"I shall not be silent," retorted Clara: "don't expect to make me subservient to your vulgar prejudices, as your first wife was compelled to be. I insist upon saying your five boys are like your terriers in every particular."
The presence of her father checked the action which would, under other circumstances, have dealt heavy punishment upon the speaker. Sir Foster ground his teeth, but the closed fist attested his intention, and the respect which induced the effort to curb his resentment. Clara saw the effect of her father's presence upon his mind, and madly took advantage of the moment to continue her invectives.
"They are terriers in their features, terriers in disposition, and terriers in their feeding."
Sir Foster became pale with rage: he was a man of few words, but his wrath was terrible to witness. He called down every imprecation upon his lady's head, and vowed most fearfully to "wallop her" the first convenient opportunity. Sir John hastened Christobelle from the contemplation of such dreadful looks, and from the sound of such horrible words. He withdrew with her as their voices rose high in altercation, and left the scene of turbulence far, far behind.
Christobelle had indeed seen the misery of a match formed upon the baseless fabric of worldly riches. She saw it was unblest and full of woe. Their drive to Wetheral was silent and sad, for there was that upon the father's mind which banished repose. Clara's nature was too fearless and too violent to render her an object of esteem, or even to awaken compassion in her lot. Her determined insolence, and contemptuous bearing, towards her husband—her daring manner, and offensive observations, were insupportable to the eye and the ear. It was impossible to advocate the cause of a being, however youth might plead extenuation, who had deliberately and clandestinely married Sir Foster Kerrison, in defiance of her father's strongly expressed objections, yet, in three months' matrimony, dared to the uttermost the passions of her chosen companion for life.
Much as her father sorrowed over his daughter's destiny, he could not uphold her cause; her passions were too powerful, too unrestrained for his interference; he could not upbraid Sir Foster, when he had witnessed the provocation given by Clara, and he could not again offer his home to a disobedient wife. Clara must henceforth be a warning to her acquaintance, a beacon-light to warn them from the perils she had scorned, defied, and sunk under. But who had guided Clara to this perilous position? who had taught her youth to covet wealth, and stake her happiness against title and affluence without reflection?
Oh, mothers! what do you gain upon this passing scene, by bartering your children's welfare for a tinkling sound?—what will you gain hereafter, when the souls committed to your care on earth are required at your hands? Is the atheist, the gambler, the reckless, and blasphemer, to receive them, and become responsible for their lost state at the great account? I tell you it is not so; you have sold their minds to mammon, and you shall answer for that you have received, and have not given back.
Lady Wetheral had discovered Thompson's flight when Sir John and Christobelle returned to Wetheral, and her indignation was extreme. To be left by a menial in that offensive manner was degrading; but that Thompson should have flown from her duties, to enter matrimony, was disgusting. Thompson marrying! and with all the mystery of an heiress too! It was an insult she had not believed Thompson would have presumed to offer; but every thing was wrong, every thing was most wretched since her daughters had married. What was now left to her but poor Sir John, who was half a methodist, and an awkward girl, who was as learned as she was plain? It was very odd her intention to visit Bedinfield had been frustrated. She supposed all her children intended to decline her visits.
With these ideas and feelings, it was not to be supposed Lady Wetheral could be happy; and her disappointed mind preyed upon her health and temper. Christobelle was the victim of this state of things; she could never be sufficiently attentive or sufficiently agreeable; she was tiresome, awkward, or learned; she was to be an old maid, a nuisance in society, an arguing, philosophical excrescence, whom people would avoid and detest; she had not half the sense and conversation of poor, dear Thompson. Christobelle's spirits fled under constant and frivolous exertion of the power of tormenting. She was seated in the boudoir, with Lady Wetheral, one morning at work, not many days after the scene at Ripley; the irritability of her temper was increased by the recollection of former days and former employments. She commenced her usual complaints.—