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Squire Arden; volume 2 of 3
CHAPTER IX
Arthur Arden strayed through the village street in the stillness of the summer afternoon after this bewildering interview. He did not know what he was to do to carry on his researches. Probably he might light upon some chance information in one of the cottages where there were people old enough to have known Edgar’s mother, but this was utterly uncertain, and he might be committing himself for no use in the world. If he went to the Rector or the Doctor he might commit himself still more, and rouse their curiosity as to his motives in an uncomfortable way. What he had to do was to find out accidentally, to discover without searching, a secret, if there was a secret, which must have been carefully hidden for twenty-five years. The chance of success was infinitesimal, and failure seemed almost certain. Probably everything that could throw any light on the subject had been destroyed long since. And then, if he injured Edgar, what of Clare? Was Mr. Pimpernel’s support worth Clare’s enmity? This, however, was a question he did not dwell on, for Arthur satisfied himself that Clare had no need to know, unless by some strange chance he should be successful. And if he were successful, she was not one to stand in the way of justice. But there was not the very slightest chance that he would be successful. It was simply impossible. He laughed at himself as he strolled along idly. If there had been anything better than croquet to do at the Red House he would have gone back to that, and left this wild-goose chase alone; but, in the meantime, there was nothing else to do, and at the worst his inquiries could do no harm.
The church was open, and he strolled in. Old Simon, the clerk, was about, heavily pattering in a dark corner. It was Saturday, and Sally had been helping her father to clean the church. She had gone home to her needlework, but he still pattered about at the west end, unseen in the gloom, putting, as might be supposed from the sound, his dusters and brooms away in some old ecclesiastical cupboard. He had clogs on, which made a great noise; and the utter stillness and shady quiet of the place was strangely enhanced by the sound of those heavy footsteps. Arthur walked down the length of the church, which echoed even under his lighter tread. The light in it was green and subdued, coming through the foliage and the dim small panes which replaced the old painted glass in the windows. Here and there a broken bit of colour, a morsel of brilliant ruby out of some saint’s mantle, or a warm effective bit of canopy-work, interrupted the colourless light. Arden Church had been a fine church in the ancient days, and there were tombs in the gloom in the corners near the chancel which were reckoned very fine still when anybody who knew anything about it came to see them. But knowledge had not made much inroad as yet in the neighbourhood. The old Squire had not been the kind of man to spend money in restoring a church, and Mr. Fielding had not been the kind of man to worry his life out about it. Should young Denbigh survive the croquet and succeed the Rector, it was probable that Edgar would not have half so easy a time in this respect as his father had been allowed to have; but, in the meantime, there had been no restoration, and there were even some high pews, in which the principal people hid themselves on Sundays. The Squire’s pew was like a box at the theatre, with open arches of carved oak, and a fireplace in it behind the chairs, and a private passage which led into the park. The impression which the church made upon Arthur Arden, however, was neither sacred nor historical. He did not think of it as associated for all those hundred years with the fortunes of his race; neither (still less) did he think of it as for all this time the centre of prayer and worship—the place where so many hearts had risen to God. All he thought was, what a curious ghostly look all those unoccupied seats had. The quiet about was almost more than quiet: it was a hush as if of forced stillness—a something in the air that made him feel as if all the seats were full, though nobody was visible, and some unseen ceremonial going on. And the old man in his clogs went clamping, clattering about in the green dimness under cover of the organ gallery. Simon’s white smock was visible now and then, toned down to a ghostly grey by the absence of light. Arthur Arden felt half afraid of him as he walked slowly up the aisle. He might have been the family Brownie—a homely ghost that watched over the graves and manes of the Ardens, which Arthur, though an Arden, meditated a certain desecration of. These, however, were sentiments not long likely to move the mind of such a man. He walked slowly up until he found himself opposite the Squire’s pew. It was quite near the chancel, close to the pulpit, which stood on one side, and opposite the reading desk, which stood on the other, like two sentinels watching the approach to the altar. On the wall of the church, almost on a parallel with where the Squire’s head must have come when he sat in his pew, was the white marble tablet that bore his wife’s name. It was a heavy plain square tablet, not apt to attract any one’s attention; and Arthur, who when he was in Arden Church had always been one of the occupants of the stage box, had scarcely remarked it at all. He paused now and read it as it glimmered in the dim silence. “Mary, wife of Arthur Arden of Arden.” That was all. The Arden arms were on the tablet, but without any quartering that could have belonged to the dead woman. Evidently she was the Squire’s wife only, with no other distinction.
While he stood thinking on this another step entered the church, and looking round Arthur saw Mr. Fielding, who after a few words with old Simon came and joined him. “You are looking at the old pew,” the Rector said in the subdued tone that became the sacred place. “They tell me it ought not to be a pew at all if I took a proper interest in Christian art; but it will last my time, I think. I should prefer that it lasted my time. I never was brought up in these new-fangled ways.”
“I was not looking at the pew, but at that,” said Arthur, pointing to the wall.
“Yes; it is very bad, I suppose,” said Mr. Fielding. “We are very far behind, I know, in art. It’s ugly, I confess; but do you know I like it all the same. When the church gets dark in a wintry afternoon, these white tablets glimmer. You would think there were angels holding them up. And after all, to me, who am far advanced in life, such names are sweeter than the finest monuments. It is different, of course, with you younger folks.”
“I was not thinking of art,” said Arthur, “but of the curt way the name is put. ‘Mary, wife of Arthur Arden.’ Was she nobody’s daughter? Hadn’t she got a name before she was married? Dying so young, one would think some one must have been living who had an interest in her; but there is neither blazon nor name.”
“Eh? What? I don’t see anything remarkable in that,” said Mr. Fielding. “The others are just the same. Aren’t they? I don’t remember, I am sure. ‘Mary, wife of Arthur Arden.’ Yes; that is all. Now that I think of it, I don’t remember Mrs. Arden’s name. I never knew what family she belonged to. They were married abroad.”
“And their son was born abroad. Was not that strange?” said Arthur. “There seems to have been a great deal of mystery about it one way and another—not much like the Arden ways.”
“You have been listening to Somers,” said Mr. Fielding, hotly; “pestilent old cynic as he is. He has taken up his notion, and nothing will make him give it up. If you had known Mrs. Arden as I did, you would have scouted such an idea. I never knew a better woman. She had dreadfully bad health–”
“Was that the reason why they were so much abroad?”
“I can’t tell why they were so much abroad,” said the Rector, testily. “Because they liked it, I suppose; and let me tell you, it would have been better for all the Ardens had they been more abroad. I suppose there never was a more bigoted, self-opinionated race. To be sure you are one of them, and perhaps I ought not to say it to you; but you have knocked about the world, and you know them as well as I do–”
“I knew only the old Squire,” said Arthur, “and my own father, of course; but he had knocked about the world enough. There was not much love lost between them, I think–”
“They hated each other, my dear sir—they hated each other,” said the Rector; and then he paused and wiped his forehead, as if it had been too much for him. “I beg your pardon, I am sure, for calling up family matters. I am very glad to see you on such different terms with the young people here–”
“Yes,” said Arthur, with a half sigh. “What is the use of keeping up rancour? The old Squire on the whole was rather kind to me. I suppose it was enough for him to have one Arden to hate. And as he transferred the feeling from my father to his own son–”
“Hush—hush—hush,” said the Rector, anxiously. “Don’t let us rake up old troubles. Thank heaven poor Edgar is very comfortable now. His father couldn’t do him any tangible injustice, you know; though that business about Old Arden was very shameful, very shameful—there is no other word for it. To take advantage of the boy’s ignorance to break the entail, and then to settle the very oldest of the property on Clare! I love Clare dearly—if she was my own child I could not love her more; but rather than take that from my brother, I would strip myself of every penny if I were in her place. It was shameful—there is no other word–”
“My cousin is much more of an Arden than her brother,” said Arthur. “I don’t see why she should strip herself of every penny? Surely he has enough. She is twice as much of an Arden as he.”
“And what is an Arden, I should like to know,” said Mr. Fielding, “to be kept up at such a cost? Edgar is not much of an Arden, poor boy! He is worth a dozen of any Ardens I ever knew–”
“You forget I am one of that unfortunate race,” said Arthur, with a forced laugh. “Oh, no harm! I know you don’t love us less, but only him more. And my cousin Clare is an Arden,” he added, after a pause; “for her I must make a stand. Even beside her brother’s excellence, you would still allow her a place, I hope.”
“I love Clare dearly,” said the Rector, with abrupt brevity. And then there was a pause. Arthur Arden smiled to himself—a smile which might very well have been a sneer. What did it matter what the old parson’s opinions were? The Ardens could stand a harder judgment than his.
“But about this poor lady,” he said. “She was a perfect creature, you say, and I don’t want to contradict you. Probably she was everything that was good and lovely; but I suppose a woman of no family, from the evidence of this record here?”
“I don’t know anything about her family,” said Mr. Fielding, shortly. “It never occurred to me to think what her family was.” This he said with some heat and energy, probably because it was—and alas! the good Rector knew it was—a considerable fib. Time was when he had asked a great deal about Mrs. Arden’s family—as, indeed, everybody in the county had done; but without gaining any information. The Rector was angry with himself for the fib; but still maintained it, with a certain irritation, as it was natural for a man to do.
“It is a pity there should be so much mystery,” said Arthur, quietly. Of course, he saw through the fiction with the utmost distinctness; but civility required that he should take no further notice. And then the two stood together for a minute or, perhaps, two, in the narrow aisle, pretending to look round them, and making a critical survey of the church. “That tomb is fine, if one could see it,” Arthur said, pointing to a recumbent figure of an old Arden; and Mr. Fielding assented with a little nod of his head. And all this time old Simon, in his clogs, with the smock that looked grey-green in the dimness, was clamping slowly about, stirring the slumbrous, silent echoes. How strange it was—so real and living and full of so many seeds of excitement; yet all the time like something in a dream.
The Rector, however, accompanied Arthur out with pertinacity, seeing him, as it were, “off the premises”—as if there could have been anything to find out in the little innocent church, which all the world was free to inspect. Was it to keep him from talking to old Simon?—who, however, knew nothing—or was it from mere wantonness of opposition? The latter was really the case, though it was difficult even to make out how Mr. Fielding was stimulated into opposition. He must have felt it in the air, by some curious magnetic antipathy, for Arthur had not said a word, so far as he was aware, to betray himself. They walked together as far as the Hall gates, talking of various indifferent matters. “Living at the Red House!” said Mr. Fielding, with a smile of strange satisfaction. “Does Miss Arden know?” The Rector was pleased with this bit of information. He was glad of anything which would set their kinsman wrong with the brother and sister. It was a highly unchristian sentiment, but so it was.
“Yes, she knows,” said Arthur, quietly. “I met her yesterday; and I am going to call there now. I suppose, as Clare is my cousin, and I am old enough to be her father, I may be permitted to call–”
“Yes, I suppose you are old enough to be her father,” Mr. Fielding said, with most provoking acquiescence. Arthur could have knocked the Rector down, had he given way to his feelings. After all, though there was a good deal of difference in point of age, it would have been difficult for him to have been Clare’s father. And he did not feel like her father in the smallest degree. The Rector paused at the Hall gates, and looked at his watch to see if he had time also to pay a visit to Clare; but, to Arthur’s intense relief, the man-of-all-work came running across from the Rectory as Mr. Fielding hesitated. Some one who was ill had sent for the Rector—some one who lived two miles off—and who had sent so urgent an appeal that Jack had already put the saddle on his master’s sturdy old cob. “I shall have to put it off till to-morrow,” Mr. Fielding said, with a sigh. “Tell Clare I shall see her to-morrow.” But alas! (he thought to himself) an antidote given twenty-four hours after the poison, what good is it? And he could not forbid her own cousin to pay her a visit. So Mr. Fielding turned away with a bad grace to visit his sick parishioner; and Arthur, much relieved, opened the little postern gate, and took his way under the great elms and beeches to the Hall.
CHAPTER X
Clare was all alone when Arthur reached the Hall. She had been all alone the whole day. She had not even received a letter from anybody, to help her through its long hours. She had looked after her accounts, and arranged something for the schools, and answered an application which some one in Liverpool had made in respect to one of the girls whom old Sarah had trained. And then she sat down and read for half-an-hour, and then rose and stood for ten minutes at the window, and then had taken her tapestry-work, and then gone to the window again. From that window the view was very fair. It would have lightened the burden off the shoulders of many a careworn man and woman only to have been able to go and look at it from time to time in the midst of their work. There were the woods, in all their summer wealth, stretching as far as the eye could see; and under their shade a gleam of water catching the sunshine—water which was one of the charms of Arden—a series of old fish-ponds threaded upon the thin silvery string of a little stream. It glimmered here, and it glimmered there, through the rich foliage—and now and then the elms and beeches stood apart, as it were, drawing their leafy skirts about them, to open a green glade, all brightened up with a flash of that fairy water; and between the window and the wood was the great wealthy stretch of immemorial turf, the park, with here and there a huge tree standing with modest consciousness by itself—a champion of the sylvan world. People had been heard to say that the mere sight of all that lordly, silent scene—so profuse in its verdure, so splendid in its space and freedom—was enough to drive care and pain far from Arden. Nothing knew Nature there of pain or evil. She lay and contemplated herself, wrapped in a holy, divine content, listening to the rustle of the leaves, taking thought for the innumerable tiny lives that buzzed and fluttered in the air, watching the grasses grow and the little fish leap. It was all very lovely, and to Clare it was dear, as only such a home can be. But when she went to the window her heart grew sick of the silence and the calm. Oh, only for a little movement and commotion! A storm would have been better than nothing; but still a storm would only have moved these great, strong, self-sufficing, unsympathetic trees. It could not have given the secousse she wanted to Clare herself, who, for the first time in her life, had ceased to be self-sufficing. No, not self-sufficing—longing for anything, it did not matter what, to disturb the stagnation about her. How different it had been before Edgar came home! Even when she was absorbed by her first grief for her father, time did not hang heavy on her hands. Once before, it is true, a similar feeling had come over her—after Arthur Arden went away the first time. Clare clasped her hands together and blushed crimson, with sudden shame, when she identified the previous moment at which she had felt lonely and weary of everything as she was now: violent shame seized upon her—though there was nobody to see, even if any one could have seen into her mind and surprised the unspoken thought. And then she turned her back upon the weary window, and represented to herself that the misery of that former time had passed away. Time had gone on, and other thoughts had come in, and it had passed away. A little patience, and again it would pass away now. Everything does in this world.
Clare’s experience was not great, but yet even she knew something of that terrible tranquillising force of time. How wretched she had been about Edgar, again and again, during those years when he had been absent, and her father never mentioned his name. But these wretchednesses had all floated away, one after another. And when the Squire died, it had seemed to Clare that she never could get beyond that sense of desolation which filled the house and all the familiar scenes in which he had been the first figure. But she had got over it. She had not forgotten her father; her memory of him was so vivid that she could think she saw him, could think she heard him, so clear in her recollection were his voice and his face. And yet the world was no longer desolate because he was not there. It was a curious train of thought for a girl of her age. But Clare was very reasonable, and she was very much alone, with nobody in the world to whom she could legitimately go for consolation. She had no mother into whose ear she could pour her woes; she had been compelled to be a mother to herself. And thus, as if she had been her own mother, she represented to herself that this pain also would pass away in time. Let her but occupy herself, keep doing something, bear it as patiently, and think as little about it as possible, and in time it would come to an end. This is a hard, painful, inhuman way of consoling one’s self; but yet when one is alone, and has nobody else to breathe a word of comfort, perhaps it is as good a way as any. “It will not last,” she said to herself. “It is miserable now, and shameful, and I hate myself. To think that I should feel like that! But one has only to be patient and put up with it. It cannot last.” And she had just fed herself with this philosophy, and taken what nourishment she could out of it, when all her loneliness, and miserableness, and philosophisings were put to flight in a moment. Arthur Arden was ushered in solemnly by Wilkins, who had half a mind to remain himself, to make sure that the rules of perfect propriety were observed; and all at once the tedium and the unprofitableness departed out of Clare’s life.
But she would have given her life, as was perfectly natural, rather than let him see that his arrival was anything to her. “I am taking advantage of Edgar’s absence to do quantities of things,” she said, looking into his face, “clearing away my old pieces of work. No, perhaps I was never very fond of work; I have always had so many other things to do.– Thanks; I heard from him yesterday; Edgar is quite well.”
“I hope he is enjoying himself in town,” said Arthur, subduing himself to her tone.
“He talks only of the Thornleighs,” said Clare, with that familiar pucker in her brow. Pretending to be anxious about Edgar was so much more easy than adopting that air of absolute calm for herself. “Of course I know I ought to be very glad that he has chosen such nice friends. There is nothing to object to in the Thornleighs. Still, to go to town only to see them, when he can see them as much as he pleases at home–”
“Lady Augusta, I should think, likes to have such a captive at her chariot-wheels,” said Arthur. “How much anxiety it must cost you! Poor dear Arden! What a pity he knows so little of the world.”
“Oh, my brother will do very well,” said Clare, with a sensitive movement of offence; and then it occurred to her that it was safest to carry the war into the other camp. “I should like to know how you get on at the Red House?” she said. “Miss Pimpernel is quite pretty, I think. Is she always buttoning her glove? I hear they play croquet a great deal. Are you fond of croquet, Mr. Arden? If you are, it must have been so dull for you, never having it while you were here.”
“I hate croquet,” he said, almost rudely (but Clare was not offended). “I hope the man who invented it died a violent death. Miss Arden, I know I have put myself in a false position by going to visit the Pimpernels–”
“Oh, no, indeed no, not at all,” said Clare, with majestic suavity; “why should not you visit them if you like them? I object to visiting that sort of people myself, you know. Not that they are not quite as good as I am—but– And then one acts as one has been brought up. I never supposed it was a wrong thing to do–”
“It would not be right for you,” said her cousin. “With us men, of course, it don’t matter; but you– I should not like to see you at the Red House with a mallet in your hand. I must not tell you my motive in going there, I suppose?”
“Oh, please, do,” said Clare, with queenly superiority, but a heart that beat very quick under this calm appearance. “I think I can divine—but you may be sure of my interest—in whatever concerns you. Miss Pimpernel is very pretty; she has the loveliest complexion. And I was not in earnest when I spoke about—buttoning her glove.”
“Why should not you be in earnest? She does nothing but button her glove. But I don’t know what Miss Pimpernel has to do with it,” said Arthur, putting on an air of surprise. He knew very well what she had to do with it. He understood Clare’s meaning at once, and he knew also that there was a certain truth in the suggestion. If he was utterly foiled concerning herself, he was by no means sure that Alice Pimpernel was not the next best; but he put on an air of surprise, and gravely waited for a reply. Clare, however, was not quite able to reply. She smiled, and waited till he should say more. It was the wisest and the safest way.
“I think, after what you have implied, I must tell you why I am at the Pimpernels,” he said, after a pause. “It was very silly of me, of course; but I never thought– In short, I did not know you were so consistent. I thought you would do as other people did, and that you visited them like the rest of the world. All this, Miss Arden, I told you before; but I don’t suppose it was worth remembering. When your brother turned me out–”
“Mr. Arden, you forget yourself; Edgar never turned any one out. Why should he?” said Clare; and then she stopped, and said to herself—“Yes; it was quite true.”
“Of course, I could not expect he was to stay here for me; but he did turn me out. And very right too,” said Arthur, sadly. “He divined me better than you did. Had I been Edgar, and he me, I should have done just the same.”
“I do not understand you, Mr. Arden,” said Clare, raising her lofty head. “Edgar is the very soul of courtesy and kindness. You do not understand my brother.” She knew so well that she was talking nonsense, and he knew it so well, that here Clare paused, confused, not able to go on with her fiction under his very eye.
“Well,” he said, with a sigh, shaking his head, “we must not discuss that question. I could throw light upon it perhaps, but for the present I dare not. And I thought in my stupidity that the Red House was near Arden. I find it is a thousand miles away. Is not that strange? Miss Arden, I am going to do something genealogical, or historical. I think I will write a book. Writing a book, people say, is a very nice amusement when you don’t know what to do with yourself, and if you happen to be rather wretched now and then. I am going to write something about the family. I wonder if Edgar and you would let me see the old family papers—if any papers exist?”
“To write a book!” said Clare. Miss Arden had rather a contempt for literature; but to write a book which was not for money, like the books of professional authors, but about “the family,” like so many handsome books she had seen—a glorification, not of one’s self to be sure, but of one’s ancestors—was a different matter. A slight, very slight, rose-tint came upon her pale face. It was not the kind of flush which appeared when Arthur Arden talked of other subjects. It was a thrill of pleasurable excitement—a movement of sudden interest and pride.
“If you will permit me to see what papers there are,” said Arthur; “I know there are some which must be interesting, for I remember your father– He was peculiar in some things, Miss Arden; but how full of knowledge and power he was!”
“Oh, was not he?” cried Clare, with sudden tears in her eyes. “Poor papa! Poor dear papa! I think he knew everything. Mr. Arden, it is so kind of you to speak of him. No one ever speaks of him to me. People think it brings one’s grief back—as if one would not give the world to have it back! And Edgar and I—poor Edgar!—he can’t talk of him as—as most children can. You know why: it is no one’s fault. Perhaps if I had been a little more firm– But, oh, it is so kind of you to talk to me of papa!”
“I did not mean to be kind,” said Arthur Arden, with a sudden compunction, feeling his own treachery. “But perhaps I knew him better than Edgar could,” he added, gently. “And he loved you so—no child was ever more to a father. But I should not say anything to make you cry–”
“I like to cry,” said Clare. “I have not cried for months, and it does me so much good. Nobody ever loved me as poor papa did. I am not blaming any one. Edgar is very fond of me, Mr Arden—he is very fond of me and very good to me—but you know—papa–”
“He was like no one else,” said the traitor; and, good heavens, he asked himself, am I putting all this on by way of getting possession of her father’s papers? What a horrible villain I must be! But he did not feel himself a villain. He went on talking about the Squire with the profoundest seriousness, and feeling what he said, though he was conscious of his own motive all the time. It was frightful to think of, but yet thus it was. And Clare, who had so much emotion pent up within her—so much which she would have been ashamed to trace to its just source, and which nothing in the world would have persuaded her to show—when the fountains of her heart were thus opened, and a feasible occasion given her, Clare’s whole being seemed to flow forth. She talked of her father, and felt that of him alone could she thus have talked. And her tears flowed, and were dried, and flowed again. Not all for her father—a great deal for herself, for the complications of her own life—for nameless agitations and trouble. But this one legitimate reason for weeping relieved them all.
“How stupid I am,” she said at last, “entertaining you with my silly crying, as if that could be anything to you. Mr. Arden, I don’t think you need wait for Edgar’s leave. I am sure he would let me give it. I don’t know whether the papers are interesting—but there is that old bureau in the library. It was papa’s bureau—he always used it as long as he lived. I have never said anything about it, and I have never had the heart to go over them myself: but there are quantities of letters in it. I suppose they ought to be burnt. If you find anything that interests you, I might go over papa’s papers at the same time—it would be something to do–”
“And I shall be at hand, if you want anything,” said Arthur. Was it possible he was to get his wish so easily? This poor little lamb did not even wait to be asked, she thrust her milk-white head into the wolf’s mouth. The papers; not only those old papers which he had pretended to want, but any windfall of modern letters that might fall in his way—and not only this, but Clare’s society, and full opportunity to work upon her as he might. He could not believe it was true as he went away. It was his first visit, and he would not stay too long, nor run any risk. He left her, as it were, on the verge of a new world. To-morrow even might bring forth results more important than anything that had yet dawned on his life—to-morrow he might discover something which would put Arden within his reach—or to-morrow’s chances might place Clare within his reach, the next thing to Arden. His head throbbed with excitement and his heart with hope.
As for Clare, she too was on the verge of a new world—but it was one of excitement and emotion only. Her dull life quickened into sudden radiance. She looked out again from the window, and saw the silvery water gleaming, and the branches waving, and all the face of nature gay. The day had brightened, the world grown cheery—and to-morrow, with new things in it, new companionship, new work, new interests, smiled and invited her. She did not say even to herself “I shall see him again.” On the contrary, she thought of her father and his papers, and the melancholy pleasure of setting them in order. It would be, of course, a melancholy pleasure; and yet she caught herself singing as she ran upstairs to get her hat, and go out for a walk. Could it be this prospect only which made her heart so light and so gay?
