Clare rose up instinctively, feeling the solemnity of the occasion to be
such that she could not meet it otherwise. She was paler than ever, if
that was possible--marble white--with great blue eyes, pathetically
fixed upon the little audience which she addressed. She put one hand
back feebly, and rested it on Edgar’s shoulder to support herself. “I
want to speak first,” she said. “There is nobody so much concerned as
me. It was I who found those papers, as my brother says. I found them,
where I had no right to have looked, in an old bureau which did not
belong to me, which I was looking through for levity and curiosity, and
because I had nothing else to do. It is my fault, and it is I who will
suffer the most. But what I want to tell you is, that I don’t believe
them. How could any one believe them? I was brought up to love my
father, and if they are true my father was a--was a---- I cannot say the
word. Edgar asks me to give up everything I have in life when he asks
me to believe in these letters. Oh, all of you, who are our old friends!
you knew papa. Was he such a man as that? Had he no honour, no justice,
no sense of right and wrong in him? You know it would be wicked to say
so. Then these papers are not true.”
“And I know they are not true in other ways,” cried Clare, flushing
wildly as she went on. “If Edgar was not my brother, do you think I
could have felt for him as I do? I should have hated him, had he been an
impostor, as he says. Oh, he is no impostor! He is not like the rest of
us--not like us in the face--but what does that matter? He is a thousand
times better than any of us. I was not brought up with him to get into
any habit of liking him, and yet I love him with all my heart. Could
that be anything but nature? If he were not my true brother, I would
have hated him. And, on the contrary, I love him, and trust him, and
believe in him. Say anything you please--make out what you please from
these horrible letters, or any other lie against him; but I shall still
feel that he is my own brother--my dearest brother--in my heart!”
Clare did not conclude with a burst of tears, solely because she was
past weeping. She was past herself altogether; she was not conscious of
anything but the decision about to be come to--the verdict that was to
be given by this awful tribunal. She sank back into her chair, keeping
her eyes fixed upon them, too anxious to lose a single gesture or look.
“Bring her some water,” said Dr. Somers; “give her air, Edgar; no, let
her alone--let her alone; that is best. Just now, you may be sure, she
will take no harm.”
And then there came another pause--a pause in which every sound seemed
to thud and beat against the anxious ears that waited and listened.
Arthur Arden had taken his seat again. He was moved, too, to the very
depths of his being. He covered his face with his hands, unable to look
at the two at the head of the table, who were both gazing at the company
waiting for their fate. Edgar had taken Clare’s hand, and was holding it
fast between his own. He was saying something, of which he was not
himself conscious. “Thanks, Clare! courage, Clare!” he was repeating at
intervals, as he might have murmured any other babble in the excitement
of the moment. Mr. Fazakerly was the only one who stirred. He broke open
the seals of the packet with agitated haste, muttering also under his
breath. “Parcel of young fools!” was what Mr. Fazakerly was saying. He
let the papers drop out in a heap upon the table, and picked up one
here and one there, running it over with evident impatience and
irritation. Then he tossed them down, and pushed his spectacles off his
forehead, and wrathfully regarded the little company around him. “What
am I expected to do with these?” he asked. “They are private letters of
the late Mr. Arden, not, so far as I am aware, brought before us by any
circumstances that call for attention. I don’t know what is intended to
be done with them, or who produces them, or why we are called together.
Mr. Edgar, I think you might provide better entertainment for your old
friends than a mare’s nest like this. What is the meaning of it all? My
opinion is, they had better be replaced in the old bureau from which
Miss Clare tells us she fished them out.”
But while he said this in his most querulous tone, Mr. Fazakerly picked
up the papers one by one, and tied them together. His irritation was
extreme, and so was his dismay, but the last was uppermost, and was not
easy to express. “If these had come before me in a proper way,” he went
on, “of course I should have taken all pains to examine them and see
what they meant; but unless there is some reason for it--some object,
some end to be gained--I always object particularly to raking up dead
men’s letters. I have known endless mischief made in that way. The
chances are that most men do quite enough harm in their lifetime, or at
least in a lawful way by their wills and so forth, after their death,
without fishing up every scrap of rancour or folly they may have left
behind them. Mr. Edgar, you have no right that I know of to go and
rummage among old papers in order to prejudice yourself. It is the
merest nonsense. I can’t, for my part, consent to it. I don’t believe a
word of it. If anybody else takes it up, and I am called upon to defend
you, of course I will act to the best of my ability; but in the meantime
I decline to have anything to do with it. Take them away----”
Mr. Fazakerly thrust the tied-up parcel towards his client. Of course,
he knew very well that the position he took up was untenable after all
that had been said, but his irritation was real, and the idea of thus
spoiling a case went to his very heart. He pushed it along the table;
but, by one of those curious accidents which so often surpass the most
elaborate design, the little packet which had been the cause of so much
trouble, instead of reaching Edgar, stopped short in front of Arthur
Arden, who was still leaning on the table, covering his face with his
hand. It struck him lightly on the elbow, and he raised his head to see
what it was. It was all so strange that the agitated company was moved
as by a visible touch of fate. Arthur stared at it stupidly, as if the
thing was alive. He let it lie, not putting forth a finger, gazing at
it. Incredible change of fortune lay for him within the enclosure of
these faded leaves; yet he could not secure them, could not do anything,
was powerless, with Clare’s eyes looking at him, and the old friends of
the family around. His own words came back to his mind suddenly in that
pause--“Let him take everything, so long as he leaves me you.” And
Clare’s answer, “Say that again to-morrow.” To-morrow! It was not yet
to-morrow; and what was he to say?
It was Edgar, however, and not Arthur, who was the first to speak. “If
it must be a matter of attack and defence,” he said, “the papers are now
with the rightful heir, and it is his to pursue the matter further. But
I don’t want to have any attack or defence. Mr. Arden, will you be so
good as to take the packet, and put it in your lawyer’s hands. I suppose
there are some legal forms to be gone through; but I will not by any act
of mine postpone your entrance upon your evident right.”
A pause again--not a word said on any side--the three old men looking on
without a movement, almost without a breath; and Arthur Arden, with his
elbows still resting on the table, and his head turned aside, gazing, as
if it were a reptile in his path, at the packet beside him. How he
would have snatched at it had it not been for these spectators! There
was no impulse of generosity towards Edgar in his mind. Such an impulse
would have been at once foolish and uncalled for. Edgar himself had
taken pains to show that he wanted no such generosity--and a man cannot
part lightly with his rights. Everything would have been easy enough,
clear enough, but for Clare’s presence and her words that morning. If he
were to do what every impulse of good sense and natural feeling
prompted--take up the papers before him and make himself master of a
question affecting him so nearly--then no doubt he would lose Clare. He
would lose (but that was of small importance) the good opinion of that
foolish old Rector. He would create a most unjust prejudice against
himself if he showed any eagerness about it, even in the eyes of the
doctor and the lawyer, practical men, who knew that justice must
prevail; and he would lose Clare. What was he to do? It was cruel, he
felt, to put him to such a trial. He kept looking at the papers with his
head turned, half of it shadowed over by the hands from which he had
lifted it, half of it (his forehead and eyes) full in the light. To his
own consciousness, an hour must have passed while he thus pondered. The
others thought it five minutes, though it was not one. But another
train of thought rapidly succeeded the first in Arthur’s mind. What did
it matter, after all, what he did? He could be generous at Edgar’s cost,
who, he felt sure, would accept no sacrifice. He gave a glance at the
young man who was no Arden, who was looking on without anxiety now, with
a faint smile still on his face, and a certain bright curiosity and
interest in his eyes. It was perfectly safe. There are some people whom
even their enemies, even those who do not understand them, can calculate
upon, and Edgar was one of these. Arthur looked at him, and saw his way
to save Clare and to save appearances, and yet attain fully his will and
his rights. He took the packet up, and put it in Clare’s lap.
“Here I put my fate and Edgar’s,” he said, with, in spite of himself, a
thrill of doubt in his voice which sounded like emotion. “Let Clare
judge between us--it is for her to decide----”
Before Clare could speak, Edgar had taken back the papers from her.
“That means,” he said, almost gaily, with a laugh which sounded strange
to the excited company, “that they have come back to me. Clare has had
enough of this. It is no matter of romantic judgment, but one of
evidence merely. Mr. Fielding, will you take my sister away? Yes, I
will say my sister still. She does not give me up, and I can’t give her
up. Arden is little in comparison. Clare, if you could give me a
kingdom, you could not do more for me than you have done to-night. Go
with Mr. Fielding now----”
She rose up, obeying him mechanically, at once. “Where?” she said.
“Edgar, tell me. Out of Arden? If it is no longer yours, it is no longer
mine.”
“Hush, dear,” he said, soothing her as if she had been a child--“hush,
hush. There is no cause for any violent change. Your kinsman is not
likely to be hard upon either me or you.”
“He put the matter into my hands,” she cried, suddenly, with a sob. “O
Edgar, listen! Let us go away at once. We must do justice--justice. Let
us go and hide ourselves at the end of the world--for it cannot be
yours, it is his.”
She stumbled as she spoke, not fainting, but overcome by sudden
darkness, bewilderment, failure of all physical power. The strain had
been too much for Clare. They carried her out, and laid her on the sofa
in the quiet, silent room close by, where no excitement was. How strange
to go out into the placid house, to see the placid servants carrying in
trays with tea, putting in order the merest trifles! The world all
around was unconscious of what was passing--unconscious even under the
same roof--how much less in the still indifferent universe outside.
Edgar laughed, as he went to the great open door, and looked out upon
the peaceful stars. “What a fuss we are making about it!” he said to his
supplanter, whose mind was incapable of any such reflection; “and how
little it matters after all!” “Are you mad, or are you a fool?” cried
Arthur Arden under his breath. To him it mattered more than anything
else in heaven or earth. The man who was losing everything might console
himself that the big world had greater affairs in hand--but to the man
who was gaining Arden it was more than all the world--and perhaps it was
natural that it should be so.
Half-an-hour after the three most concerned had returned to the library,
to discuss quietly and in detail the strange story and its evidences.
These three were Edgar, Arthur, and Mr. Fazakerly. The Rector sat by
Clare’s sofa, in the drawing-room, soothing her. “My dear, God will
bring something good out of it,” he was saying, with that pathetic
bewilderment which so many good people are conscious of in saying such
words. “It will be for the best, my poor child.” He patted her head and
her hand, as he spoke, which did her more good, and kept by her--a
supporter and defender. The Doctor gave her a gentle opiate, and went
away. They were all, in their vocations, ministering vaguely, feebly to
those desperate human needs which no man can supply--need of happiness,
need of peace, need of wisdom. The Rector’s soft hand smoothing one
sufferer’s hair; the doctor’s opiate; the lawyer’s discussion of the
value of certain documents, legally and morally--such was all the help
that in such an emergency man could give to man.