Squire Arden; volume 1 of 3

“It is not possible!” said Mr. Fielding, very decidedly; and then he let his slim umbrella drop out of his fingers, and held out both his hands. “Is it really you, my dear boy!” he said. “Excuse my blind eyes. If you had been my own son I would not have known you. I was on my way to call. But though this is not so solemn or so correct it will do as well. And Clare: Will you come in and have some breakfast? It cannot be much past your breakfast hour.”

“Nor yours either,” said Clare; “it is so naughty of you and so wrong of you to sit up like that, when you might just as well read in daylight, and go to bed when everybody else does. But we don’t follow such a bad example. We mean to have breakfast always by eight o’clock.”

Mr. Fielding gave a little sigh, and shook his venerable head. “That is all very pretty, my dear, and very nice when you can do it; but you know it never lasts. Anyhow, don’t let us stand here. Come in, my dear boy, come in, and welcome home again. And welcome to your own, Edgar,” he added, turning quickly round as he led them into his study, a large low room, looking out upon the trim parsonage garden. He put out both his hands as he said this, and grasped both those of Edgar, and looked not at all disinclined to throw himself upon his neck. “Welcome to your own,” he repeated fervently, and his eyes strayed beyond Edgar’s head, as if he were confronting and defying some one. And then he added more solemnly, “And God bless you, and enable you to fill your high position like a man. Amen. I wonder what the old Doctor will say now.”

“What should he say?” said Edgar, fun dancing in his bright brown eyes; “and how is he? I suppose he is unchangeable, like everything here.”

“Not unchangeable,” said Mr. Fielding, with a slight half-perceptible shake of his head at the levity, one of those momentary assumptions of the professional which most old clergymen indulge in now and then; “nothing is unchangeable in this transitory world. But old Somers is as steady as most things,” he added, with a responsive glance of amusement. “We go on quarrelling, he and I, but it would be hard upon us if we had to part. But tell me about yourself, Edgar, which is more interesting. When did you get home?”

“Late last night,” said Edgar. “I came straight through from Cologne. I began to get impatient as soon as I had settled which day I was to reach home, and came before my time. Clare was in bed, poor child; but she got up, fancy, when she heard it was me.”

“Of course she did; and she wants a cup of chocolate now,” said the old parson, “when her colour changes like that from red to white, you should give her some globules instantly, or else a cup of chocolate. I am not a homœopathist, so I always recommend the chocolate. Mrs. Solmes please, Miss Clare is here.”

“Shall I make two, sir?” said the housekeeper, who had heard the unusual commotion, and put her head in softly to see what was the matter. She did not quite understand it, even now. But she was too highly trained a woman, and too good a servant to take any notice. The chocolate was her affair, while the identity of the new comer was not.

“Don’t you know my brother, Mrs. Solmes?” cried Clare. “He has come home. Edgar, she takes such good care of dear Mr. Fielding. I don’t know how he managed without her before she came.”

Edgar was not failing in his duty on the occasion. He stepped forward and shook hands with the radiant and flattered woman, “as nat’ral as if I had known him all his life,” she said in the kitchen afterwards; for Mrs. Solmes was a stranger and foreigner, belonging to the next parish, who could not but disapprove of Arden and Arden ways, which were different from the habits of Thornleigh parish, to which she belonged. Edgar made her quite a little speech as he stood and held her hand—“Anybody who is good to Mr. Fielding is good to Clare and me. He has always been so kind to us all our lives.”

“He loves you like his own children, sir,” said Mrs. Solmes, quickly; and then she turned and went away to make the chocolate, not wishing to presume; while her master walked about the room, rubbing his hands softly, and peering at the young man from amid the puckers of his eyelids with pleased and approving satisfaction. “It is very nicely said,” cried Mr. Fielding, “very nice feeling, and well expressed. After that speech, I should have known him anywhere for an Arden, Clare.”

“But the Ardens don’t make pretty speeches,” said Clare, under her breath. She never could be suite sure of him. Everything he did had a spontaneous look about it that puzzled his sister. To be in Arden, and to know that a certain hereditary course of action is expected from you is a great advantage, no doubt, yet it sometimes gives a certain sobriety and stiffness to the external aspect. Edgar, on the contrary, was provokingly easy, with all the spontaneousness of a man who said and did exactly what he liked to do and to say. Clare’s loyalty to her race could not have permitted any such freedom of action, and it puzzled her at every turn.

“We must send for old Somers,” said Mr. Fielding. “Poor old fellow, he is very crotchety and fond of his own notions; but he’s a very good fellow. We are the two oldest friends you have in the world, you young people; and if we might not get a little satisfaction out of you I don’t know who should. Mrs. Solmes,” this was called from the study door in a louder voice, “send Jack over with my compliments to Dr. Somers, and ask him to step this way for a minute. No, Edgar, don’t go; I want to surprise him here.”

“But no one says anything about Miss Somers,” said Edgar; “how is she?”

“Ah, poor thing,” said Mr. Fielding, shaking his head, “she is confined to bed now. She is growing old, poor soul. For that matter, we are all growing old. And not a bad thing either,” he added, pausing and looking round at the two young figures so radiant in life and hope. “You children are sadly sorry for us—but fading away out of the world is easier than you think.”

Edgar grasped Mr. Fielding’s hand, not quite knowing why, with the compunction of youth for the departing existence to which its own beginning seems so harsh a contrast, and yet with a reverential sympathy that closed his lips. Clare, on the contrary, looked at him with something almost matter-of-fact in her blue eyes. “You are not so old,” she said quietly. “We thought you looked quite young as we came to the door. Please don’t be angry, but I used to think you were a hundred. You have grown ever so much younger these last three years.”

“I should be very proud if I were a hundred,” said Mr. Fielding, with a laugh; but he liked the grasp of Edgar’s hand, and that sympathetic glance in his eyes. Clare was Clare, the recognised and accustomed princess, whom no one thought of criticising; but her brother was on his trial. Every new look, every movement, spoke for or against him; and, so far, everything was in his favour. “Of course, he is like his mother’s family,” the old Rector said to himself, “more sympathetic than the pure Ardens, but with all their fine character and best qualities. I wonder what old Somers will think of him. And here he comes,” he continued aloud, “the best doctor in the county, though he is as crotchety as an old magician. Somers, here’s our young squire.”

CHAPTER III

Dr. Somers came in, with a pair of eagle eyes going before him, as it seemed, like pioneers, to warn him of what was in his way. The Rector peered and groped with the short-sighted feeble orbs which lurked amid a nest of wrinkles, but the Doctor’s brilliant black eyes went on before him and inspected everything. He was a tall, straight, slim, but powerful old man, with nothing superfluous about him except his beard, which in those days was certainly a superfluity. It was white, and so was his hair; but his eyes were so much darker than any human eyes that were ever seen, that to call them black was not in the least inappropriate. He had been the handsomest man in the county in his youth, and he was not less so now—perhaps more, with all the imposing glory of his white hair, and the suavity of age that had softened the lines in his face—lines which might have been a little hard in the fulness of his strength. It was possible to think of the Rector as, according to his own words, fading away out of the earth, but Dr. Somers stood like a strong tower, which only a violent shock could move, and which had strength to resist a thousand assaults. He came into the sober-toned rectory, into that room which was always a little cold, filled with a soft motionless atmosphere, a kind of abiding twilight, which even Clare’s presence did not dispel—and filled it, as it seemed, swallowing up not only the Rector, but the young brother and sister, in the fulness of his presence. He was the light, and Mr. Fielding the shadow in the picture; and, as ought always to be the case, the light dominated the shadow. He had taken in every thing and everyone in the room with a devouring glance in the momentary pause he made at the door, and then entered, holding out his hand to the newcomer—“They meant to mystify me, I suppose,” he said, “and thought I would not recognise you. How are you, Edgar? You are looking just as I thought you would, just as I knew you would. When did you come home?”

“Last night, late,” said Edgar, returning cordially the pressure of his hand.

“And did not wait to be waited on, like a reigning monarch, but came to see your old friends, like an impatient good-hearted boy? There’s a fine fellow,” said the Doctor, patting him on the shoulders with a caress which was quite as forcible as it was affectionate. “I ought to like you, Edgar Arden, for you have always justified my opinion of you, and done exactly what I expected you would do, all your life.”

“Perhaps it is rash to say that I hope I shall always justify your opinion,” said Edgar, laughing, “for I don’t know whether it is a good one. But I don’t suppose I am very hard to read,” he added, with a warm flush rising over his face. He grew red, and he stopped short with a certain sense of embarrassment for which he could scarcely account. He did not even try to account for it to himself, but flushed all over, and felt excessively hot and uncomfortable. The fact was, he was a very open-hearted, candid young fellow, much more tempted to wear his heart upon his sleeve than to conceal it; and, as he glanced round upon his three companions, he could see that there was a certain furtive look of scrutiny about all their eyes: not furtive so far as the Doctor was concerned, who looked through and through him without any concealment of his intention. But Mr. Fielding had half-turned his head, while yet he peered with a tremulous scrutiny at his young guest; and Clare’s pretty forehead was contracted with a line of anxiety which Edgar knew well. They were all doubtful about him—not sure of him—trying to make him out. Such a thought was bitter to the young man. His colour rose higher and higher, and his heart began to beat. “I do not think I am very difficult to read,” he repeated, with a forced and painful smile.

“Not a bit,” said the Doctor; “and you are as welcome home as flowers in May: the first time I have said that to you, my boy, but it won’t be the last. Miss Clare, my sister would be pleased if you told her of Edgar’s return. She will have to be prepared, and got up, and all sorts of things, to see him; but, if you were to tell her, she would think it kind. Ah, here’s the chocolate. Of course in this house everything must give place to that.”

“I will go over to Miss Somers for ten minutes,” said Clare, “thank you, Doctor, for reminding me; and, dear Mr. Fielding, don’t let Edgar go till I come back.”

“I should like to go too,” said Edgar. “No? Well, I won’t then; but tell Miss Somers I will come to-morrow, Clare. Tell her I have brought her something from Constantinople; and have never forgotten how kind she used to be—how kind you all were!” And the young man turned round upon them—“It is a strange sensation coming back and feeling myself at home among the faces I have known all my life. And thank you all for being so good to Clare.”

Clare was going out as he spoke, with a certain shade of reluctance and even of pride. She had been told to go, and she did not like it; it had been implied that she had forgotten a duty of neighbourship, and to Miss Somers, too, who could not move about, and ascertain things for herself; and Clare did not like to be reminded of her duties. She turned round, however, at the door, and looked back, and smiled her acknowledgment of what her brother said. These two old men had been very kind to her. They had done everything that the most attached old friends could do at the time of her father’s death. That was a whole year ago; for old Squire Arden had made a stipulation that his son was not to come back, nor enter upon the possession of his right, till he was five-and-twenty—a stipulation which, of course, counted for nothing in the eye of the law, but was binding on Edgar, much as he longed to be at his sister’s side. Thus, his father oppressed him down to the very edge of his grave. And poor Clare would have been very forlorn in the great house but for her old friends. Miss Somers, who was not then so great an invalid, had gone to the Hall, to be with the girl during that time of seclusion, and she had been as a child to all of them. A compunction smote Clare as she turned and looked round from the door, and she kissed her hand to them with a pretty gesture. But still it was with rather an ill grace that she went to Miss Somers, which was not her own impulse. Compulsion fretted the Arden soul.

“I brought Clare into the world, and Fielding has been her head nurse all his life,” said the Doctor, “no need for thanking us on that score. And now all’s yours, Edgar. I may say, and I’m sure Fielding will say, how thankful we both are to see you. You could not have been altogether disinherited, as the property’s entailed; but I never was easy in my mind about it during your father’s lifetime. The old Squire was a very peculiar man; and there was no telling–”

“Doctor,” said the young man, once more with a flush on his cheek, “would you mind leaving out my father’s name in anything that has to be said?—unless, indeed, he left any message for me. He liked Clare best, which was not wonderful, and he thought me a poor representative of the Ardens, which was natural enough. I have not a word to say against him. On the whole, perhaps, I have got as much good of my life as if I had been brought up in England. I have never been allowed to forget hitherto that my father did not care for me—let me forget it now.”

“Exactly,” said the Doctor, looking at him with a certain curious complacency; and he gave a nod at Mr. Fielding, who stood winking to get rid of a tear which was in the corner of his eye. “Exactly what I said! Now, can you deny it? By Jove! I wish he had been my son! It is what I knew he would say.”

“Edgar, my dear boy,” said the Rector, “every word does you credit, and this more than all. Your poor father was mistaken. I say your poor father, for he evidently had something on his mind just before he died, and would have spoken if time had been allowed him. I have no doubt it was to say how sorry he was. But the Ardens are dreadfully obstinate, Edgar, and he never could bring himself to do it. It is just like you to say this. Clare will appreciate it, and I most fully appreciate it. It is the best way; let us not dwell upon the past, let us not even try to explain. Your being like your mother’s family can never be anything against you—far from it. I agree in every word you say.”

This speech, flattering and satisfactory as it was, took the young man a little by surprise. “I don’t know what being like my mother’s family has to do with it,” he said, with momentary petulance; but then his brighter spirits gained the mastery. “It is best never to explain anything,” he continued, with a smile. “There is Clare calling me. I suppose I am to go to Miss Somers, notwithstanding your defence, Doctor.” And he waved his hand to Clare from the window, and went out, leaving the two old men behind him, following him with their eyes. He was glad to get away, if truth must be told; they were fighting some sort of undisclosed duel over his body, Edgar could see, and he did not like it. He went across the village street, which was very quiet at that end, to the Doctor’s great red brick house, and as he did so his face clouded over a little. “They have got some theory about me,” he said to himself; “am I never to be rid of it? And what right has any one to discuss me and my affairs now?” Then the shade gradually disappeared from his face, and in spite of himself there glided across his mind a sudden comparison between the last time he had been at Arden and the present. Then he had a boy’s keen sense of injustice and unkindness eating into him. It had not cut so deeply as it might have done if his temperament had been gloomy; but still it had galled him. He had felt himself contemned, disliked, thrust aside—his presence half clandestine—his wishes made of no account—his whole being thrust into a corner—a thing to hide, or at least to apologise for. Now, he was the master of all. The bells had rung for his home-coming; everything was changed. The thought made his head swim as he walked along in the serene stillness, with the swallows making circles about, and the bees murmuring round the blossomed trees. He had been living an uncertain wandering life, not always well supplied with money, not trained to do anything, an innocent vagabond. Now there was not a corner of his life upon which some one interest or another did not lay a claim. He had the gravest occupations on his hands. He might make for himself a position of high influence and importance in his county; and could scarcely be insignificant if he tried. And all this had come to him without any training for it. His very habits of mind were not English; even in the midst of these serious thoughts the village green, which was at his left hand, beyond the Church and the Rectory, caught his eye, and a momentary speculation came across him, whether the village people danced there on Sundays? whether the fairs were held there, or the tombola, or something to represent them? and then he stopped and laughed at himself. What would Mr. Fielding say? Thus Edgar had come to be Squire Arden without even the habit of being an Englishman. The sense of injustice which had weighed upon him all his life might have embittered his beginning now, had his mind been less elastic. But nature had been so good to him that he was able to toss these dreary thoughts aside, as he would have tossed a ball, before he went in to see Miss Somers. “Things will come right somehow,” he said to himself. Such was his light-hearted philosophy; while Clare stood grave and silent at the door to meet him, with a seriousness which would have been more in accordance with his difficulties than with hers. What troubled her was the question—Would he be a radical, and introduce innovations, ignore the mightiness of his family, conduct himself as if his name were anything else than Arden? This sufficed to plant the intensest seriousness, with almost a cast of severity in it, upon the brow of Clare.

“Didn’t I tell you exactly how it would happen?” said the Doctor, when Edgar was gone; “no sentiment to speak of—utter absence of revengeful feelings: settling down as if it was the most natural thing in the world—bygones to be bygones, and a fair start for the future. Didn’t I tell you? That boy is worth his weight in gold.”

“You certainly told me,” said Mr. Fielding, faltering, “something very like what has come to pass; but I don’t receive your theory, for all that. No, no; depend upon it, the simplest explanation is always the best. One can see at a glance he is like his mother’s family. Poor thing! I don’t think she was too happy; and that must have intensified old Arden’s remorse.”

“Old Arden’s fiddlestick!” said the Doctor. “I wouldn’t give that for his remorse. He had his reasons you may be sure. Character has been my favourite study all my life, as you know; and if that frank, open-hearted, well-dispositioned boy ever came out of an Arden’s nest, I expect to hear of a dove in an eagle’s. He has justified every word I ever said of him. I declare to you, Fielding, I am as fond of him as if he were my own boy.”

“Poor fellow!” said Mr. Fielding, shaking his head, as if that was not so great a compensation as might have been desired. “He will get into dozens of scrapes with these strange ways of thinking; and he knows nothing and nobody—not a soul in the county—and probably will be running his head against some stone wall or other before he is much older. If I had been twenty years younger I might have tried to be of use to him, but as it is–”

“As it is we shall both be of use to him,” said the Doctor, “never fear. Of course, he will get into a hundred scrapes; but then he will struggle out again, and no harm will come of it. If he had been like the Ardens he might have escaped the scrapes, but he would have missed a great deal besides. I like a young man to pay his way.”

“It appears to me, Somers, that you are a radical yourself,” said the Rector, shaking once more his feeble old head.

“On the contrary, the only real Tory going. The last of my race,—the Conservative innovator,” said Dr. Somers. “These old races, my dear Fielding, are beautiful things to look at. Clare, for instance, who is the concentrated essence of Ardenism—and how charming she is! But that order of things must come to an end. Another Squire Arden would have been next to impossible: whereas this new-blooded sanguine boy will make a new beginning. I don’t want to shock your feelings as a clergyman: but the cuckoo’s egg sometimes comes to good.”

“Somers,” said the Rector, solemnly, “I have told you often that I knew Mrs. Arden well. She was a good woman; as unlikely to go wrong as any woman I ever knew. You do her horrible injustice by such a supposition. Besides, think: he was always with her wherever she went—there could not have been a more devoted husband; and to imagine that all the while he had such a frightful wrong on his mind—it is simply impossible! besides, she was the mother of Clare.”

“That covers a multitude of sins, of course,” said the Doctor, “but you forget that I know all your arguments by heart. I don’t pretend to explain everything. It is best never to explain, as that boy says—wise fellow! Half the harm done in the world comes of explanations. But to return to our subject. I never said he found it out at once; perhaps—most likely—it was not discovered in her lifetime. Her papers might inform him after her death. It is curious that when there is anything to conceal, people do always leave papers telling all about it. If you will give me any other feasible explanation I don’t stand upon my theory. Like his mother’s family—bah! Is that reason enough for a man to shut his heart against his only boy? Besides, he is not like any one I know. I wish I could light upon any man he was like. It might furnish a clue–”

“When you are on your hobby, Somers, there is no stopping you,” said the Rector, with a look of distress.

“I am not alone in my equestrian powers,” retorted the Doctor, “you do quite as much in that line as I do; but my theory has the advantage of being credible, at least.”

“Not credible,” said Mr. Fielding, with gentle vehemence. “No, certainly not credible. Nothing would make it credible—not even to have heard with your ears, and seen with your eyes.”

“I never argue with prejudiced persons,” answered the Doctor, with equal haste and heat; and thus they parted, with every appearance of a quarrel. Such things happened almost daily between the two old friends. Dr. Somers took up his hat, gave a vague nod of leave-taking, and issued forth from the rectory gate as if he shook the dust from his feet; but all the same he would drop in at the rectory that evening, stalking carelessly through an open window as if, Mrs. Solmes said, who was not fond of the Doctor, the place belonged to him. He went across the street with more than his usual energy. His phaeton stood at his own door, with two fine horses, and the smartest of grooms standing at their heads. Dr. Somers was noted for his horses and the perfection of his turn-out generally, which was a relic of the days when he was the pride of the neighbourhood, and, people said, might have married into the highest family in the county had he so willed. He was still the handsomest man in the parish, though he was no longer young; and he was rich enough to indulge himself in all that luxury of personal surroundings which is dear to an old beauty. Edgar, who was standing at one of the twinkling windows, watched the Doctor get into his carriage with a mixture of admiration and relief. On the whole, the young man was glad not to have another interview with his old friend; but his white hair and his black eyes, his splendid old figure and beautiful horses, were a sight to see.

CHAPTER IV

“I am not quite in a state to receive a gentleman,” Miss Somers was saying when Edgar went in, with a little flutter of timidity and eagerness. “But it is so kind of you to let me know, and so sweet of dear Edgar to want to come. I told my brother only last night I was quite sure– But then he always has his own way of thinking. And you know why should dear Edgar care for a poor creature like me? I quite recognise that, my dear. There might be a time in my young days when some people cared– but as my brother says– And just come from the Continent, you know!”

“May I come in?” said Edgar, tapping against the folding screen which sheltered the head of the sofa on which the invalid lay.

“Oh, goodness me! Clare, my love, the dear boy is there! Yes, come in, Edgar, if you don’t mind– But I ought to call you Mr. Arden now. I never shall be able to call you Mr. Arden. Oh, goodness, boy! Well, there can’t be any harm in his kissing me; do you think there can be any harm in it, Clare? I am old enough to be both your mothers, and I am sure I think I love you quite as well. Of course, I should never speak of loving a gentleman if it was not for my age and lying here so helpless. Yes, I do feel as if I should cry sometimes to think how I used to run about once. But so long as it is only me, you know, and nobody else suffers– And you are both looking so well! But tell me now how shall you put up with Arden after the Continent and all that? I never was on the Continent but once, and then it was nothing but a series of fétes, as they called them. I was saying to my brother only last night–; for you know you never would visit the Pimpernels, Clare–”

“Who are the Pimpernels? and what have they to do with it?” said Edgar. “But tell me about yourself first, and how you come to be on a sofa. I never remember to have seen you sitting still before all my life.”

“No, indeed,” said Miss Somers, her soft pretty old face growing suddenly grey and solemn, “that is what makes old Mercy think, it’s a judgment; but you wouldn’t say it was wicked to be always running about, would you now? It’s wrong to follow one’s own inclinations, to be sure, but so long as you don’t harm anybody– There are the Pimpernel girls, who play croquet, from morning till night—not that I mean it’s wicked to play croquet—but poor Mr. Denbigh gets just a little led away I fear sometimes; and if ever there was a game intended for the waste of young people’s time–”