Squire Arden; volume 3 of 3

“No,” she cried, “I am no angel; I am an Arden. I know you are good; but if you had been wicked and concealed it, and stood by your rights, I should have felt with you more!”

It was in the revulsion of her over-excited feelings that she spoke, but yet it was true. Perhaps it was more true than when she had stood by Edgar and called him her dearest brother; but it was the hardest blow he had yet had to bear. He sat down again, and covered his face with his hands. Poor fellow! the little comfort he had been so ready to enjoy, the quietness and friendliness, the food and rest, had lost all savour for him now. Mr. Fielding took his hand and pressed it, but that was only a mild consolation. After a moment he rose, rousing himself for the last step, which up to this moment he had shrunk from. “I have a further revelation to make to you,” he said in an altered voice; “but I have not had the courage to do it. I have to tell you who I really belong to. I think I have the courage now.”

“Edgar!” she cried, in alarm, raising her head, holding out her hand to him with a little cry of distress, “Will you not always belong to me?”

He shook his head; he was incapable of any further explanation. “I will go and bring my mother–” he said, with a half sob. The other two sat amazed, and looked after him as he went away.

“Do you know what he means?” asked Clare, in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible. Mr. Fielding shook his head.

“I don’t know what he means, or if his mind is giving way, poor boy—poor boy, that thinks of everybody but himself; and you have been hard, very hard upon him, Clare.”

Clare did not answer a word. She rose from the table, from the fruit and wine which she had spoiled to her gentle host, and went to the deep, old-fashioned window which looked down the village street. She drew the curtain aside, and sat down on the window-seat, and gazed into the darkness. What had he meant? Whom had he gone to seek? An awful sense that she had lost him for ever made Clare shiver and tremble; and yet what she had said in her petulance was true.

As for Edgar, he hastened along through the darkness with spasmodic energy. He had wondered how he could do it; he had turned from the task as too difficult, too painful; he had even thought of leaving Clare in ignorance of his real origin, and writing to tell her after he had himself disappeared for ever. But here was the moment to make the revelation. He could do it now; his heart was very sore and full of pain—but yet the very pain gave him an opportunity. He reflected that though it was very hard for him, it was better for Clare that the severance between them should be complete. He could not go on, he who was a stranger to her blood, holding the position of her brother. Years and distance, and the immense difference which there would most likely be between them would gradually make an end of any such visionary arrangement. He would have liked to keep up the pleasant fiction; the prospect of its ending crushed his heart and forced tears into his eyes; but it would be best for Clare. She was ready to give him up already, he reflected, with a pang. It would be better for her to make the severance complete.

He went into the cottage in the dark, without being recognised by any one. The door of the inner room was ajar, and Mrs. Murray was visible within by the light of a candle, seated at some distance from her child’s bedside. The bed was shaded carefully, and it was evident that Jeanie was asleep. The old woman had no occupation whatever. A book was lying open before her on the little table, and her knitting lay in her lap; but she was doing nothing. Her face, which was so full of grave thoughtfulness, was fully revealed by the light. It was the face of a woman of whom no king need have been ashamed; every line in it was fine and pure. Her snow-white hair, her dark eyes, which were so full of life, the firm lines about her mouth, and the noble pose of the head, gave her a dignity which many a duchess might have envied. True, her dress was very simple—her place in the world humble enough; but Edgar felt a sense of shame steal over him as he looked at her. He had shrank from calling such a woman his mother, shrank from acknowledging her in the face of the day; and yet there was no Arden face on the walls of the house he had left which was more noble in feature, or half so exalted in expression. He said this to himself, and yet he shrank still. It was the last and highest act of renunciation. He went in so softly that she was not disturbed. He went up to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder. His heart stirred within him as he stood by her side. An unwilling tenderness, a mixture of pride and shame, thrilled through him. “Mother!” he said. It was the first time he had ever, in his recollection, called any one by that sacred name.

CHAPTER XXVII

Mrs. Murray started violently, and uttered a low cry. She turned to him with a look of sudden joy, that made her dark eyes expand and dilate. But when she saw Edgar’s face, a change came over her own. She rose up, half withdrawing from his touch, and signed to him to leave the room, with a gesture towards the bed in which Jeanie lay asleep. She followed him to the door, where they had had so many broken interviews. The silence and the darkness, and the faint stars above, seemed a congenial accompaniment. She put her hand upon Edgar’s arm as he stepped across the threshold. “What is your will; what is your will?” she said, in an agitated voice. It seemed to the young man that even this last refuge—the affection to which he had a right—had failed him too.

“My will?” he said. “It is for me to ask yours, you that are my mother. My life has changed like a dream, but yours is as it always was. Do you want nothing of me?”

“Na,” said Mrs. Murray, with a voice of pain; “nothing, lad! nothing, lad! You’ve been good to me and mine without knowing. You’ve saved my Jeanie’s life. But we’re proud folk, though we were not brought up like you. Nothing will we take but your love; and I’m no complaining. I bow to nature and my own sin. I’ve long repented, long repented; but that is neither here nor there; it cannot be expected that you should have any love to give.”

“I don’t know what I have to give,” said Edgar. “I am too weary and heart-broken to know. Can you come with me now to see my sister?—I mean Miss Arden. I must tell her. Don’t be grieved or pained, for I cannot help it. It is hard.”

“Ay, it is hard,” said Mrs. Murray; “Oh, it’s hard, hard! You were but a babe when I put you out of my arms; but I’ve yearned after you ever since. No, I’m asking no return; it’s no natural. You are more like to hate us than to love us. I acknowledge that.”

“I don’t hate you,” said Edgar. He was torn asunder with conflicting feelings. Was it hatred or was it love? He could not tell which.

“I’m ready to put my hands on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust,” she went on. “I’ve sinned and sinned sore against the Lord and against you. You were the only one left of all your mother’s bairns; and she was dead, and he was dead—all gone that belonged to you but me—and my hands full, full of weans and of troubles. I had the love for you, but neither time nor bread, and I was sore, sore tempted. They said to me there was none to be wronged, but only a house to be made glad. Oh, lad, I sinned; and most I have sinned against you.”

He could not say no. His heart seemed shut up and closed against her. He could utter no forgiveness. It was true—quite true. She had sinned against him. Squire Arden was deeply to blame, but she, too, had sinned. There was not a word to say.

“When you said mother, I thought my heart would burst with joy. I thought the Lord had sent to you the spirit to forgive. But I canna expect it; I canna look for it. Oh, no! I wouldna be ungrateful, good Lord! He has his bonnie mother’s heart to serve his neighbour, and his father’s that died for the poor, like Christ. I maunna complain. He has a heart like his kin though no for me!”

“Tell me what you mean,” cried Edgar, with a thrill of emotion tingling to his very finger-points; “or rather come with me, come with me. Clare must know all now–”

“And Jeanie is sleeping,” she said. “I’ll cry upon that good woman to watch her, and I’ll do your bidding. God bless you, lad, for Jeanie’s life!”

He stood and waited for her outside with a new life, it seemed, thrilling through him. His father? He had once had a father, then—a man who had done his duty in the world—not a tyrant, who hated him. The idea of his mother did not so much move him; for somehow the dead woman whose reputation he had vindicated, the sweet young face in Clare’s picture, was his mother to Edgar in spite of all. He could not turn her out of his imagination. But his father! A new spring of curiosity, which was salvation to him, sprang up in his heart. Presently Mrs. Murray came out again, in her old-fashioned shawl and bonnet. Her dress veiled the dignity of her head. It gave him a sort of shudder to think of Clare looking at this woman, whom she had wanted to be kind to—to treat as a dependent—and knowing her to be his grandmother. She looked a little like Mrs. Fillpot, in her old-fashioned bonnet and shawl—he scorned himself for the thought, and yet it came back to him—very much like Mrs. Fillpot until you saw her face; and Edgar was made of common flesh and blood, and it went to his heart. He walked up the village street by her side with the strangest feelings. If she wanted him, it would be his duty, perhaps, to go with her—to provide for her old age—to do her the service of a son. She had a hold on him which nobody else in the world had. And yet– To be very kind, tender-hearted, and generous to your conventional inferiors is so easy; but to take a family among them into your very heart, and acknowledge them as your own!– Edgar shivered with a pang that ran through every nerve; and yet it had to be done!

He was more reconciled to it by the time he reached the Rectory. Mrs. Murray did not say another word to conciliate or attract his regard, but she began a long soft-voiced monologue—the story of his family. She told him of his father, who had been a doctor, and had died of typhus fever, caught among the poor, to whom he had dedicated his life; of his mother, who had broken her heart; of all her own children, his relations, who were scattered over the world. “We’re no rich nor grand, but we are folk that none need think shame of,” she said, “no one. We’ve done our duty by land and by sea, and served God, and wronged no man—all but me; and the wrong I did is made right, oh my bonnie lad, thanks to you.”

Thus a certain comfort, a certain bitterness distilled into his heart with every word. He made her take his arm as he entered the Rectory. He had seen the curtain raised from the window, and some one looking out, and felt that it was Clare watching, with perhaps a suspense as great as his own. He led his grandmother into the dining-room, which he had left so suddenly, leaning on his arm. Clare rose from her seat at the window as they entered, and so did Mr. Fielding, who, really unhappy and distressed, had been dozing in his chair. The Rector stumbled up half asleep, and recollected the twilight visit he had received only a few days before, and said “God bless me!” understanding it all in a moment. But Clare did not understand. She walked forward to meet them, her face blazing with painful colour. A totally different fancy crossed her mind. She made a sudden conclusion, not like the reasonable and high-minded being she desired to be, but like the inexperienced and foolish girl she was. An almost fury blazed up in her eyes. Now that he had fallen, Edgar was making haste to unite himself to that girl who had been the bane of her life. He had brought the mother here to tell her so. It was Jeanie, Jeanie, once more—the baby creature with her pretty face—who was continually crossing her path.

“What does this mean?” she cried haughtily. “Is this a time for folly, for forming any miserable connexion—why do you bring this woman here?”

“You must speak of her in other tones, if you speak of her to me,” said Edgar. “I have shrunk from telling you, I can’t tell why. It seemed severing the last link between us. But I must not hesitate any longer. Miss Arden, this is Mrs. Murray, who wrote the letters you found in your father’s room, who shared with him the guilt of the transaction which has brought us all so much pain; but she is my mother’s mother, my nearest relative in the world, and any one who cares for me will respect her. This is the witness I told you of—her testimony makes everything clear.”

Clare stood thunderstruck, and listened to this revelation; then she sank upon the nearest seat, turning still her pale countenance aghast upon the old woman, who regarded her with a certain pathetic dignity. Horror, dismay, shame of herself, sudden lighting up of a hundred mysterious incidents—light glimmering through the darkness, yet confounding and confusing everything, overwhelmed her. His mother’s mother. Good Heavens! is she mine too? Clare asked herself in her dismay, and then paused and tried to disentangle herself from that maze of old habit and new bewildering knowledge. She could not speak nor move, but sat and gazed upon the Scotchwoman who had been somehow painfully mixed up in all the story of the past two months and all its difficulties. Was this an explanation of all? or would Arthur Arden come in next, and present this woman to her with another explanation? Clare’s heart seemed to stand still—she could not breathe, but kept her eyes fixed with a painful mechanical stare upon Mrs. Murray’s face.

“Yes, Miss Arden,” said the old woman, “he says true. I was tempted and I sinned. He was an orphan bairn, and it was said to me that no person would be wronged by it—though it may be a comfort to you to hear that your mother opposed it with all her might. She knew better than me. She was a young thing, no half my age; but she knew better than me. For all her sweetness and her kindness, she set her face against the wrong. It was him that sinned, and me–”

And then there was a long pause. Clare seemed paralysed—she neither moved nor spoke; and Edgar stood apart, struggling with his own heart, trying not to long for the sympathy of the sister who had been his all his life—trying to enter into the atmosphere of love towards the other through whom his very life had come to him. Mr. Fielding, who was not at the same pitch of excitement, bethought himself of those ordinary courtesies of life which seem so out of place to the chief actors in such a scene. He offered Mrs. Murray a chair; he begged her to take some wine; he was hospitable, and friendly, and courteous—till Clare and Edgar, equally moved, interposed in the same breath—“Oh, don’t, please, don’t say anything,” Clare cried, “I cannot bear it.” And Edgar, to whom she had not spoken a word, whom she had not even looked at, came forward again and gave the stranger his arm.

“Thanks,” he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness; “but now that all is said that need be said, I must take my mother away.”

“My dear Edgar, stop a little,” cried Mr. Fielding, in much agitation. “This must not be permitted. If this– lady is really your—your grandmother, my dear boy. Pardon me, but it is so hard to realise it—to imagine; but she cannot be left in that poor little cottage—it is impossible. I am amazed that I could have overlooked—that I did not see. The Rectory is small, and Clare perhaps might not think– or I should beg you to come here—but some other place, some better place.”

Mrs. Murray’s face beamed with a sudden smile. Edgar looked on with terror, fearing he could not tell what. Was she about to seize this social elevation with vulgar eagerness? Was she about to make it impossible for him even to respect her? “Sir,” she said, holding out her hand to the Rector, “I thank you for my lad’s sake. Every time I see or hear how he’s respected, how he’s thought of, my heart leaps like the hart, and my tongue is ready to sing. It’s like forgiveness from the Lord for the harm I’ve done– but we’re lodged as well as we wish for the moment, and I desire nothing of any man. We’re no rich, and we’re no grand, but we’re proud folk.”

“I beg your pardon, madam,” said Mr. Fielding, bowing over her hand as if she had been a duchess. And Edgar drew the other through his arm. “Folk that none need think shame of,” he said in his heart, and for the first time since this misery began that heart rose with a sensation which was not pain.

“And good night, Miss Arden,” she said, “and God bless you for being the light of his eyes and the comfort of his life. Well I know that he owes all its pleasantness to you. An old woman’s blessing will do you no harm, and it’s likely that I will never in this life see you more.”

Thus Clare was left alone in the silence. Mr. Fielding hastened to the door to attend his visitor out, with as much respect as if she had been a queen. Clare remained alone, her whole frame and heart tingling with emotion. She was ashamed, humbled, and mortified, and cast down. Her brother!—and this was his true origin—these his relations. She, too, had remarked that Mrs. Murray was like Mrs. Fillpot at the first glance—a peasant woman—a farmer’s wife at the best. It was intolerable to Clare. And yet all the while he was Edgar—her brother, whom she had loved—her companion, whom she had kissed and hung upon—who had been her support, her protector, her nearest and closest friend. She rose and fled when she heard the sound of the closing door, and Mr. Fielding’s return. She could not bear to see him, or to have her own dismay and horror brought under remark. He would say they were unchristian, wicked; and what if they were? Could she help it? God had made her an Arden—not one of those common people without susceptibilities, without strong feeling. Had Edgar been an Arden he never could have done it. He did it, because he was of common flesh and blood; he had not felt it. All was explained now.

As for Edgar, he walked down again to Sally Timms’s cottage, with his old mother on his arm. “Lean on me,” he said to her as they went along in the dark. He could not be fond of her all at once, stranger as she was; but he was—could it be possible?—proud of her, and it was a pleasure to him to feel that he supported her, and did a son’s natural duty so far. And then it went to his heart when he saw all at once in the light of a cottage window which gleamed on her as they passed, that she was weeping, silently putting up her hand to wipe tears from her face. “It’s no for trouble, it’s for gladness,” she said, when he looked up at her anxiously. “I canna think but my repentance is accepted, and the Lord has covered over my sin.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

“These are our terms, Mr. Arden,” said Mr. Fazakerly. “It is, of course, entirely in your own hands to accept or reject them: a provision such as has been usually made for the daughters of Arden, for Miss Clare; and a certain sum—say a few hundreds—he would not accept anything more—for—your predecessor– These are our conditions. If you accept them, he offers (much against my will—all this surrender is against my will) immediate possession, without any further trouble. My own opinion is quite against this self-renunciation, but my client is obstinate–”

“Your client!” said Arthur Arden, with a tone of contempt. “Up to this time your clients have always been the lawful owners of Arden.”

“Understand, sir,” said the old lawyer, with a flush of irritation on his face, “that I do not for a moment admit that Mr. Edgar is not the lawful owner of Arden. That rests on your assertion merely; and it is an assertion which you might find it amazingly difficult to prove. He offers you terms upon his own responsibility, against my advice and wish, out of an exaggerated sense of honour, such as perhaps you don’t enter into. My wish would have been to let you bring your suit, and fight it out.”

Arthur Arden was in great doubt. He paced the long library up and down, taking council with himself. To make conditions at all—to treat with this beggar and impostor, as he called him in his heart—was very galling to his pride. Of course he would have been kind to the fellow after he had taken possession of his own. He would have made some provision for him, procured him an appointment, given him an allowance, out of pure generosity; but it was humiliating to pause and treat, or to acknowledge any power on the part of the usurper to exact conditions. It was astonishing how fast and far his thoughts had travelled in the last twenty-four hours. He had scarcely allowed the bewildering hope to take hold of his mind then—he could not endure to be kept for another hour out of his possessions now. He walked up and down heavily, pondering the whole matter. It appeared to him that he had nothing to do but to proclaim himself the reigning monarch in place of the usurper found out, and to expel him and his belongings, and begin his own reign. But the old lawyer stood before him, vigilant and unyielding, keeping an eye upon him—cowing him by that glance. He came forward to the table again with reluctant politeness. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “It stands to reason that from the moment it is found out, everything becomes mine as the last Squire Arden’s next of kin.”

“You have to prove first that you are nearer of kin than his son.”

“His son! Do you venture to keep up that fiction? How can I consent for a moment to treat with any one who affirms a lie?”

“Your conscience has become singularly tender, Mr. Arden,” said the lawyer, with a smile. “I don’t think you were always so particular; and remember you have to prove that it is a lie. You have to prove your case at every step against all laws of probability and received belief. I do not say that you will fail eventually, but it is a case that might occupy half your remaining life, and consume half the value of the estate. And I promise you you should not gain it easily if the defence were in my hands.”

“When I did win you should find that no Arden papers found their way again to your hands,” said Arthur, with irritation.

Mr. Fazakerly made him a sarcastic bow. “I can live without Arden,” he said; “but the question is, can you?”

Then there was another pause. “I suppose I may at least consult my lawyer about it,” said Arthur, sullenly; and once more Mr. Fazakerly made him a bow.

“By all means; but should my client leave the country before you have decided, it will be necessary to shut up the house and postpone its transference. A few months more or less will not matter much. I will put down our conditions, that you may submit them to your lawyer. A provision such as other daughters of Arden have had, for Miss Clare–”

“I will not have Miss Arden’s name mentioned,” said Arthur, angrily; “her interests are quite safe in my hands.”

“That may or may not be,” said Mr. Fazakerly; “but my client insists absolutely on this point, and unless it is conceded, all negotiations are at an end. Fit provision for Miss Clare; and a sum of money—say a thousand pounds–”