"Would you return to Wetheral, Clara?"
"No, no, no, not to Wetheral; my mother is there. She only loves the wealthy and the high; and she drove me to all this! As I hope to meet with mercy, she drove me into this!"
"Be still, Clara, and listen to me once more," said her father.
"Nay, hear me," cried Clara, "and hear what months of misery have passed away under the influence of wine and laudanum. I have drank wine, and I have drank laudanum, but it only stills for the time! It is worse and worse to my brain! Oh, take me home, or take me somewhere—but here I cannot, will not stay!"
Sir John was anxious to remove Clara for a few days from her home of wretchedness, and he appealed again to the heart of Sir Foster Kerrison. He begged to take Lady Kerrison, for change of air, to Wetheral. A few days only, he would ask for his daughter's society: a few days might be a short but beneficial visit to her own family. Sir Foster chuckled.
"Take her home—never come back, I can tell her."
"I will return!" exclaimed Clara, with impetuosity; "I will never be turned out of your home: it was too great an honour ever to have entered it, but I will enter it now, whenever I please."
"Go along, you she-devil!"
Clara's violent spirit was not to be controlled. She struck Sir Foster upon the face, with the whole force of her delicate hand. The blow was trifling in itself, but it raised the equally strong passions of the person on whom it was directed. Sir Foster rose furious with passion, and kicked his lady with brutal and senseless anger. This scene determined her father no longer to endure his daughter's situation at Ripley. He ordered his carriage round, without a moment's delay, to withdraw Clara from the presence of her husband. It was a scene of horror to his excellent and indulgent mind.
Both parties had acted wickedly and weakly. Clara deserved punishment for her insolent and unfeminine action, in striking her husband; but it was unbecoming and dreadful in Sir Foster, to wreak his fury upon a defenceless woman. Ripley was not the proper home for Clara: since Sir Foster and herself could not preserve even the decencies of appearance, it was better to part at once. Sir John would place Lady Kerrison in his own house—under his own protection; and if Sir Foster persevered in declining to allow her a proper maintenance, the law should decide the question. The carriage drew up, but Clara was not in a condition to be moved. The violence of her anger, combined with her screams of terror, had ruptured a blood-vessel, and she sunk at her father's feet, deluged with the blood which streamed from her mouth. Clara was carried to her bed by her father and Sir Foster, who had rushed from his seat, and now winked his eye with astonishment and regret; he bore his suffering lady in silence to her room; and, though in spite of the chastening hand which had dealt the calamity, Clara twice endeavoured to push him from her, Sir Foster remained by her bed-side in nervous distress.