CHAPTER XIII
Well! He had listened—he had disgraced himself—he was humbled in his own eyes, and would be lost in Clare’s, should she ever find it out. And what had he made by it? He had discovered that Edgar had discovered something, which Clare would fain have destroyed—something which evidently affected them both deeply, and to which they gave a probably exaggerated importance. That was all. Whether it was anything that could affect himself he had not found out—not a word had been said to throw any light upon the mystery. The two knew what it was themselves, and they did not stop in their conversation to give any description of it for the benefit of the listener. Such things are done only by people on the stage. The eavesdropper in this case was none the wiser. He was much excited by the allusions he had heard. His faculties were all wound up to observe and note everything. But his knowledge of the world made him incredulous. After the first thrill of excitement—after the intense apprehension and shame with which he watched them disappear into the night, when he began seriously to think the matter over, he did not find in it, it must be said, any encouragement to his hopes. Arthur Arden knew the definite suspicion which all the circumstances of Edgar’s life had raised in many minds, and at a very recent time he had seriously nourished a hope of himself finding among the Squire’s papers something which should brand the Squire’s heir with illegitimacy, and prove that he was no Arden at all, though the offspring of Squire Arden’s wife. Only the other day he had entertained this thought. But now, when it would seem that some such papers had been found, the futility of it struck him as nothing had ever done before. A posthumous accusation would have no effect, he saw, upon the law. Squire Arden had never disowned Edgar. He had given him his name, and acknowledged him as his son, and no stigma that he could put upon him, now he was dead, could counteract that acknowledgment. He smiled bitterly to think that he himself could have been so very credulous as to believe it would; and he smiled still more bitterly at the perturbation of these two young people, and how soon Mr. Fazakerly would set their fears at rest. As soon as they had disappeared, he stepped boldly into the library by the open window, and examined the place to see if perchance any relics were left about, of which he could judge for himself; but there was nothing left about. And he had nothing for it but to leave the library, and retire to the drawing-room, of which for most of the evening he had been the solitary inmate. Some time after the sound of windows closing, of steps softly ascending the stairs, made it apparent that Edgar and Clare had come in, and finally separated for the night; though nobody appeared to disturb his solitude, except Wilkins, who came in and yawned, and pretended to look if the lamps wanted trimming. But even when he retired to his room it seemed to Arthur that he still heard stealthy steps about the house and whispering voices. Disturbance was in the very air. The wind rose in the night, and moaned and shivered among the trees. There was a shutter somewhere, or an open door, which clanged all through the night. This, and his suspicions and doubts, broke Arthur’s sleep; and yet it was he who slept most soundly that night of all who bore his name.
In the morning, they all met at breakfast as on ordinary occasions. Clare was so pale that no doubt could be thrown upon her illness of the preceding day. She was as white as marble, and her great blue eyes seemed enlarged and dilated, and shone with a wistful, tearful light, profoundly unlike their ordinary calm. And her brother, too, was very pale. He was carefully dressed, spoke very little, and had the air of a man so absorbed in his thoughts as to be partially unaware what was going on around him. But Clare let nothing escape. She watched her cousin; she watched the servants; she watched Edgar’s lips, as it were, lest any incautious word might escape them. When he spoke, she hurried to interrupt him, repeating or suggesting what he was about to say. And Arthur watched too with scrutiny scarcely less keen. He might have taken it all for a fit of temper on her part had he not heard their conversation last night. But now, though he felt sure no results would follow which could affect him personally, his whole being was roused—he was ready to catch the meaning out of any indication, however slight.
It had been late before either the brother or sister appeared, to the great dismay of Wilkins, who made many apologies to the neglected guest. “I don’t know what’s come over them. I don’t indeed, sir,” Wilkins had said, with lively disapproval in his tone. And the consequence was that it was nearly eleven before breakfast—a mere pretence to both Edgar and Clare, though their kinsman’s appetite was not seriously affected—was over. Then Edgar rose from his chair, looking, if possible, paler than ever, intensely grave and self-restrained. “I think I may go now,” he said to Clare; “it is not too early. I should be glad to have it over.”
“Let me speak to you first,” said Clare, looking at him with eyes that grew bigger and bigger in their intense supplication. “Edgar, before you go, and– Let me speak to you first–”
“No,” he said with a faint smile. “I am not going to put myself to that test again. I know how hard it is to resist you. No, no.”
“Just five minutes!” cried Clare. She ran out into the hall after him; and Arthur, full of curiosity, rose too, and followed to the open door of the dining-room. She took her brother’s arm, put her face close to his ear, pleaded with him in a voice so low that Arthur could make out nothing but many repetitions of the one word, “Wait;” to which Edgar answered only by a shake of the head or tender melancholy look at her. This went on till his horse was brought to the door. “No,” he said, “no, dear; no, no,” smiling upon her with a smile more touching than tears; and then he stooped and kissed her forehead. “For the last time,” he said softly in her ear, “I will not venture to do this when I come back.” It was a farewell—one of those first farewells which are almost more poignant than the last—when imagination has fully seized the misery to come, and dwells upon it, inflicting a thousand partings. Arthur Arden, standing at the door behind, with his hands in his pockets, could not hear these words; but he saw the sentiment of the scene, and was filled with wonder. What did it mean? Was he going to run away, the fool, because he had discovered that his mother had not been immaculate? What harm would that do him—fantastic-romantic paladin? So sure was Arthur now that it could not do any legal harm that he was angry with this idiotic, unnecessary display. He could be none the better for it—nobody could be any the better for it. Why, then, should the Squire’s legal son and unquestionable heir make this ridiculous fuss? It roused a suppressed rage in Arthur Arden’s breast.
And Clare, seeing him watch, came back to the dining-room as her brother rode away from the door. She restrained the despair that was creeping over her, and came back to defy her kinsman. Though, what was the good of defying him, when so soon, so very soon, there would be nothing to conceal? She went back, however, restraining herself—meeting his eyes of wonder with a blank look of resistance to all inquiry. “Has Edgar gone off on a journey?” Arthur asked, with well-affected simplicity. “How strange he should have said nothing about it! Where has he gone?”
“He has not gone on a journey,” said Clare.
“I beg your pardon—your parting was so touching. I wish there was somebody to be as sorry for me; but I might go to Siberia, and I don’t think anyone would care.”
“That is unfortunate,” said Clare. She was very defiant, anxious to try her strength. For once more, even though all should be known this very day, she would stand up for her brother—her brother! “But don’t you think, Mr. Arden,” she said abruptly, “that such things depend very much on one’s self? If
you
are not sorry to part with any one, it is natural that people should not interest themselves about you.”
“I wonder if the reverse holds,” said Arthur; and then he paused, and made a rapid, very rapid review of the situation. If this was a mere fantastical distress, as he believed, Clare had Old Arden and (independent of feeling, which, in his circumstances, he was compelled to leave out of the transaction) was of all people in the world the most suitable for him; and if there was anything in it, it was he who was the heir, and in such a case he could make no match which would so conciliate the county and reconcile him with the general public. His final survey was made, his conclusion come to in the twinkling of an eye. He drew a chair near the one on which she had listlessly thrown herself. “I wonder,” he repeated, softly, “if the reverse holds?—when one loves dearly, has one always a light to hope for some kind feeling in return?—if not love, at least compassion and pity, or regret?”
“I do not know what you are talking of,” said Clare, wearily. “I don’t think I am equal to discussion to-day.”
“Not discussion,” he said, very gently. “Would you try and listen and realise what I am talking about, Clare? It seems the worst moment I could have chosen. You are anxious and disturbed about something–”
“No,” she said, abruptly; “you are mistaken, Mr. Arden”—and then with equal suddenness she broke down, and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, yes, yes, I am anxious and full of trouble—full of trouble! Oh, if you were a man I could trust in, that I dared talk freely to– But you will know it soon enough.”
It was a moment at which everything must be risked. “What if I knew it—or, at least, what if I guessed it already?” said Arthur, bending over her. “Ah, Clare, how surprised you look! You were too innocent to know; but there are many people who have known that there was a danger hanging over Edgar. You don’t suppose your father’s conduct to him could have been noticed by everybody without there being some suspicion of the cause?”
Clare raised her face, quite bloodless and haggard, from her hands. She looked at him with a look of awe and fear. “Then you knew it!” she said, the words scarcely able to form themselves on her lips.
“Yes,” said Arthur; “and for your consolation, Clare—though it should be the reverse of consolation to me—I do not think he should fear. Such things as these are very difficult to prove. The Squire never said a word in his lifetime. I don’t know if any court of law would allow your brother to prove his own illegitimacy—I don’t think they would. He has no right to bring shame on his mother–”
“What do you mean?” said Clare, looking at him suddenly with a certain watchfulness rising in her eyes.
“I am entering on a subject I ought not to have entered upon,” he said. “Forgive me; it was only because I wanted to tell you that I don’t think Edgar has any just cause for fear. If you would only trust me, dearest Clare. I should ask your pardon for saying that, too—but though you should never think of me, never speak to me again, you are still my dearest. Clare, you sent me away, and I could not tell why. Don’t send me away now. I am a poor beggar, and you are a rich lady, and yet I love you so well that I must tell you, whatever your opinion of me may be. Couldn’t you trust me? Couldn’t you let me help you? You think I would be Edgar’s enemy, but I would not. He should have everything else if he left me you.”
She looked up at him with a movement of wonder. Her eyes interrogated him over and over. He had wounded her so much and so often—about Jeanie—about the Pimpernels—about– And yet, if he really meant it—could it be possible that he was willing to leave Edgar everything, to give him no trouble, if only she–? Was it a bargain she was going to make? Ah, poor Clare! She thought so—she thought her impulse was to buy her brother’s safety with her own, but at the same moment her heart was fluttering, beating loud, panting to be given to him whom she loved best. And yet she loved Edgar. To her own consciousness it was her brother she was thinking most of now—and what a comfort it would be thus to purchase Arthur’s promise not to harm him, and to trust everything to Arthur! She wavered for an instant, with her mind full of longing. Then her heart misgave her. She had allowed him to take her hands in his, and to kiss them; while she looked him in the face, with eyes full of dumb inquiry and longing, asking him over and over again was this true?
“Stop, stop,” she said faintly; “if it was my own secret I would trust you—if it was only me– Oh, stop, stop! If you will say the same to-morrow—when he has told you—then I will– Oh, if I can survive it, if I am able to say anything! Cousin Arthur, I am worn out; let me go now.”
“It is hard to let you go,” he said. “But, Clare, tell me again—if I say the same to-morrow, after he has told me—you will–? Is that a promise? You will listen to me—you will give me what I desire most in the world—is it a promise, Clare?”
“Let me go,” she said. “Oh, this is not a time to speak of—of our own happiness, or our own concerns.”
“Thanks for such words—thanks, thanks,” he cried, “I ask no more. To-morrow—it is a bargain, Clare.”
And thus she made her escape, half glad, half shocked that she could think of anything but Edgar, and not half knowing what she had pledged herself to. Neither did Arthur Arden know to what he had pledged himself.
CHAPTER XIV
Edgar rode over the verdant country, wearily, languidly, with a heart that for once was closed to its influence. He was tired of the whole matter. It no longer seemed to him so dreadful a thing to give up Arden, to part from all he cared for. If he could but be done with the pain of it, get it over, have no more trouble. Agitation had worn him out. The thought that he would have another day like yesterday to live through, or perhaps more than one other day, filled his heart with a sick impatience. Why could he not ride on to the nearest railway station, and there take any train, going anywhere, and escape from the whole business? The mere suggestion of this relief was so sweet to him that he actually paused at the cross road which led to the railway. But he was not the kind of man to make an escape. To leave the burthen on others and save himself was the last thing he was likely to do. He touched his horse unconsciously with his whip and broke into a gay canter on the grassy border of the road that led to Thorne. Coraggio! he cried to himself. It would not last so long after all. He would leave no broken bits of duty undone, no ragged edges to his past. A little pain more or less, what did it matter? Honestly and dutifully everything must be done; and, after all, the shame was not his. It was the honest part that was his—the righting of wrong, the abolition of injustice. Strange that it should be he, a stranger to the race, who had to do justice to the Ardens! He was not one of them, and yet he had to act as their head, royally making restitution, disposing of their destinies. He smiled a painful smile as this thought crossed his mind. They were one of the proudest families in England, and yet it fell to a nameless man, a man most likely of no lineage at all, to set them right. If any forlorn consolation was to be got out of it at all it was this.
When Edgar was seen riding up the avenue at Thorne it made a commotion in the house. Mary and Beatrice spied him from the window of the room which had been their schoolroom, and where they still did their practising and wrote their letters to their dearest friends. “Oh, there is Edgar Arden coming to propose to Gussy!” cried Beatrice; and they rushed to the window to have a look at him, and then rushed to the drawing-room to warn the family. “Oh, mamma, oh, Gussy! here’s Edgar Arden!” they cried. Lady Augusta looked up from her accounts with composed looks. “Well, my dear children, I suppose none of us are much surprised,” she said. Gussy, for her part, grew red with a warm glow of rosy colour which suffused her throat and her forehead. “Poor, dear boy!” she said to herself. He had not lost a moment. It was a little past noon, not time for callers yet. He had not lost a moment. She wondered within herself how it would come—if he would ask her to speak to him alone in a formal way—if he would ask her mother—if he would manage it as if by chance? And then what would he say? That question, always so captivating to a girl’s imagination, was soon, very soon, to be resolved. He would tell her he had loved her ever since he knew her—he would tell her– Gussy’s heart expanded and fluttered like a bird. She would know so soon all about it; how much he cared for her—everything he had to tell.
But they were all shocked by his paleness when he came in. “What have you been doing to yourself?” Gussy cried, who was the most impulsive. “Have you been ill, Mr. Arden?” said sympathetic Ada. They were all ready to gather about him like his sisters, to be sorry for him, and adopt all his grievances, if he had any, with effusion. He felt himself for the moment the centre of all their sympathies, and his hurt felt deeper and more hopeless than it had ever done before.
“I am not in the least ill,” he said, “and I have not been doing anything to speak of; but Fortune has been doing something to me. Lady Augusta, might I have half an hour’s talk with you, if it does not disturb you? I have—something to say–”
“Surely,” said Lady Augusta; and she closed her account-books and put them back into her desk. He meant to take the formal way of doing it, she supposed—a way not so usual as it used to be, but still very becoming and respectful to the fathers and mothers. She hesitated, however, a little, for she thought that most likely Gussy would like the other method best. And she was not so much struck as her daughters were by the change in his looks. Of course, he was a little excited—men always are in such an emergency, more so than women, Lady Augusta reflected; for when it comes to that a woman has made up her mind what is to be the end of it, whereas the man never knows. These reflections passed through her mind as she locked her desk upon the account-books, thus giving him a little time to get by Gussy’s side if he preferred that, and perhaps whisper something in her ear.
But Edgar made no attempt to get by Gussy’s side. He stood where he had stopped after shaking hands with them all, with a faint smile on his face, answering the questions the girls put to him, but visibly waiting till their mother was ready to give him the audience he had asked. “I suppose I must go and put him out of his pain; how anxious he looks, the foolish boy,” Lady Augusta whispered, as she rose, to her eldest daughter. “Mamma, he looks as if he had something on his mind,” Ada whispered back. “I know what he has on his mind,” said her mother gaily. And then she turned round and added aloud, “Come, Mr. Arden, to my little room where I scold my naughty children, and let us have our talk.”
The sisters, it must be said, were a little alarmed when Edgar was thus led away. They came round Gussy and kissed her, and whispered courage. As for the giddy young ones, they tried to laugh, though the solemnity of the occasion was greater than they could have supposed possible. But the others had no inclination to laugh. “It is only agitation, dear, not knowing what your answer may be,” Ada said, though she did not feel any confidence that it was so. “He should not have made so formal an affair of it,” said Helena; “That is what makes him look so grave.” Poor Gussy, who was the most deeply concerned of all, cried. “I am sure there is something the matter,” she said. The three eldest kept together in a window, while Mary and Beatrice roved away in quest of some amusement to fill up the time. And a thrill of suspense and excitement seemed to creep over all the house.
Edgar’s courage came back to him in some degree, as he entered Lady Augusta’s little boudoir. Imagination had no longer anything to do with it, the moment for action had come. He sat down by her in the dainty little chamber, which was hung with portraits of all her children. Just opposite was a pretty sketch of Gussy, looking down upon him with laughing eyes. They were all there in the mother’s private sanctuary, the girls who were her consolation, the boys who were her plague and her delight. What a centre it was of family cares and anxieties! She turned to him cheerfully as she took her chair. She was not in the least afraid of what was coming. She had not even remarked as yet how much agitated he was. “Well, Mr. Arden!” she said.
“I have come to make a very strange confession to you,” said Edgar. “You will think I am mad, but I am not mad. Lady Augusta, I meant to have come to-day to ask you– to ask if I might ask your daughter to be my wife.”
“Gussy?” said Lady Augusta, with the tears coming to her eyes. There was something in his tone which she did not understand, but still his last words were plain enough. “Mr. Arden, I don’t know what my child’s feelings are,” she said; “but if Gussy is pleased I should be more than content.”
“Oh, stop, stop,” he said. “Don’t think I want you to commit yourself—to say anything. Something has happened since then which has torn my life in two—I cannot express it otherwise. I parted from you happy in the thought that as Arden was so near and everybody so kind– But in the meantime I have made a dreadful discovery. Lady Augusta, I am not Edgar Arden; I am an impostor—not willingly, God knows, not willingly–”
“Mr. Arden,” Lady Augusta said, loudly, in her consternation, “you are dreaming—you are out of your mind. What do you mean?”
“I said you would think I was mad. It looks like madness, does not it?” said Edgar, with a smile, “but, unhappily, it is true. You remember how my father—I mean Mr. Arden—always treated me?—how he kept me away from home? I was not treated as his son ought to have been. I have never said a word on the subject, because I never doubted he was my father—but I have the explanation now.”
“Good God!” said Lady Augusta; she was so horror-stricken that she panted for breath. But she too put upon the news the interpretation which Arthur Arden put upon it. “Oh, Mr. Arden!” she cried, “don’t be so ready to decide against your poor mother! A jealous man takes things into his head which are mere madness. I knew her. I am sure she was not a wicked woman. I am a mother myself, and why should I hesitate to speak to you? Oh, my dear boy, don’t condemn your mother! Your father was a proud suspicious man, and he might doubt her without cause. I believe he doubted her without cause. What you have discovered must be some ravings of jealousy. I would not believe it. I would not, whatever he may say!”
And she put out her hand to him eagerly in her sympathy and indignation. Edgar took it in his, and kissed the kind, warm, motherly hand.
“Dear Lady Augusta,” he said, “how good you are! It is easier to tell you now. There is no stigma upo