Blanche thought, "Why didn't I tell him that night when Arthur warned me?"
"Don't refuse her, Harry," cried Lady Clavering. "Take her, take every thing I have. It's all hers, you know, at my death. This boy's disinherited."—(Master Frank, who had been looking as scared at the strange scene, here burst into a loud cry.)—"Take every shilling. Give me just enough to live, and to go and hide my head with this child, and to fly from both. Oh, they've both been bad, bad men. Perhaps he's here now. Don't let me see him. Clavering, you coward, defend me from him."
Clavering started up at this proposal. "You ain't serious, Jemima? You don't mean that?" he said. "You won't throw me and Frank over? I didn't know it, so help me——. Foker I'd no more idea of it than the dead—until the fellow came and found me out, the d—d escaped convict scoundrel."
"The what?" said Foker. Blanche gave a scream.
"Yes," screamed out the baronet in his turn, "yes, a d—d runaway convict—a fellow that forged his father-in-law's name—a d—d attorney, and killed a fellow in Botany Bay, hang him—and ran into the Bush, curse him; I wish he'd died there. And he came to me, a good six years ago and robbed me; and I've been ruining myself to keep him, the infernal scoundrel! And Pendennis knows it, and Strong knows it, and that d—d Morgan knows it, and she knows it, ever so long; and I never would tell it, never: and I kept it from my wife."
"And you saw him, and you didn't kill him, Clavering, you coward?" said the wife of Amory. "Come away, Frank; your father's a coward. I am dishonored, but I'm your old mother, and you'll—you'll love me, won't you?"
Blanche eploree, went up to her mother; but Lady Clavering shrank from her with a sort of terror. "Don't touch me," she said; "you've no heart; you never had. I see all now. I see why that coward was going to give up his place in Parliament to Arthur; yes, that coward! and why you threatened that you would make me give you half Frank's fortune. And when Arthur offered to marry you without a shilling, because he wouldn't rob my boy, you left him, and you took poor Harry. Have nothing to do with her, Harry. You're good, you are. Don't marry that—that convict's daughter. Come away, Frank, my darling; come to your poor old mother. We'll hide ourselves; but we're honest, yes, we are honest."
All this while a strange feeling of exultation had taken possession of Blanche's mind. That month with poor Harry had been a weary month to her. All his fortune and splendor scarcely sufficed to make the idea of himself supportable. She was weaned of his simple ways, and sick of coaxing and cajoling him.
"Stay, mamma; stay, madam!" she cried out with a gesture, which was always appropriate, though rather theatrical; "I have no heart? have I? I keep the secret of my mother's shame. I give up my rights to my half-brother and my bastard brother—yes, my rights and my fortune. I don't betray my father, and for this I have no heart. I'll have my rights now, and the laws of my country shall give them to me. I appeal to my country's laws—yes, my country's laws! The persecuted one returns this day. I desire to go to my father." And the little lady swept round her hand, and thought that she was a heroine.
"You will, will you?" cried out Clavering, with one of his usual oaths. "I'm a magistrate, and dammy, I'll commit him. Here's a chaise coming; perhaps it's him. Let him come."