CHAPTER XXVII
Mrs. Murray started violently, and uttered a low cry. She turned to him with a look of sudden joy, that made her dark eyes expand and dilate. But when she saw Edgar’s face, a change came over her own. She rose up, half withdrawing from his touch, and signed to him to leave the room, with a gesture towards the bed in which Jeanie lay asleep. She followed him to the door, where they had had so many broken interviews. The silence and the darkness, and the faint stars above, seemed a congenial accompaniment. She put her hand upon Edgar’s arm as he stepped across the threshold. “What is your will; what is your will?” she said, in an agitated voice. It seemed to the young man that even this last refuge—the affection to which he had a right—had failed him too.
“My will?” he said. “It is for me to ask yours, you that are my mother. My life has changed like a dream, but yours is as it always was. Do you want nothing of me?”
“Na,” said Mrs. Murray, with a voice of pain; “nothing, lad! nothing, lad! You’ve been good to me and mine without knowing. You’ve saved my Jeanie’s life. But we’re proud folk, though we were not brought up like you. Nothing will we take but your love; and I’m no complaining. I bow to nature and my own sin. I’ve long repented, long repented; but that is neither here nor there; it cannot be expected that you should have any love to give.”
“I don’t know what I have to give,” said Edgar. “I am too weary and heart-broken to know. Can you come with me now to see my sister?—I mean Miss Arden. I must tell her. Don’t be grieved or pained, for I cannot help it. It is hard.”
“Ay, it is hard,” said Mrs. Murray; “Oh, it’s hard, hard! You were but a babe when I put you out of my arms; but I’ve yearned after you ever since. No, I’m asking no return; it’s no natural. You are more like to hate us than to love us. I acknowledge that.”
“I don’t hate you,” said Edgar. He was torn asunder with conflicting feelings. Was it hatred or was it love? He could not tell which.
“I’m ready to put my hands on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust,” she went on. “I’ve sinned and sinned sore against the Lord and against you. You were the only one left of all your mother’s bairns; and she was dead, and he was dead—all gone that belonged to you but me—and my hands full, full of weans and of troubles. I had the love for you, but neither time nor bread, and I was sore, sore tempted. They said to me there was none to be wronged, but only a house to be made glad. Oh, lad, I sinned; and most I have sinned against you.”
He could not say no. His heart seemed shut up and closed against her. He could utter no forgiveness. It was true—quite true. She had sinned against him. Squire Arden was deeply to blame, but she, too, had sinned. There was not a word to say.
“When you said mother, I thought my heart would burst with joy. I thought the Lord had sent to you the spirit to forgive. But I canna expect it; I canna look for it. Oh, no! I wouldna be ungrateful, good Lord! He has his bonnie mother’s heart to serve his neighbour, and his father’s that died for the poor, like Christ. I maunna complain. He has a heart like his kin though no for me!”
“Tell me what you mean,” cried Edgar, with a thrill of emotion tingling to his very finger-points; “or rather come with me, come with me. Clare must know all now–”
“And Jeanie is sleeping,” she said. “I’ll cry upon that good woman to watch her, and I’ll do your bidding. God bless you, lad, for Jeanie’s life!”
He stood and waited for her outside with a new life, it seemed, thrilling through him. His father? He had once had a father, then—a man who had done his duty in the world—not a tyrant, who hated him. The idea of his mother did not so much move him; for somehow the dead woman whose reputation he had vindicated, the sweet young face in Clare’s picture, was his mother to Edgar in spite of all. He could not turn her out of his imagination. But his father! A new spring of curiosity, which was salvation to him, sprang up in his heart. Presently Mrs. Murray came out again, in her old-fashioned shawl and bonnet. Her dress veiled the dignity of her head. It gave him a sort of shudder to think of Clare looking at this woman, whom she had wanted to be kind to—to treat as a dependent—and knowing her to be his grandmother. She looked a little like Mrs. Fillpot, in her old-fashioned bonnet and shawl—he scorned himself for the thought, and yet it came back to him—very much like Mrs. Fillpot until you saw her face; and Edgar was made of common flesh and blood, and it went to his heart. He walked up the village street by her side with the strangest feelings. If she wanted him, it would be his duty, perhaps, to go with her—to provide for her old age—to do her the service of a son. She had a hold on him which nobody else in the world had. And yet– To be very kind, tender-hearted, and generous to your conventional inferiors is so easy; but to take a family among them into your very heart, and acknowledge them as your own!– Edgar shivered with a pang that ran through every nerve; and yet it had to be done!
He was more reconciled to it by the time he reached the Rectory. Mrs. Murray did not say another word to conciliate or attract his regard, but she began a long soft-voiced monologue—the story of his family. She told him of his father, who had been a doctor, and had died of typhus fever, caught among the poor, to whom he had dedicated his life; of his mother, who had broken her heart; of all her own children, his relations, who were scattered over the world. “We’re no rich nor grand, but we are folk that none need think shame of,” she said, “no one. We’ve done our duty by land and by sea, and served God, and wronged no man—all but me; and the wrong I did is made right, oh my bonnie lad, thanks to you.”
Thus a certain comfort, a certain bitterness distilled into his heart with every word. He made her take his arm as he entered the Rectory. He had seen the curtain raised from the window, and some one looking out, and felt that it was Clare watching, with perhaps a suspense as great as his own. He led his grandmother into the dining-room, which he had left so suddenly, leaning on his arm. Clare rose from her seat at the window as they entered, and so did Mr. Fielding, who, really unhappy and distressed, had been dozing in his chair. The Rector stumbled up half asleep, and recollected the twilight visit he had received only a few days before, and said “God bless me!” understanding it all in a moment. But Clare did not understand. She walked forward to meet them, her face blazing with painful colour. A totally different fancy crossed her mind. She made a sudden conclusion, not like the reasonable and high-minded being she desired to be, but like the inexperienced and foolish girl she was. An almost fury blazed up in her eyes. Now that he had fallen, Edgar was making haste to unite himself to that girl who had been the bane of her life. He had brought the mother here to tell her so. It was Jeanie, Jeanie, once more—the baby creature with her pretty face—who was continually crossing her path.
“What does this mean?” she cried haughtily. “Is this a time for folly, for forming any miserable connexion—why do you bring this woman here?”
“You must speak of her in other tones, if you speak of her to me,” said Edgar. “I have shrunk from telling you, I can’t tell why. It seemed severing the last link between us. But I must not hesitate any longer. Miss Arden, this is Mrs. Murray, who wrote the letters you found in your father’s room, who shared with him the guilt of the transaction which has brought us all so much pain; but she is my mother’s mother, my nearest relative in the world, and any one who cares for me will respect her. This is the witness I told you of—her testimony makes everything clear.”
Clare stood thunderstruck, and listened to this revelation; then she sank upon the nearest seat, turning still her pale countenance aghast upon the old woman, who regarded her with a certain pathetic dignity. Horror, dismay, shame of herself, sudden lighting up of a hundred mysterious incidents—light glimmering through the darkness, yet confounding and confusing everything, overwhelmed her. His mother’s mother. Good Heavens! is she mine too? Clare asked herself in her dismay, and then paused and tried to disentangle herself from that maze of old habit and new bewildering knowledge. She could not speak nor move, but sat and gazed upon the Scotchwoman who had been somehow painfully mixed up in all the story of the past two months and all its difficulties. Was this an explanation of all? or would Arthur Arden come in next, and present this woman to her with another explanation? Clare’s heart seemed to stand still—she could not breathe, but kept her eyes fixed with a painful mechanical stare upon Mrs. Murray’s face.
“Yes, Miss Arden,” said the old woman, “he says true. I was tempted and I sinned. He was an orphan bairn, and it was said to me that no person would be wronged by it—though it may be a comfort to you to hear that your mother opposed it with all her might. She knew better than me. She was a young thing, no half my age; but she knew better than me. For all her sweetness and her kindness, she set her face against the wrong. It was him that sinned, and me–”
And then there was a long pause. Clare seemed paralysed—she neither moved nor spoke; and Edgar stood apart, struggling with his own heart, trying not to long for the sympathy of the sister who had been his all his life—trying to enter into the atmosphere of love towards the other through whom his very life had come to him. Mr. Fielding, who was not at the same pitch of excitement, bethought himself of those ordinary courtesies of life which seem so out of place to the chief actors in such a scene. He offered Mrs. Murray a chair; he begged her to take some wine; he was hospitable, and friendly, and courteous—till Clare and Edgar, equally moved, interposed in the same breath—“Oh, don’t, please, don’t say anything,” Clare cried, “I cannot bear it.” And Edgar, to whom she had not spoken a word, whom she had not even looked at, came forward again and gave the stranger his arm.
“Thanks,” he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness; “but now that all is said that need be said, I must take my mother away.”
“My dear Edgar, stop a little,” cried Mr. Fielding, in much agitation. “This must not be permitted. If this– lady is really your—your grandmother, my dear boy. Pardon me, but it is so hard to realise it—to imagine; but she cannot be left in that poor little cottage—it is impossible. I am amazed that I could have overlooked—that I did not see. The Rectory is small, and Clare perhaps might not think– or I should beg you to come here—but some other place, some better place.”
Mrs. Murray’s face beamed with a sudden smile. Edgar looked on with terror, fearing he could not tell what. Was she about to seize this social elevation with vulgar eagerness? Was she about to make it impossible for him even to respect her? “Sir,” she said, holding out her hand to the Rector, “I thank you for my lad’s sake. Every time I see or hear how he’s respected, how he’s thought of, my heart leaps like the hart, and my tongue is ready to sing. It’s like forgiveness from the Lord for the harm I’ve done– but we’re lodged as well as we wish for the moment, and I desire nothing of any man. We’re no rich, and we’re no grand, but we’re proud folk.”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” said Mr. Fielding, bowing over her hand as if she had been a duchess. And Edgar drew the other through his arm. “Folk that none need think shame of,” he said in his heart, and for the first time since this misery began that heart rose with a sensation which was not pain.
“And good night, Miss Arden,” she said, “and God bless you for being the light of his eyes and the comfort of his life. Well I know that he owes all its pleasantness to you. An old woman’s blessing will do you no harm, and it’s likely that I will never in this life see you more.”
Thus Clare was left alone in the silence. Mr. Fielding hastened to the door to attend his visitor out, with as much respect as if she had been a queen. Clare remained alone, her whole frame and heart tingling with emotion. She was ashamed, humbled, and mortified, and cast down. Her brother!—and this was his true origin—these his relations. She, too, had remarked that Mrs. Murray was like Mrs. Fillpot at the first glance—a peasant woman—a farmer’s wife at the best. It was intolerable to Clare. And yet all the while he was Edgar—her brother, whom she had loved—her companion, whom she had kissed and hung upon—who had been her support, her protector, her nearest and closest friend. She rose and fled when she heard the sound of the closing door, and Mr. Fielding’s return. She could not bear to see him, or to have her own dismay and horror brought under remark. He would say they were unchristian, wicked; and what if they were? Could she help it? God had made her an Arden—not one of those common people without susceptibilities, without strong feeling. Had Edgar been an Arden he never could have done it. He did it, because he was of common flesh and blood; he had not felt it. All was explained now.
As for Edgar, he walked down again to Sally Timms’s cottage, with his old mother on his arm. “Lean on me,” he said to her as they went along in the dark. He could not be fond of her all at once, stranger as she was; but he was—could it be possible?—proud of her, and it was a pleasure to him to feel that he supported her, and did a son’s natural duty so far. And then it went to his heart when he saw all at once in the light of a cottage window which gleamed on her as they passed, that she was weeping, silently putting up her hand to wipe tears from her face. “It’s no for trouble, it’s for gladness,” she said, when he looked up at her anxiously. “I canna think but my repentance is accepted, and the Lord has covered over my sin.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
“These are our terms, Mr. Arden,” said Mr. Fazakerly. “It is, of course, entirely in your own hands to accept or reject them: a provision such as has been usually made for the daughters of Arden, for Miss Clare; and a certain sum—say a few hundreds—he would not accept anything more—for—your predecessor– These are our conditions. If you accept them, he offers (much against my will—all this surrender is against my will) immediate possession, without any further trouble. My own opinion is quite against this self-renunciation, but my client is obstinate–”
“Your client!” said Arthur Arden, with a tone of contempt. “Up to this time your clients have always been the lawful owners of Arden.”
“Understand, sir,” said the old lawyer, with a flush of irritation on his face, “that I do not for a moment admit that Mr. Edgar is not the lawful owner of Arden. That rests on your assertion merely; and it is an assertion which you might find it amazingly difficult to prove. He offers you terms upon his own responsibility, against my advice and wish, out of an exaggerated sense of honour, such as perhaps you don’t enter into. My wish would have been to let you bring your suit, and fight it out.”
Arthur Arden was in great doubt. He paced the long library up and down, taking council with himself. To make conditions at all—to treat with this beggar and impostor, as he called him in his heart—was very galling to his pride. Of course he would have been kind to the fellow after he had taken possession of his own. He would have made some provision for him, procured him an appointment, given him an allowance, out of pure generosity; but it was humiliating to pause and treat, or to acknowledge any power on the part of the usurper to exact conditions. It was astonishing how fast and far his thoughts had travelled in the last twenty-four hours. He had scarcely allowed the bewildering hope to take hold of his mind then—he could not endure to be kept for another hour out of his possessions now. He walked up and down heavily, pondering the whole matter. It appeared to him that he had nothing to do but to proclaim himself the reigning monarch in place of the usurper found out, and to expel him and his belongings, and begin his own reign. But the old lawyer stood before him, vigilant and unyielding, keeping an eye upon him—cowing him by that glance. He came forward to the table again with reluctant politeness. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “It stands to reason that from the moment it is found out, everything becomes mine as the last Squire Arden’s next of kin.”
“You have to prove first that you are nearer of kin than his son.”
“His son! Do you venture to keep up that fiction? How can I consent for a moment to treat with any one who affirms a lie?”
“Your conscience has become singularly tender, Mr. Arden,” said the lawyer, with a smile. “I don’t think you were always so particular; and remember you have to prove that it is a lie. You have to prove your case at every step against all laws of probability and received belief. I do not say that you will fail eventually, but it is a case that might occupy half your remaining life, and consume half the value of the estate. And I promise you you should not gain it easily if the defence were in my hands.”
“When I did win you should find that no Arden papers found their way again to your hands,” said Arthur, with irritation.
Mr. Fazakerly made him a sarcastic bow. “I can live without Arden,” he said; “but the question is, can you?”
Then there was another pause. “I suppose I may at least consult my lawyer about it,” said Arthur, sullenly; and once more Mr. Fazakerly made him a bow.
“By all means; but should my client leave the country before you have decided, it will be necessary to shut up the house and postpone its transference. A few months more or less will not matter much. I will put down our conditions, that you may submit them to your lawyer. A provision such as other daughters of Arden have had, for Miss Clare–”
“I will not have Miss Arden’s name mentioned,” said Arthur, angrily; “her interests are quite safe in my hands.”
“That may or may not be,” said Mr. Fazakerly; “but my client insists absolutely on this point, and unless it is conceded, all negotiations are at an end. Fit provision for Miss Clare; and a sum of money—say a thousand pounds–”
“You said a few hundreds,” interposed the other with irritation. Mr. Fazakerly threw down his pen, and looked up with amazement into Arthur’s face.
“Good Lord,” he said, “is it the soul of a shopkeeper that you have got within you? Do you understand what Edgar Arden is giving up? And he was not called upon to give it up. He was not called upon to say a word about it, to furnish you with any information. What Edgar Arden would have done had he been guided by me–”
“He is not Edgar Arden,” said Arthur sharply.
“By the Lord,” cried Mr. Fazakerly, wrought up to a pitch of excitement which would have vent, “he is by a hundred times a better man than–” you, he was going to say, but resisted the temptation—“than most men that one meets,” he added hastily. And then, subduing himself, sat down and wrote the conditions fully out. He handed them to the other without adding a word, and immediately unlocked a box full of papers which stood on the table by him, and began to work at them, as if he were unconscious of the presence of any stranger. Arthur stood by him for some minutes with the paper in his hand, and then went out with a mortification which he had to conceal as best he could. It was the morning after Clare had left the house, and Edgar, though he had not appeared that day was still master of the house, acknowledged by everybody in it as its legitimate head. It is impossible to say how much this chafed the true heir. He was so angry that he gave Wilkins to understand the real state of affairs, to the private consternation but well-enacted unbelief of that family retainer. Wilkins did not like Arthur Arden—none of the servants liked him. Edgar’s kindly sway had given them a glimpse of something better; and the butler and the housekeeper had long entertained matrimonial intentions, and were too well off and too much used to comfort to put up with a less satisfactory regime. “I’ll ask master, sir,” was all Arthur Arden could elicit from Wilkins. Master!—the word made him almost swear. Arthur went out, with the conditions of surrender in his pocket, and pondered over them like a general who is victorious yet baffled, and whose army has won the external but not the moral victory. Of course there could be no real question as to these conditions; under any circumstances public opinion, or even his own reluctant sense of what was fit and necessary, would have bound him to do as much or more. But he was irritated now, and if he had been able, he would have liked to punish his rival for his usurpation; while, on the contrary, that rival claimed to march out with all the honours of war, his reputation unimpeached, his fame spread. It galled the new Lord of Arden more than it is possible to describe. He gnawed his moustache and his nails as he pondered, and then his thoughts took a sudden turn. The subject which had been uppermost in his mind before this new matter drove everything else out of the question. Come back—Clare! For the moment she had taken Edgar’s part; but this at least it was in his power to alter. As much as he had ever loved any one, he loved Clare; but he was come to his kingdom, and the intoxication of the triumph bewildered his faculties. He might marry any one—not any longer a mere heiress, great or small, but anybody—a duke’s daughter, a lady of the highest pretensions. Arden of Arden was the equal of the best nobleman in Christendom. So he reasoned from the heights of his new elevation. For a moment ambition struggled in him with love: it was in his power now to give Clare back all, and more than all, that she had lost; and in thus gratifying himself he could inflict the last wound upon his adversary. In reality, notwithstanding a thousand shortcomings, he loved her. He thought over all their intercourse, everything that had passed between them—her last words, to which as yet he had made no response. And the heart began to beat more warmly, more quickly in his breast. The end of his musings was that he took his way down the avenue to the Rectory, with his paper of conditions in his pocket. Again it must be said for Arthur Arden that in any case he would have taken this step; but still the alloy of his nature mingled with all he did. Even in seeking his love, he went with a vengeful feeling of satisfaction that if he won Clare from him, that fellow would not have so much to brag of after all.
Clare was seated in the deep window of the Rectory drawing-room with a book in her hand; but she was not reading the book. She was gazing listlessly out, seeing nothing, going over a hundred recollections. Her life had become far more interesting than any book—too interesting—full of pain and tragic interest. She sat with her eyes fixed on the broad expanse of summer sunshine, the distant gleam of the village street, the Doctor’s house opposite, with its twinkling windows. Everything was still as peace itself. The old gardener was rolling the grass with gentle monotony, as if he might go on doing it for ever; Dr. Somers’ phæton stood at the door awaiting him; old Simon clamped past on his clogs—all so peaceful as if nothing out of the usual routine could ever happen; and yet in that very room Edgar had stood by the side of the old Scotch woman and called her mother! A deep suppressed excitement and resentment were in Clare’s heart. It was not his fault, but notwithstanding she could not forgive him for it. When the door opened she did not turn her head. Most likely it was Edgar, and she did not wish to see him; or Mr. Fielding, with his grieved, disapproving looks. Clare was in such a state of mind that even a look of reproof drove her wild. She could not bear it. Therefore she kept her back turned persistently, and gave no heed to the opening of the door.
“Clare!”
She looked up with a violent start, rising from her seat, and perceived him standing over her—he whom she had tried to put out of her calculations, and think of no more. She had been planning a proud miserable life retired out of sight of all men, specially hidden from him. She had resolved he should not even know where she was to insult her with his pity—neither he nor Edgar should know; for Clare was quite unaware that the discovery which lost her a brother lost her a fortune too. But now at the moment when she was most miserable, most forlorn, forming the most dreary plans, here he was! The sight of him took away her breath, and almost her senses, for the moment. She said, “Is it you?” faintly, gazing at him with dilated eyes and parched lips, as if he had been a ghost. The surprise was so great that it threw down all her defences, and brought her back to simple reality. She was not glad to see him—these were not the words; but his sudden coming was like life to the dead.
And he too was touched by the sight of her utter dejection and solitude. He dropped down on one knee beside her as she reseated herself, and took her hand. “My Clare!” he said, “my Clare! why did you fly from me? Is not my house your house, and my life yours? Is there any one so near to you as me? Even now I have the only claim upon you; and when you are my wife–”
“No such word has ever been spoken between us,” said Clare, making an effort to resume her old dignity. “Mr. Arden, rise—you forget–”
“I don’t forget anything,” said Arthur. “There was one between us that took it upon him to keep me away, that prevented me from seeing you, prejudiced you against me, and has all but beguiled you away from me. But, Clare, you see through it now. Are words necessary between you and me? When I was a beggar I might hesitate to ask you to share my poverty, but now– Don’t you know that I would rather have you without Arden than Arden without you–”
Let him take everything else, as long as he leaves me you—these had been the words Arthur Arden had spoken two days ago. They rang in Clare’s ears as clearly as if he had just pronounced them, and they had an echo in his own memory. But neither of them referred to that vain offer now—neither of them said a syllable of Edgar. “If he had not so shocked me, so repelled me, brought in that woman,” Clare said to herself in faint self-apology—but not a word did she say aloud. She laid down her head on Arthur Arden’s shoulder, and wept away the accumulated excitement and irritation and misery of the past night. She did not reproach him for his delay or ask a single question. She had wanted him, oh, so sorely! and he had come at last.
“It is too great happiness,” said Arthur, when they had sat there all the bright morning through and made their plans, “that you and I should spend all our lives together in Arden, Clare. To have you anywhere would have seemed too much joy a month ago; but you and Arden! which I have been kept out of, banished from, treated as a stranger in–”
“Do not think of that now, do not think of that now! Oh, Arthur, if you love me, be kind to him.”
“Kind to him! when he had all but succeeded in severing you from me, in carrying you away, with Heaven knows what intention. But, my Clare,” said the new Squire Arden, with that paper in his pocket, of which he did not say a word to her, “for your sake!”
And Clare believed him, every word—she who was not credulous, nor full of faith, and who prided herself that she knew the world—her own world, in which people were moved by comprehensible motives, not visionary impulses. Clare believed her lover. He would be kind, he would not be too hard or unmerciful. He would forgive the usurper, the Edgar who was Mrs. Murray’s son. She stifled every other feeling in that moment of love and intoxication—if, indeed, at such a time there was room for any other feeling towards the Edgar who had been the brother of her youth.
And thus the last link was broken which bound Edgar to his old life. The moment when his sister and his successor clasped hands was the conclusion, as it were, of his career. Had Clare clung to him, and sought to detain him, he might have held on somehow, sadly and reluctantly, by some shadow of the former existence, trying to do impossibilities, and to reconcile the adverse elements. Her sudden decision was a cruel blow to him: it was his final extinction as Edgar Arden; but at the same time, no doubt, it was a relief. It settled her in the position which in all the world was the one most suitable for her, which she herself preferred; and at once and for ever it severed the bond which was now no better than a fictitious and sentimental tie. It was best so, he said to himself, even when he felt it most sorely. They could not have continued together: they were no longer brother and sister. It was best for both that the severance should be complete.
And thus it was that Edgar Arden’s life came to an end. Had he died it could not have finished more completely. His life, his career, his very name were gone. He existed still, and might for aught he knew continue to exist for many years, and even make for himself another history, new hopes, new loves, a renewed career. But here the man who has been the hero of this story, the only Edgar known to his friends and to himself—concluded. The change was like Death—a change of condition, place, being, everything that makes a man. And here the story of Squire Arden must perforce come to an end.