CHAPTER XI
Edgar walked on and on, through the village, over the perfumy common, which lay basking in the intense unbroken sunshine. All the mossy nooks under the gorse bushes were warm as nests which the bird has just quitted—the seedpods were cracking under the heat, all the sweet scents of the wild, mossy, heathery, aromatic bit of heath were coming out—the insects buzzing, every leaf of the vegetation thrilling under the power of the sunshine. He went straight across the common, disregarding the paths, through gorse and juniper bushes, and tufts of bracken, and beds of heather. He did not see and he did not care. The lodge was two miles away along a road which was skirted on either side by the lingering half-reclaimed edges of the heath—and if the walk had been undertaken with the intention of making a survey of the beauties of Arden, it could not have been better chosen. The lodge on the common was just within the enclosure of the park. Its windows commanded the long, purple-green stretch of heath, with the spire of Arden church rising over it in the distance, and a white line of road, on which were few passengers; but the lodge windows were closed that morning. The hot sun beat on them in vain—old eyes which for fifty years had contemplated that same landscape were now closed upon it for ever. John Smith had been growing old when he went to the lodge; he had been there before the old Squire’s time, having known him a boy. He had lived into Edgar’s time, and was proud of his hundred years. “I can’t expect to see e’er another young Squire,” he had said the last time Edgar had seen him. “Don’t you flatter me. Short o’ old Parr, and them folks in the Bible, I don’t know none as has gone far over the hunderd; but I don’t say but what I’d like to see another young Squire.” The words came back into Edgar’s mind as he paused. He knocked softly at the cottage door, and took off his hat when the daughter, herself an old woman, steady and self-possessed, as the poor are in their deepest grief, came to the door. “Will you come in and look at him, sir,” she said; and her look of disappointment when he said no, went to Edgar’s heart, full as it was of his own concerns. He turned back, and went in, and looked with awe upon the old, old worn face, which he remembered all his life. That wrinkled pallid countenance might have been a thousand years old, instead of only a hundred. Only a hundred! And poor old John, too, in his time had known troubles such as make years of days. One son had gone for a soldier, and been killed “abroad;” another had been the victim of an accident in the Liverpool docks, and was a cripple for life; another had “gone to the bad;” and there was a daughter, too, who had “gone to the bad”—landmarks enough to portion out the life of any man. Yet there he lay, so quiet after all, having shaken it off at last. Edgar, in his youth, in the first terrible shock of a misfortune which seemed to throw every other misfortune into the shade, looked at the remains of his old, old servant with a thrill of awe. Do your best for a hundred years, suffer your worst, take God’s will patiently, go on working and working: and at the end this—this and no more. “He’s got to his rest now, sir,” said the daughter, putting up her apron to her eyes which shed few tears—“we didn’t ought to grumble nor to cry; and I try not. He’s safe now is t’oud man. He’s with mother and the little ones as died years ago. I can’t think as I’ll know ’em when I get there. It’s so long ago, and I’m so old mysel’, they’d never think it was me. But I’ll know father, and father will tell them. I can’t help cryin’ now and again, but I canno’ grudge that he’s got to his rest.”
Edgar went out of the house hushed for the moment in all his fever of wild thoughts. Rest! He himself did not want rest. He was too young, too ardent, too full of life to think of it as desirable; but anyhow there was an end to everything: an end—and perhaps a new beginning elsewhere. His mind was a religious mind, and his nature was not one to which real doubts concerning the unseen were possible. But there is something in a great mental shock which unsettles all foundations. At all events, whatever else there might be in life, there was an end—and perhaps a new beginning. And yet what if a man had to work on through all the perplexities of this sick and vexed world for a hundred years?—a world in which you never know who you are, nor what—where all in a moment you may be thrust out of the place you believed you were born in, and your life, all torn across and twisted awry, made to begin anew. How often might a man have to begin anew?—until at last there came that End.
He walked along through the woods not consciously remarking anything, and yet noting unconsciously how all the big trunks gleamed in the sunshine, the silvery white lines of the young birches, the happy hush and rustle among the branches. Was it sound, or was it silence? The leaves twinkled in the light, which seemed to fill all their veins with joy, and yet they said Hush, hush! at their highest rapture. Hush, hush! said all nature, except here and there a dry bough which cracked under the flying feet of rabbit or squirrel, a broken branch or a pine cone that fell. The dying, the falling, the injured, and broken, sent harsh, undertones into the harmony; but the living and prospering whispered Hush! Did this thought pass articulately through the young man’s mind as he threaded these woodland paths? No; some broken shadow of it, a kind of rapid suggestion—no more; and moment by moment his painful thoughts recurred more and more to himself.
What was he to do? It was not the wealth of Arden, or even the beauty of Arden, or the rank he had held as its master, or any worldly advantage derived from it that wrung his heart to think of– All these had their share of pain apart from the rest. The first and master pang was this, that he was suddenly shaken out of his place, out of his rank, out of that special niche in the world which he had supposed himself born to fill. He was cast adrift. Who was he? what was he? what must he do? At Arden there were quantities of things to do. He had entered upon the work with more absolute pleasure, than he had felt in the mere enjoyment of the riches and power connected with it. It was work he could do. He felt that he had penetrated its secrets, held its key in his hand; and now to discover that it was not his work at all—that it was the work of a man who would not do it, who would never think of it, never care for it. This thought overwhelmed him as he went through the wood. It came upon him suddenly, without warning, like a great thunderbolt. The work was to be transferred to a man who would not do it—whose influence would be not for good but for evil in the place. And nobody knew– Hush, hush! oh, heavens, silence it! fresh breeze, blow it away! Nobody knew—nobody but one, who had vowed never to betray, never to say a syllable—one whose loss would be as great as his own. There was so much that could be done for Arden—the people and the place had such powers of development in them. There was land to be reclaimed, fit to grow seed and bread; there were human creatures to be helped and delivered; a thousand and a thousand things came into his mind, some great and some small—trees to be planted even—and what Arthur Arden would do would be to cut down the trees; cottages to be built—and what would he care for the poor, either physically or morally? If Arden could speak, would not it cry to heaven to be kept under the good rule of the impostor, and saved from the right heir? And then the race which had been so proud, how would it be covered with shame!—the house which had wrapped itself up in high reserve, how would its every weakness be exposed to the light! And up to this time nobody knew– The good name of the Ardens might be preserved, and the welfare of the estate, and every end of real justice served—by what? Putting a few old papers into the fire. Clare had nearly done it last night by the flame of her candle. God bless Clare! And she, too, would have to be given up if everything else was given up—he would no longer have a sister. His name, his work, his domestic affections—everything he had in the world—all at the mercy of a lit taper or a spark of fire! If Arden was to be burnt down, for instance—such things have been—if at any time in all these years it had been burnt down, or even the wing which contained the library, or even the bureau in that room—no one would ever have known that there was any doubt about the succession. Ah, if it had happened so! What a strange, devilish malice it was to lock it up there, to throw confusion and temptation upon two lives! Was it Squire Arden’s spirit, vindictive and devilish, which had led Clare to that packet? But no (Edgar thought in the wandering of his mind), it could not be Squire Arden; for Clare, too, would be a sufferer. He saw now, so well and clearly, why he had been made to consent to the arrangement which gave Old Arden to Clare. Clare was of the Arden blood; whereas he–
And then it occurred to him to wonder who he was. Not an Arden! But he must be some one’s son—belong to some family—probably have brothers and sisters. And for ever and ever give up Clare!—Clare, his only sister—the sole being in the world to whom from childhood his heart had turned. Already he no longer ventured to touch, no longer called her by her name. He had lost his sister; and no other in the world could ever be so sweet.
Edgar’s mind was gradually drained of courage and life as he went on. How was he to do it? It was not money or position, but himself and his life he would have to give up. How could he do it? Whereas, it was easy, so easy to have a fire kindled in his bedroom, or even a candle– They had been almost burned already. If they had been burned he never would have known. Nobody would have been the wiser; and yet he would have been an impostor all the same. And as for Arthur Arden, he should share everything—everything he pleased. He should have at least half the income now, and hereafter all– Yes; Edgar knew that such arrangements had been made. He himself might pledge himself not to marry; but then he thought of Gussy Thornleigh, and this time felt the blow so overpower him that he stopped short, and leant against a tree to recover himself. Gussy, whom he was to speak to to-morrow. Oh, good heavens!—just heavens!—was ever innocent man so beset! It is easy to speak of self-sacrifice; but all in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, that a man should give up name, home, living, his position, his work, his very existence, his sister, and his bride—all because Squire Arden who was dead was a damned accursed villain; and that Squire Arden who was alive might squander so much money, spoil so many opportunities of valiant human service! Good God! was ever innocent man so beset!
And then, as he went on thinking, the horror of it overpowered him more and more. Most men when they are in trouble preserve the love of those who are dear to them—nay, have it lavished upon them, to make up for their suffering, even when their suffering is their own fault. But Edgar would have to relinquish all love—even his sister’s—and it was no fault of his. No unborn babe could be more innocent than he was of any complicity in the deception. He had been its victim all his life; and now that he had escaped from its first tyranny, must he be a greater victim still—a more hopeless sacrifice? Oh, God, what injustice! What hateful and implacable tyranny!
And the flame of a candle would set everything right again—a momentary spark, the scented, evanescent gleam with which he lit his cigar—the cigar itself falling by chance on the papers. And were there not a hundred such chances occurring every day? Less than that had been known to sweep a young, fair, blooming, beloved creature, for whose sweet life all the estates in the world would not be an equivalent, out of the world. And yet no spark fell to burn up those pieces of paper which would cost Edgar everything that made life dear. He had been standing all this while against the trunk of the tree, pondering and pondering. He was startled by a gamekeeper passing at a distance, who took off his hat respectfully to his master. His master? Couldn’t the fellow see? Edgar felt a strong momentary inclination to call out to him—No; not to me. I have no right to your obeisance, not much right even to your respect. I am an impostor—a man paltering with temptation. Should he break the charmed whispering silence, and shout these words out to the winds, and deliver his soul for ever? No. For did not the leaves and the winds and the tender grass and the buzzing insects unite in one voice—Hush! Hush! Hush! Such was the word which Nature kept whispering, whispering in his ear.
CHAPTER XII
The state of affairs at Arden on this strange day was very perplexing to Arthur. Clare did not make her appearance even at dinner, but there were sounds of going and coming on the stairs, and at one time Arthur could have sworn he heard the voice of Edgar at his sister’s door. She was well enough to see her brother, though not to come downstairs. And among the letters which were brought down to be put into the post-bag surely there was more than one in her handwriting. She had been able to carry on her correspondence, then; consequently the illness must be a feint altogether to avoid him, which was not on the whole flattering to his feelings. Arthur felt himself, as he was, in a very undignified position. He had experienced a good many humiliations of late. He had been made to feel himself not at all so captivating, not so sought-after, as he had once been. The Pimpernels had ejected him; and here were his cousins, his nearest relations—two chits who might almost be his own children, and who ought to have been but too happy to have a man of his experience with them, a man so qualified to advise and guide them—here were they shutting themselves up in mysterious chambers, whispering together, and transacting their business, if they had any business, secretly, that he might not be of the party! It was not wonderful that this should be galling to him. He resented it bitterly. What! shut him out from their concerns, pretend illness, whisper and concert behind his back! He was not a man, he reflected, to thrust himself into anybody’s private affairs; and surely the business might have been put off, whatever it was, or they might have managed somehow to keep it out of his sight if he was not intended to see it; whereas this transparent and, indeed, vulgar device thrust it specially under his eye. In the course of his reflections it suddenly flashed upon his mind that such conduct could only proceed from the fact that what they were occupied about was something which concerned himself. They were laying their heads together, perhaps, to be of service to him—to “do him good.” There was never man so careless yet but the thought that somebody wished to do him good was gall to him. What they intended, probably, was to make him Edgar’s agent on the estate. It would be earning his bread honestly, doing something for his living—a step which had often been pressed upon him. He would be left at Arden, guardian of the greatness and the wealth of a property which he was never to enjoy, making the best of the estate for Edgar’s benefit; seeing him come and go, enjoying his greatness; while his poor kinsman earned an honest living by doing his work! By Jove! Arthur Arden said to himself; it was a very likely idea, this of the agentship—nothing could have been more natural, more suitable. It was just the sort of thing to have occurred to such a mind as Edgar’s, who was naturally fond of occupation, and who would have been his own agent with pleasure. If the truth were known, no doubt Edgar thought he was making a little sacrifice by arranging all this for his cousin. Confound him! Arthur said. And if such an idea had actually entered Edgar’s mind, this would have been his reward.
After dinner he went out into the Park to smoke his cigar. It was a lovely night, and strolling about in the fresh evening air was better than being shut up in a melancholy room without a creature near him to break the silence. He took a long walk, and finally came back to the terrace round the house. The favourite side of the terrace was that which lay in front of the drawing-room windows; but the terrace itself ran quite round Arden to the flower garden behind, which it joined on the two sides. In mere wantonness Arthur extended his stroll all the way round, which was an unfrequent occurrence. On the darkest side, where the terrace was half-obscured by encroaching trees, he saw a glimmer of light in some windows on the ground-floor. They were the windows of the library, he perceived after a while, and they were partially open—that is to say, the windows themselves were open, but the shutters closed. As Arthur strolled along passing them, he was attracted by the sound of voices. He stopped; his own step was inaudible on the grass, even if the speakers within had ever thought of danger. He paused, hesitated a moment, listened, and heard the sound more distinctly; then, after a moment’s debate with himself, went up to the nearest window. There was no moonlight; the night was dark, and the closest observer even from without could scarcely have seen him. He threw his cigar away, and after another pause seated himself on the stone sill of the window. A great bush of clematis which clung about one side hid him in its fragrant bower. He could have escaped in a moment, and no one would have been the wiser; and the moths buzzed in over his head to the light, and the sound of the two voices came out. It was Clare and Edgar who were talking—Clare, who had been shut up in her room all day, who was too ill to come downstairs; but she had come down now, and was talking with the utmost energy—a tone in which certainly there was no appearance of failing strength. It was some time before he could make out more than the voices, but indignation and despite quickened his ears. The first, whose words he could identify, was Clare.
“Look here,” she said, advancing, as would seem, nearer to the window, and speaking with an animation very unlike her ordinary tones. “Look here, Edgar! My father himself meant to burn them. Oh, that I should have to speak so of poor papa! But I acknowledge it. He has been wicked, cruel! I don’t want to defend him. Yet he meant to burn them, you can see.”
“But did not,” said Edgar. “He did not; that is answer enough. Why, having taken all this trouble, and burdened his soul with a crime, he should have left behind the means of destroying his own work, heaven knows! Probably he thought I would find it, and conceal it for self-interest; but yet carry the sting of it for ever. I have been thinking long on the subject: that is what he must have meant.”
“Oh, Edgar!” said Clare.
“That must have been his intention. I can see no other. He must have thought there was no doubt that I would in my turn carry on the crime. How strangely one man judges another! It was devilish, though. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it was devilish. After having bound me, as he thought, by every bond to keep his secret, he would have thrust upon me the guilt too!”
“Oh, Edgar, Edgar!” Clare said, with a moan of pain. From the sound of the voices Arthur gathered that Edgar must be seated somewhere near the table, while Clare walked about the room in her agitation. Her voice came, now nearer, now farther from the window, and it may be supposed with what eager interest the eavesdropper listened. He would not have done it had there been time to think, or at least so he persuaded himself afterwards. But for anything he knew his dearest interests might be involved, and every word was important to him. A long silence followed—so long, that he thought all had come to an end, and with an intense sense of being mocked and tantalised, was about to get up and steal away, when he was recalled once more by the voice of Clare.
“It was I who found them,” she said, “where I had no right to look. It was for you to say whether these papers should have been disturbed or not. I thrust myself among them, having no right: therefore I ought to be heard now. Edgar, listen to me! If you make them public, think of the scandal, the exposure! Think of our name dragged in the dust, and the house you have been brought up in—the house that is yours– Listen to me! Oh, Edgar! are you going to throw away your life? It is not your fault. You are innocent of everything. You would never have known if my father had had the justice to destroy these papers—if I had not had the unpardonable, the horrible levity of finding them out. If you will not do what I ask you to do, I will never, never forgive myself all my life. I will feel that I have been the cause. Edgar! you never refused to listen to me before.”
“No,” he said. The voice was farther off, and Arthur Arden had to bend forward close to the window to hear at all, but even then could not be insensible to the thrill of feeling that was in it. “No; but you never counselled me to do wrong before. Never! You have been like an angel to me– Clare.”
There was a pause between the preceding words and the name, as if he had difficulty in pronouncing it; but this was wholly unintelligible to Arthur, whose worst suspicions fell so much short of the truth.
“Oh, no, no,” she said: “do not speak to me so, Edgar. This has shown me what I am. I have been more like a devil. I have nothing but pride, and ill-temper, and suspicion to look back upon. Nothing, nothing else! Remember, I might have burned them myself. If I had been worthy to live, if I had been fit for my place in this house, if I had been such a woman as some are—my father’s daughter—your sister, Edgar—I should have burned them myself.”
“My—sister,” he cried, with again a pause, and in a softened tremulous tone. “That is the worst; that is the worst! What are you doing, Clare?”
“My duty now,” she said wildly, “to him and to you!”
Then there was a pause. Arthur Arden would have given everything he possessed in the world for the power of looking inside—but he dared not. He sat on the window-sill with all his faculties concentrated in his ears. What was she doing? There was some movement in the room, but sounds of gentle feet upon a Turkey carpet betray little. The first thing audible was a broken sobbing cry from Clare.
“Let me do it! I will go down on my knees to you. I will bless you for it, Edgar! Edgar! You will be more my brother than ever you were in my life!”
Another silence—nothing but the sobbing of intense excitement and a faint rustle as if the girl worn out had thrown herself into a chair; and then a sound of the rustling and folding of paper. Oh, if he could but see! The half-closed shutter jarred a little, moved by the wind; and Arthur, roused, found a little chink, the slenderest crevice by which he could see in. All that he saw was Edgar sealing a packet. The wax fell upon it unsteadily, showing emotion which was not otherwise visible in his look. Then he wrote some name upon the packet, and put it in the breast-pocket of his coat.
“There it is,” he said cheerfully; “I have directed it to Mr. Fazakerly, and that settles the whole business. We must not struggle any more about it. Do you think I have had no temptation in the matter? Do you think I have got through without a struggle? The Thornleighs came back to-day—and to-morrow I was going to Thorne to ask her to be my wife.”
When he said these words, Edgar for the moment overcome with his conflict, dropped his head upon his hands and covered his face. All the levity, all the ease and secondary character of his feelings towards Gussy had disappeared now. He felt the pang of giving up this sweetness as he had not yet felt anything. All rushed upon him at once—all the overwhelming revelations he had to make. Edgar was brave, and he had kept the thought at bay. But now—Gussy, Clare, himself—all must go—every love he had any right to, or any hope of—every companionship that had ever been his, or that he had expected to become his—“Oh God!” he said in the depths of his overthrow. It was the first cry that had come from his lips.
Arthur Arden, peering in, saw Clare go to him and throw her arms round him and press his bowed head against her breast. He saw her weep over him, plead with him in all the force of passion. “Give it to me; give it to me; give it to me!” she cried, with the reiteration of violent emotion. “You will make me the most miserable creature on earth. You will take every pleasure out of my life.”
“Hush, hush!” he said softly, “Hush! we must make an end of this. Come and breathe the air outside? After all, what is it? An affair of a day. To-morrow or next day we shall have made up our minds to it; and the world cares so little one way or another. Come out with me and take breath, Clare.”
“I cannot, I cannot,” she cried. “What do I care for air or anything. Edgar, for the last time, stop and think.”
“I have thought till my brain is turning,” said Edgar, rising and drawing her arm within his to the infinite alarm of the listener, who transferred himself noiselessly to the other side of the great clematis bush, which fortunately for him grew out of a great old rose tree which was close against the wall. “For the last time, there is nothing to think about. It is decided now, and for ever.”
And immediately a gleam of light fell upon the window-sill where the false kinsman had been listening; and the brother and sister came out, she leaning closely on his arm. They took the other direction, to the spy’s intense relief; but the last words he heard inflicted torture upon him as the two passed out of sight and hearing; they were these: “Arthur Arden loves you, Clare.”