Squire Arden; volume 1 of 3

“Not only your namesake,” said Lord Newmarch, in his thin voice, much to Mrs. Buxton’s disgust. The young lord was very philosophical, and full to overflowing with questions of political importance, and the progress of the world, and all the knowledge of the nineteenth century; but still he was patrician born, and could not resist a genealogical question. “Not only your namesake. He is old Arthur Arden’s son, who was your father’s first cousin. He is the nearest relative you have except your sister; and, as long as you don’t have sons of your own, he is the next heir.”

“Ah!” said Edgar, as if he had sustained a blow. He could not explain how it was that he received the information thus. Why should he object to Arthur Arden, or be anything but pleased to see the next in the succession—the man who, of all the men in the world, should be most interesting to him? “The same blood runs in our veins,” he tried to say to himself, and gazed down curiously at the end of the table, raising thereby a little pleasurable excitement in the bosom of Mrs. Molyneaux, who sat opposite to him. “He is struck with my Mary,” the mother thought; and Edgar was so good a match that it was no wonder she was moved a little. Fortunately, Mary knew nothing about it, but sat by the other Arden, and chattered as much as Gussy Thornleigh had done, and could not help thinking what a pity it was so handsome a man, and one so like the family, should not be the true heir. “I have been over Arden Hall, and you are so like the portraits,” Mary Molyneaux was saying at that very moment, while Lord Newmarch explained who her companion was to Edgar. “The present Mr. Arden is not a bit like them. I can’t help feeling as if you must be the rightful Squire.”

“I have got only the complexion, and not the lands,” said Mr. Arthur Arden. “It is a poor exchange. And this is the first time I ever saw my cousin. He does not know me from Adam. We are not a very friendly race; but I know Clare.”

“Oh, Miss Arden? Don’t you think she is quite beautiful—but awfully proud?” said the girl. “She will not know the Pimpernels; though all the best people have called on them, she will never call. Don’t you think it is horrid for a girl to be so proud?”

“She has the family spirit,” said her kinsman, with a look which Mary, in her innocence, did not comprehend. The talk at the table at Thorne was more amusing, but perhaps there was a deeper interest in what was then going on at the Red House.

CHAPTER XV

It was impossible for Edgar not to look with interest upon this other Arden, who was so like his family, so like his own sister, with the very same air about him which the portraits had, and in which the young man felt he was himself so strangely wanting. Perhaps if Gussy Thornleigh had been by his side, or even that pretty Miss Molyneaux, who was entertaining his unknown relation, his eyes and thoughts would not have been so persistently drawn that way. But between Alice Pimpernel, who said, “Oh no, Mr. Arden,” and “Oh yes, Mr. Arden,” and Mrs. Buxton, who was collecting the pearls which dropped from the lips of Lord Newmarch, the dinner was not lively to him; and he caught from the other end of the table tones of that voice which somehow sounded familiar, and turns of the head full of that vague family resemblance which goes so far in a race, and which recalled to him not only his sister whom he loved, but his father whom he did not love. How strange it was that he should have been so entirely passed over amid all those family links that bound the others together! It proves, Edgar said to himself, that it is not blood that does it, but only association, education, the impressions made upon the mind at its most susceptible age. He reasoned thus with himself, but did not find the reasoning quite satisfactory, and could not but feel a mingled attraction and repulsion to the stranger who was his nearest relation, his successor if he died, and surely ought to be his friend while he lived. When the ladies left the room, and the others drew closer round the table, he could no longer resist the impulse that moved him. It was true that Clare had expressed anything but friendly feelings for this unknown cousin; but anyhow, were he bad or good, it was Edgar’s duty, as the chief of the family, to know its branches. It did not seem to him even that it was right or natural to ask for any introduction. After a little hesitation he changed his place, and took the chair by Arthur Arden’s side. “They tell me you are of my family,” he said, “and your face makes me sure of it—in which case, I suppose, we are each other’s nearest relations, at least on the Arden side.”

The landless cousin paused for a moment before he replied to the young Squire. He looked him all over with something which might have seemed insolence had Edgar’s nature led him to expect evil. “I suppose, of course, you are my cousin the Squire,” he said, carelessly, “though I certainly should never have made you out to be an Arden by your face.”

“No; I am like my mother they tell me,” said Edgar; but for the first time in his life he reddened at that long understood and acknowledged fact. There was nothing said that insulted him, but there was an inference which he did not understand, which yet penetrated him like a dagger. It was unendurable, though he had no comprehension what it meant.

“I never knew rightly who Mrs. Arden was,” said Arthur; “a foreigner, I believe, or at least a stranger to the county. I don’t think I should like my eldest son to be so unlike me if I were a married man.”

“Mr. Arden, I don’t pretend to understand your meaning; but if you wish to be offensive perhaps our acquaintance had better end at once,” said Edgar, “I have no desire to quarrel with my heir.”

Another pause followed, during which the dark countenance of the other Arden fluctuated for a moment between darkness and light. Then it suddenly brightened all over with that smile for which the Ardens were famous. “Your heir!” he said. “You are half a lifetime younger than I am, and much more likely to be my heir—if I had anything to leave. And I don’t want to be offensive. I am a bitter beggar; I can’t help myself. If you were as poor as I am, and saw a healthy boy cutting you out of everything—land, money, consideration, life–”

“Don’t say so,” cried open-hearted Edgar, forgetting his offence; “on the contrary, if I can do anything to make life more tolerable—more agreeable– I am just as likely to die as any one,” he continued, with a half comic sense that this must be consolatory to his new acquaintance; “and I have my sister to think of, who in that case would want a friend. Why should not we be of mutual use to each other? I now; you perhaps hereafter–”

“By Jove!” cried the other, looking at him keenly. And then he drank off a large glass of claret, as if he required the strength it would give. “You are the strangest fellow I ever met.”

“I don’t think so,” said Edgar, laughing. “Nothing so remarkable; but I hope we shall know each other better before long. There is not much attraction just now in the country, but in September, if you will come to Arden–”

“Do you know Miss Arden can’t bear me?” said his new friend.

“Can’t bear you!” Edgar faltered as he spoke—for as soon as his unwary lips had uttered the invitation he remembered what Clare had said.

“Yes; your sister hates me,” said Arthur Arden. “I cannot tell why, I am sure. I suppose because my father and yours fought like cat and dog—or like near relations if you choose, which answers quite as well. I am not at all sure that he did not send you abroad to be out of our way. He believed us capable of poisoning you—or—any other atrocity,” he added, with a little harsh laugh.

“And are you?” said Edgar, laughing too, though with no great heart.

“I don’t think I shall try,” said his new kinsman. “My father is dead, and one is less courageous than two. By Jove! just think what a difference it would make. Here am I, a poor wretch, living from hand to mouth, not knowing one year where my next year’s living is to come from, or sometimes where my next dinner is to come from, for that matter. If ever one man had an inducement to hate another, you may imagine it is I.”

This grim talk was not amusing to Edgar, as may be supposed; but, as his companion spoke with perfect composure, he received it with equal calm, though not without a secret shudder in his heart. “I think we might arrange better than that,” he said. “We have time to talk it over later; but, in my opinion, the head of a family has duties. It sounds almost impertinent to call myself the head of the family to you, who are older, and probably know much more about it; but–”

“You are so,” said Arthur Arden, “and fact is incapable of impertinence. Talking of the country having no attractions, I should rather like to try a June at Arden. I suppose you bucolics think that the best of the year, don’t you? roses, and all that sort of thing. And I happen to have heaps of invitations for September, and not much appetite for town at the present moment. If it suits you, and your sister Clare does not object too strenuously, I’ll go with you now.”

This sudden and unexpected acceptance of his invitation filled Edgar with dismay. September was a totally different affair. In September there would be various visitors, and one individual whom she disliked need not be oppressive to Clare. But now, while they were alone, and while yet all the novelty of his situation was fresh upon Edgar, nothing, he felt, could be more inappropriate. Arthur Arden swayed himself upon his chair, leaving one arm over the back, with careless ease, while his cousin, suddenly brought to a stand-still, tried to collect himself, and decide what it was best to do. “Ah, I see,” Arthur said, after a pause, still with the same carelessness, “I bore you. You were not prepared for anything so prompt on my part; and Madam Clare–”

“I cannot allow my sister’s name to be mentioned,” cried Edgar angrily, “except with respect.”

“Good heavens, how could I name her with greater respect? If I said Madam Arden, which is the proper traditionary title, you would think I meant your grandmother. I say Madam Clare, because my cousin is the lady of the parish: I will say Queen Clare, if you please: it comes to about the same thing in our family, as I suppose you know.”

“As I suppose you don’t know,” was in this arrogant Arden’s tone; but it was lost upon Edgar, whose mind was busy about the problem how he could manage between Arthur’s necessities and Clare’s dislike. The party was in motion by this time to join the ladies, and Lord Newmarch came up to the two Ardens in the momentary breaking up.

“I want very much to see more of you,” he said, addressing himself to Edgar. “I see you two cousins have made acquaintance, so I need not volunteer my services; but I am very anxious to see more of you. I daresay there are many things in the county and in the country which you will find a little puzzling after living so long abroad; and I hope to get a great deal of information from you about Continental politics. My father is in town, so I cannot ask you to Marchfield, as I should like to do; indeed, I am only off duty for a week on account of this great social assembly in Liverpool. How shall I manage to see a little of you? I go back to Liverpool with the Buxtons to-night.”

“I cannot promise to go to Liverpool,” said Edgar; “but if you could come to us at Arden–”

“That would be the very thing,” said the young politician, “the very thing. I could spare you from the 1st to the 5th. I must be back in town before the 7th for the Irish debate. My father has Irish property, and of course we poor slaves have to come up to the scratch; though, as for justice to Ireland, you know, Arden–”

“I fear I don’t know much about it; shall we join the ladies?” said Edgar, a little confused by finding his hospitality so readily embraced.

“I shall be very happy to give you the benefit of my experience,” said Lord Newmarch; “there are some things on which it is necessary a young landed proprietor should have an opinion of his own. Yes, by all means, let us go upstairs. There is a great deal in the present state of the country that I should be glad to talk to you about. We have become frightfully empirical of late; whether the Government is Whig or whether it is Tory, it seems a condition of existence that it should try experiments upon the people; we are always meddling with one thing or another—state of the representation—education—management of the poor–”

Such were the words that came to Arthur Arden’s ears as his cousin disappeared out of the dining-room under the wing of Lord Newmarch, being preached to all the way. The kinsman, who was a fashionable vagabond, looked after them with a smile which very much resembled a sneer. “Thank heaven, I am nobody,” he said to himself, half aloud. He was the last in the room, and no one cared whether he appeared late or early in Mrs. Pimpernel’s fine drawing-room; no one except, perhaps, one or two young ladies, who thought “poor Mr. Arden” very handsome and agreeable, but knew he was a man who could never be married, and must not even be flirted with overmuch. If he was bitter at such moments, it was not much to be wondered at. He was more mature, and much better able to give an opinion than Edgar, better educated, perhaps a more able man by nature; but Edgar had the family acres, and therefore it was to him that the politician addressed himself, and whom everybody distinguished. Arthur Arden persuaded himself, as he went his way after the others to the drawing-room, that it was almost a good bargain to be quit of Lord Newmarch and his tribe, even at the price of being quit of land and living at the same time; but the attempt was rather a failure. He would have appreciated political power, which Edgar was too ignorant to care for; he would have appreciated money, which Edgar evidently meant to throw away, in his capacity of head of the family, on poor relations and other unnecessary adjuncts. What a strange mistake of Providence it was! “He would have made a capital shopkeeper, or clerk, or something,” the elder Arden said to himself, “whereas I–; but, at all events, we shall see what effect his proceedings will have upon saucy Clare.”

CHAPTER XVI

It would be difficult to imagine anything more uncomfortable than were Edgar’s feelings as he drove home that evening. He had tried with much simplicity to avoid his kinsman Arden, thinking, in his inexperience, that if he did not repeat his invitation, or if no further conversation took place between them as to that visit in June, that the other would take it for granted, as he himself would have been quick to do, that such a visit was undesirable. Edgar, however, had reckoned without his guest, who was not a man to let any such trifling scruples stand in the way of his personal comfort. He was on the lawn with some of the other gentlemen when Edgar got into his dogcart, and shouted to him quickly, “I shall see you in a few days,” as he drove past. Here was a pleasant piece of news to take back to Clare. And Lord Newmarch was coming, who, though a stranger to himself, was none to his sister, and might possibly be, for anything Edgar knew, as distasteful to her as Arthur Arden himself. He laughed at his own discomfiture, but still was discomfited; for indifference to the feelings of anybody connected with him was an impossibility to the young man. “Of course, I am master, as people say,” he suggested to himself, with the most whimsical sense of the absurdity of such a notion. Master—in order to please other people. Such was the natural meaning of the term according to all the laws of interpretation known to him. It was Clare who was queen at the present moment of her brother’s heart and household; but even if there had been no Clare, Edgar would still have been trying to please somebody—to defer his own wishes to another’s pleasure, by instinct, as nature compelled him. It is a disposition which gives its possessor a great deal of trouble, but at least it is not a common one. And the curious thing was that he did not blame Arthur Arden for pushing his society upon him, as anybody else would have done. It was weakness on his own part, not selfishness on that of his kinsman. Had he been driven to reason on the subject, Edgar would have indeed manifested to you clearly how his own yielding temper was the greatest of sins, as tempting others to be selfish. “Of course it is my own fault” had been his theory all his life.

But he was very uncomfortable about it in this case. Up to this time, when he had been injudiciously amiable he alone had been the sufferer; but now it was Clare who must bear the brunt. When he reached the village he threw the reins to the groom, and jumped out of the dogcart. “If Miss Arden is downstairs let her know that I have gone for an hour’s chat to Dr. Somers’,” he said; and so started on, with his cigar, in the moonlight, feeling the stillness and solitude a relief to him. How free his old life had been! and yet he had felt himself wronged and injured to be left in enjoyment of so much freedom. Now he was hampered enough, surrounded by duties and responsibilities which he understood but dimly, with one of those terrible domestic critics by his side who had the power which only love has to wound him, and who subjected him to that terrible standard of family perfection which in his youth he had known nothing of, and the rules of which even now he did not recognise. Edgar sighed, and took his cigar from his lips, and looked at it as if he expected the kind spirit of that soothing plant to step forth and counsel him; but receiving no revelation, sighed and put it back again, and thrust his hands into his pockets, and passed along the silent village street with his disturbed thoughts. All was silent in Arden: the doors closed which stood open all day long, and only here and there a faint light twinkling. One in John Horsfall’s cottage, in the little room where Lizzie, his eldest daughter, was dying of consumption; one in old Simon the clerk’s window, downstairs, where his harsh-tempered but conscientious Sally was busy with the needlework which she did, as all Arden knew, “for the shop.” “The shop” meant a certain famous place for baby-linen in Liverpool, which demanded exquisite work—and Sally alone of all the neighbourhood was honoured with its commissions. In her aunt Sarah’s cottage, next door, the upper window showed a faint illumination, and stood open. These were all the signs of life which were visible in Arden. The old people, and the hard-working out-door people who began the day at five in the morning, were all safe in bed, enjoying their well-won repose. The moon was shining brightly, with all the soft splendour of the summer—shining over Arden woods, which looked black under her silver, and making the little street, with its white lines of broken pavement before each door, as bright as day. Edgar’s footsteps rang upon the stones as he crossed those little strips of white one by one. The sound broke the silent awe and mystery of the night, and with his usual sympathetic feeling he did his best to restrain it. He had thrown away his cigar, and had taken off his hat to refresh himself with the cool sweet air, when he heard a cry from the window above. It was the window of old Sarah’s Scotch lodger. He looked up eagerly, for her aspect had awakened some curiosity in his mind. But what he saw was a little white figure leaning out so far that its balance seemed doubtful, spreading out its hands, he thought, towards himself as he stood looking up. “My Willie! my Willie!” cried the voice; “is it you at last? Oh, he’s here, he’s here, whatever you may say. Willie! Willie! How could he rest in his grave, and me pining here?”

Edgar rushed forward in the wildest alarm. The little creature leaned over the window-sill, with arms stretched out, and hair streaming about her, till he felt that any moment she might be dashed upon the pavement below. The cry of “Willie!” rang into the stillness with a wild sweetness which went to the listener’s heart. It sounded like the very voice of despair. “Take care, for God’s sake,” he cried, instinctively rushing into the little garden below the window and holding out his arms to catch her should she fall. Just then, however, she was caught from behind. The grandmother’s face looked suddenly out, ghastly pale and stern in its emotion. “I have her safe, sir, thanks to you,” said the serious Scotch voice, every word of which sounded to Edgar like a chord in music full of a hundred mingled modulations. “Willie, my Willie!” cried the younger voice, rising wilder and shriller; and then there followed a momentary rustle, as of a slight struggle, and then the sharp decisive closing of the window. He could see nothing more. But it was not possible to pass on calmly after such an incident. After a moment’s indecision, Edgar tapped lightly at old Sarah’s window, which was dark. The sounds upstairs died into a distant murmur of voices, and downstairs all was still. Old Sarah, if she heard, took no notice of his summons; but young Sarah, her niece, who was working in the next cottage, roused herself and came to the door. “It’s best to take no notice, sir, if you’ll take my advice,” said Sally, with a piece of white muslin wrapped round her arm, which shone in the moonlight. “It’s nought but the mad lass next door.”

“Mad! is she mad?” said Edgar eagerly.

“Poor lass! they do say as it’s a brother; but I don’t hold for making all that fuss about brothers,” said Sally. “T’ou’d dame, she’s a proud one, and never says nought she can help; and the poor wench ain’t dangerous or that, but as mad as mad, in special when the moon’s at the full. Don’t you take no notice, sir, for there never was a proud un like t’ou’d dame. T’ poor lass had an only brother as died, and she’s ne’er been hersel’ since. That’s what they say.”

“But she looks like a child,” said Edgar, not knowing what to do; for already complete silence and darkness seemed to have fallen over the cottage. Old Sarah did not wake, or if she waked, kept still and made no sign, and the light had disappeared from the upper window. It was hard to believe, to look at the perfect stillness of the summer night, that any such interruption had ever been.

“She do, Squire,” said Sally; “but seventeen they say, and some thinks her mortal pretty—t’ou’d Doctor for one, as was awful wild in his own time, I’ve heerd say. But Mrs. Murray she watches her like a dragon. It’s t’ou’d lady as is my sort. I don’t hold with prettiness nor fuss, but them as takes that care of their own–”

Sally jumped aside with a sudden cry, as the door of the next house softly opened, and Mrs. Murray herself suddenly appeared. In the moon-light, which blanched even Sally’s dingy complexion, the old woman looked white as death; but probably it was as much an effect of the light as of the scene she had just gone through. She laid her hand very gently, with a certain dignity, upon Edgar’s arm.

“Sir,” she said, “you’ll excuse my poor bairn. Willie was her brother, that we lost a year back. He was lost at sea, and the poor thing looks for him night and day. He was in a Liverpool ship; that’s why we’re here. She took you for him,” the grandmother continued, and then made a pause, as if to recover her voice. Tears were glistening in her eyes. Her voice thrilled and changed even now, it seemed to Edgar, like chords. She touched his arm again with her hand, a soft, yet firm, momentary touch, which was like a caress. And then, all at once, “You’re like him. Good night,” she said.

It was as if she could not trust herself to say more. And Edgar stood gazing at the vacant spot where she had stood, while Sally peered round the porch of her own house, straining to see and hear. “She’s a queer ’un, t’ou’d dame,” said Sally, with a little gasp of disappointed excitement; and she stood at her door with the muslin twisted about her hand, and gazed after him when he went away up the village with a hasty good night. Edgar heard her close and bolt her door as he hurried on to the Doctor’s. Poor rural fastenings, what could they shut out? not even a clever thief, did any such care to enter—much less pain, trouble, sorrow, madness, or death.

Dr. Somers’ study was a great contrast to the splendour and silence of the night. It was lighted by a green reading-lamp, which threw its illumination only on the table, and it was full of smoke from a succession of cigars. The Doctor was seated in a large old-fashioned elbow-chair, with a high back and sides, covered with dark leather, against which his handsome head stood out. On the table stood a silver claret-cup, and a rough brown bottle of seltzer-water—such were his modest potations. He had a medical magazine before him on the table, but it was a novel which was in his hand, and which he pitched away from him as Edgar entered. “Some of Letty’s rubbish,” he explained, as he threw it on the sofa in the shade, and welcomed his young guest. “Bravo, Edgar! Now this is what I call emancipating yourself from petticoat government. These sisters of ours are as bad as half-a-dozen wives.”