The state of affairs at Arden on this strange day was very perplexing to
Arthur. Clare did not make her appearance even at dinner, but there were
sounds of going and coming on the stairs, and at one time Arthur could
have sworn he heard the voice of Edgar at his sister’s door. She was
well enough to see her brother, though not to come downstairs. And among
the letters which were brought down to be put into the post-bag surely
there was more than one in her handwriting. She had been able to carry
on her correspondence, then; consequently the illness must be a feint
altogether to avoid him, which was not on the whole flattering to his
feelings. Arthur felt himself, as he was, in a very undignified
position. He had experienced a good many humiliations of late. He had
been made to feel himself not at all so captivating, not so
sought-after, as he had once been. The Pimpernels had ejected him; and
here were his cousins, his nearest relations--two chits who might almost
be his own children, and who ought to have been but too happy to have a
man of his experience with them, a man so qualified to advise and guide
them--here were they shutting themselves up in mysterious chambers,
whispering together, and transacting their business, if they had any
business, secretly, that he might not be of the party! It was not
wonderful that this should be galling to him. He resented it bitterly.
What! shut him out from their concerns, pretend illness, whisper and
concert behind his back! He was not a man, he reflected, to thrust
himself into anybody’s private affairs; and surely the business might
have been put off, whatever it was, or they might have managed somehow
to keep it out of his sight if he was not intended to see it; whereas
this transparent and, indeed, vulgar device thrust it specially under
his eye. In the course of his reflections it suddenly flashed upon his
mind that such conduct could only proceed from the fact that what they
were occupied about was something which concerned himself. They were
laying their heads together, perhaps, to be of service to him--to “do
him good.” There was never man so careless yet but the thought that
somebody wished to do him good was gall to him. What they intended,
probably, was to make him Edgar’s agent on the estate. It would be
earning his bread honestly, doing something for his living--a step
which had often been pressed upon him. He would be left at Arden,
guardian of the greatness and the wealth of a property which he was
never to enjoy, making the best of the estate for Edgar’s benefit;
seeing him come and go, enjoying his greatness; while his poor kinsman
earned an honest living by doing his work! By Jove! Arthur Arden said to
himself; it was a very likely idea, this of the agentship--nothing could
have been more natural, more suitable. It was just the sort of thing to
have occurred to such a mind as Edgar’s, who was naturally fond of
occupation, and who would have been his own agent with pleasure. If the
truth were known, no doubt Edgar thought he was making a little
sacrifice by arranging all this for his cousin. Confound him! Arthur
said. And if such an idea had actually entered Edgar’s mind, this would
have been his reward.
After dinner he went out into the Park to smoke his cigar. It was a
lovely night, and strolling about in the fresh evening air was better
than being shut up in a melancholy room without a creature near him to
break the silence. He took a long walk, and finally came back to the
terrace round the house. The favourite side of the terrace was that
which lay in front of the drawing-room windows; but the terrace itself
ran quite round Arden to the flower garden behind, which it joined on
the two sides. In mere wantonness Arthur extended his stroll all the way
round, which was an unfrequent occurrence. On the darkest side, where
the terrace was half-obscured by encroaching trees, he saw a glimmer of
light in some windows on the ground-floor. They were the windows of the
library, he perceived after a while, and they were partially open--that
is to say, the windows themselves were open, but the shutters closed. As
Arthur strolled along passing them, he was attracted by the sound of
voices. He stopped; his own step was inaudible on the grass, even if the
speakers within had ever thought of danger. He paused, hesitated a
moment, listened, and heard the sound more distinctly; then, after a
moment’s debate with himself, went up to the nearest window. There was
no moonlight; the night was dark, and the closest observer even from
without could scarcely have seen him. He threw his cigar away, and after
another pause seated himself on the stone sill of the window. A great
bush of clematis which clung about one side hid him in its fragrant
bower. He could have escaped in a moment, and no one would have been the
wiser; and the moths buzzed in over his head to the light, and the sound
of the two voices came out. It was Clare and Edgar who were
talking--Clare, who had been shut up in her room all day, who was too
ill to come downstairs; but she had come down now, and was talking with
the utmost energy--a tone in which certainly there was no appearance of
failing strength. It was some time before he could make out more than
the voices, but indignation and despite quickened his ears. The first,
whose words he could identify, was Clare.
“Look here,” she said, advancing, as would seem, nearer to the window,
and speaking with an animation very unlike her ordinary tones. “Look
here, Edgar! My father himself meant to burn them. Oh, that I should
have to speak so of poor papa! But I acknowledge it. He has been wicked,
cruel! I don’t want to defend him. Yet he meant to burn them, you can
see.”
“But did not,” said Edgar. “He did not; that is answer enough. Why,
having taken all this trouble, and burdened his soul with a crime, he
should have left behind the means of destroying his own work, heaven
knows! Probably he thought I would find it, and conceal it for
self-interest; but yet carry the sting of it for ever. I have been
thinking long on the subject: that is what he must have meant.”
“Oh, Edgar!” said Clare.
“That must have been his intention. I can see no other. He must have
thought there was no doubt that I would in my turn carry on the crime.
How strangely one man judges another! It was devilish, though. I don’t
want to hurt your feelings, but it was devilish. After having bound me,
as he thought, by every bond to keep his secret, he would have thrust
upon me the guilt too!”
“Oh, Edgar, Edgar!” Clare said, with a moan of pain. From the sound of
the voices Arthur gathered that Edgar must be seated somewhere near the
table, while Clare walked about the room in her agitation. Her voice
came, now nearer, now farther from the window, and it may be supposed
with what eager interest the eavesdropper listened. He would not have
done it had there been time to think, or at least so he persuaded
himself afterwards. But for anything he knew his dearest interests might
be involved, and every word was important to him. A long silence
followed--so long, that he thought all had come to an end, and with an
intense sense of being mocked and tantalised, was about to get up and
steal away, when he was recalled once more by the voice of Clare.
“It was I who found them,” she said, “where I had no right to look. It
was for you to say whether these papers should have been disturbed or
not. I thrust myself among them, having no right: therefore I ought to
be heard now. Edgar, listen to me! If you make them public, think of the
scandal, the exposure! Think of our name dragged in the dust, and the
house you have been brought up in--the house that is yours---- Listen to
me! Oh, Edgar! are you going to throw away your life? It is not your
fault. You are innocent of everything. You would never have known if my
father had had the justice to destroy these papers--if I had not had the
unpardonable, the horrible levity of finding them out. If you will not
do what I ask you to do, I will never, never forgive myself all my life.
I will feel that I have been the cause. Edgar! you never refused to
listen to me before.”
“No,” he said. The voice was farther off, and Arthur Arden had to bend
forward close to the window to hear at all, but even then could not be
insensible to the thrill of feeling that was in it. “No; but you never
counselled me to do wrong before. Never! You have been like an angel to
me---- Clare.”
There was a pause between the preceding words and the name, as if he had
difficulty in pronouncing it; but this was wholly unintelligible to
Arthur, whose worst suspicions fell so much short of the truth.
“Oh, no, no,” she said: “do not speak to me so, Edgar. This has shown me
what I am. I have been more like a devil. I have nothing but pride, and
ill-temper, and suspicion to look back upon. Nothing, nothing else!
Remember, I might have burned them myself. If I had been worthy to live,
if I had been fit for my place in this house, if I had been such a woman
as some are--my father’s daughter--your sister, Edgar--I should have
burned them myself.”
“My--sister,” he cried, with again a pause, and in a softened tremulous
tone. “That is the worst; that is the worst! What are you doing, Clare?”
“My duty now,” she said wildly, “to him and to you!”
Then there was a pause. Arthur Arden would have given everything he
possessed in the world for the power of looking inside--but he dared
not. He sat on the window-sill with all his faculties concentrated in
his ears. What was she doing? There was some movement in the room, but
sounds of gentle feet upon a Turkey carpet betray little. The first
thing audible was a broken sobbing cry from Clare.
“Let me do it! I will go down on my knees to you. I will bless you for
it, Edgar! Edgar! You will be more my brother than ever you were in my
life!”
Another silence--nothing but the sobbing of intense excitement and a
faint rustle as if the girl worn out had thrown herself into a chair;
and then a sound of the rustling and folding of paper. Oh, if he could
but see! The half-closed shutter jarred a little, moved by the wind; and
Arthur, roused, found a little chink, the slenderest crevice by which he
could see in. All that he saw was Edgar sealing a packet. The wax fell
upon it unsteadily, showing emotion which was not otherwise visible in
his look. Then he wrote some name upon the packet, and put it in the
breast-pocket of his coat.
“There it is,” he said cheerfully; “I have directed it to Mr. Fazakerly,
and that settles the whole business. We must not struggle any more about
it. Do you think I have had no temptation in the matter? Do you think I
have got through without a struggle? The Thornleighs came back
to-day--and to-morrow I was going to Thorne to ask her to be my wife.”
When he said these words, Edgar for the moment overcome with his
conflict, dropped his head upon his hands and covered his face. All the
levity, all the ease and secondary character of his feelings towards
Gussy had disappeared now. He felt the pang of giving up this sweetness
as he had not yet felt anything. All rushed upon him at once--all the
overwhelming revelations he had to make. Edgar was brave, and he had
kept the thought at bay. But now--Gussy, Clare, himself--all must
go--every love he had any right to, or any hope of--every companionship
that had ever been his, or that he had expected to become his--“Oh God!”
he said in the depths of his overthrow. It was the first cry that had
come from his lips.
Arthur Arden, peering in, saw Clare go to him and throw her arms round
him and press his bowed head against her breast. He saw her weep over
him, plead with him in all the force of passion. “Give it to me; give it
to me; give it to me!” she cried, with the reiteration of violent
emotion. “You will make me the most miserable creature on earth. You
will take every pleasure out of my life.”
“Hush, hush!” he said softly, “Hush! we must make an end of this. Come
and breathe the air outside? After all, what is it? An affair of a day.
To-morrow or next day we shall have made up our minds to it; and the
world cares so little one way or another. Come out with me and take
breath, Clare.”
“I cannot, I cannot,” she cried. “What do I care for air or anything.
Edgar, for the last time, stop and think.”
“I have thought till my brain is turning,” said Edgar, rising and
drawing her arm within his to the infinite alarm of the listener, who
transferred himself noiselessly to the other side of the great clematis
bush, which fortunately for him grew out of a great old rose tree which
was close against the wall. “For the last time, there is nothing to
think about. It is decided now, and for ever.”
And immediately a gleam of light fell upon the window-sill where the
false kinsman had been listening; and the brother and sister came out,
she leaning closely on his arm. They took the other direction, to the
spy’s intense relief; but the last words he heard inflicted torture upon
him as the two passed out of sight and hearing; they were these: “Arthur
Arden loves you, Clare.”