After the dinner at Thorne there was nothing said between Edgar and
Clare about that other humbler invitation which had caused the first
struggle between them. She took Mr. Fielding into her confidence, but
she said nothing more to her brother. As for the Rector, he was not so
hard on the Pimpernels as was the young lady at the Hall. “They are
common people, I allow,” he said. “They have not much refinement,
nor--nor education perhaps; and I highly disapprove of that perpetual
croquet-playing, which wastes all the afternoons, and puts young Denbigh
off his head. I do not like it, I confess, Clare; but still, you
know--if I may say exactly what I think--there are worse people than the
Pimpernels.”
“I don’t suppose they steal,” said Clare.
“My dear, no doubt it is quite natural, with your education and
habits--but I wish you would not be quite so contemptuous of these good
people. They are really very good sort of people,” said Mr. Fielding,
shaking his head. She looked very obdurate in her severe young beauty as
the Rector looked at her, bending his brows till his eyes almost
disappeared among the wrinkles. “They find us places for our boys and
girls in a way I have never been able to manage before; and whenever
there is any bad case in the parish----”
“Mr. Fielding, that is our business,” said Clare, almost sharply. “I
don’t understand how you can talk of our people to anybody but Edgar or
me.”
“I don’t mean the people here,” said Mr. Fielding meekly, “but at the
other end of the parish. You know that new village, which is not even on
Arden land--on that corner which belongs to old Stirzaker--where there
are so many Irish? I don’t like to trouble you always about these kind
of people. And when I have wanted anything----”
“Please don’t want anything from them again,” said Clare. “I don’t like
it. What is the good of our being lords of the manor if we do not look
after our own people? Mr. Fielding, you know I think a great deal of our
family. You often blame me for it; but I should despise myself if I did
not think of our duties as well. All that is our business.
Please--please don’t ask anything of those Pimpernels again!”
“Those Pimpernels!” said Mr. Fielding, shaking his head. “Ah, Clare!
they are flesh and blood like yourself, and the young lady is a very
nice girl; and why should I not permit them to be kind to their
fellow-creatures because you think that is your right? Everybody has a
right to be good to their neighbours. And then they find us places for
our boys and girls.”
“I have forgotten about everything since Edgar came,” said Clare, with a
blush. “I have not seen old Sarah since the first day. Please come with
me, and I will go and see her now. What sort of places? They are much
better in nice houses in the country than in Liverpool. The girls get
spoiled when they go into a town.”
“But they get good wages,” said Mr. Fielding, “and are able to help
their people. I have not told you of this, for I knew you were
prejudiced. Old Sarah has a lodger now, a relation of Mr. Perfitt--an
old Scotchwoman--something quite new. I should like you to see her,
Clare. I have seen plenty of Scotch in Liverpool, both workmen and
merchants; but I do not understand this old lady. She is a new type to
me.”
“I suppose being Scotch does not make much difference,” said Clare,
discontentedly. “I do not like them much for my part. Is she in want, or
can I be of any use to her? I will go and see her in that case----”
“Good heavens!” cried Mr. Fielding, in alarm, “Want! I tell you she is a
relation of Perfitt’s, and they are all as proud as Lucifer. I almost
wonder, Clare,” he added more softly, dropping his voice, “that you, who
are so proud yourself, should not have more sympathy with the pride of
others.”
“Others!” cried Clare, with indignation, and then she stopped, and
looked at him with her eyes full. If they had not been in the open air
in the village street she would have eased herself by a burst of tears.
“I am all wrong since Edgar came home,” she cried passionately out of
the depths of her heart.
“Since Edgar came home? But my dear child--my dear child!” cried Mr.
Fielding, “I thought you were so proud of your brother.”
“And so I am,” said Clare, hastily brushing away the tears. “I know he
is good--he is better than me; but he puts me all wrong notwithstanding.
He will not see things as I do. His nature is always leading him the
other way. He has no sort of feeling--no--Oh! I don’t know how to
describe it. He puts me all wrong.”
“You must not indulge such thoughts,” said the Rector, with a certain
mild authority which did not misbecome him. “He shows a great deal of
right feeling, it appears to me. And we must not discuss Edgar’s
qualities. He is Edgar, and that is enough.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” cried Clare, with sudden offence; and
then she stopped, and controlled herself. “I should like to go and see
this old Scotchwoman,” she added, after a moment’s pause. What she had
said was true, though she was sorry for having said it. Edgar, with his
strange ways of thinking, his spontaneousness, and freedom of mind, had
put her all wrong. She had been secure and certain in her own system of
life so long as everybody thought with her, and the bonds of education
and habit were unbroken. But now, though she was still as strong in her
Ardenism as ever, an uneasy, half-angry feeling that all the world did
not agree with her--nay, that the person of most importance to her in
the world did not agree with her--oppressed Clare’s mind, and made her
wretched. It is hard always to bear such a blow, struck at one’s
youthful convictions. It is intolerable at first, till the young
sufferer learns that other people have really a right to their opinions,
and that it is possible to disagree with him or her and yet not be
wicked. Clare could not deny that Edgar’s different views were
maintained with great gentleness and candour towards herself--that they
were held by one who was not an evil-minded revolutionary, but in every
other respect all that she wished her brother to be. But she felt his
eyes upon her when she said and did many little things which a few weeks
ago she would have thought most right and natural; and even while she
chafed at the tacit disapprobation, a secret self-criticism, which she
ignored and struggled against, stole into the recesses of her soul. She
would not acknowledge nor allow it to be possible; but yet it was there.
The natural consequence was that all her little haughtinesses, her airs
of superiority, her distinctions between the Ardens and their class and
all the rest of the world, sharpened and became more striking. She was
half-conscious that she exaggerated her own opinions, painted the lights
whiter and the shadows more profound, in involuntary reaction against
the new influences which began to affect her. She had not noticed the
Pimpernels, though she knew them well by sight, and all about them; but
she had no active feeling of enmity towards them until that unfortunate
day when they ventured to call, and Edgar, in his ignorance, received
them as if they had been the family of a Duke. Since then Clare had come
to hate the innocent people. She had begun to feel rabid about their
class generally, and to find words straying to her lips such as had
struck her as in very bad taste when old Lady Summerton said them. Lady
Summerton believed the poor were a host of impostors, and trades-people
an organised band of robbers, and attributed to the _nouveaux riches_
every debasing practice and sentiment. Clare had been disgusted by these
opinions in the old days. She had drawn herself up in her youthful
dignity, and had almost reproved her senior. “They are good enough sort
of people, only they are not of our class,” Clare had said; “please
don’t call them names. One may be a Christian though one is not
well-born.” Such had been her truly Christian feeling while yet she was
undisturbed by any doubt that to be well-born, and especially to be born
in Arden, was the highest grace conceded by heaven. But now that doubt
had been cast upon this gospel, and that she daily and hourly felt the
scepticism in Edgar’s eyes, Clare’s feelings had become as violent as
old Lady Summerton’s. The sentiment in her mind was that of scorn and
detestation towards the multitude which was struggling to rise into that
heaven wherein the Ardens and Thornleighs shone serene. “The poor
people” were different; they made no pretences, assumed no equality; but
the idea that Alice Pimpernel came under the generic title of young lady
exactly as she herself did, and that the daughter of a Liverpool man
might ride, and drive, and dress, and go everywhere on the same footing
as Clare Arden, became wormwood to her soul.
Mr. Fielding walked along by her side somewhat sadly. He was Clare’s
godfather, and he was very proud of her. His own nature was far too mild
and gentle to be able to understand her vehemence of feeling on these
points; but he had been grieved by it often, and had given her soft
reproofs, which as yet had produced little effect. His great hope,
however, had been in the return of her brother. “Edgar must know the
world a little; he will show her better than I can how wrong she is,”
the gentle Rector had said to himself. But, alas, Edgar had come home,
and the result had not been according to his hope. “He is young and
impetuous, and he has hurried her convictions,” was the comment he made
in his grieved mind as he accompanied her along the village street. Mr.
Fielding blamed no one as long as he could help it; much less would he
blame Clare, who was to him as his own child. He thought within himself
that now the only chance for her was Life, that best yet hardest of all
teachers. Life would show her how vain were her theories, how harsh her
opinions; but then Life itself must be harsh and hard if it is to teach
effectual lessons, and it was painful to anticipate any harshness for
Clare. He went with her, somewhat drooping and despondent, though the
air was sweet with honeysuckle and early roses. The summer was sweet,
and so was life, at that blossoming time which the girl had reached; but
there were still scorching suns, as well as the winds of autumn and the
chills of winter, to come.
Old Sarah had more ways than one of gaining her homely livelihood. The
upper floor of her cottage, on which there were two rooms, was furnished
out of the remains of some old furniture which an ancient mistress had
bequeathed to her; and there at distant intervals the old woman had a
lodger, when such visitors came to Arden. They were homely little rooms,
low-roofed, and furnished with the taste peculiar to a real cottage, and
not in the least like the ideal one; but people in search of health,
with small means at their disposal, were very glad to give her the ten
or twelve shillings a week, which was all she asked. Down below, in the
rooms where Sarah herself lived, she was in the habit of receiving one
or two young girls, orphans, or the children of the poorest and least
dependable parishioners, to train them to household work and plain
sewing. It was Clare’s idea, and it had worked very well; but for some
time past Clare had neglected her _protégées_. Edgar’s arrival and all
the dawning struggles of the new life had occupied and confused her,
and she had left her old nurse and her young pupils to themselves. She
could scarcely remember as she went in who they were, though Sarah’s
pupils were known in the parish as Miss Arden’s girls. There were two on
hand at the present moment in the little kitchen which was Sarah’s
abode. One stood before a large white-covered table ironing fine linen,
while the old nurse sat by in her big chair, spectacles on nose, and a
piece of coarse needlework in hand, superintending the process, with
many comments, which, added to the heat of the day and the irons, had
heightened Mary Smith’s complexion to a brilliant crimson. The other sat
working in the shady background, the object of Mary’s intensest envy,
unremarked and unreproved. It was the unfortunate clear-starcher who had
to make her bob to the gentlefolks, and called forth Miss Arden’s
questions. “I hope she is a good girl,” Clare said, looking at Mary, who
stood curtseying and hot, with the iron in her hand. “She is none so
good but she might be better, Miss Clare,” said old Sarah; “I don’t know
none o’ them as is; but she do come on in her ironing. As for collars
and cuffs and them plain things, I trust her by herself.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Clare, “and I hope Jane is as
satisfactory; but we have not time to talk about them to-day. Mr.
Fielding says you have a new lodger, whom he wishes me to go and see. Is
she upstairs? Is she at home? Does she like the place? And tell me what
sort of person she is, for I am going to see her now.”
Sarah got up from her chair with a bewildered look, and took off her
spectacles, which she always did in emergencies. “I beg your pardon,
Miss Clare,” she said with a curtsey, “but---- She ain’t not to say a
poor person. I don’t know as she’d--be pleased---- Not as your visit,
Miss, ain’t a compliment; but----”
“The Scotch are very proud,” said Mr. Fielding, in his most deprecating
tone; “they are dreadfully independent, and like their own way. And,
besides, she does not want anything of us. She is not, as Sarah says, a
poor person. I think, perhaps, another day----”
“Then why did you bring me here to see her?” said Clare, with some
reason. Was it to read her a practical lesson--to show her that she was
no longer queen in Arden? A flush of hasty anger came to her pale cheek.
“I only meant----” Mr. Fielding began; “all that I intended was---- Why,
here is Edgar! and Mr. Perfitt with him. About business, I suppose, as
you two are going together. My dear boy, I am so glad you are taking to
your work.”
“We have been half over the estate,” said Edgar, coming in, and putting
down his hat on Mary Smith’s ironing table, while she stood and gaped at
him, forgetting her curtsey in the awe of so close an approach to the
young Squire; “but Perfitt has some one to visit here, and I have come
to see Sarah, which is not work, but pleasure. I did not expect to find
you all. Perfitt, go and see your friend; never mind me. Oh, I beg your
pardon,” said Edgar, standing suddenly aside. They all looked up for the
moment with a little start, and yet there was nothing to startle them.
It was only Sarah’s Scotch lodger, Mr. Perfitt’s relative, who had come
into the little room.