Lady Augusta came in with a disturbed countenance and traces of anxiety
on her brow. She was alone, and though her good heart, and another
pleader besides, had impelled her to take this step, she was a little
doubtful as to the wisdom of what she was doing, and a little nervous as
to the matter generally. She had her character for prudence to keep up,
she had to keep the world in ignorance of the danger there had been to
Gussy, and of all the pain this business had cost her. And yet she could
not let the poor boy, who had been so disinterested and so honourable,
go without a word from her--without once more holding out her hand. She
said to herself that she could not have done it, and at all events it
was quite certain that Gussy would have given her no peace, and would
have herself done something violent and compromising, had her mother
resisted her determination. “I will be very good,” Gussy had said. “I
will say nothing I ought not to say; but he was fond of me, and I
cannot, cannot let him go without a word!” Lady Augusta’s heart had
spoken in the same tone; but the moment she had yielded, the other side
of the question appeared to her, and a hundred fears lest she should
compromise her child had taken possession of her mind. It was this which
had brought her alone to the library door, leaving Gussy behind. She
came forward, almost with shyness, with an air of timidity quite unlike
her, and held out both her hands to Edgar, who for his part could
scarcely repress an exclamation of disappointment at seeing her alone.
“I am so glad to see Mr. Fazakerly with you,” Lady Augusta said, taking
prompt advantage of this fact, and extending her hand graciously to the
lawyer. “I do hope you have dismissed that incomprehensible story you
told me altogether from your mind.”
“Don’t be angry with me,” said Edgar, gazing at her wistfully; “but was
it with that idea you came here?”
She looked at him, and took in at a glance the change in his appearance,
the pathetic look in his eyes, and her heart was touched. “No,” she
said, “no, my poor boy; it was not that. We came to tell you what we
felt--what we thought. Oh, Mr. Fazakerly, have you heard this dreadful
story? Is it true?”
“I decline to say what is and what is not true,” said Mr. Fazakerly,
doggedly. “I am not here to define truth. Your ladyship may think me
very rude, but Mr. Arden is behaving like a fool.”
“Poor boy!” said Lady Augusta; “poor boy!” Her heart was bleeding for
him, but she did not know what to do or say.
“You said _we_,” said Edgar. “Some one else came with you. Some one else
had the same kind thought. Dear Lady Augusta, you will not take that
comfort from me now.”
Lady Augusta paused, distracted between prudence and pity. Then she drew
herself up with a tremulous dignity. “Mr. Fazakerly has daughters of his
own,” she said. “I am not afraid that he will betray mine. Yes, Mr.
Arden, Gussy has come with me. She insisted upon coming. There has never
been anything between them,” she added, turning to the lawyer. “There
might have been, had he not found out this; but the moment he
discovered----, like a true gentleman, as he is----” Here Lady Augusta
had to pause to stifle her tears. “And my Gussy’s heart is so warm. She
would not let him go without bidding him good-bye. I told her it was not
prudent, but she would not listen to me. Of course, it must end here;
but our hearts are breaking, and we could not let him go without one
good-bye.”
She stopped, with a sob, and once more held out her hand. Poor woman!
even at that moment it was more herself than him she bewailed. Standing
there in his strength and youth, it did not seem possible to believe
that the world could go very badly with him; but how unfortunate she
was! Ada first, and then Gussy; and such a son as he would have
been--somebody to trust, whatever happened. She held out her hand to
him, and drew him close to her, and wept over him. How unfortunate she
was!
“And Gussy?” said Edgar eagerly.
“I put her into the little morning-room, Clare’s room,” said Lady
Augusta. “Go to her for a few minutes; Mr. Fazakerly will not think it
wrong of me, I am sure. And oh, my dear boy, I know I can trust
you not to go too far--not to suggest anything impossible, any
correspondence--Edgar, do not try my poor child too far.”
He pressed her hand, and went away, with a kind of sweet despair in his
heart. It was despair: hope and possibility had all gone out of any
dream he had ever entertained on this subject; but still it was sweet,
not bitter. Lady Augusta sat silent for some minutes, trying to compose
herself. “I beg your pardon,” she said; “indeed I can’t help it. Oh,
Mr. Fazakerly, could no arrangement be made? I cannot help crying. Oh,
what a dear fellow he is! and going away from us with his heart broken.
Could nothing be done?--could no arrangement be made?”
“A great many things could be done, if he was not behaving like a fool,”
said Mr. Fazakerly. “I beg your pardon; but it is too much for me. He is
like an idiot; he will hear no reason. Nobody but himself would have
taken any notice. Nobody but himself----”
“Poor boy--poor dear boy!” said Lady Augusta. And then she entered into
the subject eagerly, and asked a hundred questions. How it had been
found out--what he was going to do--what Arthur Arden’s position would
be--whether there ought not to be some provision made for Edgar? She
inquired into all these matters with the eagerness of a woman who knew a
great deal about business and was deeply interested for the sufferer.
“But you must not suppose there was anything between him and my
daughter,” she repeated piteously; “there never was--there never was!”
In the meantime, Edgar had gone hastily, with a thrill of sadness and of
pleasure which it would be difficult to describe, to the room where
Gussy was. He went in suddenly, excitement and emotion having brought a
flush upon his cheeks. She was standing with her back to the door, and
turned round as he opened it. Gussy was very much agitated--she grew red
and she grew pale, her hands, which she extended to him, trembled, tears
filled her eyes. “O Mr. Arden!” was all she was able to say. As for
Edgar, his heart so melted over her that he had hard ado to refrain from
taking her into his arms. It would have been no harm, he thought--his
embrace would have been that of a brother, nothing more.
“It is very, very good of you to come,” he said, his own voice faltering
and breaking in spite of him. “I don’t know how to thank you. It makes
me feel everything so much less--and so much more.”
“I could not help coming,” said Gussy, with a choking voice. “O Mr.
Arden, I am so grieved--I cannot speak of it--I could not let you go
without--without----”
She trembled so that he could not help it--he drew her hand through his
arm to support her. And then poor Gussy, overwhelmed, all her
self-restraint abandoning her, drooped her head upon his shoulder as the
nearest thing she could lean upon, and burst into tears.
There had never been a moment in her life so sad--or in either of their
lives so strangely full of meaning. A few days ago they were all but
affianced bride and groom, likely to pass their entire lives together.
Now they met in a half embrace, with poignant youthful feeling, knowing
that never in their lives would they again be so near to each other,
that never more could they be anything to each other. It was the first
time, and it would be the last.
“Dear Gussy,” Edgar said, putting his arm softly round her, “God bless
you for being so good to me. I will cherish the thought of you all my
life. You have always been sweet to me, always from the beginning; and
then I thought---- But, thank God, you are not injured. And thank you a
thousand and a thousand times.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” cried Gussy. “Don’t thank me, Mr. Arden. I think my
heart will break.”
“Don’t call me Mr. Arden; call me Edgar now; it is the only name I have
a right to; and let me kiss you once before we part.”
She lifted up her face to him, with the tears still wet upon her cheeks.
They loved each other more truly at that moment than they had ever done
before; and Gussy’s heart, as she said, was breaking. She threw her arms
round his neck, and clung to him. “O Edgar, dear! Good-bye, good-bye!”
she sobbed. And his heart, too, thrilled with a poignant sweetness,
ineffable misery, and consolation, and despair.
This was how they parted for ever and ever--not with any pretence
between them that it could ever be otherwise, or anything that sounded
like hope. Lady Augusta’s warning was unnecessary. They said not a word
to each other of anything but that final severance. Perhaps in Gussy’s
secret heart, when she felt herself placed in a chair, felt another
sudden hot kiss on her forehead, and found herself alone, and everything
over, there was a pang more secret and deep-lying still, which felt the
absence of any suggestion for the future; perhaps there had flitted
before her some phantom of romance, whispering what he might do to prove
himself worthy of her--revealing some glimpse of a far-off hope. Gussy
knew all through that this was impossible. She was sure as of her own
existence that no such thing could be; and yet, with his kiss still warm
on her forehead--a kiss which only parting could have justified--she
would have been pleased had he said it, only said it. As it was, she sat
and cried, with a sense that all was finished and over, in which there
lay the very essence of despair.
Edgar returned to the library while Lady Augusta was still in the very
midst of her interrogations. She stopped short at sight of him, making
an abrupt conclusion. She saw his eyes full of tears, the traces of
emotion in his face, and thanked God that it was over. At such a moment,
in such a mood, it would have been so difficult, so impossible to resist
him. If he were to ask her for permission to write to Gussy, to cherish
a hope, she felt that even to herself it would have been hard, very
hard, to say absolutely, No. And her very soul trembled to think of the
effect of such a petition on Gussy’s warm, romantic, young heart. But he
had not made any such prayer; he had accepted the unalterable necessity.
She felt sure of that by the shortness of his absence, and the look
which she dared scarcely contemplate--the expression of almost solemnity
which was upon his face. She got up and went forward to meet him, once
more holding out both her hands.
“Edgar,” she said, “God will reward you for being so good and so true.
You have not thought of yourself, you have thought of others all
through, and you will not be left to suffer alone. Oh, my dear boy! I
can never be your mother now, and yet I feel as if I were your mother.
Kiss me too, and God bless you! I would give half of everything I have
to find out that this was only a delusion, and that all was as it used
to be.”
Edgar shook his head with a faint smile. There passed over his mind, as
in a dream, the under-thought--If she gave half of all she had to bring
him back, how soon he would replace it; how easy, were such a thing
possible, any secondary sacrifice would be! But notwithstanding this
faint and misty reflection, it never occurred to him to think that it
was because he was losing Arden that he was being thus absolutely taken
farewell of. He himself was just the same--nay, he was better than he
ever had been, for he had been weighed in the balance, and not found
wanting. But because he had lost Arden, and his family and place in the
world, therefore, with the deepest tenderness and feeling, these good
women were taking leave of him. Edgar, fortunately, did not think of
that aspect of the question. He kissed Lady Augusta, and received her
blessing with a real overflowing of his heart. It touched him almost as
much as his parting with Gussy. She was a good woman. She cried over
him, as if he had been a boy of her own.
“Tell me anything I can do for you,” she said--“anything, whatever it
is. Would you like me to take charge of Clare? I will take her, and we
will comfort her as we best can, if she will come with me. She ought not
to be here now, while the house is so much agitated, and everything in
disorder; and if there is anything to be done about Mr. Arthur
Arden--Clare ought not to be here.”
She had not the heart to say, though it was on her lips, that Clare
ought not to be with the man who was no longer her brother. She caught
his wistful look, and she could not say the words, though they were on
her lips. But her offer was not one to be refused. Edgar--poor
Edgar--who had everything to do--to sign his own death-warrant, as it
were, and separate himself from everything that was near to him, had to
go to Clare to negotiate. Would she go with Lady Augusta? He spoke to
her at the door of her room, not entering, and she, with a flush of pain
on her face, stood at the door also, not inviting him to go in. The
division was growing between them in spite of themselves.
“Would you come to see me at Thorne?” said Clare. “Upon that must rest
the whole matter whether I will go or not.”
Edgar reflected, with again that sense of profound weariness stealing
over him, and desire to be done with everything. No; he could not go
through these farewells again--he could not wear his heart out bit by
bit. This must be final, or it was mere folly. “No,” he said; “it would
be impossible. I could not go to see you at Thorne.”
“Then I will not go,” said Clare. And so it was settled,
notwithstanding all remonstrances. The more she felt that distance creep
between, the more she was determined not to recognise or acknowledge it.
Edgar went back to the library and gave his message, and stayed there,
restraining himself with an effort, while Mr. Fazakerly gave her
ladyship his arm and conducted her to her carriage. Edgar would not even
give himself that last gratification; he would not disturb Gussy again,
or bring another tear to her eyes. It was all over and ended, for ever
and ever. His life was being cut off, thread after thread, that he might
begin anew. Thread after thread--only one trembling half-divided strand
bound him at all to the old house, and name, and associations. Another
clip of the remorseless shears, and he must be cut off for ever. One
scene after another came, moving him to the depths of his being, and
passed, and was over. The worst was over now--until, indeed, his final
parting came, and Clare, in her turn, had been given up. But Clare, like
himself, was penniless, and that last anguish might, perhaps, be
spared.