“What interview? who is expected?” said Tyrrel, unable with the utmost exertion to suppress some signs of curiosity, though he suspected the whole to be merely some mystification of her ladyship.
“How delighted I am,” she said, “that I have found out where you are vulnerable!—Expected—did I say expected?—no, not expected.
‘She glides, like Night, from land to land,
She hath strange power of speech.’
—But come, I have you at my mercy, and I will be generous and explain.—We call—that is, among ourselves, you understand—Miss Clara Mowbray, the sister of that gentleman that sits next to Miss Parker, the Dark Ladye, and that seat is left for her.—For she was expected—no, not expected—I forget again!—but it was thought possible she might honour us to-day, when our feast was so full and piquant.—Her brother is our Lord of the Manor—and so they pay her that sort of civility to regard her as a visitor—and neither Lady Binks nor I think of objecting—She is a singular young person, Clara Mowbray—she amuses me very much—I am always rather glad to see her.”
“She is not to come hither to-day,” said Tyrrel; “am I so to understand your ladyship?”
“Why, it is past her time—even her time,” said Lady Penelope—“dinner was kept back half an hour, and our poor invalids were famishing, as you may see by the deeds they have done since.—But Clara is an odd creature, and if she took it into her head to come hither at this moment, hither she would come—she is very whimsical.—Many people think her handsome—but she looks so like something from another world, that she makes me always think of Mat Lewis's Spectre Lady.”
And she repeated with much cadence,
“There is a thing—there is a thing,
I fain would have from thee;
I fain would have that gay gold ring,
O warrior, give it me!”
“And then you remember his answer:
‘This ring Lord Brooke from his daughter took,
And a solemn oath he swore,
That that ladye my bride should be
When this crusade was o'er.’