SQUIRE ARDEN.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF
“CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,”
“SALEM CHAPEL,” “THE MINISTER’S WIFE,”
ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
HURST & BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1871.
_The Right of Translation is Reserved._
PERTH:
SAMUEL COWAN & CO., PRINTERS.
SQUIRE ARDEN.
CHAPTER I.
Up to this time it had been Clare who had made herself anxious about her
brother, worrying herself over his ways and his words, and all the
ceaseless turns of thought and expression and perplexing spontaneousness
which made him so unlike the Ardens; and Edgar had been conscious of her
anxiety with a sense of amusement rather than of any other feeling. But
now that their positions were reversed, and that it was he who was
anxious about Clare, the matter was a great deal more serious. Edgar
Arden felt but lightly the slights or the censures of fortune; he was
not specially concerned about himself, nor prone to consider, unless on
the strongest provocation, what people thought of him, or if he was
taking the best way to obtain their suffrage. But this easy mind, which
Clare sometimes took as a sign of levity of disposition, forsook him
completely when his own duties were in question. He took them not
lightly, but seriously, as Mr. Fazakerley, and Perfitt the steward, and
everybody connected with the estate already knew. And not even the
estate was so important as Clare. He asked himself, with a puzzled sense
of ignorance and incapacity, what in such circumstances a brother ought
to do. He had all the theories of a young man against any restraint or
contradiction of the affections; but held them much more strongly than
most young men, who it must be admitted are apt to see very clearly the
necessity of interference in the love affairs of their sisters, however
much they may dislike it in their own. Edgar had no family training to
help him, and he was aware that English habits in such matters were
different from those foreign habits which were the only ones with which
he had any acquaintance, and which transferred all power in the matter
into the hands of parents. Poor Clare! who had no mother to sympathise
with her, no father to guide her--was it not his business to be doubly
careful of all her wishes, to watch over her with double anxiety, and
anticipate everything she would have him to do? But then, supposing she
should wish to marry this landless and not very virtuous cousin, this
man whose prospects were naught, whose character was so unsatisfactory,
and with whom he himself had so little sympathy--would it be right to
let her do it? Should he acquiesce simply without a word? Should he
remonstrate? Should he speak of it to her? Or should he wait until she
had first consulted him? Edgar found it very hard to answer these
questions. He took to watching his sister, and her manner to Arthur
Arden, her ways and her looks, and every passing indication; and got
hopelessly bewildered, as was natural, in that maze of fluctuating
evidence, which sometimes seemed to him to go dead against, and
sometimes to be entirely in favour of his cousin.
For Clare did not let herself go easily down that dangerous slope. She
stopped herself now and then, and became utterly repellant to Arthur;
now and then she relapsed into softness. Sometimes she would ask,
wonderingly, when he meant to go? “Is he to stay on at Arden for ever?
Did you ask him to stay as long as he liked?” she would say with a frown
on her brow, expending upon her innocent brother the excitement and
restless agitation of her own mind. “Should you like him to stay as long
as he wished?” Edgar asked on one of these occasions, with a look which
he tried hard not to make too anxious. “I think we were far happier
before anybody came,” Clare answered, with curious heat, and a tone
almost of resentment. What did it mean? Did she want really to get rid
of the visitor? Did she really hate him, as she had once said she did?
When Edgar recollected that his sister had said so, and that Arthur
Arden had confirmed it, he was quite staggered. And thus June ran on
amid difficulties, which much confused the relations between the brother
and sister. Lord Newmarch too left traces of himself in the field. He
had started a correspondence with both, according to his
opportunities--that is, he wrote long letters to Edgar upon the state of
the political world, and sent messages and _brochures_ to Miss Arden,
who sent him messages in return. If she was to marry either of them,
surely Lord Newmarch was the more appropriate of the two. He was younger
as well as richer, and, though he was a prig, had the reputation of
being a good man. He was _galantuomo_, as well as my lord; and, alas! it
was quite uncertain whether Arthur Arden was _galantuomo_. Poor Edgar
felt like an anxious mother, and laughed at himself, but could not mend
it, until at last it occurred to him that the best way was to ask
advice. Accordingly, he set out very solemnly one day about the end of
June to consult his chief authorities. He meant to conceal his personal
trouble under the guise of a fable. He would ask Mr. Fielding what a
brother (in the abstract) ought to do in such a position, and he would
ask Miss Somers. Miss Somers was not a very wise counsellor; but no
doubt her brother must have interfered in her affairs one time at least,
and she would have some practical knowledge. He went to lay his case
before them with a little trepidation, wondering whether they would find
him out at all, and what they would say. Dr. Somers probably would have
been the best counsellor of all, but Edgar had no confidence nor
pleasure in the Doctor since their last interview. So he chose Mr.
Fielding in his study, and Miss Somers on her sofa, two people whose
lives had not come to much; but surely they were old enough to know.
Mr. Fielding was in his study writing his sermon. It was the day after
one of his grand discussions with the Doctor, and the good man was
excited. He was engaged in the manufacture of a polemical sermon,
culling little bits out of the polemical sermons which had gone before,
but combining them so with links of the new that his adversary might not
perceive the antiquity of some of his arguments. It was a relief to him
to lay down his pen and clear his mind from the fumes of controversy. “I
am very glad to see you, Edgar,” he said. “You find me in the midst of
my troubles. Young Denbigh, you know, ought to take the preaching more
than he does, but I have no confidence in him in a doctrinal point of
view. He would be bringing up some of the new notions, and setting our
good folks by the ears--though it is rather hard upon me to preach so
often myself.”
“But you are the best able to instruct us, Sir,” said Edgar, who to tell
the truth did not often derive a great deal of instruction from Mr.
Fielding’s good little sermons. And then the excellent Rector coughed
modestly, and blushed a little, and put his paper away from him with a
gently deprecating air.
“I suppose, when one lives to be seventy, one must have learned a
little--if one has made a right start,” he said, “at least I hope so,
Edgar, I hope so; though some of us unfortunately---- The thing that
startles me is that Somers should take the Calvinist view. I would not
judge him--I would be, indeed, the very last to judge any one; but how a
man who has lived, on the whole, rather a careless sort of life--not
culpable, I don’t say that--but careless, as, indeed, the best of us
are--should stand up for hell and torture, and all that, is more than I
can guess. If he had taken another view--more lax instead of more
strict----”
“Do you think he cares at all?” said Edgar, still under the prejudice of
his last interview.
“God bless us, yes; surely he must care; don’t you think he cares,
Edgar? Why, then, he must be sniggering in his sleeve at me. No, no, my
dear boy, of course he must be in earnest; no man could be such a humbug
as that. But if it was Mrs. Murray, who is Scotch, it would seem more
natural. I hear she was in Church on Sunday, looking very serious. But,
bless me, Edgar, you are very serious too. Is there anything wrong--with
Clare?”
“There is nothing wrong--with anybody,” said Edgar. “The fact is, I want
your advice. At least, it is not I that want it, but--a very intimate
friend of mine. He has got a sister, just like me, very pretty, and all
that; but he does not know what to do----”
“About his sister?” asked Mr. Fielding, with a smile. “What does he want
to do?”
“Did I tell you there was some one who--wanted to marry her?” said
Edgar. “Yes, to be sure, that was it; somebody I--he don’t approve
of--not a proper match. And he doesn’t know what to do, whether to speak
to her, or to wait till she speaks, or whether he has any right to
interfere. He is not her father, of course, only her brother, and he is
in an utter muddle what to do. And of all the people in the world,” said
Edgar, with a little hysterical laugh which sounded like a giggle, “he
has asked me.”
“Well, that was a very curious choice, though the circumstances so much
resemble your own,” said the Rector, with a smile; “what do you think
you would do if it were Clare?”
“That is just the question I have been asking myself,” said Edgar,
embarrassed. “Supposing, for the mere sake of argument, that it was
Clare--I have not the remotest conception what I should do.”
“With such a suitor as Arthur Arden, for instance? Edgar, never try to
take in anybody, for you cannot do it. I feel for you sincerely----”
“But stop,” said Edgar; “I never said Arthur Arden had anything to do
with it. I never implied----”
“You have been perfectly wary and prudent,” said Mr. Fielding; “but I
knew Arthur Arden long before you did, and I am quite sure he means to
mend his fortune, if he can, by means of Clare. I knew it before you
did, Edgar, and that was why I was so grieved to see him here. Now you
know it, my dear boy, send him away.”
“Why did not you warn me, if you knew?” asked Edgar, surprised.
“What was the good? He might have changed his mind, or you might have
thought me mistaken, and I did not know Clare’s feelings, or even yours,
Edgar; if you had liked him, for instance---- But, my dear fellow, now
you have found it out, send him away.”
“I know as little about Clare’s feelings as you do,” said Edgar, almost
sullenly, feeling that this was really no solution of his difficulties.
“Clare, I suppose, is the chief person to be consulted. Should I speak
to her? Should I bring matters to a conclusion? Perhaps it might come to
nothing if they were let alone.”
“Edgar, my advice to you is to make short work,” said the Rector,
solemnly, “and send him away.”
“That is very easy to say,” said Edgar, “but it takes more trouble in
the doing. What, my nearest relative, my heir if I die! How can I turn
him out of the house which is almost as much his as mine? So long as I
am unmarried, which I am likely to be for some time, he is my heir.”
“Then you like him?” said the Rector; “that was what I feared. Of
course, if you like him, and Clare likes him, nobody has any right to
say a word.”
“But I never said I liked him,” said Edgar, pettishly. “Neither love nor
hatred seems necessary so far as I am concerned; but could not something
be done that would be just without being disagreeable? I don’t like to
treat him badly, and yet----”
The Rector shook his head. “I think I would have courage of mind to do
what I advise,” he said; “he is too old for Clare, and he has not a good
character, which is a great deal worse. He will make love to her one
day, and then the next he will come down to the village----Faugh! I
don’t like to soil my lips with talking of such things. He is not a good
man. I love Clare like my own child, and I would fight to the last
before I would give her to that man. He ought never to have come here,
Edgar, never again.”
“Did anything happen when he was here before; do you know anything?”
said Edgar, eagerly.
“He is your enemy, my dear boy, he is your enemy,” said Mr. Fielding;
and that was all that could be elicited from him. Edgar remembered that
Clare had used the very same words, and it did not make him more
comfortable. But yet, an enemy to himself was of so very much less
importance; in short, it mattered next to nothing. He smiled, and tried
to persuade Mr. Fielding that it was so, but produced no result. “Send
him away” was all the Rector would say: and it was so easy for one who
had not got it to do to give such advice to Edgar, who was a man
incapable of sending any stranger away who claimed his hospitality, and
whose sense of that virtue was as keen as an Arab’s. He would have
taken in the worst of enemies had he wanted shelter, with a foolish,
young, highminded scorn of any danger. Danger! Let the fellow do his
worst; let him put forth all the powers he had at his command, Edgar was
not afraid. But then! when Clare was in question, the importance of the
matter increased in a moment tenfold, and he could not make up his mind
what to do.