Squire Arden; volume 2 of 3

Thus Clare mused: and as the slow moments went on, her musing grew into a kind of rhythm of broken fancies, all bound together by the continued burden—“I said it should not occur again.” It was like a song which she thus murmured to herself, or rather which murmured in her ears without any will of hers, rising and falling, with its refrain—“I said it should not occur again.” At length the refrain gained upon the rest, and repeated and repeated itself till her brain grew dizzy. At all events she had to keep her word—and what should she do? Should she interpose authoritatively, as was her right as the natural protectress of every girl in Arden? Should she write to him herself, and warn him that his evil designs were known, and she, the champion and shield of her maidens, in arms against him? Should she act imperiously and with a high hand, by sending Jeanie and her grandmother out of her territory? She was so used to think as well as act en princesse that neither of those plans seemed quite impracticable to Clare. They were, on the contrary, quite natural, things which had she been less concerned she would not have hesitated to do. But, alas, she was intimately concerned, and her arm seemed paralysed. She gave forth the sentence without hesitation, but as for the manner of executing it, she seemed only capable of thrusting the sword into herself.

Then a sudden thought struck her. As it came to her all at once, so she executed it all at once, with the impatient and irritable haste of suffering. Half the mad things that people do when they are in trouble are done in this way. Their brain grows dizzy over deep-laid plans and long-nursed impossible conceptions, and then a sudden suggestion comes across them and they obey it on the moment. She started up and brought her blotting-book from the writing-desk where it was, to the ring of light round the lamp. And she wrote the following note hastily, without even pausing to draw breath:—

“Dear Mr. Fielding,—I have just heard, to my great pain, that your little friend Jeanie has been annoyed by my cousin Arthur Arden. There are difficulties in the way of my direct interference which I need not explain. One ought to be above all secondary motives, but unfortunately one is not. I do not know who is most to blame, if she has been trying to attract him, thinking, perhaps, he was less experienced in such matters than he is, or if it is entirely his fault. He is staying at the Red House with the Pimpernels, which of itself, of course, is a reason why I do not desire to have more intercourse with him than I can help; and, of course, this affair is a double reason. I do not advise you to communicate with him, for gentlemen, I believe, do not like to be called to account for their actions; but I think you should do something at once in respect to the girl. You might put her on her guard, that he is not at all the sort of man to be made a victim of, or taken in in any way. He must either be simply amusing himself, or his object cannot be a good one. I speak freely, because you know I have always felt that in my position false delicacy would be a crime. I have always considered myself responsible for the girls in the village, and my motive is, I think, quite enough to justify me. I think if I were in your place—not being able to act in my own—that I should have the girl removed at once from Arden. There seems no reason why she and her grandmother should have chosen this place to live in. And there is nothing particular that ever I heard of in Arden air. Any other fresh country air would, no doubt, do quite as well.

“I should be glad if you would let me know what you do, and as soon as possible. Edgar being away makes one feel it all the more.

“Yours affectionately,“Clare Arden.”

Poor Clare! she wrote this at a stretch, scarcely lifting her head from the paper, with a philosophy which surprised herself, and which was not in the least philosophy, but only the very highest strain of excitement. But she could not help hanging up that one little flag of distress at the end—“Edgar being away makes one feel it all the more.” She had not said a word about feeling it till then; but now her head fell upon her clasped hands, and she wept a few very bitter, very scalding tears, hiding them even from herself, so to speak, in the handkerchief which she crushed against her hot, scorched eyes. And then she rose up and put her note in an envelope, and sent it off—for it was only about nine o’clock still, though it felt to Clare as if it must have been the middle of the night.

Immediately after she went upstairs, and went to bed, to the great amazement of her maid, for Clare did not usually keep early hours. She wanted the darkness, the stillness, the quiet, she said to herself; but the fact was, she wanted a change—anything that would be different from what she had been before doing. She could not sleep, of course; and when she had borne that as long as it was possible to bear it, she got up and partially dressed herself, and went down in her dressing-gown to the library, to see if some novelty or distraction could be found there. By this time the whole house was asleep—dark, motionless, and silent, like a house of the dead. Her candle was ghostly beyond description in the great, dim library. It even occurred to Clare’s mind, as a kind of hope, that she might see something unearthly, and thus be driven legitimately mad, and a reason given to herself and others for the change in her, which no doubt others would see. But nothing unearthly was to be seen—nothing but a vast expanse of darkness—her father’s chair standing by the table—the walls clothed with books, glimmering faintly in the corner nearest the light, from out the tarnished brass of the lattice-work which enclosed them. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing but herself—the one thing of which no change could rid her. Clare sat down at the bureau in her misery, and opened it with the key which she had left in it. The little inner door which she had unlocked in the morning, and which now it suddenly occurred to her she had never seen unlocked before, swung in her face as she opened the outer enclosure. In mere sickness of heart she thrust her hand into the corner where that afternoon she had thrown the bundle of letters which had prevented one of the drawers from opening. Indifferently she had thrown it down; indifferently she took it up. One end of it was singed and brown, as if it had been thrown into the fire, and the outside corner was slightly torn, with a black mark on it of something by which it had evidently been fished out again. Somebody’s letters which her father had almost made up his mind to burn, and then had repented. This did her a little good. A languid interest—too languid almost to be called interest—came into her mind—a faint wonder breathed across her why he who burned nothing should have thought of burning that. She turned it over indifferently to read the endorsing. And even after she had read it, it was some time before the words produced any effect upon Clare’s mind. “Papers concerning the boy.” Papers concerning the boy! “Who is the boy? What does it mean? she said to herself. Then she came, as it were, to life, as she gazed at it. Through the broken envelope two or three words caught her eye. She raised herself quite upright, seized it tremulously, and put her hand upon the seals. But even while she did so her mind changed. Instead of breaking open the packet, she snatched up another piece of paper, and hastily re-covered it, then taking her handkerchief, which was the first thing she could find, tied it round the parcel. Then she sat for half the night stupefied, with a new subject for her thoughts.

CHAPTER XVIII

Clare’s proceedings next day were the cause of absolute consternation to everybody concerned. In the morning she was very restless, roaming about from floor to floor—from the library to the dining room, and then to her bed-chamber, carrying with her something tied up in her handkerchief. “Can I carry it for you, Miss Arden?” her maid had asked, meeting her suddenly on the stair. “Carry it! what?” Clare had answered, sharply, dropping her hand, with the little bundle in it, among the folds of her dress. Had it been perceived how often she changed the place in which she had this parcel locked up the wonder of the household would have been still further roused. She had sat up half the night at least doing nothing, staring into the candle; and when finally she went up stairs, she had carried her mysterious bundle with her, placing it under her pillow. When she came down, weary and pale, in the morning, she had carried it to the library, and locked it into the bureau. Then, prompted by some sudden change of mind, she had transferred it from the bureau to a drawer in the writing table in the morning room, where she chiefly sat; then she carried it off to her wardrobe; and, finally, about noon, restored it to its original place in the bureau. She put it back into its own original drawer, which would scarcely contain it—locked the inner door, and hung the key round her neck on a ribbon; and then locking the outer part of the bureau, shut up the key of that in her desk. She was very pale, and yet now and then would grow hot and flushed without any reason. She employed herself all the morning in feverish movement from one place to another. At twelve she called her maid Barbara and told her to make ready to go out. “I am going up to the Three Beeches,” she said; “take something with you to eat, for it may be late before we get home again.” “Shall I take any luncheon for you, Miss Arden?” said the girl, “and shall I order the carriage?” “I don’t want anything to eat, and I prefer to walk,” Clare said abruptly; and, accordingly, at twelve o’clock of a blazing summer morning, she set out for a three miles’ walk, attended by her unwilling maid with a parcel of books. “If any one calls you can say I have gone out for the day,” she said to Wilkins, who was no less amazed. She had not gone a hundred yards from the house when Barbara interrupted her progress. “Please, Miss Arden, I see the Rector coming up the avenue.” “Never mind,” said Clare, with an impatient gesture, and hurried on.

The Rector had come up in a state of great trouble and excitement—first, to remonstrate with Clare for her injurious suspicions in regard to poor little Jeanie; secondly, to warn herself against Arthur Arden; and, thirdly, to ask her advice what he should say to Mrs. Murray on the subject, which was a part of the business which frightened him much. He was not an early man at any time, and Clare’s note had much discomposed him, and the parish business had taken him up for at least an hour. When he was turned back from the door of Arden his astonishment knew no bounds. “Gone out!” he said, “gone out for the day! What is the meaning of that, Wilkins? Has she gone to pay a visit! But I did not meet her in the avenue, and she has not passed through the village this morning, so far as I could hear.”

“No, sir; she has not gone upon a visit,” said Wilkins; “she’s about somewhere in the park, I do believe. Not as I knows that o’ my own knowledge,” he added, hurriedly. “Miss Clare may have gone—bless you, she might have gone anywhere—to Lady Augusta’s, maybe, only they’re all away, or to Miss Somers’s, or to the village. Miss Clare is the independentest young lady, as you know–”

“Yes, yes, she may be independent, but she does not rush out like this without any reason. Has she had any letters about Business—anything to call her abroad–”

“I don’t know, sir, no more than Adam,” said Wilkins, shaking his head; and then he sank into mystery. “If you’ll step in for a moment, sir, I’ll call Mrs. Fillpot. I think she’d like to say a word; and she has a kind of a notion she knows why.”

Mr. Fielding went into the hall, shaking his head, and then he passed into Clare’s morning room, where everything was painfully tidy, and there was no appearance of any occupation about. The Rector shook his head still as he peered into the corners with his short-sighted eyes. “She has taken it to heart; she has taken it to heart!” he said to himself, and shook his head more and more.

Then Mrs. Fillpot came in, with a white apron, the corner of which she held in one hand, ready for instant action. Wilkins lingered near the door, with the view of being one of the party, but the Rector promptly closed it upon him. “You have something to tell me from Miss Clare?” he said; for to be sure he was jealous of being thought to come and ask questions of the servants at the Hall.

“Nothing from Miss Clare, sir; worse luck,” said Mrs. Fillpot; “but I come to tell you what’s to do with her this morning. Mr. Arthur, sir, has been a-coming day after day. He’s been here, has Mr. Arthur, since last Monday, every afternoon of his life; and Miss Clare and he a-sitting in the library, as none of us likes to go in no more nor we can help, a-working with their papers. It’s hurt me to see it, Mr. Fielding, like as if she had been my own child. A young lady and no mother, and the Squire away as should take care of his sister. So I up and told her yesterday. It took a deal of screwing up to give me the courage; but bless you, sir, if a woman hasn’t that courage for one as she’s brought up– So I up and told her. I said—‘It ain’t right, Miss, and it ain’t nice, nor what your poor dear mamma, if she’d have lived, would have approved.’ I said it plain out as I’m saying it to you, though I was all of a tremble. Bless you, thinking of it, I’m all of a tremble now.”

“And what did she say?” asked Mr. Fielding.

“She didn’t say much, sir. Miss Clare was never one to say much. She waved me to go, and I went, without even a ‘Thank you, Mrs. Fillpot,’ or ‘I know you means well,’ nor nothing. But when Barbara came to me this morning asking for a bit of lunch, and saying as her young lady was a-going out to spend the day, bless you, I saw it all in a moment. She didn’t say nothing, but she’s acted upon it, has Miss Clare.”

“And did nothing else happen besides what you tell me?” said Mr. Fielding, still shaking his head.

“Nothing as I can think on. Well, Mr. Arthur he didn’t come yesterday, and Mr. Perfitt he brought a bit of a letter, and he went in and saw her for five minutes or so, did Perfitt; but that’s all.”

“Oh, Perfitt saw her, did he?” said the Rector.

“Yes, sir. But I don’t see what difference that could make,” said Mrs. Fillpot, jealous of her power.

“No, no, I don’t suppose so,” said Mr. Fielding; but in his mind he allowed that it might make a great deal of difference, and went away very thoughtfully, shaking his head. “She has taken it to heart, poor child; she has taken it to heart,” he said to himself as he went home, shaking his head with that mingled pity and sense of superiority which an affectionate bystander feels in such a case. Better that she should suffer a little now than afterwards, when it would be too late, was Mr. Fielding’s thought, and in his aged mind this “suffer a little” was all that was comprehensible of Clare’s passion and agony. She would get over it after a while, of course, and no particular harm would be done. Such was his conception of the state of affairs.

There was, however, another visitor to Arden, whose consternation was still greater. Arthur came at his usual hour in the afternoon, with all his energies refreshed by his temporary absence, and with a determination in his mind to know his fate at once, so far as Clare was concerned. He loved her, he said to himself. It was true that he was quite capable of being momentarily drawn aside from his allegiance, and that his recent pursuit of her had been complicated by other motives. But yet he loved her. If Edgar were unmasked to-morrow, and himself in Edgar’s place, it would still be his cousin Clare whom he would prefer to all others to sit upon his throne with him. And why should he delay speaking to her on the subject? If things remained as they were—which was probable—then she would share what she had with him; and if he could make any discovery and better his own position, why then of course he would share everything with her.

“If you are not the heiress born,And I, he said, the lawful heir,We two will wed to-morrow morn,And you shall still be Lady Clare.”

This rhyme ran in his head as he went up the avenue, with many a softer thought. He had made himself very agreeable to Alice Pimpernel the day before—so much so as to leave little doubt on her mother’s mind as to what would follow “if anything came of that Arden business;” and he had shown an inclination to make himself more than agreeable to Jeanie. But neither of them so much as touched his determination, if it were possible, to wed Clare Arden, whatever might happen. Accordingly, he went with his mind made up to see her, and open his heart. And there was so much natural feeling in the matter that he was more excited by it than he had been for years. Really it was something which he could with justice call his happiness which was involved. It would make the most material difference to him if she refused him. He felt that he might return to the Red House an altered man—either happy and serene, or discouraged beyond all conception. He feared a little, because he was in earnest; but he hoped a great deal more than he feared. These days of uninterrupted intercourse had been much in his favour, he felt. He had done everything he could to gain his cousin’s confidence; he had refrained from love-making in any of its distincter fashions. He had shown himself anxious for her approval, conscious of the improprieties of his past life. In short, he knew he had made progress; and now with a thrill of excitement he came to seek his fate.

“Out!” he said blankly, stricken dumb with amazement, and gazing at Wilkins as if he had been a prodigy; and then he recovered himself. “Ah! out in the garden, I suppose,” he added. “Be so good as to let Miss Arden know that I am here, and ask if I may join her.”

“She is not in the garden,” said Wilkins, with a solemn enjoyment of the other’s disappointment. Arthur Arden was not liked by the servants; and Wilkins lingered over every word by way of tantalising him more. “Miss Arden has gone out, sir, for the day. For the day—them were her very words. ‘Wilkins,’ she says, ‘if any one calls, I have gone out for the day.’ Nothing, sir, could be more exact than Miss Arden was.”

Arthur was so completely taken aback that he stood aghast for a moment gazing at the man who confronted him with the ghost of a smile on his face, blocking up the door. Wilkins stood like one who felt his own supremacy, in an easy attitude upon the threshold, forbidding all comers as effectually as if he had been a squadron of cavalry. “Them were the very words,” he said, rubbing his hands; and Arthur stood below, expelled as it were from Paradise. The catastrophe was so sudden and so unlooked for that he did not in the least know how to meet it. He could not even for the moment hide his own discomfiture and dismay.

“I suppose Miss Arden intends me to go on with my work and await her coming,” he said at length. “I am very sorry to miss her, but I suppose that is what I must do.”

“She didn’t say nothing about it, sir,” said Wilkins; “and what is more, she’s been and locked the library door.”

Then Arthur perceived that things were really going against him. He would not betray himself to the servant’s all-penetrating eyes. “Ah, I suppose something must have happened,” he said, with as light a tone as he could summon up. “Tell Miss Arden I was very sorry to find her gone. I suppose she has changed her mind about the papers. Tell her if she wishes me to go on with them that she must send me word to the Red House. I shall be there for some days longer. I shall pay my respects to her whether I hear from her or not before I leave; but if I am to do any more work ask her to let me know.”

“I’ll give her your message, sir,” said Wilkins, with ill-concealed satisfaction; and then, before he was conscious what it meant, before he could half realise the position, Arthur found himself with his back to the house, making his way once more down the avenue. Could it be possible? Was he dreaming? He was so completely taken by surprise that he had lost all his readiness of reason and promptitude in an emergency. Nothing so overwhelming, so sudden, so mysterious, had ever happened to him before. It was not only a disappointment, it was an insult. Dismissed by a servant; turned away from the door which, it might be, was legally his; sent off without a word of explanation! Arthur paused when he had gone half-way down the avenue to say to himself that he must be dreaming, that he must go back and laugh at the hoax that had been played upon him, and find Clare, in the full satisfaction of a successful trick, laughing too. But then there came in the chill thought that Clare was not at all the sort of person to perform a trick of any kind, and that what she did was generally in deadly earnest, relieved by no practical jokes. His amazement was so profound that he scarcely said a word to himself all the way down. Had she found out anything? Was there anything to find out? His meaning in that raid upon the papers was known to no one but himself. Nobody could say a word against his motives; nobody could be offended with him because he had a zeal for his family. To write a book about them even was a perfectly justifiable, not to say laudable, idea. What could she have had to find fault with? Arthur was as much surprised as dismayed. He went home feeling as if he had been beaten corporeally as well as mentally—feeling more absolutely small, and mean, and contemptible than he had ever done in his life—humiliated before Wilkins, even—made the laughing-stock of the servants. This was the manner in which he was sent away from Arden on the day which he had selected to decide his fate.

CHAPTER XIX

It is comparatively easy to make a sudden and rapid decision which is (one says to one’s self) final, and settles in a moment some great question which affects a whole existence. As soon as the uncertainty is over, and the decision absolutely made, everything will come easy, the sufferer thinks. And such had been Clare’s feeling when she set out upon that wretched ramble, with Barbara toiling after her. She would cut herself off at once, and for ever, from all possibility of being remonstrated with, talked over, moved by any argument. She would cut the knot by one arbitrary action, and free herself. And when that was once successfully done she could live without sympathy, without any desire to cast herself upon the aid of others; she would be self-sufficing, self-contained, self-restraining all the rest of her life. Had not she already tried every relationship, and found it wanting? He who had made himself most dear to her—he who had pretended to love her, had deceived her. Every friend she had, in all probability, would disapprove of the encouragement she had given to Arthur, and would equally disapprove of the summary and insulting way in which she had cast him off. Her father– Clare’s whole being surged up into excitement as she thought of him—excitement produced by two words which she had spied through a torn envelope, and which, perhaps, meant nothing in the world. Her brother– Clare’s heart sank again into a sickness and miserable failing of all strength and composure. She was alone, absolutely alone, on the face of the earth. She had no one to fall back upon, to consult on such a terrible dilemma as never surely woman was placed in before. Walking under that blazing sun was fortunately of itself confusing and exhausting enough; but when she reached the Three Beeches, and sat down under their shadow, all the excitement in her mind seemed to meet and clash, filling up her brain with a buzz and sound which almost drove her mad. Not one great battle only, but two or three were raging within her, exploding now from one quarter, now from another, like a network of storms. The Three Beeches stood upon an elevated point, not very high in itself, but possessing all the importance of a hill in that level country. The trees were very fine old trees, with great gnarled trunks, and such a wealth of shadow under them as made the traveller rejoice. Seated on the thick mossy turf, Clare looked down and saw her home among its trees, and the bright white street of the village, and the Red House, burning in the sunshine. Even Thornleigh Church, which was seven miles off, was visible in the sunny distance. Almost every individual involved in the dim and confused drama which was weaving itself about her was at present, could she but see under those roofs, within her range of vision. She let her books, which she had brought with the intention of working hard at a translation, and thus making thought impossible, lie beside her, without so much as remembering their existence. Thinking! How could she help thinking? As long as there is nothing particular in your mind it is, of course, easy enough to occupy it with external matters; but when it is full—full to overflowing– So Clare thought and thought till her mind felt on the eve of giving way. Arthur Arden had done her a great wrong—she thought he had done her such a wrong as a woman can never forgive to a man—not only preferred another to her, but made false pretences of love to her in order to enjoy that other’s society. Injury and contempt could go no further. He had wounded her heart, and struck a deadly blow at her maidenly dignity and pride. It was the bitterest wrong, and as such she had resented it.