Squire Arden; volume 3 of 3

CHAPTER IX

Arthur Arden felt 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,” said Wilkins. “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 popular preacher’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 revolutionary crossed 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 the cuisine at 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 the claims 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 the changes 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 interesting to 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 his lips 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.

CHAPTER X

Edgar was 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 not unhappy. 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 made up 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 really think; 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”—and here 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 not very cheerful just now, nor are my prospects very bright–”

“Your prospects 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’s that that 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 did not 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 West Lodge. 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 himself incapable 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.