Inez trembled exceedingly; but her mother, though deadly pale, was calm. Both face and voice were under stern control, and there were no dramatic gestures.
"Never admit him within these doors, if I am not here to bar them. Never take his hand, never listen to his voice, never let your eyes rest upon his face. Never give him a crust, though he starve in a ditch; never let him be buried with holy rites. As he has treated my dear husband, so shall God treat him, when he is dead. It is for this reason that I tell you. If you loved your father, remember it."
"But who is it, mother? What man is this, who has abandoned his soul to the Evil One? Make me sure of his name, that I may obey you."
"The man who has done it is my own twin-brother, Rodrigo, Count de Varcas: Rodrigo, the accursed one."
The Spanish lady clasped her hands, and fell back against the wall, and dropped her eyes; as if the curse were upon her also, for being akin to the miscreant. Her daughter could find no words, and was in doubt of believing her own ears.
"Yes, I know well what I am saying;" Lady Waldron began again with some contempt. "I am strong enough. Offer me nothing to smell. Shall I never die? I ought to have died, before I knew this, if there were any mercy in Heaven. That my twin-brother, my own twin-brother, the one I have loved and laboured for, and even insulted my own good husband, because he would not bow down to him—not for any glory, revenge, or religion, but for the sake of grovelling money—oh Inez, my child, that he should have done this!"
"But how do you know that he has done it? Has he made any confession, mother? Surely it is possible to hope against it, unless he himself has said so."
"He has not himself said so. He never does. To accuse himself is no part of his habits, but rather to blame every other. And such is his manner that every one thinks he must be right and his enemies wrong. But to those who have experience of him, the question is often otherwise. You remember that very—very faithful gentleman, who came to us, about a month ago?"
"Mother, can you mean that man, arrogant but low, who consumed all my dear father's boxes of cigars, and called himself Señor José Quevedo, and expected even me to salute him as of kin?"
"Hush, my child! He is your Uncle's foster-brother, and trusted by him in everything. You know that I have in the Journals announced my desire to hear from my beloved brother—beloved alas too much, and vainly. I was long waiting, I was yearning, having my son in the distance, and you who went against me in everything, to embrace and be strengthened by my only brother. What other friend had I on earth? And in answer to my anxiety arrives that man, sedate, mysterious, not to be doubted, but regarded as a lofty cavalier. I take him in, I trust him, I treat him highly, I remember him as with my brother always in the milky days of childhood, although but the son of a well-intentioned peasant. And then I find what? That he has come for money—for money, which has always been the bane of my only and well-born brother, for the very dismal reason that he cannot cling to it, and yet must have both hands filled with it for ever. Inez, do you attend to me?"