“Thanks, you are very kind,” said courteous Edgar; while his sister shut her beautiful lips close. And then there was a pause, which was not comfortable. Mrs. Pimpernel began to smooth the gloves which were very tight on her plump hands, and Mr. Pimpernel resumed his inspection of the room.
“That is a Turner, I suppose,” he said, pointing to a very poor daub in a dark corner. “I hope you are fond of art, Mr. Arden. When you come to theRed House I can show you some rather pretty things.”
“It is not a Turner; it is very bad,” said Edgar. “We have no pictures except portraits. I don’t think the Ardens have ever taken much interest in art.”
“Never,” said Clare, with a little emphasis. She said so because she had heard a great deal about Mr. Pimpernel’s pictures, and felt it her duty to disown all participation in any such plebeian taste; and then she recollected herself, and grew red, and added hurriedly—“The Ardens have always had to think of their country, Edgar. They have had more serious things to do.”
“But I am not much of an Arden, I fear, and I am very fond of pictures,” said Edgar carelessly, without perceiving the cloud that swept over his sister’s face.
“Then I assure you, though I say it that shouldn’t, I have some pretty things to show you at the Red House,” said Mr. Pimpernel. Thus it came to be understood that Edgar had accepted the invitation for Monday week, and the party rose,—first the mother, then Alice, obedient to every impulse, and finally Mr. Pimpernel, who extended his large hand, and took into his own Clare’s reluctant fingers. “I hope we shall soon see you with your brother,” hesaid, raising his other hand, as if he was pronouncing a blessing over her. “Indeed, I hope so,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, following him with outstretched hand. Alice put out hers too, but withdrew it shyly, and made a little curtsey, like a school girl, Clare thought; but to her brother there was something very delicate, and gentle, and pretty in the girl’s modest withdrawal. He went to the door with them to put Mrs. Pimpernel in her carriage, and came back to Clare without a suspicion of the storm which was about to burst upon his head.
Clarewas standing by the table with her hands clasped tightly, her mouth shut fast, her tall figure towering taller than usual, when Edgar, all unconscious, returned to her. She assailed him in a moment, without warning. “Edgar, how can you—how could you?” she said, with an impatient movement, which, had she been less fair, less delicate, less young, would have been a stamp of her foot. Her tone and look and gesture were so passionate that the young man stood aghast.
“What have I done?” he asked.
“What have you done? You know as well as I do. Oh, Edgar, you have given me such a blow! I thought when you came home, and we were together, that all would be well; but to see you the very first day—the very first opportunity—throw yourself into the arms of people like these—people that never should have entered this house——”
“Who are they? What are they? Have they done us any harm?” said the astonished Edgar. “Ifthey are enemies you should have told me. How was I to know?”
“Enemies!” said Clare, with increasing indignation; “how could such people beourenemies? They are a great deal worse—they are the vulgar rich, whom I hate; they are trying to force themselves in among us because they are rich; they are trades-people, pretending to be our equals, venturing to ask you to dinner! Oh, Edgar, could not you see by my manner that they were not people to know?”
“I saw you were very rude to them, certainly,” he said. “But, Clare, that goes against me; even—may I say it?—it disappointed me. I do not understand how a lady can be rude.”
Once more she repeated his last word with a certain contempt. “Rude! The man is a tradesman. They have thrust themselves into the village; and now they have seized an opportunity—which was in reality no opportunity—to thrust themselves into the house. Edgar, I have no patience; I ought not to have patience. They have been impertinent. And you as civil as if they were the best people in the county—and going to dine with them! I did not expect this.”
“I am sorry, Clare, if it hurts you,” he said. “They seemed very kind; and how could I help it? Besides, you made them very uncomfortable, and Iowed them amends. And you know I am but an indifferent Arden; I have not any horror of trade.”
“You told them so!” said Clare—“you took people like these into your confidence, and confessed to them that you were not an Arden like the rest of us! Oh, please, Edgar, don’t! you might think how unhappy it makes me. As if it was not enough——”
“What, Clare?”
“Oh, can’t you understand?” she cried. “Is it not enough toseethat you are not a thorough Arden; that you don’t care for the things we care for, nor hate the things we hate. But to have to hear you say so as if it did not matter!—it is the grief of my life.”
And she threw herself into a chair, and cried—weeping a sudden shower of passionate tears, which were so hot and rapid that they seemed to scorch her, yet dried as they fell. Her brother came and stood by her chair, putting his hand softly on her bent head. Edgar was sorry, but not only because she wept. He was grieved, and perplexed, and disappointed. A half smile came over his serious face at her last words. “My poor Clare—my poor Clare,” he repeated softly, smoothing the dark glossy locks of her hair. When the thunder shower was over he spoke, with a voice that sounded more manlyand mature and grave than anything Clare had heard from him before.
“You must take my character and my training a little into consideration,” he said. “If I had been brought up like you I might have thought with you. But, Clare, though I love you more than anything in the world, and would not vex you for all Arden, still I cannot change my nature. Arden is only a very small spot in England, dear, not to speak of the world; and I can’t look at the big world through Arden spectacles. You must not ask it of me; anything else I will do to please you. I will give up dining with these people if you wish it. Of course I don’t care for their dinner; but they looked as if they wanted to be kind——”
“They wanted to come to Arden, to know you and me, and get admittance among the county families,” said Clare in one breath.
“Well, perhaps. I suppose we are all mean wretches more or less,” he said. “Suppose we give up the Pimpernels; but you must not ask me to avoid everybody who has anything to do, or to content myself with the old groove. For instance, I like pictures, though you say the Ardens don’t——”
“That is not what I meant,” said Clare, with a blush; “I meant——”
“You meant opposition, and to snub that fat,good-tempered man; and you only made me uncomfortable—hedid not feel it. But I like pictures, Clare, and the people who paint them. I have known a great many in my life; and when I like any man I cannot pause to ask what is his pedigree, or what is his occupation. Putting aside the Pimpernels, you must still make up your mind to that.”
“But you will put aside the Pimpernels?” said Clare, with pleading looks.
“I will see about it,” said Edgar. It was the first time he had not yielded, and Clare felt it. She felt too that a shade of real difference had stolen between them—almost of separation. She had been unreasonable, and had put herself in the wrong; and he had set up a principle of action, erected as it were his standard, and made it clearly apparent what he would and what he would not do. She went away to her own room with a certain soreness in her heart. She had committed herself. Certain words of her own and certain words of his came back to her with the poignant shame of youth—what she had said about the pictures, and what Edgar had said of her rudeness, and of the antagonism which only made him uncomfortable. She had made herself ridiculous, she thought—that worst of all offences against one’s self. It seemed to the proud Clare as if neither she nor any one elsecould forget how ridiculous she had made herself; and more than ever with tenfold force of enmity she hated those unlucky Pimpernels.
It was brilliant daylight, the sun was setting, and the air full of light and sweetness, when they set off upon their drive to Thorne. Clare was all black, as her mourning demanded—black ornaments, black gloves—everything about her as sable as the night—a dress, which was not perhaps so becoming to her dark hair and pale complexion as it would have been to pretty Alice Pimpernel, or the fair-haired Gussy, whom Edgar was going (though he did not know it) expressly to see. Probably Clare did not waste a thought on the subject, for she was young and entirely fancy free, a condition of things which frees a girl from any keen anxiety in respect to her appearance. She was wrapped in a large white cloak, however, which relieved the blackness, and brought out the delicate pale tints of her face as only white can do; and Edgar, as he took his place by her side, found himself admiring her as if he had seen her for the first time. The high, proud features, so finely cut, the perfect roundness of youth in the cheek, the large, lovely blue eyes, were of a kind of beauty which you may like or dislike as you please, but which it is impossible to ignore. Clare was beautiful, there was no other word for it. Not pretty, like that pretty Alice; and her proud looks and air of reserve enhanced her beauty, just as the sweet wistful frankness of the simpler girl added a charm to hers. “I don’t suppose I shall see any one like my sister where we are going,” Edgar said, with that admiring affection which is so pleasant in a brother.
“No, indeed, they are all quite a different style,” Clare answered with a laugh, turning aside the compliment, which nevertheless pleased her. This did much to restore the former delightful balance of affairs between them. About half-a-mile from the village they came upon a house, just visible through the trees, a very old solid mass of red brick, shining with a subdued glow in the midst of the green wealth of foliage, which looked the greener for its redness, and heightened its native depth of colour. There was a fine cedar on the lawn, and many great old trees within the enclosure, which was so arranged that it might be taken for a park. Edgar gave an inquiring glance at his sister, who answered him by shaking her head, and putting up her hands as if to shut out the hateful vision.
“So that is the Red House?” said Edgar. “I had forgotten all about it. It is a nice house enough. If I should ever happen to be turned out of Arden, I should like to live there.”
“What nonsense you do talk!” said Clare. “Who can turn you out of Arden, unless there was a revolution, as some people think?”
“I don’t think there will be a revolution. But have we no cousins who might do one that good turn?” he said, laughing. “How? Oh, I can’t tell how. It is impossible, I suppose.”
“Simply impossible,” said Clare with energy. “We are the elder branch. The Ardens of Warwickshire were quite a late offshoot. You are the head of the name.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said Edgar; “and I am sure it is a very proud position. Does that Red House belong to us, Clare? But if it had belonged to us, I suppose you would not have let it to those respectable—I mean objectionable—Pimpernels?”
“Don’t speak of the Pimpernels,” she said. “Oh, Edgar, if you only knew how much I dislike those sort of people—not because they are common people—on the contrary, I am very fond of the poor; but those presumptuous pushingnouveaux riches—don’t let us speak of them! We have got a cousin—only one; and if you were not to have any children, I suppose the estates would go to his son. But I hope they never will.”
“Why?” said Edgar. “Is there any reason to suppose that his son would be less satisfactory thanmine? I hope he is less problematical. Tell me about him—who is he—where is he? I feel very curious about my heir.”
“And I hate to hear you speak in such a careless way,” said his sister. “Why should you show so much levity on so serious a subject? Arthur Arden is a great deal older than you are. I dislike him very much. Pray, don’t speak of him to me.”
“Another subject I must not speak of!” said Edgar. “Why do you dislike him? Is it because he is my heir? You need not hate a man for that.”
“But I do hate him,” said Clare, with a clouded brow; and the rest of the way to Thorne was gone over in comparative silence. The jars that kept occurring, putting now one string, now another out of tune, vibrated through both with an unceasing thrill of discord. There was no quarrel, and yet each was afraid to touch on any new subject. To be sure, it was Clare who was in the wrong; but then, why was he so light, so easily moved, so free from all natural prejudices, she said to herself? Men ought not to run from one subject to another in this careless way. They ought to be more grave, more stately in their ways of thinking, not moved by freaks of imagination. Such levity was so different from the Arden disposition that it looked almost like something wrong to Clare.
Thorne was a great house, but not like Arden. It stood alone, not shadowed by trees, amid the great green solitude of its park; and already lights were glimmering in the open windows, though it was still day. The servants were closing shutters in the dining-room, and the table gleamed inside under the lamplight, making itself brightly visible, like a picture, with all its ornaments and flowers. It was Lady Augusta’s weakness that she could not bear to dine in daylight. In the very height of summer she had to support the infliction; but as long as she could she shut out the intrusive day. Edgar felt his head swim as he walked into the cool green drawing-room after his sister into the midst of a bevy of ladies. He was fond of ladies, like most well-conditioned men; but the first moment of introducing himself into the midst of a crowd of them fluttered him, as was quite reasonable. There was Ada, the quiet one, on a sofa by herself, knitting. Edgar discriminated her at once. And that, no doubt, was Gussy, with the prettiest tiny figure, and a charming little rose-tinted face, something between an angel and a Dresden shepherdess. “That will be my one,” he said to himself, remembering with natural perversity that Ada was Clare’s favourite. That little indication was enough to raise in the young man’s mind a certain disinclination to Ada.And he did not know that Lady Augusta had already decided upon the advisability of allotting to him her second daughter. He could not see the others, who were busied in different corners with different occupations. It was the first English party of the kind he had ever been at, and he was very curious about it. And then it was so perfectly orthodox a party. There was the nearest squire and his wife, one of the great Blundell family; and there was a younger son of the Earl’s, with his young wife; and the rector of the parish, and a man from London. Such a party is not complete without the man from London, who has all the news at his finger-ends, and under whose manipulation the biggest of cities becomes in reality that “little village” which slang calls it. “Will you take in my daughter, Mr. Arden?” said Lady Augusta; and Edgar, without any thought of his own dignity, was quite happy to find Gussy’s pretty curls brushing his shoulder as they joined the procession into the dining-room. He thought it was kind of his new friends to provide him with such a pleasant companion, while Clare was making herself rather unhappy with the thought that he should have taken in, if not the Honourable Mrs. Everard, at least Mrs. Blundell, or, at the very least, Ada, who was the Princess Royal of the House ofThorne. “I am so glad all the solemn people are at the other end of the table,” Gussy whispered to him, as they took their places. “Mr. Arden, I am sure you are not solemn. You are not a bit like Clare.”
“Is Clare solemn?” asked Edgar, with a half sense of treachery to his sister; but he could not refuse to smile at Gussy’s pretty up-turned face.
“I love her dearly; she is as good as gold,” said Gussy, “but not such fun as I am sure you are. If you will promise never to betray me to mamma, I will tell you who everyone here is.”
“Not if I went to the stake for it,” said Edgar; and so his first alliance was formed.
“Youknow mamma, of course,” said Edgar’s pretty cicerone. “I suppose I need not enter into the family history. You know all us Thornleighs, as we have known you all our lives.”
“I am ashamed of my ignorance; but I have never been at home to have the chance of knowing the Thornleighs,” said Edgar. “Don’t imagine it is my fault.”
“No; it is quite romantic, I know,” said Gussy. “You have been brought up abroad. Oh yes; I know all about it. Mr. Arden nearly died of losing your mother, and you are so like her that he could not bear to look at you. Poor dear old Mr. Arden, he was so nice. But I thought you must have known us by instinct all the same. That is Ada sitting opposite. I must begin with us young ones, for what could I say about papa and mamma? Everybody knows papa and mamma. It would be like repeating a chapter out of Macaulay’s history, or that sort of thing. Harry is the eldest, but he is not at home.And that is Ada opposite. She is the good one among us. It is she who keeps up the credit of the family. Poor dear mamma has plenty to do with five girls on her hands, not to speak of the boys. And Ada looks after the schools, and manages the poor people, and all that. All the cottagers adore her. But she is notfun, though she is a dear. There is not another boy for ever so long. We girls all made a rush into the world before them. I am sure I don’t know why. As if we were any good!”
“Are not you any good?” said Edgar, laughing. He was not used to advanced views about women, and he thought it was a joke.
“Of course, we are no good,” said Gussy. “We are all very well so long as we are young—and some of us are ornamental. I think Helena is very ornamental for one; but we can’t do anything or be anything. You should hear what she says about that. Well, then, after Ada there is nothing very important—there is only me. I am the chattering one, and some people call me the little one, or the one with the curls. I have not any character to speak of, nor any vocation in the family, so it is not worth while considering me. Let us pass on to Helena. That is Helena, the one who is so like papa. I think she is awfully handsome. Of course, I don’tmean that I expect you to think so, or to say so; but all her sisters admire her very much. And she is as clever as a dozen men. All the boys put together are not half so clever as she is. She ought to have been in Parliament, and that sort of thing; but she can’t, for she is a girl. Don’t you think it is hard? Well, I do. There is nothing she could not do, if she only had the chance. That is the Rector who is sitting beside her. He is High, but he is Broad as well. He burns candles on the altar, and lets us decorate the church, and has choral service; but all the same he is very philosophical in his preaching. Helena thinks a great deal of that. She says he satisfies both the material and intellectual wants. Do you feel sleepy? Don’t be afraid to confess it, for I do myself whenever anybody uses long words. I thought it was my duty to tell you. For anything I know, you may be intellectual too.”
“I don’t think I am intellectual, but I am not in the least sleepy,” said Edgar; “pray go on. I begin to feel the mists clear away, and the outlines grow distinct. I am a kind of Columbus on the shores of a new world; but he had not such a guide as you.”
“Please wait a little,” said Gussy, shaking her pretty curls, “till I have eaten my soup. I am so fond of white soup. It is a combination of everysort of eatable that ever was invented, and yet it does not give you any trouble. I must have two minutes for my soup.”
“Then it is my turn,” said Edgar. “I should like to tell you all my difficulties about Arden. Clare is not such an able guide as you are. She does not tell me who everybody is, but expects me to know. And when one has been away from home all one’s life, instinct is a poor guide. Fancy, I should never have known that you were the chattering one, and Miss Thornleigh the good one, if you had not told me! I might have supposed it was the other way. And if you had been at Arden I never should have made such a dreadful mistake as I made this morning.”
“Oh, tell me! what was it?” said Gussy, with her spoon suspended in her hand, looking up at him with dancing eyes.
“I hope you will not think the worse of me for such a confession. I was so misled as to say I would go and dine with a certain Mr. Pimpernel——”
“Oh, I know,” said Gussy, clapping her hands, and forgetting all about her soup. “I wish I could have seen Clare’s face. But it is not at all a bad house to dine at, and I advise you to go. He is a cotton-merchant or something; but, you know, though it is all very well for Clare, who is an onlydaughter and an heiress, we can’t afford to stand on our dignity. All the men say it is a very nice house.”
“Then I have not behaved so very badly after all?” said Edgar. “You can’t think what a comfort that is to me. I rather thought I deserved to be sent to the Tower.”
“I should not think it was bad at all,” said Gussy. “I should like it of all things; but then I am not Clare. They have everything, you know, that can be got with money. And such wine, the men say; though I don’t understand that either. And there are some lovely pictures, and a nice daughter. I know she is pretty, for I have seen her, and they say she will have oceans of money. Money must be very nice when there are heaps of it,” Gussy added softly, with a little sigh.
Edgar paused for a moment, taken aback. He had not yet met his ideal woman; but it seemed to him that when he did meet her, she would care nothing for money, and would shrink from any contact with the world. A woman was to him a soft, still-shadowy ideal, surrounded by an atmosphere of the tenderest poetry, and celestial detachment from earth and its necessities. It gave him a gentle shock to be brought thus face to face with so many active, real human creatures, full of personal wants and wishes, and to identify them as the maiden-queensof imagination. Clare had not helped him to any such realisation of the abstract woman. There was no sort of struggle in her being, no aspiration after anything external to her. It was impossible to think of her as capable of advancement or promotion. Edgar himself was by no means destitute of ambition. He had already felt that to settle himself down with all his energies and powers into the calm routine of a country gentleman’s life would be impossible. He wanted more to do, something to aim at, the prospect of an expanding existence. But Clare was different. She was in harmony with all her surroundings, wanted nothing, was adapted to every necessity of her position—a being totally different from any man. It seemed to Edgar that so all women should be—passive, receiving with a tender grace, which made their acceptance a favour and honour, but never acquiring, never struggling; regarding, indeed, with horror, any possibility of being obliged to struggle and acquire. Gussy, though she charmed him, gave him at the same time a gentle shock. That it should be hard for Helena not to be able to go into Parliament, and that this fair creature should sigh at the thought of heaps of money, sounded like sacrilege to him. He came to a confused pause, wondering at her. Gussy was as keen as a needlenotwithstanding her chattering, and she found him out.
“Do you think it is shocking to care for money?” she said.
“N-no,” said Edgar, “not for some people. I might, without any derogation; but for a lady—— You must remember I don’t know anything about the world.”
“No,” said Gussy, “of course you don’t; but a lady wants money as much as a man. We girls are dreadfully hampered sometimes, and can’t do what we please because of money. The boys go and spend, but we can’t. It is a little hard. You should hear Helena on that. I don’t mind myself, for I can always manage somehow; but Helena gives all sort of subscriptions, and likes to buy books and things; and then she has to keep it off her dress. Papa gives us as much as he can afford, so we have nothing to complain of; for, fancy five girls! and all to be provided for afterwards. Of course, we can’t go into professions like the boys. I don’t want to change the laws, as Helena does, because I don’t see how it is to be done; so then the only thing that remains is to wish for heaps of money—quantities of money; and then everybody could get on.”
Edgar was very glad to retire into anentréewhile this curious statement of difficulties was being made. It seemed so strange to him, with all his own wealth, to hear any of his friends wish for money without offering his purse. Had Gussy been Gus, he would have said—“I have plenty; take some of mine,” with all the ready goodfellowship of youth. But he dared not say anything of the kind to the young lady. He dared not even suggest that it was possible: this wonderful difference was beyond all aid of legislation. Accordingly, he was silent, and ate his dinner, and was no longer the agreeable companion Gussy expected him to be. She did not like her powers of conversation to be thus practically undervalued, nor was she content, as her sister Helena would have been, with the feeling that she had made him think. Gussy liked an immediate return. She liked to make her interlocutors, not think, but listen, and laugh, and respond, giving her swift repayment for her trouble. She gave her curls another shake, and changed the subject, having long ere this got done with her soup.
“I have not half finished mycarte du pays,” she resumed; “don’t you want to hear about the other people, or have you had enough of Thorne? I feel sure you must be thinking about your new friends. If I ride over to see Clare the day after your dinner, will you tell me all about the Pimpernels? I do sowant to have a credible account of them, and the Lesser Celandine, and all——”
“Who is the Lesser Celandine?”
“Oh, please, do not look so grave, as if you could eat me. I believe you are a little like Clare after all. Of course it is the pretty daughter: they say she is just like it; peeps from behind her leaves—I mean her mamma—and never says a word. Don’t you think all girls should do so? Now, confess, Mr. Arden. I am sure that is what you think, if you would allow yourself to speak.”
“I don’t suppose all girls should follow one rule any more than all boys,” said Edgar, with polite equivocation; and then Gussy returned to her first subject, and gave him sketches of everybody at the table. Mr. Blundell, who was stupid and good, and his wife, who was stupid and not very good; and the Honourable pair, who were close to their young historian—so close, that she had to speak half in whisper, half in metaphor. “They have both been so dreadfully taken in,” Gussy said. “She thought his elder brother was dying; and he thought she was as rich as the Queen of Sheba; whereas she has only got a little money, and poor Newmarch is better again. Hush, I can’t say any more. Yes, he is better; and they say he is going to be married, which would be dreadfully hard upon them. How wickedit is to talk like this!—but then everybody does it. You hear just the same things everywhere till you get to believe them, and are so glad of somebody fresh to tell them to. Oh yes, there isthat man. If you were to listen to him for an hour, you would think there was not a good man nor a good woman in the world. He tells you how all the marriages are made up, and how she was forced into it, and he was cheated; or how they quarrelled the day before the wedding, and broke it off; or how the husband was trapped and made to marry when he did not want to. Oh, don’t you hate such men? Yet he is very amusing, especially in the country. I don’t remember his name. He is in some office or other—somebody’s secretary; but there are dozens just like him. We are going to town next week, and I shall hate the very sight of such men; but in the country he is well enough. Oh, there is mamma moving; do pick up my glove for me, please.”
Thus Gussy was swept away, leaving her companion a little uncertain as to the impression she had made upon him. It was a new world, and his head swam a little with the novelty and the giddiness. When the gentlemen gathered round the table, and began to talk in a solid agricultural way about steady-going politics, and the state of the country, and the prospects of the game, he foundhis head relieved a little. Clare had given him a glance as she left the room, but he had not understood the glance. It was an appeal to him not to commit himself; but Edgar had no intention of committing himself among the men as they drank their wine and got through their talk. He was far more likely to do that with Gussy, to make foolish acknowledgments, and betray the unsophistication of his mind. But he did not betray himself to Mr. Blundell and Mr. Thornleigh. They shook their heads a little, and feared he was affected by the Radical tendencies of the age. But so were many of the young fellows, the Oxford men who had distinguished themselves, the young dilettante philanthropists and revolutionists of the time. If he sinned in that way, he sinned in good company. There was Lord Newmarch, for instance, the Earl’s eldest son, and future magnate of the county, who was almost Red in his views. Edgar got on very well with the men. They said to each other, “Old Arden treated that boy very badly. It is a wonder to see how well he has turned out;” and the ladies in the drawing-room were still more charitably disposed towards the young Squire. There was thus a certain amount of social success in Edgar Arden’s first entrance into his new sphere.
Afterthe dinner at Thorne there was nothing said between Edgar and Clare about that other humbler invitation which had caused the first struggle between them. She took Mr. Fielding into her confidence, but she said nothing more to her brother. As for the Rector, he was not so hard on the Pimpernels as was the young lady at the Hall. “They are common people, I allow,” he said. “They have not much refinement, nor—nor education perhaps; and I highly disapprove of that perpetual croquet-playing, which wastes all the afternoons, and puts young Denbigh off his head. I do not like it, I confess, Clare; but still, you know—if I may say exactly what I think—there are worse people than the Pimpernels.”
“I don’t suppose they steal,” said Clare.
“My dear, no doubt it is quite natural, with your education and habits—but I wish you would not be quite so contemptuous of these good people. They are really very good sort of people,” said Mr.Fielding, shaking his head. She looked very obdurate in her severe young beauty as the Rector looked at her, bending his brows till his eyes almost disappeared among the wrinkles. “They find us places for our boys and girls in a way I have never been able to manage before; and whenever there is any bad case in the parish——”
“Mr. Fielding, that is our business,” said Clare, almost sharply. “I don’t understand how you can talk of our people to anybody but Edgar or me.”
“I don’t mean the people here,” said Mr. Fielding meekly, “but at the other end of the parish. You know that new village, which is not even on Arden land—on that corner which belongs to old Stirzaker—where there are so many Irish? I don’t like to trouble you always about these kind of people. And when I have wanted anything——”
“Please don’t want anything from them again,” said Clare. “I don’t like it. What is the good of our being lords of the manor if we do not look after our own people? Mr. Fielding, you know I think a great deal of our family. You often blame me for it; but I should despise myself if I did not think of our duties as well. All that is our business. Please—please don’t ask anything of those Pimpernels again!”
“Those Pimpernels!” said Mr. Fielding, shakinghis head. “Ah, Clare! they are flesh and blood like yourself, and the young lady is a very nice girl; and why should I not permit them to be kind to their fellow-creatures because you think that is your right? Everybody has a right to be good to their neighbours. And then they find us places for our boys and girls.”
“I have forgotten about everything since Edgar came,” said Clare, with a blush. “I have not seen old Sarah since the first day. Please come with me, and I will go and see her now. What sort of places? They are much better in nice houses in the country than in Liverpool. The girls get spoiled when they go into a town.”
“But they get good wages,” said Mr. Fielding, “and are able to help their people. I have not told you of this, for I knew you were prejudiced. Old Sarah has a lodger now, a relation of Mr. Perfitt—an old Scotchwoman—something quite new. I should like you to see her, Clare. I have seen plenty of Scotch in Liverpool, both workmen and merchants; but I do not understand this old lady. She is a new type to me.”
“I suppose being Scotch does not make much difference,” said Clare, discontentedly. “I do not like them much for my part. Is she in want, or can I be of any use to her? I will go and see her in that case——”
“Good heavens!” cried Mr. Fielding, in alarm, “Want! I tell you she is a relation of Perfitt’s, and they are all as proud as Lucifer. I almost wonder, Clare,” he added more softly, dropping his voice, “that you, who are so proud yourself, should not have more sympathy with the pride of others.”
“Others!” cried Clare, with indignation, and then she stopped, and looked at him with her eyes full. If they had not been in the open air in the village street she would have eased herself by a burst of tears. “I am all wrong since Edgar came home,” she cried passionately out of the depths of her heart.
“Since Edgar came home? But my dear child—my dear child!” cried Mr. Fielding, “I thought you were so proud of your brother.”
“And so I am,” said Clare, hastily brushing away the tears. “I know he is good—he is better than me; but he puts me all wrong notwithstanding. He will not see things as I do. His nature is always leading him the other way. He has no sort of feeling—no—Oh! I don’t know how to describe it. He puts me all wrong.”
“You must not indulge such thoughts,” said the Rector, with a certain mild authority which did not misbecome him. “He shows a great deal of right feeling, it appears to me. And we must not discussEdgar’s qualities. He is Edgar, and that is enough.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” cried Clare, with sudden offence; and then she stopped, and controlled herself. “I should like to go and see this old Scotchwoman,” she added, after a moment’s pause. What she had said was true, though she was sorry for having said it. Edgar, with his strange ways of thinking, his spontaneousness, and freedom of mind, had put her all wrong. She had been secure and certain in her own system of life so long as everybody thought with her, and the bonds of education and habit were unbroken. But now, though she was still as strong in her Ardenism as ever, an uneasy, half-angry feeling that all the world did not agree with her—nay, that the person of most importance to her in the world did not agree with her—oppressed Clare’s mind, and made her wretched. It is hard always to bear such a blow, struck at one’s youthful convictions. It is intolerable at first, till the young sufferer learns that other people have really a right to their opinions, and that it is possible to disagree with him or her and yet not be wicked. Clare could not deny that Edgar’s different views were maintained with great gentleness and candour towards herself—that they were held by one who was not anevil-minded revolutionary, but in every other respect all that she wished her brother to be. But she felt his eyes upon her when she said and did many little things which a few weeks ago she would have thought most right and natural; and even while she chafed at the tacit disapprobation, a secret self-criticism, which she ignored and struggled against, stole into the recesses of her soul. She would not acknowledge nor allow it to be possible; but yet it was there. The natural consequence was that all her little haughtinesses, her airs of superiority, her distinctions between the Ardens and their class and all the rest of the world, sharpened and became more striking. She was half-conscious that she exaggerated her own opinions, painted the lights whiter and the shadows more profound, in involuntary reaction against the new influences which began to affect her. She had not noticed the Pimpernels, though she knew them well by sight, and all about them; but she had no active feeling of enmity towards them until that unfortunate day when they ventured to call, and Edgar, in his ignorance, received them as if they had been the family of a Duke. Since then Clare had come to hate the innocent people. She had begun to feel rabid about their class generally, and to find words straying to her lips such as had struck her as in very bad taste when old Lady Summertonsaid them. Lady Summerton believed the poor were a host of impostors, and trades-people an organised band of robbers, and attributed to thenouveaux richesevery debasing practice and sentiment. Clare had been disgusted by these opinions in the old days. She had drawn herself up in her youthful dignity, and had almost reproved her senior. “They are good enough sort of people, only they are not of our class,” Clare had said; “please don’t call them names. One may be a Christian though one is not well-born.” Such had been her truly Christian feeling while yet she was undisturbed by any doubt that to be well-born, and especially to be born in Arden, was the highest grace conceded by heaven. But now that doubt had been cast upon this gospel, and that she daily and hourly felt the scepticism in Edgar’s eyes, Clare’s feelings had become as violent as old Lady Summerton’s. The sentiment in her mind was that of scorn and detestation towards the multitude which was struggling to rise into that heaven wherein the Ardens and Thornleighs shone serene. “The poor people” were different; they made no pretences, assumed no equality; but the idea that Alice Pimpernel came under the generic title of young lady exactly as she herself did, and that the daughter of a Liverpool man might ride, anddrive, and dress, and go everywhere on the same footing as Clare Arden, became wormwood to her soul.
Mr. Fielding walked along by her side somewhat sadly. He was Clare’s godfather, and he was very proud of her. His own nature was far too mild and gentle to be able to understand her vehemence of feeling on these points; but he had been grieved by it often, and had given her soft reproofs, which as yet had produced little effect. His great hope, however, had been in the return of her brother. “Edgar must know the world a little; he will show her better than I can how wrong she is,” the gentle Rector had said to himself. But, alas, Edgar had come home, and the result had not been according to his hope. “He is young and impetuous, and he has hurried her convictions,” was the comment he made in his grieved mind as he accompanied her along the village street. Mr. Fielding blamed no one as long as he could help it; much less would he blame Clare, who was to him as his own child. He thought within himself that now the only chance for her was Life, that best yet hardest of all teachers. Life would show her how vain were her theories, how harsh her opinions; but then Life itself must be harsh and hard if it is to teach effectual lessons, and it was painful to anticipate any harshness forClare. He went with her, somewhat drooping and despondent, though the air was sweet with honeysuckle and early roses. The summer was sweet, and so was life, at that blossoming time which the girl had reached; but there were still scorching suns, as well as the winds of autumn and the chills of winter, to come.
Old Sarah had more ways than one of gaining her homely livelihood. The upper floor of her cottage, on which there were two rooms, was furnished out of the remains of some old furniture which an ancient mistress had bequeathed to her; and there at distant intervals the old woman had a lodger, when such visitors came to Arden. They were homely little rooms, low-roofed, and furnished with the taste peculiar to a real cottage, and not in the least like the ideal one; but people in search of health, with small means at their disposal, were very glad to give her the ten or twelve shillings a week, which was all she asked. Down below, in the rooms where Sarah herself lived, she was in the habit of receiving one or two young girls, orphans, or the children of the poorest and least dependable parishioners, to train them to household work and plain sewing. It was Clare’s idea, and it had worked very well; but for some time past Clare had neglected herprotégées. Edgar’s arrival and all the dawningstruggles of the new life had occupied and confused her, and she had left her old nurse and her young pupils to themselves. She could scarcely remember as she went in who they were, though Sarah’s pupils were known in the parish as Miss Arden’s girls. There were two on hand at the present moment in the little kitchen which was Sarah’s abode. One stood before a large white-covered table ironing fine linen, while the old nurse sat by in her big chair, spectacles on nose, and a piece of coarse needlework in hand, superintending the process, with many comments, which, added to the heat of the day and the irons, had heightened Mary Smith’s complexion to a brilliant crimson. The other sat working in the shady background, the object of Mary’s intensest envy, unremarked and unreproved. It was the unfortunate clear-starcher who had to make her bob to the gentlefolks, and called forth Miss Arden’s questions. “I hope she is a good girl,” Clare said, looking at Mary, who stood curtseying and hot, with the iron in her hand. “She is none so good but she might be better, Miss Clare,” said old Sarah; “I don’t know none o’ them as is; but she do come on in her ironing. As for collars and cuffs and them plain things, I trust her by herself.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Clare, “and I hope Jane is as satisfactory; but we have not timeto talk about them to-day. Mr. Fielding says you have a new lodger, whom he wishes me to go and see. Is she upstairs? Is she at home? Does she like the place? And tell me what sort of person she is, for I am going to see her now.”
Sarah got up from her chair with a bewildered look, and took off her spectacles, which she always did in emergencies. “I beg your pardon, Miss Clare,” she said with a curtsey, “but—— She ain’t not to say a poor person. I don’t know as she’d—be pleased—— Not as your visit, Miss, ain’t a compliment; but——”
“The Scotch are very proud,” said Mr. Fielding, in his most deprecating tone; “they are dreadfully independent, and like their own way. And, besides, she does not want anything of us. She is not, as Sarah says, a poor person. I think, perhaps, another day——”
“Then why did you bring me here to see her?” said Clare, with some reason. Was it to read her a practical lesson—to show her that she was no longer queen in Arden? A flush of hasty anger came to her pale cheek.
“I only meant——” Mr. Fielding began; “all that I intended was—— Why, here is Edgar! and Mr. Perfitt with him. About business, I suppose, asyou two are going together. My dear boy, I am so glad you are taking to your work.”
“We have been half over the estate,” said Edgar, coming in, and putting down his hat on Mary Smith’s ironing table, while she stood and gaped at him, forgetting her curtsey in the awe of so close an approach to the young Squire; “but Perfitt has some one to visit here, and I have come to see Sarah, which is not work, but pleasure. I did not expect to find you all. Perfitt, go and see your friend; never mind me. Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Edgar, standing suddenly aside. They all looked up for the moment with a little start, and yet there was nothing to startle them. It was only Sarah’s Scotch lodger, Mr. Perfitt’s relative, who had come into the little room.
Shewas a woman of about sixty, with very dark eyes and very white hair—a tall woman, quite unbent by the weight of her years, and unshaken by anything she could have met with in them; and yet she did not look as if she had encountered little, or found life an easy passage from the one unknown to the skirts of the other. She did not look younger than her age, and yet there was no sentiment of age about her. She was not the kind of woman of whom one says that they have been beautiful, or have been pretty. She had perhaps never been either one or the other; but all that she had ever been, or more, she was now. Her eyes were still perfectly clear and bright, and they had depths in them which could never have belonged to them in youth. The outline of her face was not the round and perfect outline which belongs to the young, but every wrinkle had its meaning. It was not mere years of which they spoke, but of many experiences, varied knowledge, deep acquaintance with that hardest ofall sciences—life. Not a trace of its original colour belonged to the hair—slightly rippled, with an irregularity which gave a strange impression of life and vigour to it—which appeared under her cap. The cap was dead white too, tied under her chin with a solid bow of white ribbon; and this mass of whiteness brought out the pure tints of her face like a picture. These tints had deepened a little in tone from the red and white of youth, but were as clear as a child’s complexion of lilies and roses. The slight shades of brown did but mellow the countenance, as it does in so many painted faces. The eyes were full of energy and animation, not like the eyes of a spectator, but of one accustomed to do and to struggle—acting, not looking on. The whole party assembled in old Sarah’s living-room turned round and looked at her as she came in, and there was not one who did not feel abashed when they became conscious that for a moment this inspection was not quite respectful to the stranger. So far as real individuality and personal importance went, she was a more notable personage than any one of them. The Rector, who was the nearest to her in age, drew a little aside from before the clear eyes of this old woman. He had been a quiet man, harboured from all the storms, or almost all the storms of existence; but here was one who had gone throughthem all. As for Edgar, there was something in her looks which won his heart in a moment. He went up to her with his natural frankness, while the others stood looking on doubtfully. “I am sure it is you whom Perfitt has been talking to me about,” he said. “I hope you like Arden. I hope your granddaughter is better. And I trust you will tell Perfitt if there is anything than can be done to make you more comfortable; my sister and I will be too glad——”
Here Clare stepped forward, feeling that she must not permit herself to be committed. “I am sure Sarah will do her very best to make you comfortable,” she said, with great distinctness, not hurrying over her words, as Edgar did—and not disposed to permit any vague large promises to be made in her name. She was not particularly anxious about the stranger’s comfort; but Edgar was hasty, and would always have his way.
“I am much obliged to ye both,” said the newcomer, her strong yet soft Scotch voice, with its broad vowels, sounding large and ample, like her person. She gave but one glance at Clare, but her eyes dwelt upon Edgar with curious interest and eagerness. No one else in the place seemed to attract her as he did. She returned the touch of his hand with a vigorous clasp, which startled even him. “I hearye’re but late come hame,” she said, in a deep melodious tone, lingering upon the words.
“Yes,” said Edgar, somewhat surprised by her air of interest. “I am almost as much a stranger here as you are. Perfitt tells me you have come from the hills. I hope Arden will agree with the little girl.”
“Is there some one ill?” said Clare.
“My granddaughter,” said the stranger, “but no just a little girl—little enough, poor thing—the weakliest I ever trained; but she’s been seventeen years in this world—a weary world to her. Her life is a thread. I cannot tell where she got her weakness from—no from my side.”
“Na; not from your side,” echoed Perfitt, who had been standing behind. “But Mr. Arden has other things ado than listen to our clavers about our family. I’ll go with you, with his leave, up the stair.”
“Has Dr. Somers been to see her?” said Clare. “If she is Mr Perfitt’s relation, perhaps we could be of some use; some jelly perhaps, or fruit——”
“I am much obliged to the young lady, but I’ll not trouble anybody,” was the answer. “Thank ye all. If I might ask the liberty, when Jeanie is able, of a walk about your park——”
She had turned to Edgar again, upon whom hereyes dwelt with growing interest. Even Mr. Fielding thought it strange. “If she wants anything, surely I am the fit person to help her,” Clare could not help saying within herself. But it was Edgar to whom the stranger turned. He, too, was a little surprised by her look. “The park is open to everybody” he said; “that is no favour. But if you would like to go through the gardens and the private grounds—or even the house—Perfitt, you can arrange all that. And perhaps you might speak to the gardener, Clare?”
“Whatever you wish, Edgar,” said his sister, turning away. She was displeased. It was she who ought naturally to have been appealed to, and she was left out. But the new-comer evidently was honestly oblivious of Clare’s very presence. She had no intention of disrespect to the young lady, or of neglecting her claims; but she forgot her simply, being fascinated by her brother. It was him whom she thanked with concise and reserved words, but a certain strange fulness of tone and expression. And then she made the party a little bow, which took in the whole, and turned and led the way up the narrow cottage stair—Perfitt following her—leaving them all considerably puzzled, and more moved than Clare would have allowed to be possible. “If this is your Scotchwoman,” she said, turning to the Rector, “I don’t wonder you found her original;” and Clare went hastily out of the cottage, without a word to Sarah, followed by the gentlemen, who did not know what to say.
“Listen to her story before you begin to dislike her,” said Edgar. “Perfitt told me as we came along. It appears she had her daughter’s family thrown on her hands a great many years ago. She has a little farm in Scotland somewhere, and manages it herself. When these children came to her, she set to work as if she had been six men. She has brought up and educated every one of them,—not to be ploughmen, as you would think—but educated them in the Scotch way; one is a doctor, another a clergyman, and so on. If you don’t respect a woman like that, I do. Perfitt says she never flinched nor complained, but went at her work like a hero. And this is a granddaughter of another family whom she has taken charge of in the same way.”
“I felt sure she was something remarkable,” said Mr. Fielding, “I told Clare I had never seen any one quite like her; now, didn’t I? Scotch, you know—very Scotch; but to me a new type.”
“I think I prefer the old type,” said Clare, with a feeling of opposition, which she herself scarcely understood; “one knows what to do with them; andthen they are civil, at least. I am going to see some now,” and she turned back suddenly, waving her hand to her companions, and went on past Sarah’s cottage to pay her visits. The people she was going to see were quite of the old type. They had no susceptibilities tomenagér, no over-delicate feelings to be studied. They were ready to accept all that could be procured, and to ask for more. Clare knew, when she entered these cottages, that she was about to hear a long list of wants, and to have it made apparent to her that the comfort, and health, and happiness of her pensioners was entirely in her hands. It was more flattering than the independence of the stranger, who wanted nothing; but yet the contrast confused the mind of the girl, who had never had anything of the kind made so clearly apparent to her before. One of her old women had an orphan granddaughter too; but her complaints were many of the responsibility this threw upon her, and the trouble she had in keeping her charge in order. “Them young lasses, they eats and they drinks, and they’re never done; when a cup o’ tea would serve me, there’s a cooking and a messing for Lizzy; and out o’ evenings when I just want her; and every penny a going for nonsense. At my time o’ life, Miss, it ain’t bother as one wants; it’s quiet as does best for ou’d folks.”
“But she has nobody to take care of her except you,” said Clare, pondering her new lesson.
“Eh, Miss! They ben’t good for nothing for taking care o’ young ones ben’t ou’d folks.”
Clare turned away with a little disgust. She promised to supply all the wants that had been indicated to her, and they were many. But she did it with less than her usual kindness, and a sensation of indignation in her mind. How different was this servile dependence and denial of all individual responsibility from the story she had just heard! She was wrong, as was natural; for the old egotist was in reality very fond of her Lizzy, and only made use of her name in order to derive a more plentiful supply from the open hand of the young lady. Had there been no young lady to depend on, probably old Betty would have made no complaint, but done her best, and grudged nothing she had to her grandchild. Clare, however, was too young and inexperienced in human kind to know that what is bad often comes uppermost, concealing the good, and that there are quantities of people who always show their worst, not their best, face to the world. She went away in suppressed discontent, revolving in her mind without knowing it those questions of social philosophy with which every alms-giver must more or less come in contact. It was right for theArdens, as lords of the manor, to watch over their dependents; of that there could be no doubt. Clare would have felt, as one might imagine a benevolent slaveholder to feel, had there been any destitution or unrelieved misery in her village: but the question had never occurred to her whether it was good for the people to be so watched over and taken care of? Supposing, for instance, such a case as that of Mr. Perfitt’s relative, Sarah’s lodger. Was it best for a woman in such circumstances to toil and strive, and deny herself all ease and pleasure, and bring up the children thus cast upon her with the sweat of her brow, according to that primeval curse or blessing which was not laid upon woman? Or would it be better to appeal to others, and make interest, and establish the helpless beings in orphan schools and benevolent institutions? The last was the plan which Clare had been chiefly cognisant of. When any one died in the village, it had been her wont to bestir herself instantly about their children, as if the responsibility was not upon the widow or the relatives, but upon her. She had disposed of them in all sorts of places—here one, and there another; and she had found, in most cases, that the villagers were but too willing to transfer their burdens to the young shoulders which were so ready to undertake them. But was that the best?If Edgar had enunciated this new doctrine in words, no doubt she would have combated it with all her might, and would have been very eloquent about the duties of property and the bond between superiors and inferiors. But Edgar had not said a word on the subject, probably had not thought at all about it. He was as liberal as she was, even lavish in his bounty, ready to give to anybody or everybody. He had said nothing on the subject; but he had told the story of that strange new-comer, who was (surely) so out of place, so unlike everything else in the little Arden world.
Clare passed by Sarah’s house again as the thoughts went through her mind. The window of the upper room was a broad lattice window with diamond panes, half concealed by honeysuckles, which were not in very good trim, but waved their long branches in sweet disorder over the half-red half-white wall, where the original bricks, all stained with lichens, peered through the whitewash. The casement was open, and against it leaned a little figure, the sight of which sent a thrill through the young lady’s heart. The face looked very young, and was surrounded by softly curling masses of hair, of that ruddy golden hue which is so often to be seen in children’s hair in Scotland, and which is almost always accompanied by the sweetestpurity of complexion. It was a lovely face, like an angel’s, with something of the half-divine abstraction about it of Raphael’s angel children. She had never seen anything so strangely visionary, fair, and wild, like something from another world. Clare stood still and gazed, forgetting everything but this strange beautiful vision. The stranger’s eyes were turned towards Arden, to the great banks of foliage which stood up against the sky, hiding the house within their depths. What was she thinking of? whom was she looking for? or was she thinking of, looking for no one, abstracted in some dream? Clare’s heart began to beat as she stood unconscious and gazed. She was brought back to herself and to the ordinary rules of life by seeing that the old woman had come to the window, and was looking down upon her with equal earnestness. Then she went on with a little start, trembling, she could not tell why. Was it a child or a woman she had seen? and why had she come here?
Thenext day after these events occurred the dinner at the Pimpernels. Miss Arden had made no further allusion to it in her brother’s presence. He had said he would stay away if she exacted it, but Clare was much too proud to exact. She stood aside, and let him have his will. She was even so amiable as to fasten a sprig of myrtle in his coat when he came to bid her good night. “That is very sweet of you, as you don’t approve of me,” he said, kissing the white hand that performed this little sisterly office. They were two orphans, alone in the world, and Edgar’s heart expanded over his sister, notwithstanding the many doubts and difficulties which he was aware he had occasioned her.
“Why should I disapprove?” she said. “You are a man; you are not so easily affected as a girl; but only please remember, Edgar, they are not people that it would be nice for you to see much of. They are not like us.”
“Not like you, certainly,” said light-heartedEdgar. “I rather liked to see you, do you know, beside them; you looked like a young queen.”
Clare was pleased, though she did not care to confess it. “It does not require much to make one look like a queen beside that good, fat Mrs. Pimpernel,” she said, with more charity than she had ever before felt towards her recent visitors. “If you are not very late, Edgar, perhaps I shall see you when you come home.”
And she watched him as he drove his dogcart down the avenue with a less anxious mind. “He is not like an Arden,” she said to herself; “but yet one could not but remark him wherever he went. He has so much heart and spirit about him; and I think he is clever. He knows a great deal more than most people, though that does not matter much. But still I think perhaps he would not be so easily carried away after all.”
Edgar, for his part, went away in very good spirits. He liked the rapid sense of motion, the light vehicle, the fine horse, the swiftness which was almost flight. He rather liked making a dive out of the formal world which had absorbed him, into another hemisphere; and he even liked, which would have vexed Clare had she known it, to be alone. He would not suffer himself to think so, for it seemed ungrateful, unbrotherly, unkind; butstill a man cannot get over all the habits of his life in three weeks, and it was a pleasure to him to be alone. He seemed to have thrown off the burden of his responsibilities as he swept through the village and along the rural road to the Red House. He expected to be amused, and he was pleased that in his amusement he would be subject to no criticism. Criticism is very uncomfortable, especially when it comes from your nearest and dearest. To feel in your freest moments that an eye is upon you, that your proceedings are subject to lively comment, is always trying. And Edgar had not been used to it. Thanks to the sweetest temper in the world, he took it very well on the whole. But this night he certainly did feel the happier that he was free. The Pimpernels greeted him with a cordiality that was almost overpowering. The father shook both his hands, the mother pounced upon him and introduced him to a dozen people in a moment, and as for poor Alice, she blushed, and smiled, and buttoned her gloves, which was her usual occupation. When the business of the introduction was over Edgar fell back out of the principal place, and took a passing note of the guests. A dozen names had been said to him, but not one had he made out, except that of Lord Newmarch, who was a tall, spare young man in spectacles, with athin intellectual face. There were two men of Mr Pimpernel’s stamp, with vast white waistcoats, and heads slightly bald—men very well known upon ’Change, and holding the best of reputations in Liverpool—with two wives, who were ample and benign, like the mistress of the house; and there were two or three men in a corner, with Oxford written all over them, curiously looking out through spectacles, or as it were out of mists, at the other part of the company. Lord Newmarch did not attach himself to either of these parties. It was not very long indeed since he had been an Oxford man himself, but he was now a politician, and had emerged from the academical state.
There was one other among the guests who attracted Edgar’s attention, he could not tell why—a tall man about ten years older than himself, with black hair, just touched in some places with grey, and deep-set dark-blue eyes, which shone like a bit of frosty sky out of his dark bearded face. The face was familiar to him, though he felt sure he had never seen this individual man before; and though he kept himself in the background there was an air about him which Edgar recognised by instinct. Among the old merchants and the young Dons—men limited on one hand within a very material universe, and on the other by the stillstraiter limitations of a purely intellectual sphere—this man looked, what he was, a man of the world. Edgar came to this conclusion instinctively, feeling himself drawn by an interest which was only half sympathy to the only individual in the party who deserved that name. Chance or Mrs. Pimpernel arranged it so that this man was placed at the opposite end of the table at dinner, quite out of Edgar’s reach. Mr. Arden of Arden had to conduct one of the most important ladies present to dinner, and was within reach of Mrs. Pimpernel with Alice on his other hand; but the stranger who interested him was at the foot of the table, being evidently a person of no importance. It was only Edgar’s second English party, and certainly at this moment it was not nearly so pleasant as the dinner at Thorne, with pretty Gussy telling him everything. Mrs. Buxton, who sat between him and Lord Newmarch, was too anxious to attend to her noble neighbour’s conversation to give very much attention to Edgar. Now and then she turned to him indeed, and was very affable; but her subject was still Newmarch, and they were too near to that personage to make the discussion agreeable. “You should hear Lord Newmarch on the education question,” the lady said; “his ideas are so clear, and then they are so charmingly expressed. I consider his styleadmirable. You don’t know it? How very strange, Mr. Arden! He contributes a good deal to theEdinburgh. I thought of course you must have been acquainted with his works.”
“I never read any of them,” said Edgar; and I trust I never shall, he felt he should have liked to have said; but he only added instead, “I have spent all my time wandering to and fro over the face of the earth, which leaves one in the depths of ignorance of everything one ought to know.”
“Oh, do you think so?” said Mrs. Buxton. “For my part, I think there is nothing like travelling for expanding the mind. Lord Newmarch published a charming book of travels last year—From Turnstall to Teneriffe. Turnstall is one of his family places, you know. It made quite a commotion in the literary world. I do think he is one of the most rising young men of the age.”
“Do you admire Lord Newmarch very much?” Edgar whispered to Alice, who was eating her fish very sedately by his side. Poor Alice grew very red, and gave a little choking cough, and put down her fork, and cleared her throat. She looked as if she had been caught doing something which was very improper, and dropped her fork as if it burned her. And it was a moment before she could speak. “Oh yes, Mr. Arden,” was the reply she made,giving a shy glance at him, and then looking down upon her plate.
“But don’t you think he looks a little too much as if the fate of the country rested on his head?” said Edgar, valiantly trying again. “Tell me, please, is he a bore?”
“Oh no, Mr. Arden!” said Alice, and she looked at her plate again. “Does she want to finish her fish, I wonder?” Edgar asked himself; and then he turned to Mrs. Buxton, to leave his younger companion at liberty. But Mrs. Buxton had tackled Lord Newmarch, and they were discussing the question of compulsory education, with much authoritative condescension on the gentleman’s part, and eager interest on the lady’s. Edgar was not uninterested in such questions, but he had come to the Red House with a light-hearted intention of amusing himself, and he sighed for Gussy Thornleigh and her gossip, or anything that should be pleasant and nonsensical. Alice had returned to her fish, not that she cared for the fish, but because it was the only thing for her to do. If Edgar had but known it, she was quite disposed to go on saying, “Oh yes, Mr. Arden,” and “Oh no, Mr. Arden,” all the time of dinner, without caring in the least for theentrees, or even for the jellies and creams and other dainties with which thebanquet wound up. But then he did not know that, and could not but imagine that her fish was what she liked best.
In his despair, however, he caught Mrs. Pimpernel’s eye, who was looking bland but disturbed, saying “There is no doubt of that,” and “Education is very necessary,” and “I am sure I am quite of Lord Newmarch’s opinion,” at intervals. She was amiable, but she was not happy with that wise young nobleman at her right hand, and such an appreciative audience as Mrs. Buxton beside him. Edgar glanced across at her, and caught her look of distress. “I do not care anything about education,” he said, firing a friendly gun, as it were, across her bows. “I hate it when I am at dinner.” And then Mrs. Pimpernel gave him a look which said more than words.
“Oh, fie,” she said, leaning across the corner, “you know you should not say that. Do you think we English are behind in light conversation, Mr. Arden? For more important matters I know we can defy anybody,” and she gave Lord Newmarch an eloquent look, which he returned with a little bow; “but I daresay,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, with that cloud of uneasiness on her brow, “we are behind in chitter-chatter and table-talk.”
“I like chitter-chatter,” said Edgar; “and besides,I want to know who the people are. Who is that pretty girl on Mr. Pimpernel’s left hand? You must recollect I know nobody, and am quite a stranger in my own place.”
“Oh, Mr. Arden, that is Miss Molyneaux, Mrs. Molyneaux’s eldest daughter,” said the gracious hostess, indicating the lady on her left hand, who smiled and coloured, and looked at Edgar with friendly eyes. “Sheispretty—such a complexion and teeth! Did you notice her teeth, Mr. Arden? They are like pearls. My Alice has nice teeth, but I always say they are nothing to compare to Mary Molyneaux’s. And that’s Mr. Arden, your namesake, beside her. He is considered a very handsome man.”
“Do you approve of personal gossip, Mr. Arden?” said Mrs. Buxton, breaking in; but Edgar was too much interested to be stopped, even by motives of civility.
“Mr. Arden, my namesake! Then that explains it.” He said these last words, not aloud, but within himself, for now he could see that the face which this man’s face recalled to him was that of his own sister, Clare. It gave him the most curious sensation, moving him almost to anger. A stranger whom he knew nothing of, who was nothing to him, to resemble Clare! It looked like profanity, desecration.After all, there was something evidently in the Arden blood—something entirely wanting to himself—a secret influence—which he, the first of the name, did not share.