Маргарет Олифант
Squire Arden; volume 1 of 3
CHAPTER XVIII
It was perhaps fortunate for Edgar that he did not see his sister that night. She had waited for him till the return of the groom with the dogcart, and then she had gone upstairs. Probably she had gone with a little irritation against him for delaying his return, Edgar felt; and a momentary impatience of all and everyone of the new circumstances which made his life so different came upon him. What if Dr. Somers’ suggestion had come true, and he had been shut out of the succession? Why, then, this bondage on one side or other, this failure in satisfying one and understanding another, this expenditure of himself for everybody’s pleasure, would not have been. “I should have been brought up to a profession, probably,” he said to himself, “or even a trade;” and for the moment, in his impatience, he almost wished it had been so. But then he looked out upon the park, lying broad in the moonlight, and the long lines of trees which he could see from his open window, and felt that he would be a coward indeed who would give up such an inheritance without an effort. The lands of his fathers. Were they the lands of his fathers? or what did that terrible insinuation mean?
Clare was cloudy, there could be no doubt of it, when she met her brother next morning. She thought he might have come back earlier. “What is Dr. Somers to him?” she said to herself, and concluded, like a true woman, that he must have fallen in love with Alice Pimpernel. “If he were to marry that girl I should certainly keep Old Arden,” she said to herself; for it seemed almost impossible to imagine that, seeing Alice was the last girl in the world who ought to attract him, he should have been able to resist falling in love with her. And thus she came down cloudy, and found Edgar with a face all overcast by the events of the previous night, which confirmed her in all her fears. “Of course, he does not like to speak of her,” Clare said to herself. Poor Alice Pimpernel! who was too frightened for Mr. Arden even to raise her eyes from her plate.
“Had you a pleasant party?” she said, with a half angry sound in her voice.
“Not very pleasant,” said Edgar. “I suppose that is why I am so tired this morning; but yet I met some people who interested me.”
“Indeed!” said Clare, with polite wonder. “Tell me who you took in to dinner? and who was next you? and in short all about it? One would think it was I who had been at a party last night, and you who had stayed at home.”
“I took in Mrs. Buxton, whoever she may be—and I sat next Miss Pimpernel—and the one was philosophical, and the other was– Is there not some word that sounds pretty, and that means inane? She is a very nice girl, I am sure. She said, ‘Oh, yes, Mr. Arden,’ and then, ‘Oh, no, Mr. Arden.’ If I had not kept up the proper alternations I wonder what the poor girl would have said?”
“But you did?” said Clare, with all her cloud removed. Had she but known who was at that party beside Alice Pimpernel!
“Oh, yes, I did. And there was Lord Newmarch, who is coming here on the 1st to make my acquaintance. I hope you don’t mind. He was so anxious to see me, poor fellow, that I could not deprive him of that pleasure. I hope, Clare, you don’t mind.”
“Not in the least,” she said, in her most genial mood. “If you will not be shocked, I rather like him, Edgar. He means well; and then if he is a Radical, it is in a kind of dignified superior way.”
“So it is,” said Edgar; “very superior, and very dignified—not to say instructive—but we might get too clever, don’t you think, if we had too much of it? There was some one else there, about whom you must pardon me, Clare. I was led into giving him an invitation—without thinking. It did not occur to me till after–”
Edgar grew very red making his excuses, and Clare grew pale listening. She made a great effort over herself, and clasped her hands together, and looked at her brother with a forced smile. “Why should you hesitate?” she said. “Edgar, you are master; I wish you to be master. Whoever you choose to ask ought to be welcome to me.”
“I do not wish to be master so long as I have my sister to consult,” he said; “but this was a mistake, an inadvertence, Clare. You can’t guess? It was Arthur Arden whom I met at the Pimpernels!”
“Ah!” Clare said, growing paler and paler. But she made no observation, and kept listening with her hands clasped fast.
“I asked him to come in September, remembering you had said you did not like him much; but he offered himself for June. I did not accept his proposed visit; but from what I saw and what I hear it seems likely he will come.”
“No doubt he will come,” said Clare; and then her hands separated themselves. She had heard all that she had to fear. “If I hate him it is not for myself,” she added hurriedly, “but for you Edgar. He did all he could to injure you.”
“So I have heard. But how could he injure me?” said her brother, feeling that it was now his turn.
“Edgar, I hate to speak of it. You can’t understand my love for poor papa. Arthur tried to set him against– It was—his fault. No; Edgar, no, I don’t mean that—it was not his fault; but he tried to make things worse. That is why I hate—no, I don’t hate. If you don’t mind Edgar– You kind, good, sweet-tempered boy–!”
And here, in a strange transport, which he could not understand, Clare took his hand, and held it close, and pressed it to her heart, which was beating fast. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, with a curious admiration. “You are not like us other Ardens,” she said. “We ought to learn of you; we ought to look up to you, Edgar. You can forgive. You don’t keep on remembering and thinking over everything that people have done and said against you. You can put it away out of your mind. Edgar, dear, I hate myself, and I love you with all my heart.”
“Do you, Clare; do you, indeed, Clare?” he said, and went to her side, and kissed her with brotherly tenderness. “God do so to me and more also,” he said to himself, if I ever forget her good and her happiness; or, at least, if he did not say the words, such was the sentiment that passed through his mind. He was so much moved that he felt able to ask a question he had been hesitating over all the morning. “Clare,” he said softly, bending over her, and smoothing her dark hair. His voice had a certain sound of supplication in it which struck her strangely. She thought he was about to ask something hard to do—perhaps a renunciation, perhaps a sacrifice. “Clare, can you tell me anything about our mother? Do you know?”
“About mamma?” said Clare, with a sense of disappointment. “Edgar, you frighten me so; I thought you were going to ask me something that was very hard. About mamma? Of course I will tell you all I know.”
“And there is a portrait—you said there was a portrait—I should like to see that too.”
“Yes, Edgar, I will run and get it. Oh, I wonder if you would have been very like her—if she had lived? I sometimes think it would have been so much better for us all.”
“Do you think so?” said Edgar, with a sadness which he could not control. Would it have been better? But, at all events, Clare knew of nothing evil that concerned their mother. He walked about the room slowly while she went to seek the portrait, and finally paused at the great window, and gazed out. It had the same view over the park which he had looked at last night under the moon-light. Now, in the morning, with a certain ache of strange doubtfulness, he looked at it again. The feeling in his mind was that it might all dissolve as he looked, and melt away, and leave no sign—that, and the house, and the room he stood in, with all their appearance of weight and reality. Such things had been; at least, surely that was what Dr. Somers’ story meant about those Agostini. What was it? “Something about the mother.” A mist of bewilderment had fallen over him, and he could not tell.
Clare’s entrance with a little case in her hand roused him. She came up, and put her arm within his where he stood, and, thus hanging on him, opened the case, and showed him the miniature, which formed the clasp of a bracelet. It was the portrait of a face so young that it startled him. He had been thinking and talking of his mother, which meant something almost venerable, and this was the face of a girl younger, ever so much younger, than himself. “Are you sure this is her?” he said in a whisper, taking it out of his sister’s hand. “Of course it is her; who else could it be?” she answered, in the same tone. “She is so young,” said Edgar, apologetically. He was quite startled by that youthfulness. He held it up to the light, and looked at it with wondering admiration. “This child! Could she be my mother, your mother, Clare?”
“I suppose everybody is young some time. She must have looked very different from that when she died.”
“Will it ever seem as strange, I wonder,” said Edgar, still little above a whisper, “to somebody to look at your portrait and mine? How pretty she must have been, Clare. What a sweet look in her eyes! You have that look sometimes, though you are not like her. Poor little thing! What a soft innocent-looking child.”
“Edgar,” said his sister, half horrified, for she had little imagination, “do you remember you are speaking of mamma?”
He gave a strange little laugh, which seemed made up of pleasure and tears. “Do you think I might kiss her?” he said under his breath. Clare was half scandalized half angry. He was always so strange; you never could tell what he might do or say next; he was so inconsistent, not bound by sacred laws like the Ardens; but still his sister herself was a little touched by the portrait and the suggestions it made.
“She would not have been old now if she had been living, not too old for a companion. Oh, Edgar, what a difference it would have made! I never had a real companion, not one I was thoroughly fond of; only think what it would have been to have had her–”
“With that face!” Edgar said, with a sigh of relief, though Clare could not guess why he felt so relieved. Then—“I wonder if she would have liked me,” he said, softly. “Clare, there has been a kind fiction about my mother. I am not like her. I don’t think I am like her. But she looks as innocent as an angel, Clare.”
“Why should not she be innocent?” said Clare, wondering. “We are all innocent. I don’t see why you should fix upon that. What strikes me is that she must have been so pretty. Don’t you think it is pretty? How arched the eyebrows are and dark, though she is so fair.”
“But I am not like her,” he said, shaking his head. How strange it was. Was he a waif of fortune, some mere stray soul whom Providence had made to be born in the house of Arden, quite out of its natural sphere? It gave him a little shock, and yet somehow he could feel no sharp disappointment on the day he had made acquaintance with this innocent face.
“Do you think not?” said Clare, faltering. “Oh, yes; you are like her. See how fair she is, and you are fair, and the Ardens are all dark; besides, you know, poor papa– Don’t change like that, Edgar, when I mention his name. He was the only one who knew her, and he said–”
“Did he ever say I was like my mother?” said Edgar, while the sweetness and softness had all gone out of his voice.
“I am not sure that he ever said it in so many words. But, Edgar! Why, everybody here– What could it be but that? And see how fair she is, and you are fair–”
Edgar Arden shook his head. The face in the miniature was not sanguine and ruddy, like his, but a pensive face; locks too fair to be called golden surrounding it, and soft blue eyes. Everything was soft, gentle, tender, composed, in the young face. Even Clare’s grave beauty, though in itself so different, was less unlike her than Edgar’s warm vitality, the gleams of superabundant life, which showed as colour in his hair and as light in his eyes. “I am not like her,” he said to himself, as he closed the little case and gave it back to his sister; but the shadow which had been upon him all the morning had disappeared for ever. Whatever was the secret of his story, it was not like the story of the Agostini. Once and for ever he dismissed that dread from his breast.
CHAPTER XIX
It was, however, some time before Edgar got over the painful impression made upon his mind by what Dr. Somers had said. He had known very well for the greater part of his life that his father did not love him; but the idea that doubt had ever fallen upon his rights, that there had been a possibility of shutting him out from his natural inheritance, had never entered his mind. Of course there was really no such possibility; but still the merest suggestion of it excited the young man. It seemed to hint at a deeper secret in his own existence than anything he had yet suspected. He had been able to take it for granted with all the carelessness of youth that his father disliked him. But why should his father dislike him? What reason could there be? And then that story of the Agostini returned to him. Edgar pondered and pondered it for days, and rejected the suggestions conveyed in it, feeling from the moment he had seen his mother’s picture a certain fierce sentiment of rage against Dr. Somers as her maligner. But yet this explanation being evidently a false one, and his mother cleared of all shadow of shame or wrong, there remained the strange thought that there must be some clue to the mystery; and what was it? If it had been within the bounds of possibility that the Squire could have doubted his wife’s faithfulness, that of course would have explained a great deal. But the evidence of the portrait was quite conclusive that any such suspicion was out of the question. Edgar was young and fanciful, and ready to accept the evidence of a look, and every natural sentiment within him rose up in defence of his mother. But he could not help asking himself, even though the question seemed an injury to her—what if it had been possible? Had she been another kind of woman and, capable of wickedness, what in such horrible circumstances would it have been a man’s duty to do? He had of course heard such questions discussed, like everybody else in the world, as affecting the husband and wife, the immediate parties. But imagine a young man making such a discovery, finding himself out to be a spurious branch thus arbitrarily engrafted upon a family tree; in a position so frightful, what would it be his duty to do? Edgar roamed about the woods which were his, putting to himself in every point of view this appalling question. A man could take no single step in such circumstances without taking upon him the responsibility of heaping shame upon his mother, and giving up her cause. It would be her whom he would cover with disgrace, much more than himself. He would have to decide a question which nobody but she could decide, and to give it against her, his nearest and dearest relation. Could any one willingly assume such an office? And, on the other hand, how could he retain a name, an inheritance, a position to which he had no right, and probably exclude the rightful heir? “Thank heaven,” said Edgar fervently, “that can never be my case. The son of the woman to whom God gave so angelic a countenance can never have to blush for his mother. Whatever records came to light, she never shall be shamed.” He gave up whole days to this question, pondering it again and again in his mind. The sight of the portrait gave him for that one day an absolute certainty that such was not his position: and this force of conviction carried him through the second and even the third day; but then as the first impression waned a horrible chill of doubt stole slowly over him. That hypothesis, terrible as it was, could it but be believed, explained so much. It explained the Squire’s dislike to himself at once and vindicated the unhappy old man. It explained why he was kept at so great a distance, brought up in so strange a way; and oh, good God! if such could be the case, what was Edgar’s duty? His brain began to whirl when he got so far; and then he would work his way back again through all the arguments. Dr. Somers had calculated when he threw abroad this winged and barbed seed that Edgar was too easy-minded, too careless and good-natured and indifferent to let it rest in his thoughts; and to hide his consciousness of it, to be blank as a stone wall to any allusion which might recall it, was clearly now the first duty of Mrs. Arden’s son. If he could but be absolutely sure of it one way or other; if he could put it utterly out of his mind, on the one hand, or—a horrible alternative, which nevertheless would be next best—know absolutely that it was true! But neither of these things seemed possible to Edgar. He had to submit to that doubt which was so fundamental and all-embracing—doubt as to his own very being, the foundations upon which his life was built—and never to breathe a whisper of it to any creature on the face of the earth. A hard task.
It may be thought that Clare must have observed her brother’s abstraction, his silent wanderings and musings, and the look of thought and care which he could not banish from his face; but the truth was that Clare herself was occupied by a hundred reflections. She had told her brother she hated Arthur Arden, and at the moment it was true; but now that Edgar, for whose sake she hated him, had condoned his offences, and asked him to the house, Clare, if her pride would have let her, might have confessed that she loved Arthur Arden, and it would have been equally true. He had exercised over her when she had seen him last that strange fascination which a man much older than herself often exercises over a girl. She had been pleased by the trouble he took to make himself agreeable, flattered by the attentions which a man of experience knows how to regulate according to the age and tastes of the subject under operation, and had felt the full charm of that kindred not near enough to be familiar, but yet sufficiently near to account for all kinds of mysterious affinities and sympathies which he knew so well how to make use of. He was a true Arden—everybody said so. And Clare, who was an Arden to the very finger tips, felt all the force of the bond. She had sighed secretly, wishing that her brother might have been like him. The tears had come into her eyes with affectionate pity that such a genuine representative of the family should be so poor; and again a little glow of generous warmth had followed, as a faint dream of how it might be made up to him stole across her mind. A man of such excellence and such grace—so distinguished by blood and talent, and all the qualities that adorn a hero, who could doubt that it would be made up to him? Honour would fall at his feet for the lifting up, and if wealth should be wanting, why then somebody whom Clare would try to love would endow him with everything that heart could desire, and herself best of all. She had nourished these notions until she had heard from Arthur himself, with one of the inadvertencies common to men whose consideration for others, however elaborate outside, does not come from the heart, of his opposition to her distant brother. He had taken it for granted that she must share her father’s opinion on the subject. “Why, you do not know him!” he had said, in his astonishment, when he became aware of his mistake. “I love my brother with all my heart,” was all the answer Clare had made. Something of the magniloquence of youth was in this large assertion; but the poor girl’s heart was very sore, and the struggle she had with herself in this wild sudden revulsion of feeling was almost more than she could bear. He was Edgar’s enemy, this man who had been too pleasant, only too tender to herself and she hated him! She had walked away from him at that painful moment, and when they met afterwards had only looked at him from behind the visor of cold pride and icy stateliness which the Ardens knew so well how to use. But the feeling in her heart was only hatred because it had been so nearly love.
And now that the tables had been so strangely turned, now that Arthur was coming to Arden as Edgar’s guest, Clare was seized with a sudden giddiness of mind and heart, which made the outer world invisible to her, or at least changed, and threw it so awry that no clear impression came to her brain. As Edgar’s friend– She could not feel quite sure whether her feelings were those of excited expectation and delight or of alarm and terror. And she was not sure either what to think of her brother. Was he magnanimous beyond all the powers of the Arden mind to conceive, as had been her first idea; or was he simply careless, insensible—not capable of the amount of feeling which came natural to the Ardens? This second thought was less pleasant than the first, and yet in one way it was a kind of relief from an overpowering and scarcely comprehensible excellence. “He does not feel it,” Clare said to herself; but surely Arthur would feel it; Arthur would be moved by a forgiveness so generous. Even now, when Edgar was fully aware what his kinsman had done against him, it did not occur to him to withdraw his invitation or forbid his enemy to the house. Such a sublime magnanimity could not fail to impress the mind of the other. But yet, Clare recollected that Arthur was a true Arden, and the Ardens were tenacious, not addicted to forgiving or giving up their own way, as was her strange brother. Arthur might come, concealing his enmity, watching his foe’s weak points and the crevices in his armour, and laying up in his mind all these particulars for future use. Such a proceeding was not so foreign to the Arden mind as was that magnanimity or indifference—which was it?—that made Edgar a wonder in his race. If her cousin was to do this, what horrible thing might happen? Between Arthur’s watchfulness and Edgar’s unwariness, Clare trembled. But then, would not she be there to guard the one and keep the other in check?
Thus, Clare was so fully occupied with thoughts of her own that she did not notice the change in her brother’s looks, nor his sudden love of solitude. When Mr. Fielding expressed to her his fear that Edgar was ill, the thought filled her with surprise. “Ill! Oh, no, there is nothing the matter with him,” she said. “Here he comes to speak for himself: he looks just the same as usual. Edgar, you are not ill? Mr. Fielding has been giving me a fright.”
“I am not ill in the least,” he said, “but I wanted to see you. Are you going into the village? I will walk there with Mr. Fielding, Clare, and you can pick me up on your way.”
“You see there is not much the matter with him; he is always walking,” said Clare, waving her hand to the Rector. “I will call for you, Edgar, in half-an-hour;” and she went away smiling to put on her riding-habit. The brother and sister were going to Thornleigh to pay their homage before Lady Augusta should go away.
“Of course I understand you don’t want to alarm Clare,” said the Rector, when they were on their way down the avenue; “but, my dear boy, you are looking very poorly. I don’t like the change in your look. You should speak to the Doctor. He has known you more or less all your life.”
“The Doctor! I do not think he knows much about it,” said Edgar, with vehemence. “But I am not ill. I am as well as ever I was.” Then he made a little pause; and then, putting his hand on his old friend’s arm, he said impulsively, yet trying with all his might to hide the force of the impulse, “Mr. Fielding, you have always been very good to me. I want you to help me to recollect what happened long ago. I want you to tell me something about—my mother.”
Old Mr. Fielding’s short-sighted eyes woke up amidst the puckers which buried them, and showed a diamond twinkle of kindness in each wrinkled socket. He gave a look of benign goodness to Edgar, and then he turned and sent a glance towards the village which might almost have set fire to Dr. Somers’ high roof. “Yes, Edgar,” he said quickly, “and I am very glad you have asked me. I can tell you a great deal about your mother.”
“You knew her, then?” cried the young man, turning upon him with eager eyes.
“I knew her very well. She was quite young, younger than you are; but as good a woman, Edgar, as sweet a woman as ever went to heaven.”
“I was sure of that!” he cried, holding out his hand; and he grasped that slim hand of the old Rector’s in his strong young grasp, till Mr. Fielding would fain have cried out, but restrained himself, and bore it smiling like a martyr, though the water stood in his eyes.
“Somers never saw her,” said Mr. Fielding, waving his hand towards the village. “He was in Italy at the time; but ask his sister, or ask me. Ah, Edgar! in that, as in some other things, the old parson is the best man to come to. Why, boy, it is not you I care for! How do I know you may not turn out a young rascal yet, or as hard as the nether millstone, like so many of the Ardens? but I love you for her sake.”
