Edgar Arden had lived hitherto, as we have said, a very desultory
wandering sort of life. He had been at school in Germany during his
earlier years, and afterwards at Heidelberg, at the University, where he
had seen a great many English afar off, and vaguely found out the
difference between their training and ways of thinking and those in
which he had himself been brought up. When he had first come to the age
when a boy begins to inquire into his own position, and when it no
longer becomes possible to take everything for granted, he had been told
first that it was for his health that he had been sent away from home;
and when he had fully satisfied himself that his health could no longer
be the reason, other causes had been suggested to him equally
unsatisfactory. It was his father who was in bad health, and could not
be troubled with a lively boy about him; but then there were schools in
England as well as in Germany, which would have settled that matter: or
the German education was superior, which was a theory his tutor
strongly inclined to, but which did not seem to Edgar’s lively young
intelligence quite justified by the opinion visibly entertained by the
English travellers whom he met. His first visit to England, after he was
old enough to understand, made matters a great deal more clear to him.
Injustice and dislike are hard to conceal from a young mind, even under
the most specious disguises--and here no disguise was attempted. The
Squire received his boy with a coldness which chilled him to the heart,
saw as little of him as he possibly could, endured his presence with
undisguised reluctance, and made it quite apparent to poor Edgar that,
unlike all the other sons he had ever seen in his life, he was only a
vexation and trouble to his father. The fact that his father was his
enemy dawned vaguely upon him at a much later period; for it is hard in
extreme youth to think that one has an enemy. A vague sense of being
hustled into corners, and shut out of the life of the family, such as it
was, had been the cloud upon his earlier days. He had felt that only in
Clare’s nursery did he hold that position of chief and favourite to
which surely the only son of the house was entitled. And little Clare
accordingly became the one bright spot in the house which he still by
instinct called home.
He had returned when he was seventeen, and again after he came of
age--though not to be received with any rejoicings at that later period,
as became the birthday of the heir. His birthday was over when he came
home, and Clare, a girl of sixteen, thrust her little furtive present
into his hand with a full sense that her brother was not to the Squire
what he was to her. But at this period something occurred which
enlightened Edgar as to his father’s feelings towards himself in the
cruellest way; it enlightened him and yet it threw a confusion darker
than ever over his life. The day after his arrival Mr. Arden sent for
him, and elaborately explained to him that he wished for his aid in
breaking the entail of certain estates, of which the young man knew
nothing. It was the longest interview that had ever taken place between
the two; and the Squire made very full explanations, the meaning of
which was but indistinct to the youth. Edgar had all the impatient and
reckless generosity which so often accompanies a buoyant temperament;
his sense of the sweets of property was small; and he knew next to
nothing about the estates. Had he known much there is little doubt that
he would have done exactly as he did; but, however, he had not even that
safeguard; and the consequence was that he took his father’s word at
once, responded eagerly and promptly to the proposal, and gave his
consent to denude himself of the property which had been longest in the
family, the little estate from which the name of Arden first came, and
which every Arden acquainted with his family history most highly prized.
Edgar, however, knew very little about his family history; and with the
foolish disinterestedness of a boy he acquiesced in all his father
suggested. But after the necessary arrangements in respect to this were
concluded Edgar caught a glance from his father’s eye which went to his
heart like an arrow. It was in the hunting-field, where, untrained as he
was, he had acquitted himself tolerably well; and he was just about to
take a somewhat risky fence when he saw that look which he never forgot.
The Squire had reined in his own horse, and sat like a bronze figure
under a tree watching his son. And as plain as eyes could tell Edgar
read in his father’s look a suppressed inappeasable enmity, which it was
impossible to mistake; his father was watching intently for the
spring--was it possible he was hoping that a fall would follow? How it
was that Edgar got over the fence he never could tell; for to his
hopeful, all-believing temper such a sudden glimpse into the darkness
was like a paralysing blow. He kept steady on his saddle, and somehow,
without any conscious guidance on his part, the horse accomplished the
leap; but Edgar turned straight back, and went home with such a sense of
misery as he had never experienced before. He was too wretched to
understand the calls sent after him--the questions with which he was
assailed. He could not even reply to Clare’s wondering inquiries. His
father hated him--that was the discovery he had made. To suspect that
anybody hated him would have given Edgar a shock; but to know it beyond
all doubt, and to feel that it was his father who regarded him with such
fierce enmity, made his very heart sink within him. He went away next
day, giving no explanation of his desire to do so. Nor did the Squire
make any inquiries. It was a mutual relief to them to be free of each
other. Before his departure his father informed him that he would
henceforward receive a much more liberal allowance--an intimation which
Edgar received without thinking what it meant--without caring what sense
was in the words. And that was the last he had seen of the Squire.
Nobody but himself knew of this incident. It was nothing--an
impression--a fancy; but in all Edgar’s life nothing had happened that
was so bitter to him. The effect had not lasted, for his mind was
essentially elastic, and he was young, and free to amuse himself as he
would. Fortunately, the kind of amusements he preferred were innocent
ones; for he had no guide, no one to control or restrain him, and not
even the shadow of parental authority. His father hated him--a horrible
freedom was his inheritance--nobody cared if he were to die the next
day--nay, on the contrary, there was some one who would be glad.
This impression, which had been swept out of his mind by years and
changes, came back upon him with singular force as all at once his eye
fell on the great portrait of old Squire Arden, painted when he was
Master of the Hounds, in sporting costume, which hung in the hall. He
stopped short before it as he went in with his sister on the first day
of his return, and felt a shudder come over him. Perhaps it was the
costume and attitude which moved his memory; but there seemed to lurk in
his father’s face, as he entered the house of which that father had been
unable to deprive him, the same look which once had fallen upon him like
a curse. He stopped short and grew pale, in spite of all his attempts to
control himself. “Would you think it cruel, Clare,” he said suddenly in
his impulsive way, “if I were to ask you to transfer that portrait to
some other place? It has a painful effect upon me there.”
“This is your house, Edgar,” answered Clare. On this point her sweetness
abandoned her. She knew he had been badly used; but she knew at the same
time that her father had been all love and kindness to herself.
Therefore, as was natural, Miss Arden took it for granted that somehow
it must be Edgar’s fault.
“That is not the question,” he said. “I can understand by my own what
your feelings must be on the subject. But it cannot harm him to remove
it, and it does harm me to have it stay. If you will make this sacrifice
to me, Clare----”
“Edgar, I tell you this is your house,” she said, with the tears rushing
to her eyes; and ran in and left him there, in a sudden passion of grief
and anger. Her brother, left alone, looked somewhat sadly round him. He
was very destitute of those impulses of self-assertion which come so
naturally to most young men; on the contrary, his impulse was to yield
when the feeling of anyone he loved ran contrary to his own: he was a
little sorrowful at Clare’s want of sympathy, but it did not move him to
act as master. “What harm can it do me now?” he said, going up and
looking closely at the portrait. It came natural to him to reason
himself out of his own fancies, and to give place to those of others.
“It would be wounding her only to satisfy my caprice,” he added after a
while; “and why should I be indulged in everything, I should like to
know?” Poor boy! up to this moment he had never been indulged in
anything all his life. He stayed a long time in the hall, now walking
about it, now standing before the portrait. It haunted him so that he
felt obliged to face it, and defy the look; and he could not but think
with a sigh what a comfort it would be to get quit of it, to take it
down and turn it somewhere with its face to the wall. But then he
remembered that though he was the master he was more a stranger in the
house than any servant it contained; and what right had he to cross his
sister, and go in the face of every tradition, and offend every soul in
the place, by taking down that picture, which looked malevolent to
nobody but him? “God forgive you!” he said at last, shaking his head at
it sorrowfully as he went slowly upstairs. He could not feel himself
free or safe so long as it remained there. If anything happened to
him--supposing, for instance (this grim idea crossed his mind in spite
of himself)--supposing it might ever happen that he should be carried
into that hall, wounded or mangled by any accident, would the painted
face smile at him, would the eyes gleam with a horrible joy? And it was
his father’s face. Edgar shuddered, he could not help it, as he went
slowly up the great stairs. As he went up, some one else was coming
down, making a gleam of reflection in the still air. It was old Sarah,
with her white apron, making a curtsey at every step, and finding that
mode of progress difficult. Edgar’s mobile countenance dressed itself
all in smiles at the appearance of this old woman. Clare would have
thought it strange, but it came natural to her brother; though, perhaps,
on the whole, it was Clare, her own special charge and nursling, who was
most fond of old Sarah, as, indeed, it became her to be.
“Have you been waiting for us?” he said. “My sister has gone to look for
you, I suppose.”
“Not gone to look for me, Mr. Edgar,” said Sarah, petulantly; “run
upstairs in one of her tantrums, as I have seen her many a day. You’ll
have to keep her a bit in hand, now you’ve come home, Mr. Edgar.”
“_I_ keep her in hand!” cried Edgar, struck with the extreme absurdity
of the suggestion; and then he tried hard to look severe, and added--“My
dear old Sarah, you must recollect who Miss Arden is, and take care what
you say.”
“There’s ne’er a one knows better who she is,” said old Sarah, “she’s my
child, and my jewel, and the darlin’ of my heart. But, nevertheless,
she’s an Arden, Mr. Edgar. All the Ardenses as ever was has got
tempers--except you; and for her own good, the dear, you should keep her
a bit in hand; and if you say it was her old nurse told you, as loves
her dearly, it wouldn’t do no harm.”
“Am I the only Arden without a temper?” said Edgar, gaily; “it’s odd how
I want everything that an Arden ought to have. But my sister is queen at
Arden, Sarah; always has been; and most likely always will be.”
“Lord bless you, sir, wait till you get married,” said Sarah, nodding
her head again and again, and beaming at the prospect. “Eh! I’d like to
live to see that day!”
“It will be a long day first,” said Edgar, with a laugh, meaning nothing
but a young man’s half-mocking, half-serious denial of the coming
romance of his existence; “though I promise you, Sarah, you shall dance
at my wedding--but at Clare’s first, which is the proper arrangement,
you know.”
“If he was a good gentleman, Sir, and one as was fond of her, I
shouldn’t care how soon it was,” she said. “Eh, my word, but I’ll dance
till I dance you all off the floor!”
“But you must not go without something to remind you of your first visit
to us,” he said; and he took out his purse from his pocket with the
lavish liberality of his disposition. “Look, there is not very much in
it. Buy something you like, Sarah, and say to yourself that it is given
you by me.”
“No, Mr. Edgar; no, Sir. Oh, good Lord, not a purse full of money, as if
that was all I was thinking of! I didn’t come here, not for money, but
to see Miss Clare and you.”
“It is because it is your first visit to us,” repeated Edgar, and he
gave her a kind nod, and went lightly past to his rooms. All his gloomy
thoughts and superstitions had been driven out of his mind by this
momentary encounter. His light heart had risen again like a ball of
feathers. The glooms and griefs that lay in his past he shook off from
him as lightly as thistledown. He thought no more of his father’s grim
face in the hall--did not even look at it when he went downstairs. Was
it that his mind was a light mind, easily blown about by any wind? or
that God had given him that preservative which He gives to those whom He
has destined to bear much in this world? At so early a moment, when his
life lay all vague before him, this was a question which nobody could
answer. There was one indication, however, that his elasticity was
strength rather than weakness, which was this--that he had not forgotten
what had moved him so strongly, but was able, his sunny nature helping
him, to put it away.