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Маргарет Олифант
Squire Arden; volume 3 of 3

CHAPTER XXI

Arthur Arden went up to the house, which he was now convinced was his own, with the strangest mixture of feelings. He was so confused and overwhelmed by all the events of the night, by the fluctuations of feeling to which he had himself been subject, that the exultation which it was natural should be in his mind was kept down. He did exult, but he did it like a man asleep, conscious that he was dreaming. He went in, and found the house all silent and deserted. Mr. Fazakerly had gone to his room; Clare had retired to hers; the Rector had gone home. Nobody but the solemn Wilkins was visible in the house, which began, however, to show a certain consciousness of the excitement within it. The tea-tray, which nobody had looked at, still stood in the drawing-room, lights were left burning everywhere, windows were open, making the flames flutter. It was not possible to mistake that visible impression of something having happened, which shows itself so soon on the mere external surroundings of people in trouble. “May I make so free as to ask, sir, if ought has gone wrong?” Wilkins asked, standing at the door of the drawing-room, when he had opened it. “Yes, Wilkins, something has happened,” said Arthur. It was on his lips to announce the event, not for the solace of Wilkins, but only to assure himself, by putting it into words, that the thing was true; but he restrained the impulse. “You will know it soon,” he added, briefly dismissing the man with a slight wave of his hand. Wilkins went downstairs immediately, and informed the kitchen that “somethink was up. You can all go to bed,” he added, majestically. “I’ll wait up for master. That Arthur Arden is awful stuck up, like poor relations in general; but master he’ll tell me.” And thus the house gradually subsided into silence. Wilkins placed himself in the great chair in the hall and went to sleep, sending thrills of suppressed sound (for even in his snores he remembered his place, and kept himself down) through the silent dwelling. Arthur Arden was too much excited to sleep. He remained in the drawing-room, where he had allowed himself to be led by Wilkins. He was too self-absorbed to go from one room to another, to be conscious of place or surroundings. For hours together he paced up and down, going over and over everything that had passed, and at every change in the scenes which formed before his fancy, stopping to tell himself that Arden was his own. His head swam; he staggered as he walked; his whole brain seemed to whirl with agitation; and yet he walked on and on, saying to himself at intervals, “Arden is mine.” How extraordinary it was! And yet, at the same time, he was only the poor relation, the heir presumptive, in the eyes of the world. Even the declaration he had heard was nothing but evidence which might have to be produced in a court of law, which it would take him infinite pains and money, and much waiting and suspense, to establish, should it be necessary to establish it, in legal form. The letters were still in the hands of those most interested to suppress them. The witness whose testimony he had just heard was in their hands, and no doubt might be suborned or sent away. If it were any one but Edgar, he would have felt that all he had heard to-night might be but as a dream, and that his supplanter might still be persuaded by Fazakerly, by Clare, by some late dawning of self-interest, to defend himself. In such a case his own position would be as difficult as could be conceived. He would have to originate a lingering expensive lawsuit, built upon evidence which he could not produce. If he were himself in Edgar’s position, he felt that he could foil any such attack; but Edgar was a fool, a Quixote, a madman; or rather he was a low fellow, of no blood or courage, who would give in without a struggle, who had not spirit enough to strike a blow for his inheritance. By degrees he got to despise him, as he pursued his thoughts. It was want of blood which made him shirk from the contest, not the sense of justice or right, or any fantastic idea of honour. Arthur Arden himself was an honourable man—he did nothing which society could put a mark against, which could stain his reputation among men; but to expose the weakness of his own position, to relinquish voluntarily, not being forced to it, his living and name, and everything he had, in the world!—He calculated upon Edgar that he would do this, and he despised him for it, and concluded in his heart that such cowardice and weakness, though, perhaps, they might be dignified by other names—such as generosity and honour—were owing to the meanness of his extraction, the vulgarity of his nature. No Arden would have done it, he said to himself, with contempt.

At last he threw himself upon a sofa, in that feverish exhaustion which excitement and long abstinence from sleep produce. He had slept little on the previous night, and he had no longer the exuberance of youth to carry him over any repeated shortening of his natural rest. He put himself on the sofa where Clare had lain after her faint; but he was in too great a whirl to be able to think of Clare. He propped himself up upon the pillows, and fell into feverish snatches of sleep, often broken, and full of dreams. He dreamt that he was turning Edgar and all his belongings out of Arden. He dreamt that he himself was being turned out—that Clare was standing over him like an inspired prophetess, denouncing woe on his head—that old Fazakerly was grinning in a corner and jibing at him. “You reckoned without your host,” the lawyer said; “or, at least, you reckoned without me. Am I the man to suffer my client to make a fool of himself? Wilkins, show Mr. Arthur Arden the door.” This was what he dreamed, and that the door was thrown open, and a chill air from without breathed on him, and that he knew and felt all hope of Arden was gone for ever. The chill of that outside cold so seized upon him that he awoke, and found it real. It was the hour after dawn—the coldest of the twenty-four. The sun had not yet risen out of the morning mists, and the world shivered in the cold beginning of the day. The door of the room in which he was, was standing wide open, and so was the great hall door, admitting the cold. In the midst, as in a sketch made in black and white, he saw Edgar standing talking to Wilkins. It struck him with a certain peevish irritation as he struggled up from his pillow, half-awake. “Don’t stand there, letting in the cold,” he said, harshly. Wilkins, irritable too from the same reason, gave him a hasty answer—“When a servant as has waited all night is letting in of his master, I don’t know as folks as might have been in bed has got any reason to complain.” Arthur swore an angry oath as he sprang from the sofa. “By–, you shall not stay in this house much longer, to give me your impudence!” “That’s as the Squire pleases,” said Wilkins, utterly indifferent to the poor relation. Edgar dismissed him with a kindly nod, and went into the drawing-room. He was very pale and worn out with all his fatigues; but he was not irritable. He came in and shut the door. “I wonder you did not go to bed,” he said.

“Bed!” said Arthur, rising to his feet. “I wonder who could go to bed with all this row going on. Order that fellow to bring us some brandy. I am chilled to death on this confounded sofa, and you staying out the whole night. I haven’t patience to speak to the old villain. Will you give the order now?”

“Come to the other room and I’ll get it for you,” said Edgar. “The man wants to go to bed.”

“If I don’t go to bed, confound them, why can’t they wait?” said Arthur. He was but half awake; excited, chilled, anxious, and miserable; altogether in a dangerous mood. But Edgar had his wits sufficiently about him to feel all the unseemliness of a quarrel between them. He took him into the dining-room, and giving him what he asked for left the room with a hurried good night. He was not able for any contention; he went upstairs with a heavy heart. The excitement which had supported him so long was failing. And this last discovery, when he had time to realise it, was not sweet to him, but bitter. He could not tell how that was. Before he had suspected her to be related to him, he had wondered at himself to feel with what confidence he had turned to the old Scotchwoman, of whose noble life Perfitt had told him. It had bewildered him more than once, and made him smile. He remembered now that he had gone to her for advice; that he had consulted her about his concerns; that he had felt an interest in all her looks and ways, which it was now only too easy to explain. He had almost loved her, knowing her only as a stranger, entirely out of his sphere. And now that he knew she was his nearest relation, his heart recoiled from her. What harm she had done him! She had done her best—her very best—she and Squire Arden together, whose name he loathed—to ruin his life, and make him a wreck and stray in the world. By God’s help, Edgar said to himself, he would not be a wreck. But how hard it was to forgive the people who had done it—to feel any charity for them! He did not even feel the same instinctive affection for Jeanie as he had done before. And yet he had saved her life; she had called him her brother, and in utter trust and confidence had been lying on his breast. Poor little Jeanie! Yet his heart grew sick as he thought of her and of the mother, who was his mother too. They were all that was left to him, and his heart rose against them. Sadness unutterable, weariness of the world, a sore and sick shrinking of the heart from everything around him, came upon Edgar. He had kept up so long. He had done all his duty, fulfilled everything that could be required of him. Could not he go away now, and disappear for ever from Arden, and be seen of none who knew him any more?

Such was the dreary impulse in his mind—an impulse which everyone must have felt who has borne the desertion of friends, the real or supposed failure of love and honour—and which here and there one in the chill heart-sickening pride of despair has given way to, disappearing out of life sometimes, sometimes out of all reach of friends. But Edgar was not the kind of man to break off his thread of life thus abruptly. He had duties even now to hold him fast—a duty to Clare, who, only a few hours ago (or was it years), had called him—bless her!—her true brother, her dearest brother. If he were to be tortured like an Indian at the stake, he would not abandon her till all was done for her that brother could do. And he had a duty even to the man whom he had just left, to remove all obstacles out of his way, to make perfectly plain and clear his title to Arden. His insolence cannot harm me, Edgar reflected, with a smile which was hard enough to maintain. And then there were his own people, his new family, his mother’s mother. Poor Edgar! that last reflection went through and through him with a great pang. He could not make out how it was. He had had so kind, so tender a feeling towards her, and now it seemed to him that he shrunk from her very name. Was his name, too, the same as theirs? Did he belong to them absolutely, to their condition, to their manner of life? If it were so, none in the outer world should see him shrink from them; but at this moment, in his retirement, the thought that they were his, and they only, was bitter to Edgar. He could not face it. It was not pride, nor contempt of their poverty, nor dislike to themselves; but yet the thought that they were his family—that he belonged to them—was a horror to him. Should he go back with them to their Highland cottage?—should he go and desert them, as if he were ashamed? In the profound revulsion of his heart he grew sick and faint with the thought.

And thus the night passed—in wonder and excitement, in fear and trembling of many kinds. When the morning came, Jeanie opened her soft eyes and smiled upon the watchers round her, over all of whom was a cloud which no one understood. “I’ve been in yon awful valley, but I’m come back,” she said, with her pale lips. She had come back; but ah how many hopes and pleasant dreams and schemes of existence had gone into the dark valley instead of Jeanie! The old mother, who had seen so many die, and gone through a hundred heartbreaks, bent over the one who had come back from the grave, and kissed her sadly, with a passion of mingled feelings to which she could give no outlet. “But oh, my bonnie lad!” she said under her breath with a sigh which was almost a groan. She had seen into his heart, though he did not know it. She had perceived, with a poignant sting of pain, one momentary instinctive shrinking on his part. She understood all, in her large human nature and boundless sympathy, and her heart bled, but she said never a word.

CHAPTER XXII

The reader may be weary of hearing of nights which went over in agitation, and mornings which rose upon an excitement not yet calmed down. But it is inevitable in such a crisis as that which we are describing that the excitement should last from one day to another. The same party who had met on the previous night in the library to examine the packet of letters, which had occasioned all this distress and trouble, met again next morning at breakfast. Clare did not appear. She had sent for Edgar in the morning, rousing him out of the brief, uneasy slumber which he had fallen into in broad daylight, after his night of trial. She had received him in her dressing-room, with a white muslin wrapper thrown round her, and her hair hanging about her shoulders, as she would have received her brother. But though the accessories of the scene were carefully retained, there was a little flush of consciousness on Clare’s cheek that it was not her brother who was coming to her; and Edgar did not offer the habitual kiss, but only took her hand in his while she spoke to him. “I cannot come down,” she said. “I will not come down again while Arthur Arden is in the house. That is not what I mean; for I suppose, now you have made up your mind, it is Arthur Arden’s house, and not ours.”

“It is not mine,” said Edgar. “Something else happened last night which confirmed everything. It is quite unimportant whether I make up my mind or not. The matter is beyond question now.”

“What happened last night?” said Clare eagerly.

“I will tell you another time. We found out, I think, who I really am. Don’t ask me any more,” said Edgar, with a pang which he could not explain. He did not want to tell her. He would have accepted any excuse to put the explanation off.

Clare looked at him earnestly. She did not know what to say—whether to obey a rising impulse in her heart (for she, too, was a genuine Arden) of impatience at his tame surrender of his “rights”—or the curiosity which prompted her to inquire into the new discovery; or to do what a tender instinct bade her—support him who had been so true a brother to her by one more expression of her affection. She looked up into his face, which began to show signs of the conflict, and that decided her. “You can never be anything less to me than my brother,” she said, leaning her head softly against his arm. Edgar could not speak for a moment—the tears came thick and blinding to his eyes.

“God bless you!” he said. “I cannot thank you now, Clare. It is the only drop of sweetness in my cup; but I must not give way. Am I to say you cannot come down stairs? Am I to arrange for my dear sister, my sweet sister, for the last time?”

“Certainly for this time,” said Clare. “Settle for me as you think best. I will go where you please. I can’t stay—here.”

She would have said, “in Arthur Arden’s house,” but the words seemed to choke her; for Arthur Arden had not said a word to her—not a word—since he knew–

And thus authorised, Edgar presented himself before the others. He took no particular notice of Arthur Arden. He said calmly, “Miss Arden does not feel able to join us this morning,” and took, as a matter of course, his usual place. There was very little said. Arthur sat by sullenly, beginning to feel himself an injured man, unjustly deprived of his inheritance. He was the true heir, wrongfully kept out of his just place: yet the interest of the situation was not his, but clung to the impostor, who accepted ruin with such a cheerful and courageous quiet. He hated him, because even in this point Edgar threw him quite into the shade. And Arthur felt that he might have taken a much superior place. He might have been magnanimous, friendly, helpful, and lost nothing by it; but even though the impulse to take this nobler part had once or twice visited him, he had not accepted it; and he felt with some bitterness that Edgar had in every way filled a higher rôle than himself.

They had finished their silent breakfast when Edgar addressed him. He did it with a marked politeness, altogether unlike his aspect up to this time. He had been compelled to give up the hope that his successor would be his friend, and found there was nothing now but politeness possible between them. “I will inform Mr. Fazakerly at once,” he said, “of what took place last night. He will be able to put everything into shape better than we shall. As soon as I have his approbation, and have settled everything, I will take my sister away.”

“She is not your sister,” said Arthur, with some energy.

“I know that so well that it is unkind of any one to remind me,” said Edgar, with sudden tears coming to his eyes; “but never mind. I repeat we will leave Arden to-day or to-morrow. It is easier to make such an arrangement than to break the natural bonds that have been between us all our lives.”

Arthur had made a calculation before he came downstairs. He had taken a false step last night when he adopted an insolent tone to, and almost attempted to pick a quarrel with the man who was saving him so much trouble; but in the circumstances he concluded that it was best he should keep it up. He said abruptly, “Miss Arden is not your sister. I object as her nearest relation. How do I know what use you may make of the influence you have obtained over her? I object to her removal from Arden—at least by you.”

Edgar gave Mr. Fazakerly a look of appeal, and then made a strong effort to command himself. “I have nothing to keep now but my temper,” he said, with a faint smile, “and I hope I may be able to retain that. I don’t know that Mr. Arden’s presence is at all needed for our future consultations; and I suppose, in the meantime, as I am making a voluntary surrender of everything, and he could not by legal form expel me for a long time, I am justified in considering this house, till I give it up, to be mine, and not his?”

“Certainly, Arden is yours,” said Mr. Fazakerly. “You are behaving in the most unprecedented way. I don’t understand what you would be at; but Mr. Arthur Arden is utterly without power or capability in the matter. All he can do is to inform his lawyer of what he has heard–

“No power in the matter!” cried Arthur. “When I heard that woman confess last night openly that this—this gentleman, who has for so long occupied the place I ought to occupy, was her grandson! What do you mean by no power? Is Mr.– Murray—if that is his name—to remain master of my house, in face of what I heard with my own ears–”

“You are perfectly entitled to bring an action, and produce your witnesses,” said Mr. Fazakerly promptly; “perfectly entitled—and fully justified in taking such a step. But in the meantime Mr. Edgar Arden is the Squire, and in full possession. You may wait to see what his plans are (no doubt they are idiotical in the highest degree), or you can bring an action; but at the present moment you have not the smallest right to interfere–”

“Not in respect to my cousin!” Arthur said, with rising passion.

“Not in respect to anything,” said the lawyer cheerfully.

And then the three stood up and looked at each other—Mr. Fazakerly having taken upon himself the conduct of affairs. It was Arthur only who was agitated, Edgar having recovered his composure by renunciation of everything, and the lawyer having fully come to himself, out of sheer pleasure in the conflict which he foresaw.

“There have been a great many indiscreet revelations made, and loose talk of all kinds,” Mr. Fazakerly continued; “enough, I don’t doubt, to disturb the ideas of a man uninstructed in such matters. That is entirely your cousin’s fault, not mine; but I repeat you have no power here, Mr. Arthur Arden, either in respect to Miss Clare or to anything else. Mere hearsay and private conversation are nothing. I doubt very much if the case will hold water at all; but if it does, it can only be of service to you after you have raised an action and proved your assertions. Good morning, Mr. Arthur. You have gone too fast and too far.”

And in another moment Arthur was left alone, struggling with himself, with fury and disappointment not to be described. He was as much cast down as he had been elated. He gave too much importance to these words, as he had given to the others. He had thought, without any pity or ruth, that he was to take possession at once; and now he felt himself cast out. He threw himself down in the window seat and gnawed his nails to the quick, and asked himself what he was to do. A lawsuit, a search for evidence, an incalculable, possibly unrecompensed expenditure—these were very different from the rapid conclusion he had hoped.

“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Fazakerly solemnly, turning round upon Edgar as they entered the library, “you have behaved like an idiot!—I don’t care who tells you otherwise, or if it has been your own unassisted genius which has brought you to this—but you have acted like a fool. It sounds uncivil, but it is true.”

“Would you have had me, as he says, carry on the imposture,” said Edgar, with an attempt at a smile. “Would you have had me, knowing who I am–”

“Pooh! pooh!” said Mr. Fazakerly. “Pooh! pooh! You don’t in the least know who you are. And that is not your business in the least—it is his. Let him prove what he can; you are Edgar Arden, of Arden, occupying a position which, for my part, I think you ought to have been contented with. To make yourself out to be somebody else is not your business. Sit down, and let me hear what you have to say.”

Then the client and the adviser sat down together, and Edgar related all the particulars he had learned. Mr. Fazakerly sobered down out of his hopeful impatience as he listened. He shook his head and said, “Bad, very bad,” at intervals. When he heard what Mrs. Murray had said, and that it was in Arthur Arden’s presence, he gave his head a redoubled shake. “Very—bad—indeed,” and pondered sadly over it all. “If you had but spoken to me first; if you had but spoken to me first!” he cried. “I don’t mean to say I would have advised you to keep it up. An unscrupulous counsellor would have told you, and with truth, that you had every chance in your favour. There was no proof whatever that you were the boy referred to before this Mrs. Murray appeared; and nothing could be easier than to take Mrs. Murray out of the way. But I don’t advise that—imposture is not in my way any more than in yours, Mr. Edgar. But at least I should have insisted upon having a respectable man to deal with, instead of that cold-blooded egotist; and we might have come to terms. It is not your fault. You are behaving most honourably—more than that—Quixotically. You are doing more than any other man would have done—and we could have made terms. There could have been no possible objection to that.”

“Yes, I should have objected,” said Edgar; “I do not want to make any terms–”

“Then what do you mean to do?” cried Mr. Fazakerly. “It is all very fine to be high-minded in theory, but what are you to do? You have not been brought up to any profession. With your notions, you could never get on in business. What are you to do?”

Edgar shook his head. He smiled at the same time with a half-amused indifference, which drove his friend to renewed impatience.

“Mr. Edgar,” he said solemnly, “I have a great respect for you. I admire some of your qualities—I would trust you with anything; but you are behaving like a fool–”

“Very likely,” said Edgar, still with a smile. “If that were all! Do you really suppose that with two hands capable of doing a few things, not to speak of a head and some odd scraps of information—do you really suppose a man without any pride to speak of, will be unable to get himself a living? That is nonsense. I am quite ready to work at anything, and I have no pride–”

“I should not like to trust too much to that,” said Mr. Fazakerly, shaking his head. “And then there is your sister. Miss Clare loses by this as much as you do. Of course now the entail stands as if you had never taken any steps in the matter, and Old Arden is hers no longer. Are you aware that, supposing her fully provided for by that most iniquitous bequest, your father left her nothing else? She will be a beggar as well as you.”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Edgar, with a flush of warm colour rushing over his face. “Say that again! You don’t really mean it? Why, then, I shall have Clare to work for, and I don’t envy the king, much less the proprietor of Arden. Shake hands! you have made me twice the man I was. My sister is my sister still, and, after all, I am not alone in the world.”

Mr. Fazakerly looked at the young man aghast. He said to himself, “There must be madness in the family,” not recollecting that nothing in the family could much affect Edgar, who did not belong to it. He sat with a certain helpless amazement looking at him, watching how the life rose in his face. He had been very weary, very pale, before, but this news, as it were, rekindled him, and gave him all his energy back.

“I thought it did not matter much what became of me,” he said, with a certain joyous ring in his voice, which stupified the old lawyer. “But it does matter now. What is it, Wilkins? What do you want?”

“Please, sir, Lady Augusta Thornleigh and the young ladies is come to call,” said Wilkins. “I’d have shown them into the drawing-room, but Mr. Arthur Arden he’s in the drawing-room. Shall they come here?”

Edgar’s countenance paled again as suddenly as it had grown bright. His face was like a glass, on which all his emotions showed. “They must want to see my sister,” he said, with a certain longing and wistfulness in his tone.

“It was you, sir, as my lady asked for, not Miss Arden. It’s the second one of the young ladies as is with her—Miss Augusta I think they calls her, sir,” said Wilkins, not without some curiosity. “They said special as they didn’t want to see no strangers—only you.”

Edgar rose up once more, his face glowing crimson, his eyes wet and full. “Wherever they please—wherever they please,” he said half to himself, with a confused thrill of happiness and emotion. “I am at their orders.” He did not know what he expected. His heart rose as if it had wings. They had come to seek him. Was not he receiving compensation, more than compensation, for all his pain?

But before he could give any orders, before Mr. Fazakerly could gather up his papers, or even offer to go away, Lady Augusta herself appeared at the open door.