Squire Arden; volume 2 of 3

Edgar made the change as he was desired, and this time all the etiquettes that ever were invented would not have kept him from taking Gussy’s soft hand into his, and holding it kindly, tenderly, as a sympathising brother might have done. He would have taken her into his arms, had he dared, in affectionate kindness and sympathy. He was too much moved to say a word, but he held her hand fast, and looked at her with his heart in his eyes.

“Thanks,” said Gussy, crying softly; “what a kind, friendly boy you are! Oh, I am sure I never meant to talk of this any more. I was in a fury with papa and mamma at the time, and said a great many things I ought not to have said; but, of course, one knows that it had to be—they could not have done anything else.”

“Couldn’t they?” said Edgar. “Is money everything then? I am a stranger in this sort of a world, and I don’t know.”

“If it is not everything, it is a great deal,” said Gussy. “And now, can’t you understand what I mean when I say a man is nice who can make himself nice, without meaning anything? Why, there is you,” she added, with a spice of malice. “You don’t do it in Arthur Arden’s way; but you are very kind to one, and very pleasant; and it makes one so much at one’s ease when one sees you don’t mean anything. There! That is a bold argument; but now you will understand what I mean to say.”

Gussy got up when she had delivered this shot, and ran over to the other side of the room to get her work, as she said, leaving Edgar very silent and considerably bewildered. It was a new sensation to him. Was he supposed to mean anything, he wondered? He felt that he had received an arrow, but he did not quite understand how or why it came; and he was a little sore, it must be confessed, to hear himself classed with Arthur Arden as one of the men who meant nothing. In his own consciousness he meant a great deal– he meant the most cordial brotherliness, affection, and sympathy. He had “taken to” the Thornleighs, as people say. He liked to go to their house; he liked to talk to them all, one almost as much as the others, and Lady Augusta as much as any of her girls. This was what he meant; but could it be that some other meaning was expected of him? Then he noticed with some surprise that Lady Augusta was quite cognisant of the fact that Gussy had left him, and that he was sitting all alone and silent, pondering and confused. Why should she note so very unimportant a transaction? And she called him to her side immediately on a most transparent pretext.

“Mr. Arden, come and tell me your last news from Clare,” she said. “It is very hard-hearted of her not to come with you to town. And it must be very dull for her at Arden, all by herself. Has she got old Miss Arden from Escott, or good Mrs. Seldon with her? What, nobody! that must surely be dull even for Clare–”

“So I thought,” said Edgar; “but she will not come–”

“And she has so rooted a prejudice against those good people the Pimpernels—it is a pity,” said Lady Augusta. “I suppose you know your cousin Arthur Arden is staying there?”

“There?” cried Edgar, “at Arden?” and he half rose to go off at once and guard his sister, whose imprudence it seemed impossible to understand.

“I mean he is at the Pimpernels;” said Lady Augusta. “Alice, I suppose, will have a good deal of money. I have known the day when Arthur Arden could have done a great deal better than that. But neither men nor women improve their case matrimonially by growing older. It will be curious to see him as the husband of Alice Pimpernel.”

“But is it certain that because he is her father’s guest the other must follow?” said Edgar, who asked the question at random, without thinking much about it. The answer was a little pointed, and it found a lodgment in his mind.

“Oh dear no, Mr. Arden. But yet the world is apt to ask why does he go there? What does he want in that house? It is a question that is asked whenever a young man visits a great deal at a house where there are girls.”

“I did not know that,” said Edgar, with a simplicity which went to Lady Augusta’s heart. “I believe he is as innocent as a baby,” she said afterwards when she was telling the story. “He may be as innocent as he pleases, but he shan’t trifle with Gussy,” said Harry, putting on a very valiant air. Gussy, for her own part, did not know what to think. “He likes me very well, but that is all,” she said to her mother. “I am sure he means nothing. Indeed, mamma, I am quite sure–”

“I don’t think you know anything at all about it,” said Lady Augusta, with some irritation; for Edgar was her own protegé—it was she who had vouched for him, and settled how everything was to be—and not only her pride but her feelings were concerned. She thought she had never met with any one she could like so well for a son-in-law. He was so thoughtful, so considerate, and (a matter which is well worth noting) had the air of liking her too, for herself, as well as for her daughter. “One could really make a son of him,” the poor lady said to herself with a sigh; for to tell the truth she was sometimes sadly in want of a good son to help her. The girls were very good, but they were only girls, and could not be of all the use a man could—and Harry was quite as much trouble as comfort—and Mr. Thornleigh left everything to his wife. Therefore she was reluctant to give up the idea of Edgar, which was, as we have said, her own idea. It was so seldom that everything that could be desired was to be found united in one person, as in his case. When a man was very “nice” and a comfort to talk to, the chances were he was poor and had to be snubbed instead of encouraged. But Edgar was everything that was desirable, even down to his very local position. So Lady Augusta spoke very sharply even to her favourite daughter when she insinuated that Edgar was indifferent. “You don’t know anything at all about it,” was what she said; and she clung to the idea with a certain desperation. Arden was so near, and the family was so good, and the rent-roll so satisfactory, and the man so nice. It was impossible to improve the combination which she found in him; and Lady Augusta’s mind was fully made up to brave a great deal, and do a great deal, before she relinquished the prize which Providence had thrown in her way.

CHAPTER XXIII

Edgar left the Thornleighs that day with several quite new subjects of thought. His heart was touched to the very quick by that little revelation which Gussy had made to him of her sister’s history. It stopped him quite suddenly in the current of his previous reflections. He had been so full of the unprofitableness and unmeaningness of the new existence into which he found himself thrown, that the discovery of a tragedy so simple and so hopeless, just one step out of it, upset once more all his conclusions. The idea he had been forming was, that within the range of “Society” strong feeling of any kind, much less passion, was impossible—even suffering and death seemed things too great and too human to penetrate within that artificial ring. He could have imagined the same routine going on for ever and ever, without any novelty in it, or touch of the real. Yet here, upon the very edge of the eternal dance, here was a single silent figure who had suffered (as Edgar felt, in the fervour of youthful sympathy) the extremity of human woe. How strange it was! The contrast confused him, and gave another turn, as it were, to his whirling brain. They were then human creatures after all, those people of fashion, whirling on and on in their everlasting round. Sometimes pain, passion, disappointment, tragical rending asunder of hearts and lives, proved their real nature. Perhaps even the man who was trying to take all the use out of his life by means of engagements twenty deep, had been pierced through and through with some such shaft as that which had killed poor Ada’s lover. Perhaps some of those women who hurried from one assemblage to another as fast as hours and horses could carry them had suffered in silence all that Ada had done, and lost all savour and sweetness in life like her. Edgar felt himself pulled up short, and paused in his wholesale criticisms. How could he tell—how could any one tell—what lay underneath the surface of the stream? He paused, and then he went off at a tangent, as young philosophers are apt to do, and asked himself whether this flutter and crowding and universal buzz of amusement was not a vast pretence, adopted by common consent, to hide what everybody was suffering underneath? outside an attempt to appear as if they were having things their own way, enjoying to the height of their capacity all the good the world could give; but underneath a deep universal conviction that life was naught, and happiness a dream! Was this the true theory of life? The question occupied him a great deal more perhaps than the readers of this history will sympathise with; but then, it must be remembered that it was all very new to him, and that every novel phase of life strikes us more strongly than that to which we are accustomed. To Arthur Arden, for instance, the course of existence which startled Edgar was too common to call for a single question. It was the ordinary state of affairs to him. But Edgar knew the other forms so much better. He understood those conditions under which a man labours that he may live. That theory was familiar to him which makes the day’s work necessary to the day; but to exist in order to get rid of your existence—to bend all your faculties to the question, not how you are to provide for, but how you are to spend and dispose of your days, that was new to him. And therefore he puzzled over it in a way which a man of fashion to the manner born could not possibly understand. The man of fashion would probably have been quite as much astonished and amazed by Edgar’s prejudices in favour of something to do. Something to do! Why, Harry Thornleigh had a hundred things to do, and never a moment to spare, and yet had never been of use either to himself or any other living creature all his life!

And then this new theory—about what was expected of young men who visited in houses where there were girls—troubled Edgar much. The other question occupied his intelligence, but this one disturbed him in a tenderer point. It hurt his amour-propre in the first place; for to suppose you have been a favourite in a house on your own merits, and then to find that you are only encouraged with a view of providing for a daughter, is sadly humbling to a young man’s vanity; and it hurt him in the affectionate respect he had for women in general and the Thornleighs in particular. He liked them all so kindly and so truly, and had been so pleased to believe that they liked him; whereas, apparently, it was only on the chance that he should bestow what he had upon one of them that they admitted him so freely. What a disenchantment it was! Instead of being their friend, whom they had confidence in, he was a man who meant nothing like Arthur Arden—a man whose inclinations were speculated upon, and his indifference despised. Edgar asked himself with a certain bitterness which of them it was whom he was expected to address. Perhaps the stately Helena, notwithstanding her views about the occupations of women, had been given to understand that it was her duty to accept Arden instead; perhaps Gussy– But Edgar could not help feeling sore on this subject. He was fond of Gussy, he said to himself; she was so frank, and so friendly, and so sympathetic, so ready to respond, so willing to communicate. He could not bear the idea that she had been making merchandise of him, and calculating upon Arden—for, of course, it is Arden, not me, he thought. I for myself am nobody—less a great deal than the poor fellow who died, whom they seem to have had a kind of human feeling for. She cried over him even—and laughed, and said I meant nothing, Edgar added, in a sudden flush of pique and dissatisfaction. What meaning, I wonder, did she intend me to have? From this it will be seen that Edgar Arden was not in love—was not the least in love; but yet did not care that Gussy should think of him as an article of merchandise—a creature representing settlements and a house of her own. It is a humiliating position for a man to find himself in. It is pleasant (perhaps) to be the object of pursuit, and to feel that mothers and daughters are fluttered by your entrance or exit, or by any silly word it may be your pleasure to address to the young women who are being put up to market. But even to those young women who are put up to market the transaction is scarcely so humbling as it is to the man, who is reckoned among them not as a man at all, but as so much money, so many lands, so many luxuries. Edgar was cast down by this revelation—down to the very depths. What a fool he had been to think they liked him. Was he worth liking by anybody? Was he not rather an insignificant, common-place wretch, unworthy the least notice on his own merits? And he did not in the least desire to be noticed for the sake of Arden. It seemed to him the very last depth of contempt.

For a few days after this Edgar went about very sadly, abstaining from everybody, and feeling very much like a culprit. He kept away from Lady Augusta’s pleasant house, and that did not make him any the happier; and then it suddenly occurred to him that he might be thought, in the odious jargon of “society,” to be “behaving badly” to Gussy, a thought which stung him so that he seized his hat and rushed out to call, meaning he knew not what—perhaps to ask her piteously if she really wanted Arden, and to offer it to her acceptance. But the room was full of visitors, and Gussy took very little notice of him, and it would be impossible to say how small he felt, how impertinent and presumptuous; but still the thought came back.

It is usual to take it for granted that only one or two of the greater and more primitive sentiments are concerned in that great act of marriage, which is so important a matter for good or for evil in human life. People marry for love, which is the natural motive; or they marry for money or money’s equivalent—comfort, advancement, and advantageous development of life. And, no doubt, it is very true that in the majority of cases these are the feelings which are most involved. But yet it is astonishing how many secondary motives come in to determine the most momentous of personal decisions. Edgar Arden had never experienced a grande passion. He had thought himself in love two or three times in his life, and he knew that he had got over the feeling. It was a thing he was ashamed of when he came to think of it, but nevertheless it was quite true that he had got over it. He had just skimmed the surface of those emotions which culminate in the kind of love which is for ever. At the moment he had thought himself deeply moved, but afterwards, with mingled amusement and shame, he had confessed to himself that it was nothing but a passing ripple which had gone over him. Perhaps he was not of a passionate nature, nor one who would be subject to any tragic force of feeling. His love would be tender and deep and true, but it would not be wild or all-absorbing, and he was a man who would be capable of considering the interests of the woman he loved apart from himself, which is a kind of generosity sometimes not at all appreciated by the object of such affection. Perhaps, on the whole, the most real lover, the one most attractive to a woman, is the selfish man who wants her for his own happiness, and will have her, whatever the obstacles may be, rather than the disinterested man who prizes her happiness most, and sacrifices himself and lets her go—not sufficiently realising, perhaps, that he has sacrificed her too. But the absence of this impassioned selfishness on Edgar’s part laid him open to the action of all the secondary motives. Never did there exist a more friendly affectionate soul. He would have put himself to trouble to procure what it wanted for any child he heard crying by the way. It came natural to him, as it comes natural to some men, by hook or by crook, to secure their own advantage. And if it really should be the case that he himself, or rather Mr. Arden of Arden, was a thing that Gussy Thornleigh wanted very much, and would be the happier for, why should not she have it? The idea was a little absurd, and yet he could not bring forward a single sufficient reason why it should not be so. Actually, when he considered the matter fully, he had no personal objections. She would be a very sweet, very bright little companion—not a fault could be found with her in any way– Nay, Edgar was too chivalrous to discuss Gussy or any other woman in this irreverent manner– What he meant to himself was rather that any man might be proud and happy to have such a wife. And he had no other love to stand between him and her; no; no other love—except that visionary love whom every young man looks to find somewhere, the Una of imagination, the perfect woman. She only, and no other—and she was no woman’s rival. No doubt she would fold her wings and drop down out of the skies, and shadow over and melt into the being of Edgar’s wife. Therefore if Gussy chose– Why should not this be–

But perhaps he was just as glad that he had not been allowed a possibility of committing himself. It was not his fault; he would have done it had he been alone with her, or even had he been able to get her to himself in a corner of the drawing-room, apart from immediate observation. But that had been impossible; and consequently it was Providence, not Edgar, which had kept it from coming to pass. Yet he was not sorry; he reflected philosophically that there was plenty of time. She was not in love with him, he felt sure, any more than he was in love with her. She was not in any hurry. She was a dear, good, reasonable girl. In short, the more he thought of it, the more he came to see that (apart from romance, which was always absurd) nothing could be more appropriate in every way. They were made for each other. They were neither of them solemn, passionate people—they were both lively, cheerful, fond of a little movement and commotion, and yet fond of the country and of a reasonable life, with duty and responsibility in it. Gussy, alas! thought very little, had he but known it, of duty and responsibility; but this was how the matter shaped itself in Edgar’s mind. Of course, there was no need for anything being decided in a hurry. Clare would probably marry first—or, if not, Clare’s wishes must be supreme, whatever they were. She would live with them at Arden—she would still be mistress—no, that was perhaps impossible. At all events, she would still be– Here Edgar found himself in deep waters and stuck fast, not quite making out how this was to be settled. Clare in Arden, and not mistress of Arden was impossible. No doubt, had his feelings been very deeply concerned, he would not have been deterred by such a thought—but as it was chiefly for other people’s satisfaction that he was planning the arrangement, it was a very serious drawback. What! please Gussy at the cost of Clare? This was the most grave obstacle to the plan which had yet come in his way.

He was still in this perplexity, and not without a consciousness of its whimsical character, when he received Clare’s letter. There was something strained and strange in its expression which struck him curiously. Why should she write to him so? Of course she might ask anything of him—call him to her as she pleased. To make a journey from London to Lancashire was not much—a great deal farther, to the end of the world had she wished it, he would have gone willingly for his sister. He wrote her a little note, full of affectionate playful reproach. “Though I have a hundred things to do,” he said; “though I am engaged to go to twenty balls, and ten dinners, and three concerts, and seventeen afternoon teas, in the course of the next four days, yet I will hurry through the most pressing of my engagements, and come home on Saturday.” But the meaning of the letter was not in the least the thing that struck him—she wanted to consult him about something, that was all he made of it. And as for the manner of expression, Clare was in haste, or she was annoyed about something, or perhaps a little out of temper. Now and then Clare could be a little out of temper, he knew. Perhaps the village people had been troublesome—perhaps it had vexed her that Arthur Arden should be staying with the Pimpernels. But, on the whole, haste was the most natural explanation. Thus he settled the matter with himself with very little difficulty; and on the whole he was very glad to be called home. And then it occurred to him all at once that the Thornleighs were going on Monday—and then–

Surely, and beyond all question, fate must have decided this matter for him. His summons had come to him at such a moment and in such a way that he must be supposed to be following the Thornleighs home, as he had been supposed to follow them to town. He could not but laugh as he perceived this new complication. Now, indeed, unless he took pains to show that he did mean something, there could be no doubt that it would be said Gussy was badly treated. When he went into the solemn shades of the Minerva to seek Lord Newmarch, with whom he had some business, he felt already sure what would be said to him. “Going home on Saturday!” said the politician; “what, before the education debate, which I so much wanted you to hear! Arden, I suppose it is clear enough to see what that means. But must you go because they go? Though you are not in Parliament, you have a duty to the public too–”

“I go because I am called home on business,” said Edgar, “for no other reason, I assure you. I have heard from Clare to-day–”

“Oh, ah,” said Lord Newmarch; “of course, we all understand urgent private affairs. But, Arden, though it does not become me to speak, I wish you had not meant to marry immediately. I should be more happy to congratulate you as member for East Lancashire than as Benedict the married man.”

“The chances are you will never congratulate me as either,” said Edgar, with a certain wayward pathos which puzzled himself; “I am not going to marry, and I don’t intend to go into Parliament. I should not be much credit to you in that way; I should go in for impracticable measures, and call a spade a spade. Let me tame down first, and get used to parliamentary language and all the other fictions of life–”

“My dear fellow, I wish you were not so bitter about the fictions of life,” said Lord Newmarch, shaking his head.

“Bitter!” said Edgar, with a laugh.

“Well, if not bitter, cynical—cynical—perhaps that is a better word. I have been thinking a great deal about what you said the other day, and I don’t think there is much in it. Society must be kept up—some sacrifice must be made to keep up that fine atmosphere—that air so sensitive to everything that comes into it—that brilliant, witty, refined–”

“Newmarch,” said another young man, lounging up, “where were you that one couldn’t see you at the Strathfeldsays’ dance the other night? Awful bore! Never was at anything much worse all my life—the women all frights and the men all notabilities. Ah, Arden, I never see you anywhere now. Where has the t’other Arden gone—Arthur Arden—that one used to meet about? He used to be always with the Lowestofts. Lowestoft wouldn’t stand it at the last. Deuced bore! Some men are insufferable in that way. Pull you up short, whether you mean anything or not, and spoil the whole affair. Been doing anything in the House?—Education Bill, and that sort of thing. Hang education! What is the good of it? What has it ever done for you or me?”

“What, indeed!” cried Edgar—a backing which was received with the warmth it merited.

“Eton and Christchurch are reckoned pretty well,” said their new companion; “but I don’t know what they ever did for me. And as for those confounded fellows that never wash and have votes, what do they want with it? Depend upon it, they are a great deal better without. Teaches them to be discontented; then teaches you to humbug and tell lies for them to read in the newspapers. By the way, where are you going to-night? I’ve got some men coming to dine with me. Will you make one—or, rather, will you make two, if Arden likes? Then there is that deuced affair on at the Bodmillers’ which I suppose I shall have to look in upon; and the Chromatics are giving a grand concert, with Squallini and Whiskerando. Little Squallini is worth listening to, I can tell you. There are heaps of things I never attempt, and one is, going to musical nights promiscuous, not knowing what you’re to hear. But the Chromatics know what is what. Going? I shall look out somebody, and have a rubber till five. These concerts and things are a confounded bore.”