From Mr. Fielding Edgar went to Miss Somers, to whom he told his story
under the same disguise, but who unlike the Rector believed him
undoubtingly, and gave him her best sympathy, but not much
enlightenment, as may be supposed. And he returned to Arden very little
the wiser, asking himself still the same question, What should he do?
Must he go home and be patient and look on while Arthur Arden, quite
unmolested and at his ease, laid snares and toils for Clare? Clare had
no warning, no preparation, no defence against these skilful and
elaborate plots. She might fall into the net at any moment. And was it
possible that her brother’s duty in the matter was to sit still and look
on? Would not his very silence and passive attitude embolden and
encourage the suitor? Would it not appear like a tacit consent to his
plans and hopes? He was walking up the avenue while these thoughts were
passing through his mind, when all at once there came to Edgar a
suggestion which cleared his whole firmament. I call it a suggestion,
because I do not understand any more than he himself did how it happened
that all at once, being in utter darkness, he should see light, and
perceive in a moment what was the best thing to do. If some unseen
spirit had whispered it all at once in his ear it could not have been
more vivid or more sudden. “I must go to town,” Edgar said to himself.
He did not want to go to town, nor had the idea occurred to him before;
but the moment it came to him he perceived that this was the thing to
do. Arthur could not stay when he was gone; indeed, to take him away
from Clare he did not object to his cousin’s company in London. “Poor
fellow! after all I have the sweet and he has the bitter,” Edgar
thought; and to share his purse with his kinsman was the easiest matter,
so long as the kinsman did not object. After he had made this sudden
decision his heart sat lightly in his breast, and everything brightened
up. He even grew conceited, the simple fellow, thinking on the whole it
was so very clever of him to have thought of so beautiful and simple a
solution to all his troubles, though, as I have said, he did not think
of it at all, but had it simply thrown into his mind without any
exertion of his.
“I have taken a great resolution,” he said that evening after dinner
before Clare left the table. “I have made up my mind to take the advice
of all my good friends, and to betake myself to town.”
“To town!” said Clare and Arthur, in a breath--she with simple
astonishment, he with dismay. “To town, Edgar? but I thought you hated
town,” added Clare.
“I don’t know anything about it--I don’t love it,” he said; “but one
must not always mind that. There is Newmarch, who writes me--and--why,
there are the Thornleighs. With such inducements don’t you think it is
worth a man’s while to go?”
“The Thornleighs; oh, they are cheap enough. You will meet them
everywhere,” said Arthur, with a sneer. “If that is all you go to town
for----”
“The Thornleighs!” said Clare; and she made a rapid feminine
calculation, and decided that though it was very sudden it must be
Gussy, and that a new mistress to Arden was inevitable. It did not
strike her so painfully as it might have done, in the tumult of her
personal thoughts. “Everything will be strange to you,” she said. “And
then you are so fond of the country, and have to make acquaintance with
everything. Don’t you think, Edgar--_that_ might wait?”
“What might wait?” said Edgar, laughing; but he kept firm to his
proposal. “Yes, I must go as soon as it is practicable,” he said to
Arthur when they were alone. “I have got to make acquaintance with my
own country. I don’t know London any more than I know Constantinople; I
have been in it, and gazed at it, but that is all. And Newmarch is a
very sensible fellow,” he added, abruptly. “By the way, Arden, what do
you say to coming with me? You might share my rooms. If you have not any
pressing engagements----”
“I have nothing at all to do,” said Arthur. “Of course, I should rather
have stayed here. I need not tell you that, after all I have told you.
Arden is to me the most captivating place in England. But if you are
going, of course I must go too.” And he sighed a profound sigh.
“Of course,” said Edgar, with quiet calmness; and then there was an
uncomfortable pause.
“That is what I object to,” said Arthur Arden; “You give me to
understand you won’t interfere, and then you as good as turn me out of
the house by going away yourself. By Jove! I believe that is the reason
why----”
“If you think I am to give up all control over my movements because you
happen to be in the house----” said Edgar, with a laugh. “No, Arden,
that will never do. And I never said I would not interfere. It might be
my duty. I am Clare’s brother, and the head of the house.”
“Clare can take care of herself, and so can the house. Fancy _you_----”
“I am all it has for a head,” said Edgar, keeping his temper with an
effort. “But this is very unprofitable sort of talk.”
And then there was a gloomy pause, all conversation being arrested.
Arthur Arden had been making, he thought, considerable progress with
Clare, which was a thing that made Clare’s brother much less important.
She and Old Arden seemed almost within reach of his hand, and what
should he care for the Hall and the Squire if he were Mr. Arden of Old
Arden, with a beautiful wife? But to be thus sent away at the most
critical moment! Arthur was sullen, and did not think it worth his while
to conceal it. He asked himself, Should he risk the final effort--should
he put it to the test, and know at once what his fortune was to be? in
which case he might scorn the spurious Arden and all his efforts; or
should he be wary, and flatter him, and wait?
He had not yet resolved the question when they joined Clare on the
terrace, which was her summer drawing-room. But Arthur’s mind was not
relieved by seeing the lady of his hopes take her brother’s arm, and
lead him away along the front of the house, talking to him. “Has
anything happened that makes you want to go?” Clare asked. “Have you
heard anything--have you had any letter--is it about--Gussy? I am the
only one that has a right to know, Edgar; you might tell _me_.”
“Tell you what?”
“Why you are going to town: there must be some reason. I am sure it is
not caprice. Edgar, don’t you know, I care for everything that concerns
you; but you speak as if your affairs were of no consequence, as if they
were nothing to me.”
“I am not so ungrateful nor so silly,” said Edgar: “but look here. I
can’t tell you why I’m going, Clare; and yet I am going for a good
reason, which is quite satisfactory to myself. Can you allow me as much
private judgment as that?”
“Of course, your private judgment is all in all,” said Clare, affronted.
“How could any one attempt to dictate to you? But one might wish to know
without thrusting in one’s opinion---- Tell me only this one thing,
Edgar. Is it about Gussy Thornleigh?”
Edgar laughed in the fulness of his innocence. “No more about Gussy
Thornleigh than about----”
“Me?” said Clare. “You are quite sure? If it is business, that is quite
a different thing. I hope I am not so foolish as to think of interfering
with business. But I do feel so concerned--so anxious, Edgar dear,
about----”
“About what?” said Edgar, meeting her troubled look with his habitual
smile.
“About your wife,” said Clare, solemnly. She only shook her head when he
laughed, disturbing all the quiet echoes. “Ah, yes, you may laugh,” she
said, “but it is of the greatest importance. I assure you our--cousin
thinks so too.”
Edgar made a profane exclamation. “I am infinitely obliged to him, I am
sure,” he said, after the objectionable words had escaped his lips. “Our
cousin thinks so too!” What was “our cousin” between these two, who
ought to be everything to each other? And then it occurred to him, with
a softening sense of that comic element which runs through human nature,
that while Arthur Arden so kindly interested himself in his (Edgar’s)
hypothetical interests, he, on his side, was taking a good deal of
trouble wholly and solely on Arthur’s account. His kinsman was not aware
how much he was influenced by this consideration; and the thought of
this mutual regard amused Edgar, even in the midst of his displeasure.
“We all take an interest in each other,” he said, laughing, half
jestingly, yet with a sense of fun which was very odd to Clare.
And then she went, all unconscious, to her little table, and sat down,
and took her work. She did not work very much, her hands being full of
things more important--the affairs of the parish and estate; but to her,
as to most other women, it was a welcome occasional refuge. It was true,
quite true, that she was anxious about Edgar’s wife, and ready to
believe in the attractions of Gussy Thornleigh, or any one else who came
in his way; but other feelings confused her mind at the same time. When
Edgar went away of course Arthur must go also; and Arthur had managed to
twine himself up with her life in the strangest subtle way. How should
she bear the blank when they were gone? It would be like the time before
Edgar’s return--the silent days when she was alone in Arden. But these
days had not been quickened by any new touch of life as the present time
had been; and it made her shudder to think how such grey days would look
when they came back.
“This is fatal news to me,” said Arthur, softly sitting down opposite to
her. “I thought I might have stayed here at Arden, and for once kept out
of the racket of town.”
“I thought you liked town,” said Clare, “and I thought my brother hated
it. I must have been mistaken in both.”
“Do not be so hard upon me. I have liked town more than I ought. When
there are a good many things in a man’s life that he is very glad to
forget, and not many that are much pleasure to think of, town is a
resource to him; but when there comes a balmy time like this, when it
almost looks as if the gates of heaven might open once in a way----”
“You are very poetical,” said Clare, forcing herself to smile, though
her heart began to flutter and beat with the sense of something more to
come.
“Am I?” he said, and then began to mutter between his teeth, the first
line faintly, the second more audible--
“If Maud were all that she seemed,
And her smile were all that I deemed,
Then this world were not so bitter
But a smile might make it sweet.”
Clare heard, but she did not smile. She kept her eyes on her work, and
her lips shut close. And after he had discharged this little arrow, he
sat and looked at her and wondered. She gave him no encouragement--not
the least. She would not even let it be apparent that she understood, or
that there was any meaning whatever perceptible to her in what he said.
The only thing that could give him any hope was a subdued consciousness
about her, a thrill of suppressed excitement--something which made her
fix her eyes upon her work and restrain her breath. Arthur saw this, and
it made his heart beat. She was expectant--waiting for other words which
she foresaw were coming--words which he would have given a great deal to
be allowed to speak. For one moment he hesitated, and had almost gone
on. But again a cold dread came over him. Was it according to nature
that a proud girl like Clare should thus wait for her lover’s
declaration if she meant to answer it favourably? Was it not a stately,
reluctant kindness on her part, to get over a crisis which she felt to
be coming, and spare him as much pain as possible? He shrank back into
himself with a sense of suffering greater than he could have considered
possible when this idea took possession of him. Would she have given him
this gracious opportunity, waited for him in such stillness and
consciousness, had any word but “No” been on her lips? He did not think
that Clare felt herself like a sovereign princess, one whom men dare not
woo unless when signs and tokens to justify the daring are supplied. She
sat motionless, expecting, meaning to give him courage. And he took from
this indication of royal readiness to listen only an intimation of
despair.
“Yes, it is fatal news to me,” he said, with a deep sigh; and he got up,
and stood over her, reluctant to go, too unhappy to stay. “When shall I
see Arden again, I wonder, and what will have become of us all by that
time?” he added, taking momentary courage; but just then Edgar came up
to them, and it was too late.