Edgar was thankful for the morning air, the freshness of the breeze, the
quietness of the world outside, where there was nobody to look curiously
at him--nobody to speak to him. It was the first moment of calm he had
felt since the discovery of last night, although he had been alone in
his room for three or four hours, trying to sleep. Now there was no
effort at all required of him--neither to sleep, nor to talk, nor to
render a reason. He was out in the air, which caressed him with
impartial sweetness, never asking who he was; and the mere fact that he
was out of doors made it impossible for him to write anything or read
anything, as he might have otherwise thought it his duty to do. He went
on slowly, taking the soft air, the fluttering leaves, the gleams of
golden sunshine, all the freshness of the morning, into his very heart.
Oh, how good nature was, how kind, caressing a man and refreshing him,
however unhappy he might be! But the curious thing in all this was, that
Edgar was not unhappy. He did not himself make any classification of
his feelings, nor was he aware of this fact. But he was not unhappy: he
was in pain: he felt like a man upon whom a great operation has been
performed, whose palpitating flesh has been shorn away or his bones
sawed asunder by the surgeon’s skilful torture. The great shock tingles
through his whole system, affects his nerves, occupies his thoughts, is
indeed the one subject to which he finds himself ever and ever
recurring; and yet does not go so deep as to affect the happiness of his
life or the tranquillity of his mind. Perhaps Edgar did not fully
realise what it was which had fallen upon him. He was tingling,
suffering, torn asunder with pain; and yet he was quite calm. Any trifle
would have pleased him. He was so wounded, so sore, so bleeding, that he
had not time to look any further and be unhappy. The question what he
should do had not yet entered his mind. In the meantime he was gladly
silent, taking rest after the operation he had gone through.
He went down to the village vaguely, like a man in a dream. When he got
to the great gate he asked himself, with a sort of curious wonder and
interest, Should he go and tell Mr. Fielding--resolve all the Doctor’s
doubts for ever? But decided no, because he was too tired. Besides, he
had not made up his mind what was to be done. He had not fully realised
it--he had only felt the blow, and the rending, tearing pain--and now
the hush after the operation, his veins still tingling, his flesh
palpitating, but some soft opiate giving him a momentary, sweet
forgetfulness of his suffering. Sufferers who have taken a very strong
opiate often feel as Edgar did, especially if it does not bring sleep,
but only a strange insensibility, an unexplainable trance of relief. He
walked on and on, and he did not think. The thing had happened, the
knife had come down; but the shearing and rending were past, and he was
quiet. He was able to say nothing, think nothing--only to wait. At the
present moment this was all.
And then he went down in his dream to the cottage where Jeanie was. As
the women curtseyed to him at their doors, and the school-children made
their little bobs, he asked himself, why? Would they do it if they knew?
What would the village think? How would the information be received?
Those Pimpernels, for instance, who had turned Arthur Arden out, how
would they take it? Somehow, Edgar felt as if he himself had changed
with Arthur Arden. It was he, he thought, who had become the poor
cousin--he who was the one disinherited. We say he thought, but he did
not really think; it was but the upper line of fancy in his mind--the
floating surface to his thoughts. Though he had not made up his mind to
any course of action, and was not even capable of thinking, yet at the
same time he felt disposed to stop and speak to everybody, and say
certain words of explanation. What could he say? You are making a
mistake. This is not me; or, rather, I am not the person you take me
for. Was that what he ought to say? And he smiled once more that curious
smile, in which a certain pathetic humour mingled. “Who am I?” he said
to himself. “What am I?--a man without a name.” It gave him a strange,
wild, melancholy amusement. It was part of the effect of the laudanum;
and yet he had not taken any laudanum. His opiate was only the great
pain, the sleepless night--the sudden softening, calming influence of
the fresh day.
“She’s opened her eyes once,” said Mrs. Hesketh, at the cottage door.
“You don’t think much of that, sir; but it’s a deal. She opened her
eyes, and put out her hand, and said, ‘Granny!’ Oh, it’s a deal, sir, is
that! The Doctor is as pleased as Punch; and as for t’oud dame----”
“Is she pleased?” said Edgar.
“I don’t understand her, sir,” said the woman; “it looks to me as if she
was a bit touched”--and here Mrs. Hesketh laid her finger on her own
forehead. “Husht! she’ll hear. She won’t take a morsel of rest, won’t
t’oud dame. I canna think how she lives; but, bless you! she’s got
somethin’ else on her mind--something more than Jinny. I’m a’most
sure---- Lord! I’ve spoke below my breath, but she’s heard us, and she’s
coming here.”
“Will you watch my bairn ten minutes, while I speak to the gentleman?”
said Mrs. Murray. “Eh! I hope you’ll be blessed and kept from a’ evil,
for you’re a good woman--you’re a good woman. Aye, she’s better. She’ll
win through, as I always said. We’ve grand constitutions in our family.
Oh, my bonnie lad! it’s a comfort to me to see your face.”
Edgar must have started slightly at this address, for the old woman
started too, and looked at him with a bewildered air. “What did I say?”
she asked. “Mr. Edgar, I’ve sleepit none for three nights. My heart has
been like to burst. I’m worn out--worn out. If I said something that
wasna civil, I beg your pardon. It is not always quite clear to me what
I say.”
“You said no harm,” said Edgar. “You have always spoken kindly, very
kindly, to me--more kindly than I had any right to. And I hope you will
continue to think of me kindly, for I am not very cheerful just now,
nor are my prospects very bright----”
“_Your_ prospects no bright!” Mrs. Murray looked round to see that no
one was near, and then she came out upon the step, and closed the
cottage door behind her, and came close up to him. “Tell me what’s wrong
with you--oh, tell me what’s wrong with you!” she said, with an eager
anxiety, which was too much in earnest to pause or think whether such a
request was natural. Then she stopped dead short, recollecting--and went
on again with very little interval, but with a world of changed meaning
in her voice. “Many a one has come to me in their trouble,” she said.
“It’s _that_ that makes me ask--folk out of my ain rank like you. Whiles
I have given good advice, and whiles--oh! whiles I have given bad; but
its that that makes me ask. Dinna think it’s presumption in me.”
“I never thought it was presumption,” said Edgar; and there came upon
him the strongest, almost irresistible, impulse to tell what had
happened to him to this poor old woman at the cottage door. Was he
growing mad too?--had his misfortune and excitement been too much for
him? He smiled feebly at her, as he bewildered himself with this
question. “If I cannot tell you now, I will afterwards,” he said; and
lingered, not saying any more. Her keen eyes investigated him while he
stood so close to her. His fresh colour was gone, and the frank and open
expression of his face. He was very pale; there were dark lines under
his eyes; his mouth was firmly closed, and yet it was tremulous with
feeling repressed and restrained. Alarm and a look of partial terror
came into Mrs. Murray’s face.
“Tell me, tell me!” she cried, grasping his arm.
“There is nothing to tell, my good woman,” he said, and turned away.
She fell back a step, and opened the door which she had held closed
behind her. Her face would have been a study to any painter. Deep
mortification and wounded feeling were in it--tears had come to her
eyes. Edgar noticed nothing of all this, because he was fully occupied
with his own affairs, and had no leisure to think of hers; and had he
noticed it, his perplexity would have been so intense that he could have
made nothing of it. He stood, not looking at her at all--gone back into
his own thoughts, which were engrossing enough.
“Ay,” she said, “that’s true--I’m but your good woman--no your friend
nor your equal that might be consulted. I had forgotten that.”
But Edgar had given her as much attention as he was capable of giving
for the moment, and did not even remark the tone of subdued bitterness
with which she spoke. He roused himself a little as she retired from
him. “I hope you are comfortable,” he said; “I hope no one annoys you,
or interferes. The woman of the house----”
“There she is,” said Mrs. Murray, and she made him a solemn little
curtsey, and was gone before he could say another word. He turned,
half-bewildered, from the door, and found himself face to face with
Sally Timms, who felt that her opportunity had come.
“I don’t want to be disagreeable, sir,” said Sally, without a moment’s
pause. “I never was one that would do a nasty trick. It aint your fault,
nor it aint her fault, nor nobody’s fault, as Jinny is there. But not to
give no offence, Squire, I’d just like to know if I am ever going to get
back to my own little ’ouse?”
“I am very sorry, Sally,” Edgar began, instinctively feeling for his
purse.
“There’s no call to be sorry, sir,” said Sally; “it aint nobody’s fault,
as I say, and it aint much of a house neither; but it’s all as I have
for my little lads, to keep an ’ome. A neighbour has took me in,” said
Sally; “an’ it’s a sign as I have a good name in the place, when folks
is ready o’ all sides to take me in. And the little lads is at the West
Lodge. But I can’t be parted from my children for ever and ever. Who’s
to look to them if their mother don’t? Who’s to see as their faces are
clean and their clothes mended? Which they do tear their clothes and
makes holes in their trousers enough to break your heart--and nothing
else to be expected from them hearty little lads.”
“I will give you any rent you like to put on your house,” said Edgar,
with his purse in his hand. “I wish I could make poor Jeanie better, and
give you your cottage back; but I can’t. Tell me your price, and I will
give it to you. I am very sorry you have been disturbed.”
“It aint that, sir,” said Sally, with her apron to her eyes. “Glad am I
and ’appy to be useful to my fellow-creetures. It aint that. She shall
stay, and welcome, and all my bits o’ things at her service. I had once
a good ’ome, Squire; and many a thing is there--warming-pans, and
toasting-forks, and that--as you wouldn’t find in every cottage. Thank
ye, sir; I won’t refuse a shillin’ or two, for the little lads; but it
wasn’t that. If you please, Squire----”
“What is it?” said Edgar, who was getting weary. The day began to pall
upon him, though it was as fresh and sweet as ever. The influence of
that opiate began to wear out. He felt himself incapable of bearing any
longer this dismal stream of talk in his ears, or even of standing still
to listen. “What is it? Make haste.”
“If you please,” said Sally, “old John Smith, at the gate on the common,
he’s dead this morning, sir. It’s a lonesome place, but I don’t mind
that. The little lads ’ud have a long way to come to school, but I don’t
mind that; does them good, sir, and stretches their legs so long’s
they’re little. If you would think of me for the gate on the common--a
poor decent widow-woman as has her children’s bread to earn--if ye
please, Squire.”
A sudden poignant pang went through Edgar’s heart. How he would have
laughed at such a petition yesterday! He would have told Sally to ask
anything else of him--to be made Rector of the parish, or Lord
Chancellor--and he would have thrown that sovereign into her lap and
left her. But now he thought nothing of Sally. The lodge on the common!
He had as much right to give away the throne of England, or to appoint
the Prime Minister. A sigh which was almost a groan burst from his
heart. He poured out the contents of his purse into his hands and gave
them to her, not knowing what the coins were. “Don’t disturb Jeanie,” he
said, incoherently, and rushed past her without another word. The lodge
on the common! It occurred to Edgar, in the mere sickness of his heart,
to go round there--why, he could not have told. He went on like the
wind, not heeding Sally’s cry of wonder and thanks. The morning clouds
had all blown away from the blue sky, and the scorching sun beat down
upon his head. His moment of calm after the operation was past.