed to him that she haunted each dell and glided about the stately halls of her forefathers, sighed in the winds which swept around the battlements of her ancestry; and, indeed, pervaded every spot around the woods and groves she had conferred upon him. The remembrance of his former love was by a newer object quite obliterated. The good Walter, in short, became a sort of dreamy person. For hours together would he stand in the long gallery at Shottery, and contemplate the picture of Clara de Mowbray; and had not Grasp's machinations, by driving him from these thoughts and from possession of the domains, driven him from the haunts that engendered them, he would most probably have become a melancholy maniac or a misanthrope.