And yet amid all this excitement and lurid expectation, how strange it
was to go through the established formulas of life: the dinner, the
indifferent conversation, the regulated course of dishes and of talk!
Mr. Fazakerly made his appearance, very brisk and busy as usual. He had
come away hurriedly, in obedience to Edgar’s summons, from the very
midst of the preparations for a great wedding, involving property and
settlements so voluminous that they had turned the heads of the entire
firm and all its assistants. Fortunately he was full of this. The bride
was an heiress, with lands and wealth of every description--the
bridegroom a poor Irish peer, with titles enough to make up for the
money which was being poured upon him; and the lawyer’s whole soul was
lost in the delightful labyrinth of wealth--this which was settled upon
the lady, that which was under the control of the husband. He talked so
much on the subject, that it was some time before he perceived the
pre-occupied faces of all the rest of the company. The only one
thoroughly able to talk was Dr. Somers, whose mind was never
sufficiently absorbed by any one subject to be incapable of others, and
who knew everybody, and could discuss learnedly with his old friend upon
the property and its responsibilities. Edgar, too, did his best to talk.
His excitement had run into a kind of humour which was “only his fun” to
Mr. Fazakerly, but which brought tears to the Rector’s eyes. He meant to
die gaily, poor fellow, and make as little as possible of this supreme
act of his life. Clare sat at the head of the table, perfectly pale and
silent. She made a fashion of eating, but in reality took nothing, and
she did not even pretend to talk. Mr. Fielding by her side was as
silent. Sometimes he laid his withered gentle old hand upon hers when
she rested it on the table, and he looked at her pathetically from time
to time, especially when Edgar said something at which the others
laughed. “I wish he would not, my dear--I wish he would not,” he would
murmur to her. But Clare made no reply. He who was no longer her brother
was to her the most absorbing of interests at this moment. She could not
understand him. An Arden would have concealed the thing, she thought to
herself, or if he had been forced to divulge it, would have done it with
unwilling abruptness and severity, defying all the world in the action.
But the bitter pride which would have felt itself humbled to the dust by
such a revelation did not seem to exist in Edgar. If there was in him a
certain desperation, it was the gay desperation, the pathetic
light-heartedness of a man leading a forlorn hope. He defied nobody, but
faced the world with a smile and a tear--a man wronged, but doing
right--a soul above suspicion. And Clare was asking herself eagerly,
anxiously, what would be the difference it would make to him. It would
make a horrible difference--more, far more, than he in his sanguine soul
could understand. His friends would drop off from him. In her knowledge
of what she called the world, Clare felt but too certain of this. The
dependants who had hitherto hung upon his lightest word would become
suddenly indifferent, and she herself--his sister--what could she do?
Clare was aware that even she, in outward circumstances, must of
necessity cease to be to him what she had been. She was not his sister.
They could no longer remain together--no longer be each other’s close
companions; everything would be changed. Even if she continued as she
was, she would be compelled to treat Edgar with the ceremonies which are
universally thought to be necessary between a young woman and a young
man. If she continued as she was? Were she to marry, the case would be
different. As a married woman, he might be her brother still. And yet
how could she marry, as it were, on his ruin; how could she build a new
fabric of happiness over the sacked foundations of her brother’s house?
Her brother, and yet not her brother--a stranger to her! Clare’s brain
reeled, too, as she contemplated his position and her own. She was not
capable of feeling the contrast between Edgar’s playful talk and the
precipice on which he was standing. She was too much absorbed in a
bewildering personal discussion what he was to do, what she was to do,
what was to become of them all.
Arthur Arden was at her other hand. He was growing more and more
interested in the situation of affairs, and more and more began to feel
that something must be in it of greater importance than he had thought.
Clare never addressed a word to him, though he was so near to her. Her
eyes were fixed on the other end of the table, where Edgar sat. Her lips
trembled with a strange quiver of sympathy, which seemed actually
physical, when her brother said anything. She looked too far gone in
some extraordinary emotion to be able to realise what was going on. When
Arthur spoke she did not hear him. She had to be called back to herself
by Mr. Fielding’s soft touch upon her hand before she noticed anything,
except Edgar. “You seem very much interested in what Mr. Fazakerly is
saying. Do you know this bride he is talking of?” Arthur said, trying to
draw her attention. “Clare, my love, Mr. Arden is speaking to you; he is
asking if you know Miss Monypenny,” said the Rector, with a warning
pressure from his thin fingers. “Oh, I beg your pardon; I did not hear
you,” Clare would reply, but she made no answer to the question. Her
attention would stray again before it was repeated. And then Mr.
Fielding gave Arthur Arden an imploring glance across the table. It
seemed to ask him to spare her--not to say anything--to leave her to
herself. “She is not well to-night,” the Rector said, softly, with tears
glistening in his old eyes. What did it mean? Arthur asked himself. It
must be something worse than he had thought.
The silence at the other end of the table struck Mr. Fazakerly, as it
seemed, all at once. He gave two or three anxious looks in the direction
of Clare. “Your sister does not look well, Mr. Edgar,” he said. “We
can’t afford to let her be ill, she who is the pride of the county.
After Miss Monypenny’s, I hope to have her settlements to prepare. You
will not be allowed to keep her long, I promise you. But I trust she is
not ill. Doctor, I hope you have been attending to your duty. Miss Arden
can’t be allowed, in all our interests, to grow so pale.”
“Miss Arden is not in the way of consulting me on such subjects,” said
the Doctor. “She has a will of her own, like everybody belonging to her.
I never knew such a self-willed race. When they take a thing into their
heads there is no getting it out again, as you will probably find,
Fazakerly, before you are many hours older. I have long known that there
was a disposition to mania in the family. Oh, no, not anything
dangerous--monomania--delusion on one point.”
“I never heard of it before,” said Mr. Fazakerly, promptly, “and I
flatter myself I ought to know about the family if any one does.
Monomania! Fiddlesticks! Why, look at our young friend here. I’ll back
him against the world for clear-seeing and common sense.”
“He has neither the one nor the other,” said Dr. Somers, hotly. “I could
have told you so any time these ten years. He may have what people call
higher qualities; I don’t pretend to pronounce; but he can’t see two
inches before his nose in anything that concerns his own interest; and
as for common sense, he is the most Quixotic young idiot I ever knew in
my life.”
“Don’t believe such accusations against me,” said Edgar, with a smile.
“Your own opinion is the right one. I don’t pretend to be clever; but if
there is anything I pique myself upon, it is common sense. This is the
best introduction we could have to the business of the evening. It is
not anything very convivial, and it may startle you, I fear. Perhaps we
had better finish our wine first, Doctor, don’t you think?”
“What is the matter?” said Mr. Fazakerly. “Now I begin to look round me,
you are all looking very grave. I don’t know what you mean by these
signs, Mr. Fielding. Am I making indiscreet observations? What’s the
matter? God preserve us! you all look like so many ghosts!”
“So we are--or at least some of us,” said Edgar, “ghosts that a puff of
common air will blow away in a moment. The fact is, I have something
very disagreeable to tell you. But don’t look alarmed, it is
disagreeable chiefly to myself. To one of my guests at least it will be
good news. It is simple superstition, of course, but I can’t tell you
while you are comfortable, taking your wine. I should like you not to be
quite at your ease. If you were all seated in the library, on hard
chairs, for example----”
“Edgar!” said Clare, in a sharp tone of pain.
Dr. Somers laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t overdo it,” he said, with
something between remonstrance and sympathy. The Rector stood covering
his eyes with his hands. At all this Arthur Arden looked on with keen
and eager interest, and Mr. Fazakerly with the sharpest,
freshly-awakened curiosity, not knowing evidently what to make of it.
Arthur’s comment was of a kind that made the heart jump in his breast.
The secret, whatever it was, had been evidently confided both to the
Doctor and the Rector. They were reasonable men, not likely to be
affected by a foolish story; yet they both, it was apparent, considered
it something serious. A hundred pulses of impatience and excitement
began to beat within him. And yet he could not, with any regard to good
taste or good feeling, say a word.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Edgar; “it is not bravado. What I have to say is
very serious, but it is not disgraceful--at least to me. There is no
reason why I should assume a gloom which is not congenial to myself, nor
natural so far as others are concerned. As it has been mentioned so
early, perhaps it is better not to lose any time with preliminaries now.
Will you come with me to the library? The proofs of what I have to say
are there. And without any further levity, I would rather speak to you
in that room than in this.”
When he had said this, without waiting to hear Mr. Fazakerly’s amazed
exclamations, Edgar walked quietly to the other end of the table and
offered his arm to Clare. Before she took it, she joined her hands
together, and looked up beseechingly in his face. He shook his head,
with a tender smile at her, and drew her hand within his arm. This dumb
show was eagerly observed by Arthur Arden at her left hand. By this time
he was so lost in a maze that he no longer permitted himself to think.
What was the meaning of it all? Was the boy a fool to give in, and throw
up his arms at once? He had not, it was evident, even spoken to
Fazakerly first, as any man in his senses would have done. For once in
his life Arthur was moved to a disinterested sentiment. Even yet, after
all that had been said, he had no real hope that any advantage was
coming to himself; and something moved him to interfere to save an
unnecessary exposure. A certain compassion for this candid foolish
boy--a compassion mingled with some contempt--had arisen in his heart.
“Arden,” he said hastily, “look here, talk it over with Fazakerly first.
I don’t know what cock-and-a-bull story you have got hold of, but before
you make a solemn business of it, for Heaven’s sake talk it over with
Fazakerly first.”
Edgar put out his hand, without at first saying a word. It took him
nearly half a minute (a long interval at that crisis) to steady his
voice. “Thanks,” he said. “It is no cock-and-bull story; but I thank you
for thinking, and saying that. Come and hear what it is--and, for your
generosity, thanks.”
“It was not generosity,” answered Arthur, under his breath. He was
abashed and confounded by the undeserved gratitude. But he made no
further attempt to detain the procession, which set out towards the
library. Edgar placed Clare in a chair when he had reached it. He put
her beside himself, and with a movement of the hand invited the others
to seat themselves. The table had been prepared, the lamp was burning on
it, and before one of the chairs was already laid a packet of letters
directed to B. Fazakerly, Esq. Edgar meant that his evidence should be
seen before he told his tale.
“Will you take possession of these,” he said, seating himself at the end
of the table. “These are my proofs of what I am going to tell you; and
it is so strange that you will need proofs. My sister--I mean Miss
Arden--now seated beside me--found these papers. They have thrown the
strangest light upon my own life, and upon that of my predecessor
here.”
“Your father?” said Mr. Fazakerly, with a glance of dismay.
“I shall have to go back to the time when the late Squire was married,”
said Edgar. “I beg you to wait just for a few minutes and hear my story,
before you ask for any explanations. It has been commonly supposed, I
believe, that the reason for the treatment I received during my
childhood and youth, was that Squire Arden had been led to doubt whether
I was his son, and to think my mother--I mean Mrs. Arden--unfaithful to
him. This was a great slander and calumny, gentlemen. The reason Squire
Arden was unkind to me was that he knew very well I was neither his son
nor Mrs. Arden’s, but only an adopted child.”
There was a murmur and movement among the guests. Arthur Arden rose up
in his bewilderment, and remained standing, staring at the man who had
thus declared himself to be no Arden; and Mr. Fazakerly cried out
loudly, “Nonsense; no! no! no! I know a great deal better. The boy’s
brain is turned. Don’t say another word.”
“I asked you to hear me out,” said Edgar, whose colour and spirit were
rising. “I told you I should have to go back to the time when Squire
Arden married. He married a lady in very delicate health--or else she
fell into bad health after their marriage. Five years afterwards the
doctors told him that he had no chance whatever of having any children.
His wife was too ill for that; but not ill enough to die. She was likely
to live, indeed, as long as any one else, but never to give him an heir.
He hated, I can’t tell why, his next of kin. I am not here to excuse
him, but I believe there were excuses, for that--and after some
hesitation he formed the plan of adopting a child, giving it out to be
his own, and born abroad. The manner in which he carried out this plan
is to be found in the packet in Mr. Fazakerly’s hands; and I am the boy
whom he adopted. I can’t quite tell you,” Edgar continued, with the
faint smile which had so often during three days past quivered about his
lips, “who I am, but I am not an Arden. I am an impostor; and my
cousin--I beg his pardon--Mr. Arthur Arden, is the proprietor of this
place and all that is in it. He will allow me, I am sure, to retain his
place for the moment, simply to make all clear.”
“To make all clear!” gasped Arthur. Clear! as if everything in heaven
and earth was not confused by this extraordinary revelation, or could
ever be made clear again.
“He must be mad,” said Mr. Fazakerly, loudly. And yet there went a
thrill round the table--a feeling which nobody could resist--that every
word he said was true.
“I have not sought any further,” said Edgar. “These letters have
contented me, which disclose the whole transaction; but everybody knows
as well as I do the after particulars. How Mr. Arden slighted me
persistently and continuously--and yet how, without losing a moment when
I came of age, he made use of me to provide for my--for Miss Arden. The
fact that Old Arden was settled upon her, away from me, is of itself a
corroborating evidence. Everything supports my story when you come to
think of it. It makes the past clear for the first time.”
And then there was a pause, and they all looked at each other with blank
astonishment and dismay. At least Mr. Fazakerly looked at everybody,
while the others met his eye with appealing looks, asking him, as it
were, to interfere. “It cannot be true--it is impossible it should be
true,” they murmured, in their consternation. But it was Clare who was
the first to speak.