Squire Arden; volume 1 of 3

The girl had gradually raised herself upright, and had been seated with her eyes fixed in admiration upon Clare, who was as a goddess to the young creature, thus dreaming her way back into life; but there had been a rustle by Clare’s side which had attracted her attention. It was when she saw Arthur Arden that she gave that cry. It rang out shrill and wild through the stillness, startling all the echoes, startling the very birds among the trees. Then she started up wildly to her feet, and clutched at her grandmother, who rose also in sudden fright and dismay. “Look at him, look at him!” said Jeanie—“that man! it’s that man!”—and with every limb trembling, and wild cries bursting from her lips, which grew fainter and fainter as her strength failed, she fell back into the arms which were opened to support her. Arthur Arden started forward to offer his assistance, but Mrs. Murray waved him away with an impatient exclamation.

“Oh, if you would go and no come near us—oh, if you would keep out of her sight! No, my bonnie Jeanie—no, my darlin’! it’s no that man. It’s one that’s like him, one ye never saw before. No, my bonnie bairn! Oh, Jeanie, Jeanie, have ye the courage to look, and I’ll show ye the difference? Sir, dinna go away, dinna go away. Oh, Miss Arden, keep him still till my darling opens her eyes and sees that he’s no the man.”

Clare stood silent in her consternation, looking from one to the other. Did it mean that Arthur knew these strangers? that there was a secret, some understanding she had not been meant to know, some undisclosed wrong? She suspected her cousin; she hated that old, designing, artful woman; she feared the mad girl. “I can do nothing,” she said hoarsely, with quivering lips, drawing apart, and sheltering herself behind a tree. And then she hated herself that her first movement was anger and not pity. As for Jeanie, her cries sank into moans, her trembling increased, until suddenly she dropped so heavily on her grandmother’s shoulder as to draw Mrs. Murray down on her knees. They sank together into the deep, cool grass—the young creature like one dead, the old woman, in her pale strength and self-restraint, holding her fast. She asked no help from either of the two astonished spectators, but laid the girl down softly, and put back her hair, and fanned her, with the gentleness of a nurse to an infant, murmuring all the while words which her nursling could not hear. “It’s no him, my bonnie bairn; oh, my Jeanie, it’s no him! It’s a young gentleman, one ye never saw—maybe one of his kin. Oh, my poor bairn, here’s it come all back again—all to do over again! Why did I bring her here?”

“What has here to do with it? what do you mean by calling Mr. Arden that man? what is the meaning of it all?” said Clare, coming forward. “I must know the meaning of it. Yes, I see she has fainted; but you are used to it—you are not unhappy about her; and I am unhappy, very unhappy, to know what it means.”

The three women were by this time alone, for Arthur Arden had gone for help from the Hall, which was the nearest house, as soon as Jeanie fainted. Clare came forward, almost imperious, to where the poor girl was lying. It was a thing the grandmother was used to, she said to herself. The old woman made no fuss about it, and why should she make any fuss? “I don’t want to be cruel,” she said, almost crying in her excitement; “if you are anxious about her, tell me so; but you don’t look anxious. And what, oh, what does it mean?”

“It means our ain private affairs, that neither you nor any stranger has aught to do with,” said Mrs. Murray, looking up with an air as proud as Clare’s own. And then she returned in a moment to her natural tone. “I am no anxious because she has fainted. She will come out of her faint, poor bairn; but it’s sore, sore work, when you think it’s all passing away, that the look of a man she never saw before should bring it back again. I canna tell ye my private history, Miss Arden. I may have done wrong in my day, and I may be suffering for it; but I canna tell it a’ to a stranger; and that is what it means—no an accident, but our ain private affairs that are between me and my Maker, and no one beside.”

“But she knew Mr. Arden!” said Clare.

“The man she took him for is dead; he was a man that did evil to me and mine, and brought us to evil,” said the grandmother, solemnly. “The life is coming back to her; and oh, if ye would but go away, and keep yon gentleman away! If we were to bide here for a year, I could tell ye no more.”

Wretched with suspicion, unbelieving and unhappy, Clare turned away. Had she been capable of feeling any additional blow to her pride, that dismissal would have given it; but her pride was in abeyance for the moment, swallowed up in wonder and anxious curiosity. “The man she took him for is dead”—was that true, or a lie invented to screen one who had betrayed poor Jeanie. The girl herself could not surely be deceived. And if Arthur Arden had wrought this ruin, what remained for Clare?

CHAPTER XXIV

Mrs. Murray was left alone with her grandchild, and she was glad. Though she was old, she was full of that patient strength which shows itself without any ostentation whenever the emergency which requires it arises. She was not sorry for herself, nor did she think much of her own age, or of what was due to her. She had long got over that phase of life in which a woman has leisure to think of herself. And there was no panic of alarm about her, such as might have come to the inexperienced. She knew her work, and all about it, and did not overwhelm herself with unnecessary excitements. She laid her child down in the grass, in the shade, laying her head upon a folded shawl. Jeanie had come out of her faint, but she lay in a state of exhaustion, with her eyes closed, unable to move or speak. The grandmother knew it was impossible to take her home in such a state of prostration. She seated herself so as to screen her charge from passers by, and resumed her knitting—a picture of calm and thoughtful composure—serious, yet with no trace of mystery or panic about her. What had happened to Jeanie was connected with their own affairs. It was a thing which nobody but themselves had anything to do with. She sat and watched the young sufferer with all that grave power of self-restraint which it is always so impressive to witness, asking neither help nor pity, knitting on steadily, with sometimes a tender glance from her deep eyes at the young fair creature lying at her side, and sometimes a keen look round to guard against intrusion. The work went on through all, and those thoughts which nobody knew of, which no one suspected. What was she thinking about? She had a breadth of sixty years to go back upon, and memories to recall with which nothing here had any connection. Or could it be possible that there might be a certain connection between her thoughts and this unknown place? Sometimes she paused in her work, and dropped her hands, and turned her face towards the house, which was invisible from where she sat, and fell into a deeper musing. “Would I do it over again if it were to do?” she said half aloud to herself, with an instinctive impulse to break the intense stillness; and then, making no answer to her own question, sat with her head dropped on her hand, gazing into the shadowy distance. What was it she had done? It was something which touched her conscience—touched her heart; but she had not repented of it as a positive wrong, and could yet, it was clear, bring forth a hundred arguments to justify herself to herself. She paused, and leant her head upon her hand, and fixed her eyes on the distance, in which, unseen, lay the home of the Ardens. Her thoughts had strayed away from Jeanie. She mused, and she sighed a sigh which was very deep and long drawn, as if it came from the depths of her being. “The ways of ill-doers are hard,” she murmured to herself; and then, after a pause, “Would I do it again?” It was not remorse that was in her face; it was not even penitence; it was pain subdued, and a great doubt which it was very hard to solve. But there was no clue to her musing, either in her look or her tones. She took up her knitting with another sigh, when she had apparently exhausted, or been exhausted by that thought, and changed the shawl under Jeanie’s head, making her more comfortable, and looked at her with the tenderest pity. “Poor bairn!” she said to herself; “Poor bairn!” and then, after a long pause, “That she should be the first to pay the price!” The words were said but half aloud, a murmur that fell into the sound of the wind in the trees and the insects all about. Then she went to work again, knitting in the deepest quiet—a silence so intense that she looked like a weird woman knitting a web of fate.

It was a curious picture. The girl with her bonnet laid aside, and her hair a little loosened from its smoothness, lying stretched out in the deep cool grass which rose all round her, and shaded by a great bough of hawthorn, laden with the blossom which was still so sweet. The white petals lay all about upon the grass, lying motionless like Jeanie, who was herself like a great white flower, half buried in the soft and fragrant verdure; while the old mother sat by doing her work, watching with every sense, ear and eye on the alert to catch any questionable sound. The girl fell asleep in her weakness; the old woman sat motionless in her strength and patience; and the trees waved softly over them, and the summer blue filled up all the interstices of the leafage. This was the scene upon which Arthur Arden came back as he returned from the house with aid and promises of aid. He had been interested before, and now, when he perceived that Clare was not to be seen, his interest grew more manifest. He came up hurriedly, half running, for he was not without natural sympathy and feeling. “Is she better?” he asked. “Miss Arden’s maid is coming, and the carriage to take her home; and, in the meantime, here is something.” And he hastily produced a bottle of smelling-salts and some eau-de-cologne.

“She is better,” said Mrs. Murray, stiffly. “I thank ye, sir, for all your trouble; but there’s no need—no need! She is resting, poor lamb, after her attack. It’s how she does always. But I would fain be sure that she would never see you again. Dinna think I’m uncivil, Mr. Arden; for I know you are Mr. Arden by your looks. You are like one that brought great pain and trouble to our house a year or two since. I would be glad to think that she would never see ye more.”

“But that is a little hard,” said Arthur Arden. “To ask me to go away and make a martyr of myself, without even telling me why. I must say I think that harsh. I would do a great deal for so pretty a creature,” he added, carelessly drawing near the pretty figure, and stooping over her. Mrs. Murray half rose with a quick sense of the difference in his tone.

“My poor bairn is subject to a sore infirmity,” she said, “and for that she should be the more pitied of all Christian folk. A gentleman like you will neither look at her nor speak to her but as you ought. I am asking nothing of you. It’s my part to keep my own safe. All I pray is that if you should meet her in the road you would pass on the other side, or turn away your face. That’s little to do. I can take care of my own.”

“My good woman, you are not very complimentary,” said Arthur; and then he went and gazed down once more upon the sleeping figure in the grass. His gaze was not that of a pure-minded or sympathetic spectator. He looked at her with a half smile, noting her beauty and childish grace. “She is very young, I suppose?” he said. “Poor little thing! What did the man who was like me do to frighten her so? And I wonder who he was? The resemblance must be very great.”

“He brought grief and trouble to our house,” said Mrs. Murray, who had risen, and stood screening her child with a jealous mother’s instinct. “Sir, I am much obliged to you. But, oh! if you would be kinder still, and go on your way! We are complaining of nothing, neither my bairn nor me.”

“Your ‘bairn,’ as you call her, is mighty pretty,” said Arthur Arden. “Look here, buy her a ribbon or something with this, as some amends for having frightened her. What, you won’t have it? Nonsense! I shall probably never see her again. You need not be afraid of me.”

“I am no afraid of any man,” said Mrs. Murray; “if you would leave us free in this spot, where we’re harming nobody. Good day to you, sir. Give your siller to the next poor body. It’s no wanted by me.”

“As proud as Lucifer, by Jove!” said Arthur Arden, and he put back his half-sovereign in his pocket, perhaps not unwillingly, for he had not many of them; and then he stood still for a minute longer, during which time the old woman resumed her knitting, and went on steadily, having dropped him, as it were, though she still watched him keenly from under her eyelids. He waited for some other opportunity of speech, but at length, half amazed half annoyed, swore “by Jove!” once more, and turned on his heel with little courtesy. Then he began to bethink himself of Clare, who had gone down the avenue, and whom he had missed. He was a man used to please himself, used to turn aside after every butterfly that crossed his path, and it was so long since he had engaged in the warm pursuit of anything that he had forgot the amount of perseverance and steadiness necessary for it. He had been almost, nay quite glad, when he saw that Clare was gone, and felt himself free for the moment to find out something about the pretty creature who lay in the grass like a Sleeping Beauty; but now that the careful guardian of the sleeping beauty had sent him away, his mind returned to its original pursuit. Would Clare be angry; would she consider his desertion as a sign of indifference, an offence against herself? He chafed at the self-denial thus made necessary, and yet he was as anxious to secure Clare’s good opinion as any man could be, and not entirely on interested motives. She was very dignified and Juno-like and stately. She would condemn him and all his ways did she know them. She would be intolerant of his life, and his friends, and his habits; and yet Clare attracted him personally as well as pecuniarily. He would be another man if he could succeed in persuading her to love him. It would make him rich, it would give him an established position in the world—and it would make him happy. Yes, there could not be any doubt on that subject, it would make him happy; and yet he was ready to be led astray all the same by any butterfly hunt that crossed his path.

As he hastened down the avenue, he met a little procession which was coming up, and which consisted of an invalid chair, drawn by a man, who paused every ten minutes to speak or be spoken to by the patient within, and followed by an elderly maid, who walked with a disapproving air under a huge umbrella. Arthur Arden was sufficiently acquainted with the population of Arden to know at once who this was, and the voice which immediately addressed him was one which compelled his attention. “Mr. Arden, Mr. Arden,” said the voice, “do stop and look at this beautiful chair; a present from Edgar. I was saying to my brother just the other day– Ten minutes in the open air—only ten minutes now and then, if there was any way of doing it! And to think of dear Edgar recollecting. And the handsomest– Now, is not he a dear fellow? All padded and cushioned, and as easy as a bed– And the very best temper in the world, Mr. Arden, and always thinking of others. You will think me an old fool, but I do so love that boy.”

“He is very lucky, I am sure, to inspire so warm a feeling,” said Arthur, with mock respect.

“Lucky indeed! he deserves it, and a thousand times more. Of course I would not speak of such a thing as loving a gentleman,” said Miss Somers, with a soft blush stealing over her pretty faded old face, “if it was not that I was so old and helpless. And dear Edgar is so nice and so kind. Fancy his coming to see me the very first day he was at home: a young man you know, that might have been supposed– and, then this beautiful chair. I was saying to my brother just the other day– but then some men are so different from others, and never take the trouble even to give you an answer. To be sure, there are many things that put a gentleman out and try his temper that we ladies have not got to bear; but then, on the other hand– And, as I was saying, it arrived all at once, two days ago, in a big packing-case—the biggest packing case, you know. My brother said, ‘It is for you, Lucy;’ and ‘Oh, good gracious, is it for me? and what is it, and who could have sent it? and how good of them to think of me;’ and then, when one is in the midst of one’s little flutter, you know, he tells you you are a little fool, and how you do run on!”

“That was unkind,” said Arthur, when she paused to take breath; “but will you tell me, please, have you seen Miss Arden? I left her going down the avenue.”

“Oh, Clare! she’s in the village by this time, walking so quick. I wonder if it is good to walk so quick, especially in the sun. When I was a young girl like Clare– And then they say it brings illnesses– She was in such a hurry; not a bit like Clare to walk so fast; and it makes you look heated, and all that. Mr. Arden, you will make me so happy if you will only look. It can draw out, and I can lie all my length when I get tired. The Queen herself, if she were an invalid—but I’m so glad she is not an invalid, poor dear lady; with all those horrible death warrants to sign, and everything—Don’t you think there should be somebody to do the death warrants when there is a lady for the Queen—I mean, you know, when there is a Queen? But if I were the Queen I could not have anything better. Isn’t he a dear fellow! And the springs so good, and everything so light and nice and so pretty. You have not half seen yet how nice–”

“There is somebody a little in advance who will appreciate it a great deal better than I can,” said Arthur. “I must overtake Miss Arden. Yes—there; just a little further on.”

“Now, I wonder what he can mean by somebody a little in advance,” said Miss Somers, as Arthur went hastily on. “Can it be Edgar, I wonder—the dear fellow! or the Rector? or whom, I wonder? Mercy, please, if you don’t mind the trouble, do you see anybody coming? Not that I mind who I meet. I am sure I should like to show dear Edgar’s present everywhere. I wonder if it is Lady Augusta? I am sure, Mercy, you know I have always thought well of Lady Augusta–”

“I don’t see nobody, mum,” said Mercy, cutting her mistress remorselessly short, “but them Scotch folks as lives in the village, and ain’t no company for the quality; set them up, them and their pride! John, Miss Somers wants to go a little quicker past them tramps and folks; for they ain’t no better, a poking into our parish,” muttered Mercy, under her breath.

“Oh, no, John; please, John—I want so much to see them,” remonstrated Miss Somers. Fortunately, John wanted to see them too, and after a struggle with Mercy, who ruled her mistress with a rod of iron, the procession paused opposite to where Mrs. Murray sat. Mercy herself could not be more unwilling for any colloquy. The old Scotchwoman kept on her knitting, with her eyes steadily fixed upon it, as long as that was possible. She only moved when the invalid’s eager voice had called her over and over again, “Oh, please, come and speak to me. I am Dr. Somers’ sister, and a great invalid, and I have heard so much about you; and just yesterday I was saying to my brother– Oh, please, do put down your knitting for a moment and come to me. I am so helpless, I cannot put my foot to the ground.”

Mrs. Murray rose slowly at this appeal, and came and stood by the invalid’s chair.

CHAPTER XXV

“I have heard so much about you,” said Miss Somers, eagerly. “I am so glad to have met you. The Doctor is always so busy he never gives me any answer when I speak; and you know when one is helpless and can’t budge– I should have been in my room for ever but for Edgar, you know—I mean Mr. Arden—the dearest fellow!—who has sent me– I don’t know if you understand such things; but look at it. This is the first time I have been out for two years. Such a handsome chair! the very best, you may be sure, that he could get to buy. And I know he is so interested in both– Which is your grandchild? Goodness gracious me? Are not you frightened to death to leave her? She might catch cold; she might have something go up her ear—lying right down in the grass.”

“She’ll take no harm,” said the old woman, “and it’s kind, kind of you to ask–”

“Oh, I am always asking,” said Miss Somers; “but people are so very impatient. ‘How you do run on!’ is all my brother says. I hear your child is so pretty; and I am so fond of seeing pretty people. Once, when I was young myself—but that is such a long time ago, and, of course, you would not think it, and I don’t suppose any traces are left—but people did say– Well, well, you know, one ought never to be vain. She lies dreadfully still; are you not frightened to see her like that—so pale, you know, and so still? It always frightens me to see any one lie so quiet.”

“She is sleeping, poor bairn,” said Mrs. Murray. “She has had a fright, and a bit little attack—and now she’s sleeping. The Doctor has been real kind. I canna say in words how kind he has been—and Mr. Arden. You’re fond of Mr. Arden? I do not wonder at that, for he’s a fine lad.”

“There can’t be anything wrong in saying I am fond of Edgar. No; I am sure there can’t be anything wrong,” said Miss Somers: “he is the dearest fellow! We were brought up so very strict, I always feel a little difficulty, you know, in saying, about gentlemen– But then at my age, and so helpless as I am– I have him up to my room to see me, you know, and I can’t think there is any harm, though I would not for the world do anything that was considered fast, or that would make any talk. Why, I have known him from a baby—or rather I ought to have known him. The Doctor was not here then. When one thinks of such a while ago, you know, everything was so very different. I was going to balls and parties and things, like other young people. Five and twenty years ago!—there was a gentleman that had a post out in India somewhere—but it never came to anything. How strange it would have been, supposing I had been all these five and twenty years in India! I wonder if I should have been helpless as I am now?—but probably it would have been the liver—it would have been sure to have been the liver. Poor dear Edgar, he never was like the Ardens. That was why they were so unkind.”

“Unkind!” said Mrs. Murray, with a sudden start.

“Oh, you must not say anything of it now,” said the invalid, frightened. “He is the Squire, and there is no harm done. The old Squire was not nice; he was that sort of hard-hearted man—and poor dear Edgar was never like an Arden. My brother has his own ways of thinking, you know, and takes things into his head; and he thinks he understands: he thinks it was something about Mrs. Arden. But that is all the greatest wickedness and folly. I knew her, and I can say– He was so hard-hearted—not the least like a father—and that made him think, you know–”

Mrs. Murray, who was not used to Miss Somers, and could not unravel the maze, or make out which him was the Squire and which the Doctor, gazed at her with wondering eyes. She was almost as much moved as Edgar had been. Her cheeks grew red, her glance eager. “I have no right to be asking questions,” she said, “but there’s a cousin of mine here that has long been in their service, and I cannot but take an interest in the family. Thomas Perfitt has told us a’ about the Ardens at home. If I was not presuming, I would like to know about Mr. Edgar. There’s something in his kind eyes that goes to the heart of the poor. I’m a stranger; but if it’s no presuming–”

“Yes; I suppose you are a stranger,” said Miss Somers, who was too glad to have any one to talk to. “But I have heard so much about you, I can’t think– Oh, dear, no, you are not presuming. Everybody knows about the Ardens; they were always a very proud sort of stiff people. The old Squire was married when I was a young lady, you know, and cared for a little attention and to be taken notice of; though I am sure why I should talk of myself! That is long past—ever so long past; and his wife was so nice and so sweet. If she had been a great lady I am sure I should never have loved her so– And the baby—but somehow no one ever thought of the baby—not even his mamma. She had always to be watching her husband’s looks, poor thing. On the whole, I am not sure that one is not happier when one does not marry. The things I have seen! Not daring to call their souls their own; and then looking down upon you, as if you were not far, far– But poor dear Edgar never was petted like Clare. One never saw him when he was a child; and I do believe his poor dear papa hated him after– I ought not to talk like this, I know. But he has come out of it all like—like– Oh, he is the dearest fellow! And to be sure, he is the Squire, and no one can harm him now.”

“Maybe the servants should not hear,” said Mrs. Murray, whose face was glowing with a deep colour. The red was not natural to her, and seemed to burn into her very eyes. And she did not look at Miss Somers, but stood anxiously fingering the apron of the little carriage. John and Mercy were both close by—perhaps out of hearing, but no more.

“Oh, my dear woman, the servants know all about it,” said Miss Somers. “They talk more about it than we do; that is always the way with them. I might give a hint, you know; but they speak plain. No; he was not happy when he was a boy; he went wandering all about and about–”

“But that was for his education,” said the anxious inquirer, whose interest in the question did not astonish Miss Somers. To her it seemed only natural that the Ardens should be prominent in everybody’s horizon. She shook her head with such a continuous shake, that Mercy was tempted to interfere.

“You’ll have the headache, Miss, if you don’t mind,” said Mercy, coming forward; “and me and John both thinks that it ain’t what the Doctor would like, to see you a-sitting here.”

“It’s only for a minute,” said the invalid, humbly, “I want a little breath, after being so long shut up. You may think what it would be if you were shut up for two years. Would you tell John to go and gather me some may, there’s a dear good creature? I am so interested in these nice people; and my brother says– Some may, please, John; not the brown branches that are going off– I think I saw some there. Mercy, you have such good eyes, go and show him, please. There, now they are gone, one can talk. Old servants are a great blessing, though sometimes– But it is all their interest in one, you know. His education was the excuse. I remember when I was young, Mary Thorpe– They said it was to learn Italian; but if that young man had not been so poor– It is such a strange, strange world! If people were to think less of money, don’t you think it would be happier, especially for young girls? I hope it is not anything of that kind with your poor little grandchild; but then she is so young–”

“You were speaking of Mr. Arden,” said Mrs. Murray, with a sigh; and then she added—“But he is the only heir, and all’s his now.”

“Oh, yes, all is his—the dear fellow; but he is not the only heir; there is Clare, you know– Don’t you hate entails, and that sort of thing, that cut off the girls? We may not be so clever, though I am sure I don’t know– But we can’t live without a little money, all the same. I say to my brother sometimes—but then he is so impatient. And Clare is wonderfully superior—equal to any man. I think, though I have seen her every day for years, I get on better with Edgar. It makes my poor head ache, I am such a helpless creature, not good for anything. If you could have seen me a few years back you would not know me. I was always running about: the ‘little busy bee;’ when I was young that is what they always used to call me. There was a gentleman that used to say—a Mr. Templeton, of the Royal Navy– but there were difficulties, you know– Oh, yes; I remember, about Arden– I do run on, I know; my brother is always telling me I lose the thread, but why there should be a thread– Yes, there is another Arden—Arthur Arden; you must have seen him pass just now.”

“The man that was so like–” said Mrs. Murray; and then she stopped, and shut up her lips tight, as if to establish even physical safeguards against the utterance of another word.

“He is very like his family—just the reverse of poor dear Edgar,” said Miss Somers; “but I don’t like him at all, and he is such a dear fellow– If there had been no son, Arthur would have succeeded, and poor dear Clare would have been cut off, unless they were to marry. I sometimes think if they were to marry– Was that your daughter stirring? I can’t think how you don’t die of fright to see her lying there so still. Do bring her to see me, please. I am never out of my room—except now, in this fine new chair, of course, I shall be going out every day. But it is so dreadful to have to be carried, and not to put your foot to the ground. Mercy says it is a judgment; but, you know, I cannot believe– Of course, you must be a Calvinist, I suppose?”

“There’s many a judgment that never shows,” said the Scotchwoman; “you feel it deep in your heart, and you ken how it comes, but nobody in this world is any the wiser. Of that I am well aware.”