“It was kind of you to come and see my brother,” said Clare at length,
with something of that high and lofty sweetness which half implies--“it
was kind, but it was a piece of presumption.” She meant no harm to her
old nurse, whom she was fond of in her heart, and who was besides a
privileged person, free to be fond of the Ardens; but Edgar had been
badly used all his life, and his sister was more proud on his behalf
than if he had been the worshipped heir, always foremost. She drew
herself up just a little, not knowing what to make of it. In one way it
was right, and she approved; for even a king may be tender to his
favoured dependents without derogation--but yet, certainly it was not
the Arden way.
“Miss Clare, you don’t think that, and you oughtn’t for to say it,” said
old Sarah, with some natural heat; “but I’ve been about the house ever
since you were born: and staying still to-day in my little place with my
plain-sewing was more nor I could do. If there had been e’er a little
maid to look to--but I ain’t got none in hands now.”
“I beg your pardon, Sarah,” said Clare promptly; “and Mrs. Fillpot has
something to say to you about that. If you will go up to the house and
speak to her, now that you have seen Edgar, it will be very nice of you.
We are going down to the village to see some of his old friends.”
“The young master don’t know the village, Miss Clare, as he ought to
have done,” said old Sarah, shaking her head. She had said such words
often before, but never with the same result as now; for Clare was
divided between allegiance to the father whom she loved, who was dead,
and whom she could not now admit to have ever done any wrong--and the
brother whom she loved, who was there by her side, and of whose injuries
she was so keenly sensible. The blood rushed to her cheek--her fine blue
eyes grew like steel--the lines of her beautiful face hardened. Poor old
Sarah shrank back instinctively, almost as if she expected a blow.
Clare’s lips were formed to speak when her brother interrupted her, and
probably the words would not have been pleasant which she was about to
say.
“The more reason I should know it now,” he said in his lighthearted way.
“If it had not been so early, Sarah, you should have come back and made
me some tea. What capital tea she used to make for you in the nursery,
Clare, you lucky girl! It is Miss Arden’s village I am going to see,
Sarah. It shall always be hers to do what she likes with it. You can
tell the people nothing is changed there.”
“Edgar, I think we should go,” said Clare, restraining him with once
more that soft shade of possible haughtiness. “Stay till we come back,
Sarah;” and with a little movement of her hand in sign of farewell, she
led her brother away. “You must not tell your plans to that sort of
person,” she said with a quick breath, in which her momentary passion
found relief.
“What! not your old nurse, Clare?” he cried. “You must not snub the old
woman so. We had better make a bargain in time, we who are so different.
You shall snub me when you please for my democratic ways, but you must
not snub the others, Clare.”
“What others?”
Edgar made no direct answer. He laughed and drew his sister’s arm close
within his own. “You are such a pretty picture with those great-lady
looks of yours,” he said; “they make me think of ruffs and hoops, and
dresses all covered with pearls. What is a farthingale? I am sure that
is what you ought to wear.”
“You mean it is out of fashion to remember that one is well born, and of
an old family,” said Clare with energy, “but you will never bring me to
see that. One has enough to do to keep one’s proper place with all those
encroachments that are going on, without one’s own brother to take their
part. But oh! forgive me, Edgar; I forgot: I will never say another
word,” she said, with the tears rushing to her eyes.
“What did you forget?” he said gently--“that I have been brought up as
never any Arden was before me, and am not an Arden at all, so to speak?
Perhaps on the whole it is better, for Arden ways are not the ways of
our time. They are very splendid and very imposing, and, in you, dear, I
don’t object to them, but----”
“Oh, Edgar, don’t speak so!” said his sister, with a certain horror.
“But I must speak so, and think so, too,” he said. “Could not you try to
imagine, Clare, among all the many theories on the subject, that this
was what was meant by my banishment? It is as good a way of accounting
for it as another. Imagine, for instance, that Arden ways were found to
be a little behind the generation, and that, hard as it was, and,
perhaps, cruel as it was----”
“Edgar---- I don’t say it is not true; but oh, don’t say so, for I can’t
bear it!”
“I shall say nothing you can’t bear,” he said softly, “my kind sister!
you always did your best for me. I hope I should not have behaved badly
anyhow; but you can’t tell what a comfort it is that you always stood by
me, Clare.”
“I always loved you, Edgar,” she cried, eagerly; “and then I used to
wonder if it was my fault--if I got all the love because I was like the
family, and a girl--taking it from you. I wish we had been a little bit
like, do you know--just a little, so that people should say--‘Look at
that brother and sister.’ Sometimes one sees a boy and a girl so
like--just a beard to one and long hair to the other, to make the
necessary difference; and then one sees they belong to each other at the
first glance.”
“Never mind,” said Edgar with a smile, “so long as we resemble each
other in our hearts.”
“But not in our minds,” said Clare, sorrowfully. “I can see how it will
be. You will always be thinking one thing when I am thinking another.
Whatever there may be to consider, you and I will always take different
views of it. You are for the present, and I am for the past. I know only
our own Arden ways, and you know the ways of the world. It is so hard,
Edgar; but, dear, I don’t for a moment say it is your fault,” she said,
holding his arm clasped between her hands, and looking up with her blue
eyes at their softest, into his face. He looked down upon her at the
same time with a curious, tender, amused smile. Clare, who knew only
Arden ways, was so sure they must be right ways, so certain that there
was a fault somewhere in those who did not understand them--but not
Edgar’s fault, poor fellow! He had been brought up away from home, and
was to be pitied, not blamed. And this was why her brother looked down
upon her with that curious amused smile.
“No,” he said, “it was not my fault; but I think you should take my
theory on the subject into consideration, Clare. Suppose I had been sent
off on purpose to inaugurate a new world?”
Clare gave a little shudder, but she did not speak. She was troubled
even that he could joke on such a matter, or suggest theories, as if it
had been a mere crotchet on the part of her father, who was incapable of
anything of the kind; but she could not make a direct reply, for, by
tacit mutual consent, neither of them named the old Squire.
“Let us think so at least,” he answered gaily, “for the harm is done, I
fear; and it would not be so bad to be a deserter from Arden ways, if
one had been educated for that purpose, don’t you think? So here we are
at the village! Don’t tell me anything. I remember every bit of it as
well as if I had been here yesterday. Where is the old lathe-and-plaster
house that used to stand here?”
“To think you should recollect it!” said Clare, her eyes suddenly
lighting up; and then in an apologetic tone--“It was so old. I allow it
was very picturesque and charming to look at; but oh, Edgar, you would
not blame me if you knew how dreadfully tumble-down and miserable it was
inside. The rain kept coming in, and when the brook was flooded in
winter it came right into the kitchen; and the children kept having
fevers. I felt very much disposed to cry over it, I can tell you; but
you would not have blamed me had you seen how shocking it was inside.”
“I wonder if Mistress Arden, in a ruff and a farthingale, would have
thought about the drainage,” he answered, laughing. “Fancy my blaming
you, Clare! I tell you it is your village, and you shall do what you
like with it. Is that Mr. Fielding at his gate? Let us cross over and
shake hands with him before we go any further. He is not so old, surely,
as he once was.”
“It is we who are old,” said Clare, with the first laugh that had yet
come from her lips. “He is putting on his gloves to go and call on you,
Edgar. The bell-ringers must have made it known everywhere. Mr. Fielding
and Dr. Somers will come to-day, and the Thornleighs and Evertons
to-morrow, and after that everybody; now see if it does not happen just
as I say!”
“Let us stop the first of these visits,” said Edgar, and he went forward
holding out his hand, while the parson at the gate, buttoning his grey
gloves, peered at him through a pair of short-sighted eyes. “It will be
very kind of you to name yourself, Sir, for I am very short-sighted,”
the Rector said, looking at him with that semi-suspicion which is
natural to a rustic of the highest as well as the lowest social
position. The newcomer was a stranger, and therefore had little right
and no assignable place in the village world. Mr. Fielding, who was
short-sighted besides, peered at him very doubtfully from the puckered
corners of his eyes.
“Don’t you know me?” said Edgar; and “Oh, Mr. Fielding, don’t you know
Edgar?” came with still greater earnestness from the lips of Clare.
“It is not possible!” said Mr. Fielding, very decidedly; and then he let
his slim umbrella drop out of his fingers, and held out both his hands.
“Is it really you, my dear boy!” he said. “Excuse my blind eyes. If you
had been my own son I would not have known you. I was on my way to call.
But though this is not so solemn or so correct it will do as well. And
Clare: Will you come in and have some breakfast? It cannot be much past
your breakfast hour.”
“Nor yours either,” said Clare; “it is so naughty of you and so wrong of
you to sit up like that, when you might just as well read in daylight,
and go to bed when everybody else does. But we don’t follow such a bad
example. We mean to have breakfast always by eight o’clock.”
Mr. Fielding gave a little sigh, and shook his venerable head. “That is
all very pretty, my dear, and very nice when you can do it; but you know
it never lasts. Anyhow, don’t let us stand here. Come in, my dear boy,
come in, and welcome home again. And welcome to your own, Edgar,” he
added, turning quickly round as he led them into his study, a large low
room, looking out upon the trim parsonage garden. He put out both his
hands as he said this, and grasped both those of Edgar, and looked not
at all disinclined to throw himself upon his neck. “Welcome to your
own,” he repeated fervently, and his eyes strayed beyond Edgar’s head,
as if he were confronting and defying some one. And then he added more
solemnly, “And God bless you, and enable you to fill your high position
like a man. Amen. I wonder what the old Doctor will say now.”
“What should he say?” said Edgar, fun dancing in his bright brown eyes;
“and how is he? I suppose he is unchangeable, like everything here.”
“Not unchangeable,” said Mr. Fielding, with a slight half-perceptible
shake of his head at the levity, one of those momentary assumptions of
the professional which most old clergymen indulge in now and then;
“nothing is unchangeable in this transitory world. But old Somers is as
steady as most things,” he added, with a responsive glance of amusement.
“We go on quarrelling, he and I, but it would be hard upon us if we had
to part. But tell me about yourself, Edgar, which is more interesting.
When did you get home?”
“Late last night,” said Edgar. “I came straight through from Cologne. I
began to get impatient as soon as I had settled which day I was to reach
home, and came before my time. Clare was in bed, poor child; but she got
up, fancy, when she heard it was me.”
“Of course she did; and she wants a cup of chocolate now,” said the old
parson, “when her colour changes like that from red to white, you should
give her some globules instantly, or else a cup of chocolate. I am not a
homœopathist, so I always recommend the chocolate. Mrs. Solmes
please, Miss Clare is here.”
“Shall I make two, sir?” said the housekeeper, who had heard the
unusual commotion, and put her head in softly to see what was the
matter. She did not quite understand it, even now. But she was too
highly trained a woman, and too good a servant to take any notice. The
chocolate was her affair, while the identity of the new comer was not.
“Don’t you know my brother, Mrs. Solmes?” cried Clare. “He has come
home. Edgar, she takes such good care of dear Mr. Fielding. I don’t know
how he managed without her before she came.”
Edgar was not failing in his duty on the occasion. He stepped forward
and shook hands with the radiant and flattered woman, “as nat’ral as if
I had known him all his life,” she said in the kitchen afterwards; for
Mrs. Solmes was a stranger and foreigner, belonging to the next parish,
who could not but disapprove of Arden and Arden ways, which were
different from the habits of Thornleigh parish, to which she belonged.
Edgar made her quite a little speech as he stood and held her
hand--“Anybody who is good to Mr. Fielding is good to Clare and me. He
has always been so kind to us all our lives.”
“He loves you like his own children, sir,” said Mrs. Solmes, quickly;
and then she turned and went away to make the chocolate, not wishing to
presume; while her master walked about the room, rubbing his hands
softly, and peering at the young man from amid the puckers of his
eyelids with pleased and approving satisfaction. “It is very nicely
said,” cried Mr. Fielding, “very nice feeling, and well expressed. After
that speech, I should have known him anywhere for an Arden, Clare.”
“But the Ardens don’t make pretty speeches,” said Clare, under her
breath. She never could be suite sure of him. Everything he did had a
spontaneous look about it that puzzled his sister. To be in Arden, and
to know that a certain hereditary course of action is expected from you
is a great advantage, no doubt, yet it sometimes gives a certain
sobriety and stiffness to the external aspect. Edgar, on the contrary,
was provokingly easy, with all the spontaneousness of a man who said and
did exactly what he liked to do and to say. Clare’s loyalty to her race
could not have permitted any such freedom of action, and it puzzled her
at every turn.
“We must send for old Somers,” said Mr. Fielding. “Poor old fellow, he
is very crotchety and fond of his own notions; but he’s a very good
fellow. We are the two oldest friends you have in the world, you young
people; and if we might not get a little satisfaction out of you I don’t
know who should. Mrs. Solmes,” this was called from the study door in a
louder voice, “send Jack over with my compliments to Dr. Somers, and
ask him to step this way for a minute. No, Edgar, don’t go; I want to
surprise him here.”
“But no one says anything about Miss Somers,” said Edgar; “how is she?”
“Ah, poor thing,” said Mr. Fielding, shaking his head, “she is confined
to bed now. She is growing old, poor soul. For that matter, we are all
growing old. And not a bad thing either,” he added, pausing and looking
round at the two young figures so radiant in life and hope. “You
children are sadly sorry for us--but fading away out of the world is
easier than you think.”
Edgar grasped Mr. Fielding’s hand, not quite knowing why, with the
compunction of youth for the departing existence to which its own
beginning seems so harsh a contrast, and yet with a reverential sympathy
that closed his lips. Clare, on the contrary, looked at him with
something almost matter-of-fact in her blue eyes. “You are not so old,”
she said quietly. “We thought you looked quite young as we came to the
door. Please don’t be angry, but I used to think you were a hundred. You
have grown ever so much younger these last three years.”
“I should be very proud if I were a hundred,” said Mr. Fielding, with a
laugh; but he liked the grasp of Edgar’s hand, and that sympathetic
glance in his eyes. Clare was Clare, the recognised and accustomed
princess, whom no one thought of criticising; but her brother was on his
trial. Every new look, every movement, spoke for or against him; and, so
far, everything was in his favour. “Of course, he is like his mother’s
family,” the old Rector said to himself, “more sympathetic than the pure
Ardens, but with all their fine character and best qualities. I wonder
what old Somers will think of him. And here he comes,” he continued
aloud, “the best doctor in the county, though he is as crotchety as an
old magician. Somers, here’s our young squire.”