Squire Arden; volume 3 of 3

“You said a few hundreds,” interposed the other with irritation. Mr. Fazakerly threw down his pen, and looked up with amazement into Arthur’s face.

“Good Lord,” he said, “is it the soul of a shopkeeper that you have got within you? Do you understand what Edgar Arden is giving up? And he was not called upon to give it up. He was not called upon to say a word about it, to furnish you with any information. What Edgar Arden would have done had he been guided by me–”

“He is not Edgar Arden,” said Arthur sharply.

“By the Lord,” cried Mr. Fazakerly, wrought up to a pitch of excitement which would have vent, “he is by a hundred times a better man than–” you, he was going to say, but resisted the temptation—“than most men that one meets,” he added hastily. And then, subduing himself, sat down and wrote the conditions fully out. He handed them to the other without adding a word, and immediately unlocked a box full of papers which stood on the table by him, and began to work at them, as if he were unconscious of the presence of any stranger. Arthur stood by him for some minutes with the paper in his hand, and then went out with a mortification which he had to conceal as best he could. It was the morning after Clare had left the house, and Edgar, though he had not appeared that day was still master of the house, acknowledged by everybody in it as its legitimate head. It is impossible to say how much this chafed the true heir. He was so angry that he gave Wilkins to understand the real state of affairs, to the private consternation but well-enacted unbelief of that family retainer. Wilkins did not like Arthur Arden—none of the servants liked him. Edgar’s kindly sway had given them a glimpse of something better; and the butler and the housekeeper had long entertained matrimonial intentions, and were too well off and too much used to comfort to put up with a less satisfactory regime. “I’ll ask master, sir,” was all Arthur Arden could elicit from Wilkins. Master!—the word made him almost swear. Arthur went out, with the conditions of surrender in his pocket, and pondered over them like a general who is victorious yet baffled, and whose army has won the external but not the moral victory. Of course there could be no real question as to these conditions; under any circumstances public opinion, or even his own reluctant sense of what was fit and necessary, would have bound him to do as much or more. But he was irritated now, and if he had been able, he would have liked to punish his rival for his usurpation; while, on the contrary, that rival claimed to march out with all the honours of war, his reputation unimpeached, his fame spread. It galled the new Lord of Arden more than it is possible to describe. He gnawed his moustache and his nails as he pondered, and then his thoughts took a sudden turn. The subject which had been uppermost in his mind before this new matter drove everything else out of the question. Come back—Clare! For the moment she had taken Edgar’s part; but this at least it was in his power to alter. As much as he had ever loved any one, he loved Clare; but he was come to his kingdom, and the intoxication of the triumph bewildered his faculties. He might marry any one—not any longer a mere heiress, great or small, but anybody—a duke’s daughter, a lady of the highest pretensions. Arden of Arden was the equal of the best nobleman in Christendom. So he reasoned from the heights of his new elevation. For a moment ambition struggled in him with love: it was in his power now to give Clare back all, and more than all, that she had lost; and in thus gratifying himself he could inflict the last wound upon his adversary. In reality, notwithstanding a thousand shortcomings, he loved her. He thought over all their intercourse, everything that had passed between them—her last words, to which as yet he had made no response. And the heart began to beat more warmly, more quickly in his breast. The end of his musings was that he took his way down the avenue to the Rectory, with his paper of conditions in his pocket. Again it must be said for Arthur Arden that in any case he would have taken this step; but still the alloy of his nature mingled with all he did. Even in seeking his love, he went with a vengeful feeling of satisfaction that if he won Clare from him, that fellow would not have so much to brag of after all.

Clare was seated in the deep window of the Rectory drawing-room with a book in her hand; but she was not reading the book. She was gazing listlessly out, seeing nothing, going over a hundred recollections. Her life had become far more interesting than any book—too interesting—full of pain and tragic interest. She sat with her eyes fixed on the broad expanse of summer sunshine, the distant gleam of the village street, the Doctor’s house opposite, with its twinkling windows. Everything was still as peace itself. The old gardener was rolling the grass with gentle monotony, as if he might go on doing it for ever; Dr. Somers’ phæton stood at the door awaiting him; old Simon clamped past on his clogs—all so peaceful as if nothing out of the usual routine could ever happen; and yet in that very room Edgar had stood by the side of the old Scotch woman and called her mother! A deep suppressed excitement and resentment were in Clare’s heart. It was not his fault, but notwithstanding she could not forgive him for it. When the door opened she did not turn her head. Most likely it was Edgar, and she did not wish to see him; or Mr. Fielding, with his grieved, disapproving looks. Clare was in such a state of mind that even a look of reproof drove her wild. She could not bear it. Therefore she kept her back turned persistently, and gave no heed to the opening of the door.

“Clare!”

She looked up with a violent start, rising from her seat, and perceived him standing over her—he whom she had tried to put out of her calculations, and think of no more. She had been planning a proud miserable life retired out of sight of all men, specially hidden from him. She had resolved he should not even know where she was to insult her with his pity—neither he nor Edgar should know; for Clare was quite unaware that the discovery which lost her a brother lost her a fortune too. But now at the moment when she was most miserable, most forlorn, forming the most dreary plans, here he was! The sight of him took away her breath, and almost her senses, for the moment. She said, “Is it you?” faintly, gazing at him with dilated eyes and parched lips, as if he had been a ghost. The surprise was so great that it threw down all her defences, and brought her back to simple reality. She was not glad to see him—these were not the words; but his sudden coming was like life to the dead.

And he too was touched by the sight of her utter dejection and solitude. He dropped down on one knee beside her as she reseated herself, and took her hand. “My Clare!” he said, “my Clare! why did you fly from me? Is not my house your house, and my life yours? Is there any one so near to you as me? Even now I have the only claim upon you; and when you are my wife–”

“No such word has ever been spoken between us,” said Clare, making an effort to resume her old dignity. “Mr. Arden, rise—you forget–”

“I don’t forget anything,” said Arthur. “There was one between us that took it upon him to keep me away, that prevented me from seeing you, prejudiced you against me, and has all but beguiled you away from me. But, Clare, you see through it now. Are words necessary between you and me? When I was a beggar I might hesitate to ask you to share my poverty, but now– Don’t you know that I would rather have you without Arden than Arden without you–”

Let him take everything else, as long as he leaves me you—these had been the words Arthur Arden had spoken two days ago. They rang in Clare’s ears as clearly as if he had just pronounced them, and they had an echo in his own memory. But neither of them referred to that vain offer now—neither of them said a syllable of Edgar. “If he had not so shocked me, so repelled me, brought in that woman,” Clare said to herself in faint self-apology—but not a word did she say aloud. She laid down her head on Arthur Arden’s shoulder, and wept away the accumulated excitement and irritation and misery of the past night. She did not reproach him for his delay or ask a single question. She had wanted him, oh, so sorely! and he had come at last.

“It is too great happiness,” said Arthur, when they had sat there all the bright morning through and made their plans, “that you and I should spend all our lives together in Arden, Clare. To have you anywhere would have seemed too much joy a month ago; but you and Arden! which I have been kept out of, banished from, treated as a stranger in–”

“Do not think of that now, do not think of that now! Oh, Arthur, if you love me, be kind to him.”

“Kind to him! when he had all but succeeded in severing you from me, in carrying you away, with Heaven knows what intention. But, my Clare,” said the new Squire Arden, with that paper in his pocket, of which he did not say a word to her, “for your sake!”

And Clare believed him, every word—she who was not credulous, nor full of faith, and who prided herself that she knew the world—her own world, in which people were moved by comprehensible motives, not visionary impulses. Clare believed her lover. He would be kind, he would not be too hard or unmerciful. He would forgive the usurper, the Edgar who was Mrs. Murray’s son. She stifled every other feeling in that moment of love and intoxication—if, indeed, at such a time there was room for any other feeling towards the Edgar who had been the brother of her youth.

And thus the last link was broken which bound Edgar to his old life. The moment when his sister and his successor clasped hands was the conclusion, as it were, of his career. Had Clare clung to him, and sought to detain him, he might have held on somehow, sadly and reluctantly, by some shadow of the former existence, trying to do impossibilities, and to reconcile the adverse elements. Her sudden decision was a cruel blow to him: it was his final extinction as Edgar Arden; but at the same time, no doubt, it was a relief. It settled her in the position which in all the world was the one most suitable for her, which she herself preferred; and at once and for ever it severed the bond which was now no better than a fictitious and sentimental tie. It was best so, he said to himself, even when he felt it most sorely. They could not have continued together: they were no longer brother and sister. It was best for both that the severance should be complete.

And thus it was that Edgar Arden’s life came to an end. Had he died it could not have finished more completely. His life, his career, his very name were gone. He existed still, and might for aught he knew continue to exist for many years, and even make for himself another history, new hopes, new loves, a renewed career. But here the man who has been the hero of this story, the only Edgar known to his friends and to himself—concluded. The change was like Death—a change of condition, place, being, everything that makes a man. And here the story of Squire Arden must perforce come to an end.

CHAPTER XXIX

POSTSCRIPT

Time flies in the midst of great events; and yet it is long to look back upon, doubling and redoubling the moments which have been great with feeling—filling the spectator with wonder that in so short a time a human creature could live so long or undergo so much. But after a great crisis of life, time becomes blank, the days are endless as they pass, and count for nothing when they have gone. Flatly they fall upon the memory that keeps no record of them—so much blank routine, so many months; in ordinary parlance, the fallow season, in which brain and heart have to recover, as the earth has, under her veil of rain and snow—chill days and weeks without a record; or bright days and weeks which are almost as blank—for even happiness keeps no daybook—until the time of exhaustion is over, and life moves again, most often under the touch of pain.

The episode of personal history, which we have just concluded, was fully known to the world only after it was over. Then the county, and almost the country—for the report of such a “romance of real life” naturally afforded food for all the newspaper readers in the kingdom—was electrified by the Arden case. It was rumoured at first that a great lawsuit was to be brought, with an exciting trial and all the delightful exposure of family secrets and human meanness which generally attends a law plea between near relations. Then, Mr. Fazakerly published a solemn statement of the facts. Then somebody in Arthur Arden’s interest attempted to prove that Edgar had been in the secret all along; then this imputation was indignantly contradicted by the solicitor of Arthur Arden, Esq. of Arden, but left a sting notwithstanding, and made many people shake their heads, and doubt the romantic tale of generosity, which they held to be contrary to human nature. Then the clever newspapers—those which are great in leading articles—took the matter up, and gave each a little treatise on the subject; and then the story was suddenly suffered to drop, and was heard of no more. At least it was not heard of for a month, when it was all revived by the marriage of Clare Arden to her cousin—a marriage which rent the county asunder, making two parties for and against. “How she could ever do it!” and “it was the very best thing she could do.” These two events had a great effect upon Arden parish and village. They aged Mr. Fielding, so that he was scarcely ever able for duty again, and had to devolve almost the whole service on Mr. Denbigh, feebly uttering the absolution only, or a benediction from the altar. They brought upon Miss Somers that bad illness which brought her almost to death’s door; and it is said the poor lady cried so much that she never could see very well after, and never was seen abroad more. And they utterly crushed the Pimpernels. Mrs. Pimpernel’s face of horror, when she found that she had actually turned out from her house the rightful owner of Arden, was a thing talked of all over the county; and the family never recovered the shock. They left the Red House that summer, and removed to the other side of the county, at least twenty miles away, and conveniently close to a railway station. “After that accident, when my Alice was so nearly killed, I could not bear it,” Mrs. Pimpernel said, though people maliciously misunderstood which accident it was.

And Jeanie, the real victim of the accident, after a long illness, recovered sufficiently to be taken home. Dr. Somers believed, with professional pride and a little human sympathy, that he had effected a cure on Jeanie mentally as well as physically; but whether her gentle mind was quite restored was, of course, a matter which time alone could prove. Edgar, who had been absent since the day after he received intelligence of Clare’s engagement, returned to take his relations home. But it was not till a month after Clare’s marriage that he reappeared finally in Arden to say good-bye to all his friends. The bride and bridegroom had not yet returned, which was a relief to him; and his company was a great solace and consolation to the feeble Rector, with whom he lived. “Ah, Edgar, if you would but stay with me and be my son,” the old man would say wistfully, as he leaned upon his vigorous arm. “I have no one now whom I can lean upon, who will close my eyes and see me laid in my grave. Edgar, if it were God’s will, before you go away I should be glad to be there.”

“Don’t say so,” said Edgar. “Everybody loves you; and my—I mean Mrs. Arden—you must not withdraw your love from her.”

Mr. Fielding shook his head. “She will not want my love,” he said. “Never could I give up Clare, however I might disapprove of her; but she will not want me. Nobody wants me; and the last fag-end of work is dreary, just before the holiday comes; but I am grumbling, Edgar. Only I’ll be sadly dull when you go, that’s all.”

“And I cannot stay, you know,” said Edgar, with a sigh.

“No,” said the old man, echoing it. That was the only thing that was impossible. He could not stay. The Thornleighs were at Thorne, and Lady Augusta had written him an anxious, affectionate note, bidding God bless him, but begging him, by all he held dear, not to show himself to Gussy, who was ill and nervous, and could not bear any shock. Poor Edgar put the letter in his pocket and tried to smile. “She might have trusted me,” he said. He was not to go near Thorne; he could not approach Arden; but he went to the poor folk in the village, and received many tearful adieus. Old Miss Somers threw her arms round him and cried. “Oh, Edgar, my dear, my dear!–” she said, “how shall I ever–; and I who thought you would be always–, and meant to leave you what little I have. It is all left to you, Edgar, all the same. Oh, if you would not go! I daresay now they will never return. Though she is your sister, my dear, I must say– If I were Clare I would never more come back to the Hall–”

“But I trust she will, and be very happy there, and that you will be all to her you have ever been,” said Edgar, kissing the wrinkled old hand. “Oh, my dear boy! Oh, Edgar, God will reward– Kiss me, my dear; though you are a gentleman, I am so old, and ill; it can’t matter, you know. Kiss me, Edgar! and God bless–; and if ever there was one in this world that should have a reward–”

A reward! Edgar smiled mournfully as he went away. The reward he had was abandonment, banishment, solitude, the love and tears of a few old people for whom he had done nothing and could do nothing, who loved him because they had been good to him all his life. As he drove over to the station in Mr. Fielding’s old gig, with Jack, silent and respectful, by his side, he passed all the rich woods of Arden, clouds of foliage almost as rich in colour as were the sunset clouds above them—the woods which he had once looked at with so much pride and called his own. He passed the little lodge on the common where he had seen old John lying dead, and had wondered (he recollected as if it were yesterday) if that was the end of all life’s struggles and trials? It was not the end; what a poor joke life would be if it was!—weary days, not few, as the patriarch complained, but oh, so weary, so endless, so full of pain to come, as they seemed to the young man—struggles through which the soul came only half alive. But Edgar felt alive all over as he took farewell of all the familiar places, and remembered the human creatures, much more dear, of whom he could not take farewell. Poor, sweet little Gussy, “ill and nervous”—was it for him? and Clare, who had been silent to him since her marriage, taking no notice of his existence. He brushed away a tear from his eyes as he drove on. He was going he knew not where—to seek his fortune– But that was no grievance; rather his heart rose to the necessity with a vigorous impulse, which would have been gay, had it been less sore. God bless them!—the one who thought of him still, and the one who had cast him off. They were alike, at least, in this—that he loved them, and would never see them more.

Jack had been sent away with a good-bye and a sovereign, and a sob in his throat which almost choked him; and Edgar was alone. The train was a little late, and he stood on the platform of the small country station waiting for it, longing to be gone. He saw without noticing a little brougham drawn up close to the roadside, so as to enable its occupants to see the train as it passed. While he waited, he was attracted by the flutter of a white handkerchief from the window. He went as close as he could reach, and looked over the paling, wondering, yet not thinking that this signal could be for him. There was no expectation in his mind, only a certain sad surprise. Then suddenly Lady Augusta’s face appeared at the window, full of anxiety and distress; and, in the corner behind her, a little pale face—a worn little figure. “Good-bye, Edgar!—dear Edgar, good-bye!” cried a faltering voice. “We could not let you go without one word. God bless you!” said Lady Augusta, pulling the check in her hand. The coachman turned his horses before Edgar could approach a step nearer; and at the same moment the train came up like a roll of thunder behind–

Edgar went back with his heart and his eyes so full that he saw nothing. He gathered his small possessions together mechanically. His whole being was moved by the sweetness and the bitterness of this last parting and blessing. There was an unusual stir and commotion on the platform, but he took no notice. What was it to him who came or went? She might have been his bride—that tender creature with her soft voice, which came to him like a voice from heaven. So faithful, so tender, so sweet! It was all he could do to keep the tears which blinded him from falling. He threw his bag into the carriage; he had his foot on the step–

What was that cry? Once more, “Edgar! Edgar!” The party arriving had stopped and broken up. He turned round; through the mist in his eyes he saw who it was. They were standing at a distance in their bridal finery: he with a cloud on his face, with his hand upon her arm holding her back—yet not arbitrarily nor unkindly. And even in Arthur Arden’s face there was a certain emotion. They stood looking at each other as if across an ocean or a continent—more than that—a whole world. Then all at once she rushed to him, and threw her arms round his neck. “O Edgar, speak to me, speak to me!—forgive me! I am your sister still—your only sister; don’t go away without a word to me!”

“God bless you, my dearest sister, my only Clare!” he cried. The tears rained down on his cheeks. He gave her one convulsive kiss, and put her into her husband’s arms.

So all was over! The train rushed on, tearing wildly across the familiar country. And Edgar fell back in the solitude, the silence, the distance, parted from everything that was his; but not without a little of that reward Miss Somers had prayed for—enough of it to keep his heart alive.

THE END