Squire Arden; volume 3 of 3

“Mrs. Murray! Mrs. Murray!” said Mr. Fielding, “let me put you on that sofa. Let me get you some wine. Compose yourself. My poor woman, my good woman! All this has been too much for you. Are you sure it is not a delusion you have got into your mind?”

The strange penitent took no notice of him as he stood thus beside her. Her mind was occupied otherwise. “How am I to make amends?” she was murmuring; “how am I to do it? Harm the innocent, crush down the innocent!—that’s all I can do. It will relieve my mind, but it will throw nothing but bitterness into theirs. The prophet he threw a sweetening herb into the bitter waters, but it would be gall and wormwood I would throw. The wrong’s done, and it canna be undone. It would but be putting off my burden on them—giving them my pain to bear; and it is me, and no them, that is worthy of the pain.”

“Mrs. Murray,” said the Rector, by this time beginning to feel alarmed; for how could he tell that it was not a madwoman he had beside him in the dark? “you must try and compose yourself. I think things cannot be so bad as you say. Perhaps you are tormenting yourself for nothing. My dear good woman, sit down and rest, and compose yourself, while I ring the bell for the lamp.”

Then she rose up slowly in the darkness between him and the window, and took her hands from her face. She did not raise her head, but she put out her hand and caught his arm with a vigour which made Mr. Fielding tremble. “I was thinking if I had anything else to say,” she said, in a low desponding tone, “but there’s nothing more. I cannot think but of one thing. If you’ve nothing more to say to me, I’ll go away. I’ll slip away in the dark, as I came, and nobody will be the wiser. Mr. Fielding, you’re a real good man, and that was your best advice?”

“It’s my advice to everybody, in ordinary circumstances,” said Mr. Fielding. “If you have done wrong, make amends—the one thing necessitates the other. If you have done wrong, make amends. But, Mrs. Murray, wait till the lamp comes and a glass of wine. You are not fit to go back to your nursing without something to sustain you. Sit down again.”

“I am fit for a great deal more than that,” she said; “but no, no, nae lights. I’ll go my ways back. I’ll slip out in the dark, as I slipped in. I’m like the owls—I’m dazzled by the shinin’ light. That’s new to me, that always liked the light; but, sir, I thank ye for your goodness. I must slip away now.”

“You are not fit to walk in this state,” he said, following her anxiously to the door; “take my arm; let me get out the pony—I will send you comfortably home.”

Mrs. Murray shook her head. She declined the offer of the old man’s arm. “I have mair strength than you think,” she said; “and Jeanie must never know that I have been here. Oh, I’m strengthened with what you said. Oh, I’m the better for having opened my heart; but I’ll slip out, as long as there are none to see.”

And, while the gentle Rector stood and wondered, she went out by the open window, as erect and vigorous as if no emotion could touch her. Swiftly she passed into the darkness, carrying with her her secret. What was it? Mr. Fielding sunk into his chair with a sigh. Never before had any interruption like this come into Milly’s hour.

CHAPTER VIII

Edgar went to his own room, with a certain oppression on his mind, to seek those papers which surely his sister gave the most exaggerated importance to. It seemed ridiculous to go upstairs at that hour; he took them out of his dressing-case, into which he had locked them, and went down again to the library. It was true that he would fain have occupied his evening in some other way. He would have preferred even to talk to Arthur Arden, though he did not love him. He would have preferred to read, or to walk out and enjoy the freshness of the summer night. And, much better than any of these, he would have preferred to have Clare’s own company, to talk to her about the many matters he had laid up in his mind, and, perhaps, if opportunity served, to enter upon the subject of Gussy. But this evidently was not how it was to be. He must go and read over dull papers, to please his sister. Well, that was not so very difficult a business, after all. It was Clare’s interest in them that was so strange. This was what he could not understand. As he settled himself to his task, a great many thoughts came into his mind in respect to his sister. She had been brought up (he supposed) differently from other girls. He could not fancy the Thornleighs, any of them, taking such interest in a parcel of old papers. They must be about Arden somehow, he concluded, some traditionary records of the family, something that affected their honour and glory. Was this what she cared for most in the world—not her brother or any future love, but Arden, only Arden, her race. And then he reflected how odd it was that two of Clare’s lovers had made him their confidant—Arthur, a man whom any brother would discourage; and Lord Newmarch, who was an excellent match. The one was so objectionable, the other so irreproachable, that Edgar was amused by the contrast. What could they expect him to do? The one had a right to look for his support, the other every reason to fear his opposition; but what did Clare say, what did she think of either?—even Arthur Arden’s presence was nothing to her, compared with these old letters. He seated himself, without knowing it, at his father’s place, in his father’s chair. No association sanctified the spot to him. Once or twice, indeed, he had been called there into the Squire’s dreadful presence, but there was nothing in these interviews to make the room reverent or sacred. He put himself simply in the most convenient place, lighted the candles on the table, and sat down to his work. Clare was upstairs—he thought he heard her soft tread overhead. Yes, she was different from other girls; and he wondered in himself what kind of a life hers would be. Would she—after all, that was the first question—remain in Arden when Gussy came as its mistress?—if Gussy ever came. Would she find it possible to bend her spirit to that? Would she marry, impatient of this first contradiction of her supremacy?—and which would she choose if she married? All these questions passed through Edgar’s mind, gravely at first, lightly afterwards, as the immediate impression of her seriousness died away. Then he looked at all the things on the table—his father’s seal, the paper in the blotting-book, with its crest and motto. How well he remembered the few curt letters he had received on that paper, bidding him “come home on Friday next to spend a week or a fortnight,” as the case might be—very curt and unyielding they had been, with no softening use of his name, no “dear Edgar,” or “dear boy,” but only the command, whatever it was. It was not wonderful that he had little reverence, little admiration, for his father’s memory. His face grew sterner and paler as he turned over those relics of the dead man, which moved Clare only to tenderest memories. Twenty years of neglect, of injury, of unkindness came before him, all culminating in that one look of intense hatred which he remembered so well—the look which made it apparent to him that his father—his father!—would have been glad had he died.

Such thoughts had been banished from Edgar’s breast for a long time. He had dismissed them by a vigorous effort of will when he entered upon his life at Arden; it was but those signs and tokens of the past that brought them back, and again he made an effort to begin his task, though with so little relish for it. If it was anything affecting the Squire, Edgar felt he was not able to approach it calmly. A certain impatience, a certain disgust, came into his mind at the thought. To please Clare—that was a different matter. He opened the enclosure slowly and with reluctance, and once more turned over in his hand the inner packet, still sealed up, which had the appearance of having been thrown into the fire, and hastily snatched out again. The parcel was singed and torn, and one of the seals had run into a great blotch of wax, obliterating all impression. As he held it in his hand he felt the place where the envelope was torn across, and remembered dimly that his sister had attributed her interest in it to the words she had read through this tear. What were they? he wondered. He turned the packet round and laid it on the table, with the torn part uppermost. It was his father’s handwriting that appeared below, a writing somewhat difficult to read. He studied it, read it, lifted it nearer to his eyes—asked himself, “What does it mean?”—then he held it up to the light and read it over once more. What did it mean? A certain blank seemed to take possession of all his faculties—he wondered vaguely—the powers of his mind seemed to forsake him all at once.

This is what was written, in uneven lines, under the torn envelope, which had driven Clare desperate, and made her brother stupid, in his inability to understand—

“I will take him from you, bring him up as my son, and make him my heir—as you say, for my own ends.”

Edgar was stupefied. He sat and looked at it blankly over and over. Son!—heir! What was the meaning of the words? He did not for the moment ask any more. “What does the fool mean? What does the fool mean?” he said, over and over. It did not move him to open the cover to inquire further. He only sat stupid, and looked at it. How long he might have continued to do so it is impossible to tell; but all at once, in the quiet house, there was a sound of something falling, and this roused him. What could it be? Could it be Clare who had fallen? Could it– He roused himself up, and went to the door and listened. He had wasted an hour or more in one way or other before he even looked at his packet, and now the house was at rest, and everything still. Had Clare known the moment at which he read those words—had she fainted in sympathy? His mind had grown altogether so confused that he could not make it out. He stood watching at the door for some minutes, and then, hearing nothing further, shut it carefully, and went back and sat down again. The candles were clear enough; the writing, though difficult, was distinct. “I will take him from you, bring him up as my son, make him my heir.” “Perhaps there is something more about it inside,” Edgar said to himself, with a faint smile. He spoke aloud, with a sense that he was speaking to somebody, and then started at the sound of his own voice, feeling as if some one else had spoken. And then he laughed. It made a diabolical sound in the silence. Was it he that laughed, or some devil?—there must be devils about—and what a fool he must be to be so easily startled; what a fool—what a fool!

Then he opened the envelope. His hands trembled a little; he came to himself gradually, and became aware that this was no light business he was about. It was the laugh that had roused him, the laugh with which he himself or somebody else—could it be somebody else?—had disturbed the silence. A quantity of letters were inside, some in his father’s writing, some in another—a large, irregular, feminine hand. Instinctively he secured that one which had appeared through the tear in the cover, and read it word by word. It was one of the square letters written before envelopes were used, and bore on the yellow outside fold an address half-obliterated and some postmarks. He read it to the last word; he made an effort to decipher the outside; he investigated and noted the yellow date on the postmarks. He knew very well what he was doing now; never had his brain been more collected, never had he been more clear-headed all his life. Twice over he read it, word by word, and then put it down by his side, and arranged the others according to their dates. There were alternate letters, each with its reply. Two minds—two souls—had met in those yellow bits of paper, and gone through a terrible struggle; they were the tempter and the tempted—the one advancing all his arguments, the other hesitating, doubting, refusing—hesitating again. Carefully, slowly, Edgar read every one. There was nothing fictitious about them. Clear and distinct as the daylight was the terrible story they involved—the story of which he himself, in his ignorance, was the hero—of which he was the victim. All alone in the darkness and stillness of the night there fell upon him this awful revelation—a thing he had never expected, never feared—a new thing, such as man never had heard of before.

The business he was about was too tremendous to allow time for any reflection. He did not reflect, he did not think, he only read and knew. He felt himself change as he read, felt the room swim, so that he had to hold by the table, felt new lights which he had never dreamt of spring up upon his life. Sometimes it seemed to him as if even his physical form was changing. He was looking at himself as in a magic mirror, for the first time seeing himself, understanding himself, beholding the mystery clear away, the reality stand out. How clear it grew! A chill arose about him, as of a man traversing a mine, poking through half-lighted dreary galleries, and finding always the blue circle of outlet, the light at the end. He went on and on, never pausing nor drawing breath. He looked like a historical student seated there, regulating his documents with such exactness, reading every bit of paper only according to its date. Some of them were smoked and scorched, and took a great deal of trouble to make out. Some were crabbed in their handwriting and uncertain in spelling. At some words a faint momentary smile would come upon his lips. It was a historical investigation. No family papers ever had such interest, ever claimed such profound study. The daylight came in over the tops of the shutters; first a faint blueness, gradually widening and whitening into light. To see him sitting with candles blazing on each side of him, holding up his papers to them, and the quiet observant day flooding the room around him with light, and the ineffectual barred shutters vainly attempting to obscure it—oh, how strange it was! Edgar himself never perceived the change. He felt the chill of morning, but he had been cold before, and took no notice. How grave he was, how steady, how pale, in the flashing foolish light of the candles! As if that was needed! as if all was not open, clear, and legible, and patent to the light of day.

This was the scene which Clare looked in upon when she softly opened the door. She had not even undressed. She had sat up in her room, thinking that he would perhaps call, perhaps come to her, perhaps laugh, and ask her what her fright had meant, and show her how innocent and foolish these words were which had alarmed her. And then she had dozed and slept with a shawl round her; and then, waking up in the early morning, had stolen out, and seeing her brother’s room open, had been seized with sudden terror wilder than ever. Her heart beat so loudly that she felt as if it must wake the house. She stole downstairs like a ghost, in her white evening dress. She opened the door, and there he sat in the daylight with his candles, not hearing her, not seeing her, intent upon his work. Was not that enough? She gave a low cry, and with a start he roused himself and looked up, the letters still in his hand. There was a moment in which neither moved, but only looked at each other with a mutual question and reply that were beyond words. Then he rose. How pale he was—like a dead man, the blood gone out of his very lips; and yet could it be possible he smiled? It was a smile Clare never forgot. He got up from his chair, and placed another for her, and turned to her with that look full of tenderness and pathos, and a certain strange humour. “I don’t know how to address you now,” he said, the smile retiring into his eyes. “I know who you are, but not who I am. It was natural you should be anxious. If you sit down, I will tell you all I know.”

She came to him with a sudden impulse, and caught his arm with her hands. “Oh, Edgar! oh, my brother Edgar!” she said, moaning, but gazing at him with a desperate question, which he knew he had already answered, in her eyes.

“No,” he said, gently putting his hand upon hers. A sudden spasm crossed his face, and for the moment his voice was broken. “No– Your friend, your servant; so long as you want me your protector still—but your brother no more.”

CHAPTER IX

Arthur Arden felt himself very much at a loss next morning, and could not make it out. The brother and sister had left him to his own devices the night before, and again he found himself alone when he came down to breakfast. The same round table was in the window—the same vase of roses stood in the middle—everything was arranged as usual. The only thing which was not as usual was that neither Edgar nor Clare were visible. In this old, orderly, well-regulated place, such a thing had been never seen before. Wilkins paused and made a little speech, half shocked, half apologetic, as he put a savoury dish under Arthur’s nose. “Master’s late, sir, through business; and Miss Arden, she’s not well. I’m sure I’m very sorry, and all the house is sorry. The first morning like–”

“Never mind, Wilkins,” said Arthur. “I daresay my cousin will join me presently. I have been late often enough in this house.”

“But never the Squire, if you’ll remember,” said Wilkins. “Master was always punctual like the clock. But young folks has new ways. Not as we’ve anything to complain of; but from time to time there’s changes, Mr. Arthur, in folk’s selves, and in the world.”

“That is very true, Wilkins,” said Arthur, with more urbanity than usual. He was not a man who encouraged servants to talk; but at present he was on his good behaviour—amiable to everybody. “I am very sorry to hear Miss Arden is ill. I hope it is not anything beyond a headache. I thought she looked very well last night.”

“Yes, sir; she looked very well last night,” said Wilkins, with a little emphasis; “but for a long time past we’ve all seen as there was something to do with Miss Clare.”

Arthur made no answer. He felt that to enter into such a discussion with a servant would not do, though he would have been glad enough to discover what was supposed to be the matter with Clare. So he held his tongue and eat his breakfast; and Wilkins, after lingering about for some minutes wooing further inquiry, took himself gradually away to the sideboard. Arthur sat in the bow-window at the sunny end, enjoying the pretty, flower-decked table, with all its good things; while Wilkins glided about noiselessly in black clothes, as glossy as a popular preacher’s, and as spotless, deferentially silent and alert, ready to obey a whisper, the lifting of a finger. No doubt it was chiefly for his own ends, and for the delight of gossip that life was so ready to obey, for Wilkins generally had a will of his own. But the stillness, the solitude, the man’s profound attention, rapt Arthur in a pleasant dream. If he had been master here instead of his cousin. If he had been Squire Arden instead of this boy, who was not like the Ardens, neither externally nor in mind. His brain grew a little dizzy for a moment. Was he so? Was the other but a dream? Should he go out presently and find that all the people about the estate came to him, cap in hand, and that Edgar was a shadow which had vanished away. He could not tell what vertigo seized him, so that he could entertain even for a moment so absurd a fancy. The next, he gave himself a slight shake and smiled, not without some bitterness. “I am the penniless one,” he said to himself; “I may starve, while he has everything. If he likes to turn me out to-morrow, I shall have nowhere to go to.” How strange it was! Arthur was, of course, a Tory of the deepest dye—he held the traditionary politics of his race, which equally, of course, Edgar did not hold; but at this moment it would be vain to deny that certain theories which were wildly revolutionary crossed his mind. Why should one have so much and another nothing? why should one inherit name, and authority, and houses, and lands, and another be left without bread to eat? No democrat, no red republican could have felt the difference more violently than did Arthur Arden; as he sat that morning alone in the quiet Arden dining-room, eating his kinsman’s bread.

After a while Edgar came in. He was singularly pale, and his manner had changed in a way which Arthur could not explain to himself. He perceived the change at the first glance. He said to himself (thinking, as was natural, of himself only), “He has come to some determination about me. He has got something to propose to me.” Edgar looked like a man with some weighty business on hand. He had no time for his usual careless talk, his friendly, good-humoured notice of everything. He looked like a general who has a difficult position to occupy, or to get his troops safely out of a dangerous pass. His forehead, which had always been so free of care, was lined and clouded. His very voice had changed its tone. It was sharper, quicker, more decisive. He seemed to have made a sudden leap from a youth into a serious man.

“My sister, I am sorry, is not well,” he said; “and I was up very late. I think she will stay in her room all day.”

“I am very sorry,” said Arthur, “Wilkins has been telling me. He says you were kept late by business; and you look like it. You look as if you had all the cares of the nation on your head.”

“I suppose the cares of the nation sometimes sit more lightly than one’s own,” said Edgar, with a forced smile.

“My dear fellow!” said his cousin, laughing in superior wisdom. “Your cares cannot be of a very crushing kind. If it was mine you were talking of—a poor devil who sometimes does not know where his next dinner is to come from; but that is not a subject, perhaps, for polite ears.”

“And the dinners have always come to you, I suspect,” said Edgar; “good dinners too, and handsomely served. Chops have not been much in your way; whereas you know most people who talk on such a subject–”

“Have to content themselves with chops? Some people like them,” said Arthur, meditatively. “By the way, Arden, does it not come within the sphere of a reforming landlord like you to reform the cuisine at the Arden Arms? If I were you, and had poor relations likely to come and stay there, I would make a difference. For you do consider the claims of poor relations. Many people don’t; but you– By the way, you said something about Fazakerly. Is he actually coming? I should like to see the old fellow, though he is not fond of me.”

“He is coming, certainly,” said Edgar, with a momentary flush, “but I think not so soon as to-morrow. I—have something to do to-morrow—an old engagement. And then—my business with Fazakerly may be more serious than I thought.”

“As you please,” said Arthur, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “You are master, I have nothing to do with it. It was bad taste to remind you, I know. But when one’s pockets are empty, and the Mrs. Pimpernels of life begin to cast one off—that was an alarming defeat; I begin to ask myself, Are the crowfeet showing? is the grey visible in my hair.”

“I can’t see it,” said Edgar, with a momentary smile.

“No, I take care of that,” said the other; “though a touch of grey is not objectionable sometimes—it makes a man interesting. You scorn such levity, don’t you? But then you are five and twenty, and foolish thoughts are extinguished in you by the cares of the estate.”

Once more a momentary smile passed over Edgar’s face. “Have you noticed any of the changes I have made in the estate—do you like them?” he asked, with something like anxiety. What a strange fellow he is, Arthur thought—if I were he, should I care what any one thought? “I have renewed some leases which it perhaps was not quite wise to renew,” Edgar continued, “and lent some money for draining and that sort of thing. Probably you would not have done it. If I were to die now—let us make the supposition–”

“My dear Arden, I am sadly afraid you won’t die,” said his cousin; “don’t tantalise a man by putting such hopes in his head. How can you tell that I may not be prepared with a little white powder? If you were to die I should probably call in your drainage money, for even then I should be as poor as a rat—but I could not change anybody’s lease.”

“I wonder if you would take any interest in the property?” said Edgar; “there is a great charm in it, do you know. You feel more or less that you have some real power over the people. I don’t think much of what people call influence, but actual power is very different. You can speak to them with authority. You can say, if you do this, I will do that. You can rouse their self-interest, as well as their sense of right. I have not done very much more than begin it, but it has been very interesting to me. I wonder if it would have the same effect on you.”

He means to offer me the situation of agent, said Arthur Arden to himself. His agent! I! And then he spoke—“I’ll tell you one thing I should take an interest in, Arden. I should look after those building leases for the Liverpool people. It would make the greatest possible difference to the estate; it would make up for the loss of Old Arden, which your sister carries off. That was a wonderfully silly business, if you will allow me to say so—I cannot imagine how you could ever think of alienating that.”

A curious thrill passed over Edgar. It was quite visible, and yet he did not mean it to be visible. Up to this moment his gravity had been so real, his manner so serious, that his cousin had not for a moment suspected that he had anything to conceal. But this sudden shudder struck him strangely. “Are you cold,” he asked, looking at him fixedly with a suspicious, watchful glance, “this fine morning? or are you ill, too?”

“Neither,” said Edgar, restraining himself. “We were talking about the building leases. You, who are more of an Arden than I have ever been supposed to be–”

He attempted to say this with a smile, but his lips were dry and parched, and his pallor increased. Was it possible that he could have found anything out—he whose interest, of course, was to destroy any evidence that told against himself? At the thought Arthur Arden’s heart sank; for if Edgar’s fears for his own position were once raised, it was very certain that there would not long remain anything for another to find out.

“You mistake,” he said, “the spirit of the Ardens; they were not a romantic race, as people suppose—they had their eyes very well open to their interests. I don’t know what made your father so obstinate; but I am sure his father, or his grandfather, as far back as you like to go, would never have neglected such an opportunity of enriching themselves. Why, look at the money it would put into your purse at the first moment. I should do it without hesitation; but then, of course, people would say of me—He is a needy wretch; he is always in want of money. And, of course, it would be quite true. Has old Fazakerly’s coming anything to do with that?”

“It may have to do with a great many things,” said Edgar, with a certain irritable impatience, rising from his chair. “Pardon me, Arden, I am going down to the village. I must see how poor little Jeanie is. I have got some business with Mr. Fielding. Perhaps you would like to make some inquiries too.”

“Not if you are going,” said Arthur, calmly. “The girl was going on well yesterday. If you were likely to see her, I should send my love; but I suppose you won’t see her. No, thanks; I can amuse myself here.”

“As you please,” said Edgar, turning abruptly away. He could not have borne any more. With an inexpressible relief he left the room, and freed himself from his companion. How strange it was that, of all people in the world, Arthur Arden should be his companion now!

As for Arthur, he went to the window and watched his cousin’s progress down the avenue with mingled feelings. He did not know what to make of it. Sometimes he returned to his original idea, that Edgar, in compassion of his poverty, was about to make a post for him on the estate—to give him something to do, probably with some fantastic idea that to be paid for his work would be more agreeable to Arthur than to receive an allowance. “He need not trouble,” Arthur said to himself. “I have no objection to an allowance. He owes it me, by Jove.” And then he strolled into the library, which was in painful good order, bearing no trace of the vigils of the previous night. He sat down, and wrote his letters on the old Squire’s paper, in the old Squire’s seat. The paper suited him exactly, the place suited him exactly. He raised his eyes and looked over the park, and felt that, too, to be everything he could desire. And yet a fickle fortune, an ill-judging destiny, had given it to Edgar instead.