Edgar rode over the verdant country, wearily, languidly, with a heart
that for once was closed to its influence. He was tired of the whole
matter. It no longer seemed to him so dreadful a thing to give up Arden,
to part from all he cared for. If he could but be done with the pain of
it, get it over, have no more trouble. Agitation had worn him out. The
thought that he would have another day like yesterday to live through,
or perhaps more than one other day, filled his heart with a sick
impatience. Why could he not ride on to the nearest railway station, and
there take any train, going anywhere, and escape from the whole
business? The mere suggestion of this relief was so sweet to him that he
actually paused at the cross road which led to the railway. But he was
not the kind of man to make an escape. To leave the burthen on others
and save himself was the last thing he was likely to do. He touched his
horse unconsciously with his whip and broke into a gay canter on the
grassy border of the road that led to Thorne. Coraggio! he cried to
himself. It would not last so long after all. He would leave no broken
bits of duty undone, no ragged edges to his past. A little pain more or
less, what did it matter? Honestly and dutifully everything must be
done; and, after all, the shame was not his. It was the honest part that
was his--the righting of wrong, the abolition of injustice. Strange that
it should be he, a stranger to the race, who had to do justice to the
Ardens! He was not one of them, and yet he had to act as their head,
royally making restitution, disposing of their destinies. He smiled a
painful smile as this thought crossed his mind. They were one of the
proudest families in England, and yet it fell to a nameless man, a man
most likely of no lineage at all, to set them right. If any forlorn
consolation was to be got out of it at all it was this.
When Edgar was seen riding up the avenue at Thorne it made a commotion
in the house. Mary and Beatrice spied him from the window of the room
which had been their schoolroom, and where they still did their
practising and wrote their letters to their dearest friends. “Oh, there
is Edgar Arden coming to propose to Gussy!” cried Beatrice; and they
rushed to the window to have a look at him, and then rushed to the
drawing-room to warn the family. “Oh, mamma, oh, Gussy! here’s Edgar
Arden!” they cried. Lady Augusta looked up from her accounts with
composed looks. “Well, my dear children, I suppose none of us are much
surprised,” she said. Gussy, for her part, grew red with a warm glow of
rosy colour which suffused her throat and her forehead. “Poor, dear
boy!” she said to herself. He had not lost a moment. It was a little
past noon, not time for callers yet. He had not lost a moment. She
wondered within herself how it would come--if he would ask her to speak
to him alone in a formal way--if he would ask her mother--if he would
manage it as if by chance? And then what would he say? That question,
always so captivating to a girl’s imagination, was soon, very soon, to
be resolved. He would tell her he had loved her ever since he knew
her--he would tell her---- Gussy’s heart expanded and fluttered like a
bird. She would know so soon all about it; how much he cared for
her--everything he had to tell.
But they were all shocked by his paleness when he came in. “What have
you been doing to yourself?” Gussy cried, who was the most impulsive.
“Have you been ill, Mr. Arden?” said sympathetic Ada. They were all
ready to gather about him like his sisters, to be sorry for him, and
adopt all his grievances, if he had any, with effusion. He felt himself
for the moment the centre of all their sympathies, and his hurt felt
deeper and more hopeless than it had ever done before.
“I am not in the least ill,” he said, “and I have not been doing
anything to speak of; but Fortune has been doing something to me. Lady
Augusta, might I have half an hour’s talk with you, if it does not
disturb you? I have--something to say----”
“Surely,” said Lady Augusta; and she closed her account-books and put
them back into her desk. He meant to take the formal way of doing it,
she supposed--a way not so usual as it used to be, but still very
becoming and respectful to the fathers and mothers. She hesitated,
however, a little, for she thought that most likely Gussy would like the
other method best. And she was not so much struck as her daughters were
by the change in his looks. Of course, he was a little excited--men
always are in such an emergency, more so than women, Lady Augusta
reflected; for when it comes to that a woman has made up her mind what
is to be the end of it, whereas the man never knows. These reflections
passed through her mind as she locked her desk upon the account-books,
thus giving him a little time to get by Gussy’s side if he preferred
that, and perhaps whisper something in her ear.
But Edgar made no attempt to get by Gussy’s side. He stood where he had
stopped after shaking hands with them all, with a faint smile on his
face, answering the questions the girls put to him, but visibly waiting
till their mother was ready to give him the audience he had asked. “I
suppose I must go and put him out of his pain; how anxious he looks, the
foolish boy,” Lady Augusta whispered, as she rose, to her eldest
daughter. “Mamma, he looks as if he had something on his mind,” Ada
whispered back. “I know what he has on his mind,” said her mother gaily.
And then she turned round and added aloud, “Come, Mr. Arden, to my
little room where I scold my naughty children, and let us have our
talk.”
The sisters, it must be said, were a little alarmed when Edgar was thus
led away. They came round Gussy and kissed her, and whispered courage.
As for the giddy young ones, they tried to laugh, though the solemnity
of the occasion was greater than they could have supposed possible. But
the others had no inclination to laugh. “It is only agitation, dear, not
knowing what your answer may be,” Ada said, though she did not feel any
confidence that it was so. “He should not have made so formal an affair
of it,” said Helena; “That is what makes him look so grave.” Poor Gussy,
who was the most deeply concerned of all, cried. “I am sure there is
something the matter,” she said. The three eldest kept together in a
window, while Mary and Beatrice roved away in quest of some amusement to
fill up the time. And a thrill of suspense and excitement seemed to
creep over all the house.
Edgar’s courage came back to him in some degree, as he entered Lady
Augusta’s little boudoir. Imagination had no longer anything to do with
it, the moment for action had come. He sat down by her in the dainty
little chamber, which was hung with portraits of all her children. Just
opposite was a pretty sketch of Gussy, looking down upon him with
laughing eyes. They were all there in the mother’s private sanctuary,
the girls who were her consolation, the boys who were her plague and her
delight. What a centre it was of family cares and anxieties! She turned
to him cheerfully as she took her chair. She was not in the least afraid
of what was coming. She had not even remarked as yet how much agitated
he was. “Well, Mr. Arden!” she said.
“I have come to make a very strange confession to you,” said Edgar. “You
will think I am mad, but I am not mad. Lady Augusta, I meant to have
come to-day to ask you---- to ask if I might ask your daughter to be my
wife.”
“Gussy?” said Lady Augusta, with the tears coming to her eyes. There was
something in his tone which she did not understand, but still his last
words were plain enough. “Mr. Arden, I don’t know what my child’s
feelings are,” she said; “but if Gussy is pleased I should be more than
content.”
“Oh, stop, stop,” he said. “Don’t think I want you to commit
yourself--to say anything. Something has happened since then which has
torn my life in two--I cannot express it otherwise. I parted from you
happy in the thought that as Arden was so near and everybody so kind----
But in the meantime I have made a dreadful discovery. Lady Augusta, I am
not Edgar Arden; I am an impostor--not willingly, God knows, not
willingly----”
“Mr. Arden,” Lady Augusta said, loudly, in her consternation, “you are
dreaming--you are out of your mind. What do you mean?”
“I said you would think I was mad. It looks like madness, does not it?”
said Edgar, with a smile, “but, unhappily, it is true. You remember how
my father--I mean Mr. Arden--always treated me?--how he kept me away
from home? I was not treated as his son ought to have been. I have
never said a word on the subject, because I never doubted he was my
father--but I have the explanation now.”
“Good God!” said Lady Augusta; she was so horror-stricken that she
panted for breath. But she too put upon the news the interpretation
which Arthur Arden put upon it. “Oh, Mr. Arden!” she cried, “don’t be so
ready to decide against your poor mother! A jealous man takes things
into his head which are mere madness. I knew her. I am sure she was not
a wicked woman. I am a mother myself, and why should I hesitate to speak
to you? Oh, my dear boy, don’t condemn your mother! Your father was a
proud suspicious man, and he might doubt her without cause. I believe he
doubted her without cause. What you have discovered must be some ravings
of jealousy. I would not believe it. I would not, whatever he may say!”
And she put out her hand to him eagerly in her sympathy and indignation.
Edgar took it in his, and kissed the kind, warm, motherly hand.
“Dear Lady Augusta,” he said, “how good you are! It is easier to tell
you now. There is no stigma upon--Mrs. Arden; that was one of the
attendant evils which have followed upon the greater crime. I am not her
son any more than I am her husband’s. I am a simple impostor. I have no
more to do with the Ardens than your servant has. I am false--all false;
a child adopted--nothing more.”
“Good God!” said Lady Augusta once more. By degrees the reality of what
he was saying came upon her. His face so pale, yet so full of lofty
expression; his eyes that gleamed and shone as he spoke; the utter
truthfulness and sincerity of every word impressed her in her first
incredulity. Good God! he meant it. If he were not mad--and he showed no
signs of being mad--then indeed it must be true, incredible as it
seemed. And rapidly as a flash of lightning Lady Augusta’s mind ran over
the situation. How unfortunate she was! First Ada, and now---- But if
this was how it was, Gussy must not know of it. She was capable of
heaven knows what pernicious folly. Gussy must not know. All this ran
through Lady Augusta’s mind while she said the two solemn words of the
exclamation given above.
And then there was a little pause. Edgar stopped too, partly for want of
breath. It had cost him a great deal to say what he had said, and for
the moment he could do no more.
“Do you mean to say this is true, Mr. Arden?” said Lady Augusta. “True!
I cannot believe my ears. Why, what inducement had he? There was
Clare.”
“So far as I can make out, it was thought to be impossible that there
should be any children; but that I cannot explain. It is so,” said
Edgar, insisting pathetically. “Believe me, it is so.”
“And how did you find it out?”
Lady Augusta’s tones were very low and awe-stricken; but her
interrogatory was close and persistent. Edgar was depressed after his
excitement. He thought he had calculated vainly on her sympathy. “Clare
found the letters,” he said, “in my father’s--I mean in Mr. Arden’s
room. They are too clear to admit of any doubt.”
“_She_ found them! What does she think of it? It will not be any the
better for her; and you such a good, kind brother to her!” cried Lady
Augusta in a tone of indignation. She was glad to find some one to find
fault with. And then she made a long pause. Edgar did not move. He sat
quite still opposite, looking at her, wondering would she send him away
without a word of sympathy? She looked up suddenly as he was thinking
so, and met his wistful eyes. Then Lady Augusta, without a moment’s
warning, burst out sobbing, “Oh, my poor dear boy! my poor dear boy!”
Edgar was at the furthest limit of self-control. He could not bear any
more. He came and knelt down before her, and took her hand, and kissed
it. It was all he could do to keep from weeping too. “Thanks, thanks,”
he said, with a trembling voice; and Lady Augusta, kind woman, put her
arm round him, and wept over him. “If I had been Clare I would have
burned them, and you should never have known--you should never have
known,” she cried. “Oh, my poor, poor boy!”
“I am very poor now,” he said. “I thought you would be my mother--I who
never had one. And Gussy--you will tell her; and you will not blame
me----”
“Blame you!” cried Lady Augusta. “My heart bleeds for you; but I blame
Clare. I would have burned them, and never thought it wrong.”
“But it would have been wrong,” he said softly, rising. “Clare would
burn them now if I would let her. She is not to blame. Dear Lady
Augusta, good-bye. And you will say to Gussy----”
He paused; and so did she, struggling with herself. Should she let him
see Gussy? Should she allow him to say good-bye? But Gussy was only a
girl, and who can tell what mad thing a girl may propose to do? “Pardon
me! pardon me!” she said; “but it is best you should not see Gussy
now.”
“Yes,” said Edgar; “it is best.” But it was the first real sign that one
life was over for him, and another begun.