These days of mutual study had been very sweet to Clare. They had
soothed her out of her agitation, without, however, stilling it
altogether. She had acquired a new habit, and it was pleasant. While
Arthur sat at the great table with the old MSS., which her father had
partially arranged and prepared, she sat at the bureau, going over hosts
of letters, which sometimes amused, sometimes interested her, but which
were for the greater part quite unimportant--old bills and receipts and
invitations, the broken fragments and relics of social life. If there
had been any excitement in her mind to begin with--as it was natural
there should be when she felt herself thus standing, as it were, on the
edge of any secrets which her father might have had--it all died away on
the first day. How innocent the life must have been of which only such
harmless evidences remained! There were letters from some of his old
friends--some with dead jokes in them, and dead pieces of news, embalmed
and preserved, as if they were worth preserving. Clare took a pleasure
in these, because it was to her father they were addressed; and she
would look up now and then, and read a few words aloud to her
fellow-student, who, on his side, had many things to communicate to her
out of his MSS. Sometimes Arthur was obliged to get up and bring them to
her that she might help him with a difficult sentence. Sometimes it was
she who had to call him. They were such near relations, their interest
in the family was almost the same, and it was very natural that they
should constantly refer to and consult each other. Sometimes a momentary
compunction crossed Clare’s mind when she thought of her brother. Would
he like it? Would not he prefer to go over these papers himself, and be
the first to discover his father’s secrets--if there were any secrets?
But he would not care for them, Clare thought to herself. He confessed
openly that his interest in the Ardens was limited; whereas her own
interest was without limits. If she felt sometimes a more lively
compunction still at the thought that she was absolutely foiling all
Edgar’s precautions, and making his unwilling absence from home
ridiculous by receiving thus, if not secretly, still without avowal, the
visits of her cousin, her natural pride arose and put the whisper down.
“Why should I give in to Edgar?” she asked herself. “It is my life, not
his, that is concerned. It is my happiness that is concerned. I took
care of myself before Edgar came; and why do I need his guardianship
now?”
This view of the matter made it almost a duty to balk him. Had she
foreseen that Arthur was going to remain in the neighbourhood, of course
she would have told her brother; but she did not know. Nobody could be
more surprised than she was to find him with the Pimpernels; and it was
no pleasure to her, but quite the reverse, that he should be with the
Pimpernels. Besides, it might justify and strengthen Edgar in his
democratic ways if he heard that his cousin, so much more true an Arden
than himself, was staying at the Red House. Accordingly, she wrote to
her brother less frequently than usual, and said nothing about Arthur,
which was not perhaps quite what Edgar might have expected from his
sister. Probably, if he heard of it, he would manage in some insidious
way to get her carried off to town, which Clare detested; or he would
return himself, which, in present circumstances, Clare did not desire.
So she let the days run on, finding a subtle sweetness in them. There
was nothing said between her kinsman and herself which all the world
might not have heard--except, perhaps, by times, a tone, an inflection
of voice, an almost imperceptible inference. Arthur was skilful in such
ways of making himself secretly understood; but he said nothing to
agitate or alarm her. And thus they went on with their respective
pursuits, side by side. What could be more sober, more grave, less like
any sentiment or romance or nonsense? But Clare _lived_ in those hours,
which were thus sensibly and seriously spent. All the evening she
remembered, all the morning she looked for them. She had not been into
the village for a week; she had not seen the Rector except at church,
nor any of her old friends. She took her evening ramble through the park
all alone, and happy to be alone. “It is just as it used to be,” she
said to herself; but Clare knew very well that it was not as it used to
be. Even now a dread of the arrival of some friendly visitor, bent upon
taking care of her, would sometimes overcloud her mind. If they but knew
how she detested being taken care of--if they but understood how happy
she could be alone!
And thus it was with her on the morning of that day which Arthur spent
playing croquet and telling stories to Alice Pimpernel. She had got
safely over the post and her letters. There was not one from old Miss
Arden at Escott, proposing a visit, such as, from day to day, she
trembled to receive; neither did Clare’s old governess, Mrs. Seldon,
throw herself upon her pupil’s hospitality; and though Edgar begged her
again to reconsider her decision, and join him for at least a week or
two “to see the pictures,” there was no violence of urgency in his
letter. She was safe for another day, and the sunny hours were drawing
on, bringing the afternoon and its visitor. “I shall finish that first
drawer to-day,” Clare said to herself, with a half-conscious
exaggeration of the importance of her work. She went into the library
more than once to see that all was ready--that the shutters were closed
to keep out the noonday sun, and the waste-paper basket cleared of all
the fragments that had been thrown into it. “It is odd how pleasant such
an occupation can grow,” she said to herself; “I don’t so much wonder at
the passion for old papers that some people have.” She liked to keep
this thought well before her mind. Her new study was so curious and full
of interest. Such a lesson, too, in life, the smallest details of which
were so absorbing as long as it lasted, so sadly, amusingly
insignificant now. “Some day or other some one will read my letters like
that,” she would add, with an incredulous smile. It was impossible, and
yet no doubt it would come to pass; but would any one ever know how full
and strong the blood was running in her veins--how vigorous life was,
and warm and intense? Never before in her life had she so felt the
power of the present--the moment that was hers, whatever might be taken
from her. The clock was about to strike, and by this time no doubt he
was coming up the avenue--her fellow-student--and the pleasantest work
she had ever tried was about to begin.
Clare sat down to her tapestry to occupy the moment till he should
arrive--he was very exact generally, punctual to his hour. It surprised
her when the little French clock chimed a quarter-past. It was
strange--it gave her a little chill in the midst of her expectation--but
of course it could only be accidental. Another chime, and her heart
began to beat--what if he should not be coming! Clare had known little
of the vicissitudes to which such intercourse as this is specially
subject. Except the few days of utter loneliness which she had passed
after Edgar’s departure, none of the heats and chills of wooing had ever
been hers. She had been mistress of the situation. It had been in her
power to send him away, to discourage him, and remind him that he was
utterly at her mercy; but it had never occurred to her that such power
is mutual, and that she, too, was at his mercy. As she waited and
listened and heard nothing, her heart began to beat high and loud. Not
only or even in the first place was it mere disappointment. A certain
angry amazement and wild pride sprang up along with it. What, slight
her! neglect to come when she expected him! It was an enormity which
startled Clare, and shook her mind to its foundations. She could not
understand nor believe it, and yet she could not believe either the
suggestions of accident which she tried to make to herself. Could it be
intentional neglect, discourtesy--and to her! Then there came another
chime, and then the hour; he was a whole hour behind time. Clare bent
her head over her tapestry as she heard a footstep approaching, and
laboured as if she were labouring for her daily bread. A hot steady
flush of angry excitement came to her cheek. She would not raise her
head to see who it was. Had he broken his leg it might have been some
excuse; but if it was he who was walking into the room, as she supposed,
of course he had not broken his leg. The first thing she saw, however,
was Wilkins’ hand suddenly appearing before her, holding a silver tray
with a letter upon it. She took it with a sense that some one had given
her a blow. “Is this all?” she said mechanically. “Mr. Perfitt is
waiting downstairs to see you, Miss Arden, if you will please to receive
him,” said Wilkins. Perfitt! what could he have to do with----“I hope
nothing has happened,” said Clare, holding, as if it were a serpent, the
letter in her hand.
“I don’t think so, Miss Arden; only he would like to speak a word to you
if you are not too busy.”
“I am much too busy,” said Clare, in her anger. “I mean, let him come up
in five minutes,” she added, waving her hand to the alarmed servant.
Then she tore open Arthur’s note.
“My dear Cousin--A cursed chance (forgive the adjective, I can’t
help it) keeps me from Arden to-day. I have been fighting and
struggling all the morning, but I cannot get off. Imagine how I
hate the day and everything round me! To have to stay and be bored
to death, instead of going on with the work most interesting to me
in the world! Please postpone yours till to-morrow. I shall go
crazy if I think you are at it without me.--In the deepest
wretchedness and devotion, ever yours,
“A. A.”
Clare read it twice over, and then put it from her. She stopped herself
for the first moment from all expression even in her own mind. She took
up her needle, and went on again furiously. Ye know, ye youths and
maidens, how the air all darkened round her, how the day became odious!
“Does he think it matters to me, I wonder?” she said at length aloud,
and laughed; and then threw her work down, and covered her face, and
burst into violent tears. They must have been lying very near the
surface, they fell so hot and so suddenly, and were over so soon. When
Mr. Perfitt was ushered in five minutes later, he found Miss Arden
seated with her usual dignity, a little flushed, but showing no other
traces of that sudden tumult. Mr. Perfitt himself was considerably
disturbed; he crushed his hat in his hand, and seated himself, when she
graciously invited him to be seated, on the very edge of his chair.
“Miss Arden,” he said, “I’ve come to make a bit complaint--tho’ indeed
it’s no a complaint; it’s rather that you might maybe speak a warning
word---- You’re young to meddle or trouble with such things; but you’re
no like other young ladies. You aye were the grand authority in old Mr.
Arden’s time; and so ye are with the present lad--I mean with the
present Squire.”
“Would you please tell me what it is? I am very busy,” said Clare. “Has
anything happened, Mr. Perfitt? Of course I am the only person to refer
to in my brother’s absence, whatever it may be.”
“It’s no just that anything has happened,” said Perfitt, crushing his
hat, and then anxiously examining its wounds. “It’s a thing I would ask
nobody about, but soon settle, if it was not a gentleman connected with
the house. You see it’s me that brought Mr. Arthur Arden’s note; but I
got it like by chance, turning in as I was passing to see little Jeanie
Murray. You’ll see what I’m meaning now. He’s a gentleman that has
always behaved gentlemanly to me; but a bit lassie, Miss Arden, and no
just right in her mind--no mad, I’m no meaning that--but scarce wise
enough to understand it’s a a’ nonsense that such a gentleman says.”
“Is Mr. Arthur Arden with Jeanie now?” said Clare, in her most distinct
chill tones. She had been frozen suddenly where she sat--frozen to her
very heart; but the shock had brought her back to perfect possession of
herself.
“Na, na! trust me for that,” said Perfitt, with a laugh. “Before I left
the house I saw my lord off the premises--ye may trust me for that. And
there’s nae harm done, Miss Arden. I do not for a moment suppose there’s
any harm. But Mr. Arthur was aye a thought wild, saving your
presence----”
“I will take care,” said Clare, steadily, “that it does not occur
again.” Her voice was frozen too. In the shadowy warmth of the room, in
the heat of the summer afternoon, it went like a touch of ice through
Perfitt’s bones. How will she manage that, I would like to know? he said
to himself, but was so chilled that he only gasped audibly, and had no
other answer to make.
“I will take care it does not occur again,” said Clare. “You were quite
right to tell me. If there is anything else you want to say, pray go
on.”
“Nothing else--nothing else, Miss Arden,” said Perfitt, stumbling to his
feet; and then he stood awkwardly clasping his hat for a minute more.
“And I have no fear on my mind that any harm’s been done,” he added.
“There’s no harm done, Miss Arden. I wouldna give you a wrong idea. But
only Mr. Arthur----”
“I have told you,” repeated Clare, still more and more coldly, “that it
shall not occur again.”