It was impossible for Edgar not to look with interest upon this other
Arden, who was so like his family, so like his own sister, with the very
same air about him which the portraits had, and in which the young man
felt he was himself so strangely wanting. Perhaps if Gussy Thornleigh
had been by his side, or even that pretty Miss Molyneaux, who was
entertaining his unknown relation, his eyes and thoughts would not have
been so persistently drawn that way. But between Alice Pimpernel, who
said, “Oh no, Mr. Arden,” and “Oh yes, Mr. Arden,” and Mrs. Buxton, who
was collecting the pearls which dropped from the lips of Lord Newmarch,
the dinner was not lively to him; and he caught from the other end of
the table tones of that voice which somehow sounded familiar, and turns
of the head full of that vague family resemblance which goes so far in a
race, and which recalled to him not only his sister whom he loved, but
his father whom he did not love. How strange it was that he should have
been so entirely passed over amid all those family links that bound the
others together! It proves, Edgar said to himself, that it is not blood
that does it, but only association, education, the impressions made upon
the mind at its most susceptible age. He reasoned thus with himself, but
did not find the reasoning quite satisfactory, and could not but feel a
mingled attraction and repulsion to the stranger who was his nearest
relation, his successor if he died, and surely ought to be his friend
while he lived. When the ladies left the room, and the others drew
closer round the table, he could no longer resist the impulse that moved
him. It was true that Clare had expressed anything but friendly feelings
for this unknown cousin; but anyhow, were he bad or good, it was Edgar’s
duty, as the chief of the family, to know its branches. It did not seem
to him even that it was right or natural to ask for any introduction.
After a little hesitation he changed his place, and took the chair by
Arthur Arden’s side. “They tell me you are of my family,” he said, “and
your face makes me sure of it--in which case, I suppose, we are each
other’s nearest relations, at least on the Arden side.”
The landless cousin paused for a moment before he replied to the young
Squire. He looked him all over with something which might have seemed
insolence had Edgar’s nature led him to expect evil. “I suppose, of
course, you are my cousin the Squire,” he said, carelessly, “though I
certainly should never have made you out to be an Arden by your face.”
“No; I am like my mother they tell me,” said Edgar; but for the first
time in his life he reddened at that long understood and acknowledged
fact. There was nothing _said_ that insulted him, but there was an
inference which he did not understand, which yet penetrated him like a
dagger. It was unendurable, though he had no comprehension what it
meant.
“I never knew rightly who Mrs. Arden was,” said Arthur; “a foreigner, I
believe, or at least a stranger to the county. I don’t think I should
like my eldest son to be so unlike me if I were a married man.”
“Mr. Arden, I don’t pretend to understand your meaning; but if you wish
to be offensive perhaps our acquaintance had better end at once,” said
Edgar, “I have no desire to quarrel with my heir.”
Another pause followed, during which the dark countenance of the other
Arden fluctuated for a moment between darkness and light. Then it
suddenly brightened all over with that smile for which the Ardens were
famous. “Your heir!” he said. “You are half a lifetime younger than I
am, and much more likely to be my heir--if I had anything to leave. And
I don’t want to be offensive. I am a bitter beggar; I can’t help myself.
If you were as poor as I am, and saw a healthy boy cutting you out of
everything--land, money, consideration, life----”
“Don’t say so,” cried open-hearted Edgar, forgetting his offence; “on
the contrary, if I can do anything to make life more tolerable--more
agreeable---- I am just as likely to die as any one,” he continued, with
a half comic sense that this must be consolatory to his new
acquaintance; “and I have my sister to think of, who in that case would
want a friend. Why should not we be of mutual use to each other? I now;
you perhaps hereafter----”
“By Jove!” cried the other, looking at him keenly. And then he drank off
a large glass of claret, as if he required the strength it would give.
“You are the strangest fellow I ever met.”
“I don’t think so,” said Edgar, laughing. “Nothing so remarkable; but I
hope we shall know each other better before long. There is not much
attraction just now in the country, but in September, if you will come
to Arden----”
“Do you know Miss Arden can’t bear me?” said his new friend.
“Can’t bear you!” Edgar faltered as he spoke--for as soon as his unwary
lips had uttered the invitation he remembered what Clare had said.
“Yes; your sister hates me,” said Arthur Arden. “I cannot tell why, I am
sure. I suppose because my father and yours fought like cat and dog--or
like near relations if you choose, which answers quite as well. I am not
at all sure that he did not send you abroad to be out of our way. He
believed us capable of poisoning you--or--any other atrocity,” he added,
with a little harsh laugh.
“And are you?” said Edgar, laughing too, though with no great heart.
“I don’t think I shall try,” said his new kinsman. “My father is dead,
and one is less courageous than two. By Jove! just think what a
difference it would make. Here am I, a poor wretch, living from hand to
mouth, not knowing one year where my next year’s living is to come from,
or sometimes where my next dinner is to come from, for that matter. If
ever one man had an inducement to hate another, you may imagine it is
I.”
This grim talk was not amusing to Edgar, as may be supposed; but, as his
companion spoke with perfect composure, he received it with equal calm,
though not without a secret shudder in his heart. “I think we might
arrange better than that,” he said. “We have time to talk it over later;
but, in my opinion, the head of a family has duties. It sounds almost
impertinent to call myself the head of the family to you, who are older,
and probably know much more about it; but----”
“You are so,” said Arthur Arden, “and fact is incapable of impertinence.
Talking of the country having no attractions, I should rather like to
try a June at Arden. I suppose you bucolics think that the best of the
year, don’t you? roses, and all that sort of thing. And I happen to have
heaps of invitations for September, and not much appetite for town at
the present moment. If it suits you, and your sister Clare does not
object too strenuously, I’ll go with you now.”
This sudden and unexpected acceptance of his invitation filled Edgar
with dismay. September was a totally different affair. In September
there would be various visitors, and one individual whom she disliked
need not be oppressive to Clare. But now, while they were alone, and
while yet all the novelty of his situation was fresh upon Edgar,
nothing, he felt, could be more inappropriate. Arthur Arden swayed
himself upon his chair, leaving one arm over the back, with careless
ease, while his cousin, suddenly brought to a stand-still, tried to
collect himself, and decide what it was best to do. “Ah, I see,” Arthur
said, after a pause, still with the same carelessness, “I bore you. You
were not prepared for anything so prompt on my part; and Madam
Clare----”
“I cannot allow my sister’s name to be mentioned,” cried Edgar angrily,
“except with respect.”
“Good heavens, how could I name her with greater respect? If I said
Madam Arden, which is the proper traditionary title, you would think I
meant your grandmother. I say Madam Clare, because my cousin is the lady
of the parish: I will say Queen Clare, if you please: it comes to about
the same thing in our family, as I suppose you know.”
“As I suppose you don’t know,” was in this arrogant Arden’s tone; but it
was lost upon Edgar, whose mind was busy about the problem how he could
manage between Arthur’s necessities and Clare’s dislike. The party was
in motion by this time to join the ladies, and Lord Newmarch came up to
the two Ardens in the momentary breaking up.
“I want very much to see more of you,” he said, addressing himself to
Edgar. “I see you two cousins have made acquaintance, so I need not
volunteer my services; but I am very anxious to see more of you. I
daresay there are many things in the county and in the country which you
will find a little puzzling after living so long abroad; and I hope to
get a great deal of information from you about Continental politics. My
father is in town, so I cannot ask you to Marchfield, as I should like
to do; indeed, I am only off duty for a week on account of this great
social assembly in Liverpool. How shall I manage to see a little of you?
I go back to Liverpool with the Buxtons to-night.”
“I cannot promise to go to Liverpool,” said Edgar; “but if you could
come to us at Arden----”
“That would be the very thing,” said the young politician, “the very
thing. I could spare you from the 1st to the 5th. I must be back in town
before the 7th for the Irish debate. My father has Irish property, and
of course we poor slaves have to come up to the scratch; though, as for
justice to Ireland, you know, Arden----”
“I fear I don’t know much about it; shall we join the ladies?” said
Edgar, a little confused by finding his hospitality so readily embraced.
“I shall be very happy to give you the benefit of my experience,” said
Lord Newmarch; “there are some things on which it is necessary a young
landed proprietor should have an opinion of his own. Yes, by all means,
let us go upstairs. There is a great deal in the present state of the
country that I should be glad to talk to you about. We have become
frightfully empirical of late; whether the Government is Whig or whether
it is Tory, it seems a condition of existence that it should try
experiments upon the people; we are always meddling with one thing or
another--state of the representation--education--management of the
poor----”
Such were the words that came to Arthur Arden’s ears as his cousin
disappeared out of the dining-room under the wing of Lord Newmarch,
being preached to all the way. The kinsman, who was a fashionable
vagabond, looked after them with a smile which very much resembled a
sneer. “Thank heaven, I am nobody,” he said to himself, half aloud. He
was the last in the room, and no one cared whether he appeared late or
early in Mrs. Pimpernel’s fine drawing-room; no one except, perhaps, one
or two young ladies, who thought “poor Mr. Arden” very handsome and
agreeable, but knew he was a man who could never be married, and must
not even be flirted with overmuch. If he was bitter at such moments, it
was not much to be wondered at. He was more mature, and much better able
to give an opinion than Edgar, better educated, perhaps a more able man
by nature; but Edgar had the family acres, and therefore it was to him
that the politician addressed himself, and whom everybody
distinguished. Arthur Arden persuaded himself, as he went his way after
the others to the drawing-room, that it was almost a good bargain to be
quit of Lord Newmarch and his tribe, even at the price of being quit of
land and living at the same time; but the attempt was rather a failure.
He would have appreciated political power, which Edgar was too ignorant
to care for; he would have appreciated money, which Edgar evidently
meant to throw away, in his capacity of head of the family, on poor
relations and other unnecessary adjuncts. What a strange mistake of
Providence it was! “He would have made a capital shopkeeper, or clerk,
or something,” the elder Arden said to himself, “whereas I----; but, at
all events, we shall see what effect his proceedings will have upon
saucy Clare.”