Arthur Arden was punctual to his appointment: he had thought of little
else since he left Arden the day before. To do him justice, Clare’s
society, the power of approaching her as he would, was very sweet to
him, especially after a severe course of croquet at the Red House, and a
few days with the Pimpernels. In short, he was able to disguise to
himself his other motive altogether, and to forget he had any
clandestine object. “I am going to look over some old family papers with
my cousin,” he had said to Mrs. Pimpernel, who, for her part, had not
much liked the information. “If he is going to make a cat’s-paw of us,
and spend all his time running after that proud stuck-up thing!” she
said to her husband. “Our Alice is worth two of her any day; and I don’t
hold with your family papers.” “We haven’t got any, have we?” said Mr.
Pimpernel; “but you wait a bit, Mary; I know what the family papers
mean.” “I hope you do, Mr. Pimpernel,” said his wife, with evident
scepticism. And she did not like it when Arthur Arden, instead of
joining Alice at her croquet, or attending herself upon her drive, went
off again after luncheon to visit his cousin. “If that is the way of it,
I don’t see the good of having a gentleman in the house,” she said to
Alice. “But then there is Mr. Denbigh, mamma,” said Alice, innocently,
for which her mother could have boxed her ears.
And Arthur turned his back upon them and their croquet ground with the
intensest satisfaction. It was very heavy work. He had been in a great
many country houses, and he had occasionally felt that in his position
as a man without any particular means or advantages, a good deal of
exertion had been required from him in payment for the hospitality he
received. He had seen the justice of it, and in a general way he had not
made much objection. But then these were houses full of people where, if
a man made himself generally useful, every necessity of the
circumstances was satisfied, and he was not compelled to devote himself
specially to stupid or wearisome individuals. He had the sweet along
with the bitter, and he had not complained. But to be told off for Mrs.
Pimpernel’s personal service or for croquet was a different matter, and
he turned his back upon them with a light heart. And when the door of
the old hereditary house opened to him, and Clare, like one of the
pictures from the walls, rose with a little tremulous expectation,
holding out her hand, the difference was such that it confused his mind
altogether, and made him conscious of nothing but intense relief. Look
over family papers! oh, yes; or mow the lawn, if she liked, or work in
the garden. He said to himself that the one pretext would be just as
good as the other. It was a pretext, not any intended treachery, but
only a means of being near Clare.
“Would you like to go to the library at once?” she said. “I have just
glanced at the papers poor papa arranged on the top shelves of his
bureau. All his own letters and things are below. Shall we go to the
library at once?”
“I am not in a hurry,” said Arthur; “if you don’t mind, let me wait a
little and breathe Arden. It is so sweet after the atmosphere I have
been in. I am not ungrateful; pray don’t think so. It was extremely kind
of the Pimpernels to give me shelter in my forlorn condition----”
“I don’t see why you should ever be in a forlorn condition,” said Clare.
“Please don’t suppose I mean to be rude; but I can’t bear to think of an
Arden receiving hospitality from people like the Pimpernels.”
“My dear cousin,” said Arthur, “an Arden, when he is not actually of the
reigning family, must do what he can in this world. The sanctity of the
race is not perhaps acknowledged as it ought to be; and I am too much
obliged to anybody who gives me shelter in this neighbourhood. One ought
to be in town, I suppose; but then I am sick of town, and there is
nobody to go to yet in the country. Therefore I say long live the
Pimpernels. But all the same, one breathes freer here.”
“There is not much to amuse any one here,” said Clare.
“Amuse! I know how it will be. You will make me speak as--I ought not to
speak, and then you will drive me away; and I cannot bear being driven
away. There is a little pucker in the brow of the Lady Clare. May I know
why?”
“You are like Edgar. He always worries me about that line in my
forehead,” said Clare; “as if I could help it! Yes; I have been a little
annoyed to-day. I think I may as well tell you, and perhaps you can give
me some advice. It is that Mrs. Murray--that Scotchwoman. She has just
been here to tell me that she knew papa, and that he went to see her in
Scotland two years ago. It is very strange, and very uncomfortable. He
used to tell me everything--or at least so I thought.”
“Nobody ever does tell everything,” said Arthur, like an oracle. Clare
paused, and gazed wistfully into his face.
“Not what they are thinking, nor what they feel, but surely what they
do. How can you conceal what you do? Some one must be taken into your
confidence. Common people must see you, in whom you have no confidence;
while your very own----”
Here Clare stopped abruptly, feeling that tears were about to come into
her voice.
“You don’t know what you say,” said Arthur, who was secretly touched.
“What one thinks and feels is often the best of one. But what we
do---- Was there ever a man who could venture to show a woman everything
in his life--a woman like you?”
“Yes; papa,” said Clare, boldly. “I am sure he told me
everything--except---- Oh! is it not dreadful, is it not horrible, to
have this wretched woman coming, when he is no longer here to explain it
all, to make me lose my confidence in papa? And then you too!”
“I too!” he said, and he ventured to take her hand; “who am not worthy
of your interest at all, and dare not lay my poor worthless life open
before you. But listen, I will recant. One could not show you the past,
in which one was wandering without any compass. But, Clare---- I am
your cousin--I may call you Clare sometimes?--if one could be so bold as
to believe that you took any interest--I mean--Edgar, for instance, who
can be sure you take an interest--I do believe that such a lucky man as
he is might tell you everything. Yes; no doubt your father did; but not
the past--not all the past!”
Clare drew a little aside, afraid, she could not tell why. She had
withdrawn her hand from him at once. She had given him only a little bow
of assent when he called her by her name. She had not _encouraged_
him--of that she was certain.
“Perhaps it is best not to discuss it,” she said. “But I cannot tell you
how that woman vexed me. To come and say she knew things of my own
father which I did not know. Fancy, papa! Perhaps it is my pride--I
should not wonder; but I could not bear it. And now, you know, if I look
into his letters I may find things. Do you think it is likely? He was an
old man; he was sixty when he died. He had been forty years in the world
before he had any one--I mean before he had _me_ to confide in. Should I
read them? Should I look at them? I don’t know what to do.”
“If you could trust me,” said Arthur Arden. The thought flushed him with
sudden excitement. This would indeed be delivering the very stronghold
into his hands. And then all the remnants of honourable feeling that was
left there stirred together in his mind. He blushed for the baseness he
had almost meditated. “If you could trust me to look over them,” he
resumed, with an earnestness which surprised himself, “you may be quite
sure that any and every secret---- I mean--I am nearest to you after
Edgar--it would be safe with me.”
And then with the speed of lightning a calculation ran through his mind.
Yes, he would be faithful to his word. The secret should be safe with
him, safe as in the grave. If even he should find proof of facts which
would be damning to Edgar, he would consider himself bound to take no
personal action upon it, if he discovered it in such a way. He would let
Edgar know and Clare, who were the persons most concerned; and then he
would himself withdraw, and never more mention the subject. He would
leave the knowledge of it to work in their minds. He himself would win
only the reward of honour and virtue. To such a course of procedure the
strictest moralist could have no objection. For if anything were found
out, though it would be treachery to employ it for his own interest, it
could only be duty to reveal it to Edgar and Clare. He looked at his
cousin with a certain anxiety, feeling that his fate lay in her hands.
It lay in her hands in a great many ways. She was but a child in
comparison with his years--a baby in experience, an unreasoning,
impulsive girl. And yet she held all his future in her little fingers.
Its higher or lower position, even its honour or dishonour, its virtue
or ill-doing--a tremendous power to lie in such unconscious hands.
“Thanks!” said Clare, with a certain haughtiness; and then in a moment
Arthur felt that this at least was not to be. “No one but myself must do
it,” she went on firmly; “not even Edgar, who did not love---- At least
it was not possible he could love much--they were so separated. No; if
there is any pain in it, I must bear it as best I can--no one must do it
but me.”
He made a bow of assent to her decision. It was not for him to say a
word, and even in his momentary disappointment there was a certain
relief. After all, even had he adopted that path of strict virtue, there
would have been something doubtful about the proceeding. Whereas, if he
found anything by chance---- And then he could not but speculate what
Clare would do if she made any such discovery as he hoped. What would
she do? Would she, in her innocence, understand what it meant? or if it
should be too clear for mistake, would her love for him who would still
be her brother, for her dead mother’s son, be stronger than abstract
justice? Probably she would not understand it all, he thought, and so
this fine opportunity, this wonderful chance, would be thrown away. He
heard her renewed invitation to him to go to the library like a man in a
dream. The issues might be mighty, but it was such a chance--all
depending upon how far an innocent girl could understand a record of
wickedness, or an injured man have proofs of his own dishonour. “The
chances are he destroyed everything,” he said to himself, but half
aloud, as he followed Clare.
“What did you say?”
“I was not aware I said anything. The thought that passed through my
mind was that probably your father, if he had any painful secrets in his
life, was so wise as to destroy all trace of them. Nay, don’t mistake
me. I say _if_. Probably he had no secrets at all, or only innocent
ones--but _if_----”
“I don’t think he destroyed anything,” said Clare, almost sharply, as
she led the way. Now that she had made up her mind to it, she did not
wish to be balked of her mystery. It was very dreadful and painful, and
a great shock; but still, if there was anything in it---- She went on
first into the large, lofty, sombre room which was the Arden library. It
was everything that a library ought to be. The books were but little
used, it is true; but then the room was so noiseless, so cool, and grey,
and secluded, that it seemed the very place for a student. To be sure
the Ardens had never been great students, but they had all the books
that ought to be in a gentleman’s library--an excellent collection of
English literature, a fair show of classics, and many books in other
living languages. These books were very seldom disturbed behind their
wires; but the silence was supreme, and would have lent itself to the
deepest study. Edgar had been daunted by the solemn dignity of the
place. He had felt that his discussions with Perfitt, and all the
business he had to transact, were out of place in this stately, solemn
room; and, with his usual indifference to the traditions of the Ardens,
had removed himself into a homely, bright, little place, full of
impertinent windows and modern papered walls, where he had hung up a
great many of his possessions, and where Perfitt could talk above his
breath.
After this change, a deepened and still deepening solemnity had fallen
upon the library. It had been the old Squire’s room, where he had spent
all his mornings. The quaint, old-fashioned bureau, which stood in one
corner, was full of his papers. He had locked it up himself the last day
he was downstairs, and nobody had opened it since. So completely was
the room identified with him that the maids in the house began to rush
past the door when twilight was coming on, and would not enter it after
dark. “I know I’d see t’ ou’d man a-sitting in his chair as he used to,”
the housemaid had said to the housekeeper; and the library was clearly
in a fair way for being haunted. It was with a certain solemnity now
that Clare opened the door. She had scarcely been in it since her
father’s death; and though she would have repudiated all superstitious
feeling, no doubt there was a certain thrill of awe in her mind when she
entered her father’s private room, with the intention of investigating
into his secrets. What if some spiritual presence might guard these
relics of the ended life--what if something impalpable, undiscernible,
should float between her and its records! Clare hung back a little, and
paused on the threshold. She could almost fancy she saw him seated at
the writing-table, not yet feeble, not asking even her sympathy, dearly
though he loved her. She had known everything he did or planned; and
yet, now she thought of it, how little had she known of him! Nothing
except the present; his old age, with all its hushed excitements and
interests past. It was (now that she thought of it) a veiled being who
had sat there for so many years in her sight. Except that he loved
herself, that he dined and rode with her, and sat for hours in this
library, and allowed the cottages to be rebuilt, and a great deal of
charity to be given, what did she know of her father? That--and that he
hated Edgar; nothing more. Her heart gave a jump to her mouth as she
entered the room, in which the silence seemed to brood and deepen,
knowing a great deal more than she did. Clare owned this strange
influence, and it subdued her for the moment; but the next, she raised
her head proudly, and shook off the momentary impression. Not now, on
the threshold of the mystery, was it possible to withdraw or fail.