“And when you are old too,” said Edgar; “everybody has been fond of you all your life, I am sure—and will be when you are a hundred—of course you know that.”
“Ah, my dear,” said Miss Somers, shaking her head. “Ah my dear!”—and two soft little tears came into the corners of her eyes—“when you are old—— Yes. I know people are so kind—they pity you—and then every one tries; but when you were young, oh, it wasso—— There was no trying then. People thought there was nobody like—— and then such quantities of things were to happen—— But sometimes they never happen. It was my own fault, of course. There was Mr. Templeton and Captain Ormond, and—what is the good of going over——? That is long past, my dear, long past——”
And Miss Somers put her hands up softly to her eyes. She had a sort of theoretical regret for the opportunity lost, and yet, at the same time, a theoretical satisfaction that she had not tempted her fate—a satisfaction which was entirely theoretical; for did she not dream of her children who might have been, and of one who called Mamma? But Miss Somers was incapable of mentioning such a thing to Edgar, who was a “gentleman.” To have betrayed herself would have been impossible. Arthur Arden was below waiting in the Doctor’s study, and he came out as Edgar came down and joined him. He had not been idle in this moment of waiting. Something told him that this was a great crisis, a moment not to be neglected; and he had been arranging his plan of operations. Only Edgar, for this once thoughtless and unwary, thought of no crisis, until Tuesday came, when he should go to Thorne. He thought of nothing that was likely to change his happy state so long as he remained at home.
“Thefact is, I am a little put out by having to change my quarters so abruptly,” said Arthur Arden. “I am going to Scotland in the beginning of September, but that is a long way off; and to go to one’s lodgings in town now is dreary work. Besides, I said to the Pimpernels when they drove me out—they actually turned me out of the house—I told them I was coming here. It was the only way I could be even with them. If there is a thing they reverence in the world it is Arden; and if they knew I was here——”
“It does not entirely rest with me,” said Edgar, with some embarrassment. “Arden, we had a good deal of discussion on various subjects before I went away.”
“Yes; you went in order to turn me out,” said Arthur meditatively. “By George, it’s pleasant! I used to be a popular sort of fellow. People used to scheme for having me, instead of turning me out. Look here! Of course, when you showed yourselfmy enemy, it was a point of religion with me to pursue my own course, without regard to you; but now, equally of course, if you take me in to serve me, my action will be different. I should respect your prejudices, however they might run counter to my own.”
“That means——?” said Edgar, and then stopped short, feeling that it was a matter which he could not discuss.
“It is best we should not enter into any explanations. Explanations are horrid bores. What I want is shelter for a few weeks, to be purchased by submission to your wishes on the points we both understand.”
“For a few weeks!” said Edgar, with a little horror.
“Well, say for a single week. I must put my pride in my pocket, and beg, it appears. It will be a convenience to me, and it can’t hurt you much. Of course, I shall be on my guard in respect to Clare.”
“I prefer that my sister’s name should not be mentioned between us,” said Edgar, with instinctive repugnance. And then he remembered Mrs. Murray’s strange appeal to him on behalf of his cousin. “You have all but as much right to be in Arden as I have,” he said. “Of course, you must come. Mysister is not prepared; she does not expect any one. Would it not be wiser to wait a little—till to-morrow—or even till to-night?”
“Pardon me,” said Arthur; “but Miss Arden, I am sure, will make up her mind to the infliction better—if I am so very disagreeable—if she gets over the first shock without preparation. Is it that I am getting old, I wonder? I feel myself beginning to maunder. It used not to be so, you know. Indeed, there are places still—but never mind, hospitality that one is compelled to ask for is not often sweet.”
It was on Edgar’s lips to say that it need not be accepted, but he refrained, compassionate of his penniless kinsman. Why should the one be penniless and the other have all? There was an absence of natural justice in the arrangement that struck Edgar whenever his mind was directed to it; and he remembered now what had been his intention when his cousin first came to the Hall. “Arden,” he said, “I don’t think, if I were you, I would be content to ask for hospitality, as you say; but it is not my place to preach. You are the heir of Arden, and Arden owes you something. I think it is my duty to offer, and yours to accept, something more than hospitality. I will send for Mr. Fazakerly to-morrow. I will not talk of dividing the inheritance,because that is a thing only to be done between brothers; but, as you may become the Squire any day by my death——”
“I would sell my chance for five pounds,” said Arthur, giving his kinsman a hasty look all over. “I shall be dead and buried years before you—more’s the pity. Don’t think that I can cheat myself with any such hope.”
This was intended for a compliment, though it was almost a brutal one; but its very coarseness made it more flattering—or so at least the speaker thought.
“Anyhow, you have a right to a provision,” Edgar continued hastily, with a sudden flush of disgust.
“I am agreeable,” said Arthur, with a yawn. “Nobody can be less unwilling to receive a provision than I am. Let us have Fazakerly by all means. Of course, I know you are rolling in money; but Old Arden to Clare and a provision to me will make a difference. If you were to marry, for instance, you would not find it so easy to make your settlements. You are a very kind-hearted fellow, but you must mind what you are about.”
“Yes,” said Edgar, “you are quite right. What is to be done must be done at once.”
“Strike while the iron is hot,” said Arthur, languidly. He did not care about it, for he did not believe in it. A few weeks at Arden in the capacity of a visitor was much more to him than a problematical allowance. Fazakerly would resist it, of course. It would be but a pittance, even if Edgar was allowed to have his way. The chance of being Clare’s companion, and regaining his power over her, and becoming lawful master through her of Old Arden, was far more charming to his imagination. Therefore, though he was greedy of money, as a poor man with expensive tastes always is, in this case he was as honestly indifferent as the most disinterested could have been. Thus they strolled up the avenue, where the carriage wheels were still fresh which had carried Clare; and a certain relief stole over her brother’s mind that they would be three, not two, for the rest of the day. Strange, most strange that it should be so far a relief to him not to be alone with Clare.
Clare received them with a seriousness and reserve, under which she tried to conceal her excitement. Her cousin had deceived her, preferred a cottage girl to her, insulted her in the most sensitive point, and yet her heart leapt into her throat when she saw him coming. She had foreseen he would come. When he came into church, looking at herso wistfully, when he followed her out, asking to walk with Edgar, it became very evident to her that he was not going to relinquish the struggle without one other attempt to win her favour. It was a vain hope, she thought to herself; nothing could reverse her decision, or make her forget his sins against her; but still the very fact that he meant to try, moved, unconsciously, her heart—or was it his presence, the sight of him, the sound of his voice, the wistfulness in his eyes? Clare had driven home with her heart beating, and a double tide of excitement in all her veins. And then Arthur, too, was bound up in the whole matter. He was the first person concerned, after Edgar and herself; they would be three together in the house, between whom this most strange drama was about to be played out. She waited their coming with the most breathless expectation. And they came slowly up the avenue, calm as the day, indifferent as strangers who had never seen each other; pausing sometimes to talk of the trees; examining that elm which had a great branch blown off; one of them cutting at the weeds with his cane as undisturbed as if they were—as they thought—walking quietly home to luncheon, instead of coming to their fate.
“Arden is going to stay with us a little, Clare, if you can take him in,” Edgar said, with thatvoluble candour which a man always exhibits when he is about to do something which will be disagreeable to the mistress of his house—be she mother, sister, or wife. “He has no engagements for the moment, and neither have we. It is a transition time—too late for town, too early for the country—so he naturally turned his eyes this way.”
“That is a flattering account to give of it,” said Arthur, for Clare only bowed in reply. “The fact is, Miss Arden, I was turned out by my late hostess. May I tell you the story? I think it is rather funny.” And, though Clare’s response was of the coldest, he told it to her, giving a clever sketch of the Pimpernels. He was very brilliant about their worship of Arden, and how their hospitality to himself was solely on account of his name. “But I have not a word to say against them. My own object was simply self-interest,” he said. He was talking two languages, as it were, at the same moment—one which Edgar could understand, and one which was addressed to Clare.
And there could be no doubt that his presence made the day pass more easily to the other two—one of whom was so excited, and the other so exceedingly calm. They strolled about the park in the afternoon, and got through its weary hours somehow. They dined—Clare in her fever eatingnothing; a fact, however, which neither of her companions perceived. They took their meal both with the most perfect self-possession, hurrying over nothing, and giving it that importance which always belongs to a Sunday dinner. Dinner on other days is but a meal, but on Sunday it is the business of the day; and as such the two cousins took it, doing full justice to its importance, while the tide rose higher and higher in Clare’s veins. When she left them to their wine, she went to her own room, and walked about and about it like a caged lioness. It was not Clare’s way, who was above all demonstration of the kind; but now she could not restrain herself. She clenched her two hands together, and swept about the room, and moaned to herself in her impatience. “Oh, will it never be night? Will they never have done talking? Can one go on and go on and bear it?” she cried to herself in the silence. But after all she had to put on her chains again, and bathe her flushed face, and go down to the drawing-room. How like a wild creature she felt, straining and chafing at her fetters! She sat down and poured out tea for them, with her hand trembling, her head burning, her feet as cold as ice, her head as hot as fire. She said to herself it was unlady-like, unwomanly, unlike her, to be so wild and self-indulgent, but she had no power to controlherself. All this time, however, the two men made no very particular remark. Edgar, who thought she was still angry, only grieved and wondered. Arthur knew that she was dissatisfied with himself, and was excited but not surprised. He gave her now and then pathetic looks. He wove in subtle phrases of self-vindication—a hundred little allusions, which were nothing to Edgar but full of significance to her—into all he said. But he could not have believed, what was the case, that Clare was far past hearing them—that she did not take up the drift of his observations at all—that she hardly understood what was being said, her whole soul being one whirl of excitement, expectation, awful heartrending fear and hope. It was Edgar at last who perceived that her strength was getting worn out. He noticed that she did not hear what was said—that her face usually so expressive, was getting set in its extremity of emotion. Was it emotion, was it mania? Whatever it was, it had passed all ordinary bounds of endurance. He rose hastily when he perceived this, and going up to his sister laid his hand softly on her shoulder. She started and shivered as if his hand had been ice, and looked up at him with two dilated, unfathomable eyes. If he had been going to kill her she could not have been more tragically still—more aghastwith passion and horror. A profound compassion and pity took possession of him. “Clare,” he said, bending over her as if she were deaf, and putting his lips close to her ear, “Clare, you are over-exhausted. Go to bed. Let me take you up stairs—and if that will be a comfort to you, dear, I will go and read them now.”
“Yes,” she said, articulating with difficulty—“Yes.” He had to take her hand to help her to rise; but when he stooped and kissed her forehead Clare shivered again. She passed Arthur without noticing him, then returned and with formal courtesy bade him good-night; and so disappeared with her candle in her hand, throwing a faint upward ray upon her white woe-begone face. She was dressed in white, with black ribbons and ornaments, and her utter pallor seemed to bring out the darkness of her hair and darken the blue in her eyes, till everything about her seemed black and white. Arthur Arden had risen too and stood wondering, watching her as she went away. “What is the matter?” he said abruptly to Edgar, who was no better informed than himself.
“I don’t know. She must be ill. She is unhappy about something,” said Edgar. For the first time the bundle of old letters acquired importance in his eyes. “I want to look at something she hasgiven me,” he added simply. “You will not think me rude when you see how much concerned my sister is? You know your room and all that. I must go and satisfy Clare.”
“What has she given you?” asked Arthur, with a certain precipitation. Edgar was not disposed to answer any further questions, and this was one which his cousin had no right to ask.
“I must go now,” he said. “Good-night. I trust you will be comfortable. In short, I trust we shall all be more comfortable to-morrow. Clare’s face makes me anxious to-night.”
And then Arthur found himself master of the great drawing-room, with all its silent space and breadth. What did they mean? Could it be that Clare had found this something for which he had sought, and instead of giving it to himself had given it to her brother, the person most concerned, who would, of course, destroy it and cut off Arthur’s hopes for ever. The very thought set the blood boiling in his veins. He paced about as Clare had done in her room, and could only calm himself by means of a cigar which he went out to the terrace to smoke. There his eyes were attracted to Clare’s window and to another not far off in which lights were burning. That must be Edgar’s, he concluded; and there in the seclusion of his chamber, not in anyplace more accessible, was he studying the something Clare had given him? Something! What could it be?
Morethan one strange incident happened at Arden that soft July night. Mr. Fielding was seated in his library in the evening, after all the Sunday work was over. He did not work very hard either on Sundays or on any other occasions—the good, gentle old man. But yet he liked to sit, as he had been wont to do in his youth when he had really exerted himself, on those tranquil Sunday nights. His curate had dined with him, but was gone, knowing the Rector’s habit; and Mr. Fielding was seated in the twilight, with both his windows open, sipping a glass of wine tenderly, as if he loved it, and musing in the stillness. The lamp was never lighted on Sunday evenings till it was time for prayers. Some devout people in the parish were of opinion that at such moments the Rector was asking a blessing upon his labours, and “interceding” with God for his people—and so, no doubt, he was. But yet other thoughts were in his mind. Long, long ago, when Mr. Fielding had been young,and had a young wife by his side, this had been their sacred hour, when they would sit side by side and talk to each other of all that was in their hearts. It was “Milly’s hour,” the time when she had told him all the little troubles that beset a girl-wife in the beginning of her career; and he had laughed at her, and been sorry for her, and comforted her as young husbands can. It was Milly’s hour still, though Milly had gone out of all the cares of life and housekeeping for thirty years. How the old man remembered those little cares—how he would go over them with a soft smile on his lip, and—no, not a tear—a glistening of the eye, which was not weeping. How frightened she had been for big Susan, the cook; how bravely she had struggled about the cooking of the cutlets, to have them as her husband liked them—not as Susan pleased! And then all those speculations as to whether Lady Augusta would call, and about Letty Somers, and her foolish, little kind-hearted ways. The old man remembered every one of those small troubles. How small they were, how dear, how sacred—Milly’s troubles. Thank Heaven, she had never found out that the world held pangs more bitter. The first real sorrow she had ever had was to die—and was that a sorrow? to leave him; and had she left him? This was the tender enjoyment,the little private, sad delight of the Rector’s Sunday nights; and he did not like to be disturbed.
Therefore, it was clear the business must be of importance which was brought to him at that hour. “Your reverence won’t think as it’s of my own will I’m coming disturbing of you,” said Mrs. Solmes, the housekeeper; “but there’s one at the door as will take no denial. She says she aint got but a moment, and daren’t stay for fear her child would wake. She’s been in a dead faint from yesterday at six till now. The t’oud woman as lives at oud Sarah’s, your reverence; the Scotchy, as they calls her—her as had her granddaughter killed last night.”
“God bless me!” said Mr. Fielding, confused by this complication. He knew Jeanie had not been killed; but how was he to make his way in this twilight moment through such a maze of statements? “Killed!” he said to himself. It was so violent a word to fall into that sacred dimness and sadness—sadness which was more dear to him than any joy. “Let her come in,” he added, with a sigh. “Lights? no! I don’t think we want lights. I can see you, Mrs. Solmes, and I can see to talk without lights.”
“As you please, sir,” said the housekeeper; “but them as is strangers, and don’t know yourhabits, might think it was queer. And then to think how a thing gets all over the village in no time. But, to be sure, sir, it’s as you please.”
“Then show Mrs. Murray in,” said Mr. Fielding. He had never departed from his good opinion of her, notwithstanding that she was a Calvinist, and looked disapproval of his sermons; but that she should come away from her child’s sick-bed, that was extraordinary indeed.
And then in the dark, much to the scandal of Mrs. Solmes, Mrs. Murray came in. Even the Rector himself found it embarrassing to see only the tall, dark figure beside him, without being able to trace (so short-sighted as he was, too) the changes of her face. “Sit down,” he said, “sit down,” and bustled a little to get her a chair—not the one near him, in which, had she been alive, his Milly would have sat—(and oh! to think Milly, had she lived, would have been older than Mrs. Murray!)—but another at a little distance. “How is your child?” he asked. “I meant to have gone to see her to-night, but they told me she was insensible still.”
“And so she is,” said the grandmother, “and I wouldna have left her to come here but for something that’s like life and death. You’re a good man. I canna but believe you’re a real good man, though you are no what I call sound on all points. I wantyou to give me your advice. It’s a case of a penitent woman that has done wrong, and suffered for it. Sore she has suffered in her bairns and her life, and worse in her heart. It’s a case of conscience; and oh! sir, your best advice——”
“I will give you the best advice I can, you may be sure,” said Mr. Fielding, moved by the pleading voice that reached him out of the darkness. “But you must tell me more clearly. What has she done? I will not ask who she is, for that does not matter. But what has she done; and has she, or can she, make amends? Is it a sin against her neighbour or against God?”
“Baith, baith,” said the old woman. “Oh, Mr. Fielding, you’re an innocent, virtuous man. I ken it by your face. This woman has been airt and pairt in a great wrong—an awfu’ wrong; you never heard of the like. Partly she knew what she was doing, and partly she did not. There are some more guilty than her that have gone to their account; and there’s none to be shamed but the innocent, that knew no guile, and think no evil. What is she to do? If it was but to punishher, she’s free to give her body to be burned or torn asunder: oh, and thankful, thankful! Nothing you could do, but she would take and rejoice. But she canna move without hurting the innocent. She canna right themthat’s wronged without crushing the innocent. Oh, tell me, you that are a minister, and an old man, and have preached God’s way! Many and many a time He suffers wrong, and never says a word. It’s done now, and canna be undone. Am I to bear my burden and keep silent till my heart bursts, or must I destroy, and cast down, and speak!”
The woman spoke with a passion and vehemence which bewildered the gentle Rector. Her voice came through the dim and pensive twilight, thrilling with life and force and vigour. In that atmosphere, at that hour, any whisper of penitence should have been low and soft as a sigh. It should have been accompanied by noiseless weeping, by the tender humility which appeals to every Christian soul; but such was not the manner of this strange confession. Not a tear was in the eye of the penitent. Mr. Fielding felt, though he could not see, that her eyes, those eyes which had lost none of their brightness in growing old, were shining upon him in the darkness, and held him fast as did those of the Ancient Mariner. Suddenly, without any warning, he found himself brought into contact, not with the moderate contrition of ordinary sinners, but with tragic repentance and remorse. He could not answer for the first moment. It took away his breath.
“My dear, good woman,” he said, “you startleme. I do not understand you. Do you know what you are saying? I don’t think you can have done anything so very wrong. Hush, hush! compose yourself, and think what you are saying. When we examine it, perhaps we will find it was not so bad. People may do wrong, you know, and yet it need not be so very serious. Tell me what it was.”
“That is what I cannot do,” she said. “If I were to tell you, all would be told. If it has to be said, it shall be said to him first that will have the most to bear. Oh, have ye been so long in the world without knowing that a calm face often covers a heavy heart! Many a thing have I done for my ain and for others that cannot be blamed to me; but once I was to blame. I tell ye, I canna tell ye what it was. It was this—I did what was unjust and wrong. I schemed to injure a man—no, no me, for I did not know he was in existence, and who was to tell me?—but I did the wrong thing that made it possible for the man to be injured. Do you understand me now? And here I am in this awful strait, like Israel at the Red Sea. If I let things be, I am doing wrong, and keeping a man out of his own; if I try to make amends, I am bringing destruction on the innocent. Which, oh, which, tell me, am I to do?”
She had raised her voice till it sounded likea cry, and yet it was not loud. Mrs. Solmes in the kitchen heard nothing, but to Mr. Fielding it sounded like a great wail and moaning that went to his heart. And the silence closed over her voice as the water closes over a pebble, making faint circles and waves of echo, not of the sound, but of the meaning of the sound. He could not speak, with those thrills of feeling, like the wash after a boat, rolling over him. He did not understand what she meant; her great and violent pain bewildered the gentle old man. The only thing he could take hold of was her last words. That, he reflected, was always right—always the best thing to advise. He waited until the silence and quietness settled down again, and then he said, his soft old voice wavering with emotion, “Make amends!”
“Is that what you say to me?” she said, lifting up her hands. He could see the vehement movement in the gloom.
“Make amends. What other words could a servant of God say?”
He thought she fell when he spoke, and sprang to his feet with deep anxiety. She had dropped down on her knees, and had bent her head, and was covering her face with her hands. “Are you ill?” he said. “God bless us all, she has fainted! what am I to do?”
“No; the like of me never faints,” she answered; and then he perceived that she retained her upright position. Her voice was choked, and sounded like the voice of despair, and she did not take her hands from her face. “Oh, if I could lie like Jeanie,” she went on, “quietly, like the dead, with nae heart to feel nor voice to speak. My bit little lily flower! would she have been broken like that—faded like that, if I had done what was right? But, O Lord my God, my bonnie lad! what is to become of him?”
“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 mypain 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 aglass 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.
Edgarwent 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’sinterest 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 thereinto 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 littlereverence, 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 theplace 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 inquirefurther. 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 afool 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 thetempter 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 noteven 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 intohis 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.”
Arthur Ardenfelt 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,” saidWilkins. “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 popularpreacher’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 revolutionarycrossed 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 thecuisineat 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 theclaims 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 thechanges 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 interestingto 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 hislips 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.
Edgarwas thankful for the morning air, the freshness of the breeze, the quietness of the world outside, where there was nobody to look curiously at him—nobody to speak to him. It was the first moment of calm he had felt since the discovery of last night, although he had been alone in his room for three or four hours, trying to sleep. Now there was no effort at all required of him—neither to sleep, nor to talk, nor to render a reason. He was out in the air, which caressed him with impartial sweetness, never asking who he was; and the mere fact that he was out of doors made it impossible for him to write anything or read anything, as he might have otherwise thought it his duty to do. He went on slowly, taking the soft air, the fluttering leaves, the gleams of golden sunshine, all the freshness of the morning, into his very heart. Oh, how good nature was, how kind, caressing a man and refreshing him, however unhappy he might be! But the curious thing in all this was, that Edgar was notunhappy. He did not himself make any classification of his feelings, nor was he aware of this fact. But he was not unhappy: he was in pain: he felt like a man upon whom a great operation has been performed, whose palpitating flesh has been shorn away or his bones sawed asunder by the surgeon’s skilful torture. The great shock tingles through his whole system, affects his nerves, occupies his thoughts, is indeed the one subject to which he finds himself ever and ever recurring; and yet does not go so deep as to affect the happiness of his life or the tranquillity of his mind. Perhaps Edgar did not fully realise what it was which had fallen upon him. He was tingling, suffering, torn asunder with pain; and yet he was quite calm. Any trifle would have pleased him. He was so wounded, so sore, so bleeding, that he had not time to look any further and be unhappy. The question what he should do had not yet entered his mind. In the meantime he was gladly silent, taking rest after the operation he had gone through.
He went down to the village vaguely, like a man in a dream. When he got to the great gate he asked himself, with a sort of curious wonder and interest, Should he go and tell Mr. Fielding—resolve all the Doctor’s doubts for ever? But decided no, because he was too tired. Besides, he had not madeup his mind what was to be done. He had not fully realised it—he had only felt the blow, and the rending, tearing pain—and now the hush after the operation, his veins still tingling, his flesh palpitating, but some soft opiate giving him a momentary, sweet forgetfulness of his suffering. Sufferers who have taken a very strong opiate often feel as Edgar did, especially if it does not bring sleep, but only a strange insensibility, an unexplainable trance of relief. He walked on and on, and he did not think. The thing had happened, the knife had come down; but the shearing and rending were past, and he was quiet. He was able to say nothing, think nothing—only to wait. At the present moment this was all.
And then he went down in his dream to the cottage where Jeanie was. As the women curtseyed to him at their doors, and the school-children made their little bobs, he asked himself, why? Would they do it if they knew? What would the village think? How would the information be received? Those Pimpernels, for instance, who had turned Arthur Arden out, how would they take it? Somehow, Edgar felt as if he himself had changed with Arthur Arden. It was he, he thought, who had become the poor cousin—he who was the one disinherited. We say he thought, but he did not reallythink; it was but the upper line of fancy in his mind—the floating surface to his thoughts. Though he had not made up his mind to any course of action, and was not even capable of thinking, yet at the same time he felt disposed to stop and speak to everybody, and say certain words of explanation. What could he say? You are making a mistake. This is not me; or, rather, I am not the person you take me for. Was that what he ought to say? And he smiled once more that curious smile, in which a certain pathetic humour mingled. “Who am I?” he said to himself. “What am I?—a man without a name.” It gave him a strange, wild, melancholy amusement. It was part of the effect of the laudanum; and yet he had not taken any laudanum. His opiate was only the great pain, the sleepless night—the sudden softening, calming influence of the fresh day.
“She’s opened her eyes once,” said Mrs. Hesketh, at the cottage door. “You don’t think much of that, sir; but it’s a deal. She opened her eyes, and put out her hand, and said, ‘Granny!’ Oh, it’s a deal, sir, is that! The Doctor is as pleased as Punch; and as for t’oud dame——”
“Is she pleased?” said Edgar.
“I don’t understand her, sir,” said the woman; “it looks to me as if she was a bit touched”—andhere Mrs. Hesketh laid her finger on her own forehead. “Husht! she’ll hear. She won’t take a morsel of rest, won’t t’oud dame. I canna think how she lives; but, bless you! she’s got somethin’ else on her mind—something more than Jinny. I’m a’most sure—— Lord! I’ve spoke below my breath, but she’s heard us, and she’s coming here.”
“Will you watch my bairn ten minutes, while I speak to the gentleman?” said Mrs. Murray. “Eh! I hope you’ll be blessed and kept from a’ evil, for you’re a good woman—you’re a good woman. Aye, she’s better. She’ll win through, as I always said. We’ve grand constitutions in our family. Oh, my bonnie lad! it’s a comfort to me to see your face.”
Edgar must have started slightly at this address, for the old woman started too, and looked at him with a bewildered air. “What did I say?” she asked. “Mr. Edgar, I’ve sleepit none for three nights. My heart has been like to burst. I’m worn out—worn out. If I said something that wasna civil, I beg your pardon. It is not always quite clear to me what I say.”
“You said no harm,” said Edgar. “You have always spoken kindly, very kindly, to me—more kindly than I had any right to. And I hope you will continue to think of me kindly, for I am notvery cheerful just now, nor are my prospects very bright——”
“Yourprospects no bright!” Mrs. Murray looked round to see that no one was near, and then she came out upon the step, and closed the cottage door behind her, and came close up to him. “Tell me what’s wrong with you—oh, tell me what’s wrong with you!” she said, with an eager anxiety, which was too much in earnest to pause or think whether such a request was natural. Then she stopped dead short, recollecting—and went on again with very little interval, but with a world of changed meaning in her voice. “Many a one has come to me in their trouble,” she said. “It’sthatthat makes me ask—folk out of my ain rank like you. Whiles I have given good advice, and whiles—oh! whiles I have given bad; but its that that makes me ask. Dinna think it’s presumption in me.”
“I never thought it was presumption,” said Edgar; and there came upon him the strongest, almost irresistible, impulse to tell what had happened to him to this poor old woman at the cottage door. Was he growing mad too?—had his misfortune and excitement been too much for him? He smiled feebly at her, as he bewildered himself with this question. “If I cannot tell you now, I will afterwards,” he said; and lingered, not saying any more.Her keen eyes investigated him while he stood so close to her. His fresh colour was gone, and the frank and open expression of his face. He was very pale; there were dark lines under his eyes; his mouth was firmly closed, and yet it was tremulous with feeling repressed and restrained. Alarm and a look of partial terror came into Mrs. Murray’s face.
“Tell me, tell me!” she cried, grasping his arm.
“There is nothing to tell, my good woman,” he said, and turned away.
She fell back a step, and opened the door which she had held closed behind her. Her face would have been a study to any painter. Deep mortification and wounded feeling were in it—tears had come to her eyes. Edgar noticed nothing of all this, because he was fully occupied with his own affairs, and had no leisure to think of hers; and had he noticed it, his perplexity would have been so intense that he could have made nothing of it. He stood, not looking at her at all—gone back into his own thoughts, which were engrossing enough.
“Ay,” she said, “that’s true—I’m but your good woman—no your friend nor your equal that might be consulted. I had forgotten that.”
But Edgar had given her as much attention as he was capable of giving for the moment, and didnot even remark the tone of subdued bitterness with which she spoke. He roused himself a little as she retired from him. “I hope you are comfortable,” he said; “I hope no one annoys you, or interferes. The woman of the house——”
“There she is,” said Mrs. Murray, and she made him a solemn little curtsey, and was gone before he could say another word. He turned, half-bewildered, from the door, and found himself face to face with Sally Timms, who felt that her opportunity had come.
“I don’t want to be disagreeable, sir,” said Sally, without a moment’s pause. “I never was one that would do a nasty trick. It aint your fault, nor it aint her fault, nor nobody’s fault, as Jinny is there. But not to give no offence, Squire, I’d just like to know if I am ever going to get back to my own little ’ouse?”
“I am very sorry, Sally,” Edgar began, instinctively feeling for his purse.
“There’s no call to be sorry, sir,” said Sally; “it aint nobody’s fault, as I say, and it aint much of a house neither; but it’s all as I have for my little lads, to keep an ’ome. A neighbour has took me in,” said Sally; “an’ it’s a sign as I have a good name in the place, when folks is ready o’ all sides to take me in. And the little lads is at the WestLodge. But I can’t be parted from my children for ever and ever. Who’s to look to them if their mother don’t? Who’s to see as their faces are clean and their clothes mended? Which they do tear their clothes and makes holes in their trousers enough to break your heart—and nothing else to be expected from them hearty little lads.”
“I will give you any rent you like to put on your house,” said Edgar, with his purse in his hand. “I wish I could make poor Jeanie better, and give you your cottage back; but I can’t. Tell me your price, and I will give it to you. I am very sorry you have been disturbed.”
“It aint that, sir,” said Sally, with her apron to her eyes. “Glad am I and ’appy to be useful to my fellow-creetures. It aint that. She shall stay, and welcome, and all my bits o’ things at her service. I had once a good ’ome, Squire; and many a thing is there—warming-pans, and toasting-forks, and that—as you wouldn’t find in every cottage. Thank ye, sir; I won’t refuse a shillin’ or two, for the little lads; but it wasn’t that. If you please, Squire——”
“What is it?” said Edgar, who was getting weary. The day began to pall upon him, though it was as fresh and sweet as ever. The influence of that opiate began to wear out. He felt himselfincapable of bearing any longer this dismal stream of talk in his ears, or even of standing still to listen. “What is it? Make haste.”
“If you please,” said Sally, “old John Smith, at the gate on the common, he’s dead this morning, sir. It’s a lonesome place, but I don’t mind that. The little lads ’ud have a long way to come to school, but I don’t mind that; does them good, sir, and stretches their legs so long’s they’re little. If you would think of me for the gate on the common—a poor decent widow-woman as has her children’s bread to earn—if ye please, Squire.”
A sudden poignant pang went through Edgar’s heart. How he would have laughed at such a petition yesterday! He would have told Sally to ask anything else of him—to be made Rector of the parish, or Lord Chancellor—and he would have thrown that sovereign into her lap and left her. But now he thought nothing of Sally. The lodge on the common! He had as much right to give away the throne of England, or to appoint the Prime Minister. A sigh which was almost a groan burst from his heart. He poured out the contents of his purse into his hands and gave them to her, not knowing what the coins were. “Don’t disturb Jeanie,” he said, incoherently, and rushed past her without another word. The lodge on the common!It occurred to Edgar, in the mere sickness of his heart, to go round there—why, he could not have told. He went on like the wind, not heeding Sally’s cry of wonder and thanks. The morning clouds had all blown away from the blue sky, and the scorching sun beat down upon his head. His moment of calm after the operation was past.