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Title: For love and life; vol. 2 of 2

Author: Mrs. Oliphant

Release date: July 28, 2021 [eBook #65935]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOR LOVE AND LIFE; VOL. 2 OF 2 ***

                              COLLECTION

                                  OF

                            BRITISH AUTHORS

                          TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

                              VOL. 1420.

                  FOR LOVE AND LIFE BY MRS. OLIPHANT.

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                               VOL. II.




                           TAUCHNITZ EDITION

                          By the same Author,


            THE LAST OF THE MORTIMERS                  2 vols.
            MARGARET MAITLAND                          1 vol.
            AGNES                                      2 vols.
            MADONNA MARY                               2 vols.
            THE MINISTER’S WIFE                        2 vols.
            THE RECTOR AND THE DOCTOR’S FAMILY         1 vol.
            SALEM CHAPEL                               2 vols.
            THE PERPETUAL CURATE                       2 vols.
            MISS MARJORIBANKS                          2 vols.
            OMBRA                                      2 vols.
            MEMOIR OF COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT            2 vols.
            MAY                                        2 vols.
            INNOCENT                                   2 vols.




                          FOR LOVE AND LIFE.

                                  BY

                            MRS. OLIPHANT,

                               AUTHOR OF
           “CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” “OMBRA,” “MAY,” ETC.

                         _COPYRIGHT EDITION._

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                               VOL. II.


                                LEIPZIG

                          BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

                                 1874.

                _The Right of Translation is reserved_




                          FOR LOVE AND LIFE.




CHAPTER I.

Intoxication.


There is, perhaps, no such crisis in the life of a man as that which
occurs when, for the first time, he feels the welfare and happiness of
another to be involved in his own. A woman is seldom so entirely
detached from ordinary ties of nature as to make this discovery
suddenly, or even to be in the position when such a discovery is
possible. So long as you have but yourself to think of, you may easily
be pardoned for thinking very little of that self, for being careless of
its advantage, and letting favourable opportunities slip through your
fingers; but suppose you find out in a moment, without warning, that
your interests are another’s interests, that to push your own fortune is
to push some one else’s fortune, much dearer to you than yourself; and
that, in short, you are no longer _you_ at all, but the active member of
a double personality--is as startling a sensation as can well be
conceived. This was the idea which Edgar had received into his mind for
the first time, and it was not wonderful that it excited, nay,
intoxicated him, almost beyond his power of self-control. I say for the
first time, though he had been on the eve of asking Gussy Thornleigh to
marry him three years before, and had therefore realised, or thought he
realised, what it would be to enter into such a relationship; but in
those days Edgar was rich, and petted by the world, and his bride would
have been only a delight and honour the more, not anything calling for
sacrifice or effort on his part. He could have given her everything she
desired in the world, without losing a night’s rest, or disturbing a
single habit. Now the case was very different. The new-born pride which
had made him, to his own surprise, so reluctant to apply to anyone for
employment, and so little satisfied to dance attendance on Lord
Newmarch, died at that single blow.

Dance attendance on Lord Newmarch! ask anybody, everybody for work! Yes,
to be sure he would, and never think twice; for had he not now _her_ to
think of? A glow of exhilaration came over him. He had been careless,
indifferent, sluggish, so long as it was himself only that had to be
thought of. Thinking of himself did not suit Edgar; he got sick of the
subject, and detested himself, and felt a hundred pricks of annoyance at
the thought of being a suitor and applicant for patronage, bearing the
scorns of office, and wanting as “patient merit” in a great man’s
ante-room. But now! what did he care for those petty annoyances? Why
should he object, like a pettish child, to ask for what he wanted? It
was for her. He became himself again the moment that the strange and
penetrating sweetness of this suggestion (which he declared to himself
was incredible, yet believed with all his heart) stole into his soul.
This had been what he wanted all along. To have some one to work for,
some one to give him an object in life.

Lady Mary had not a notion what she was doing when she set light to the
fire which was all ready for that touch--ready to blaze up, and carry
with it her own schemes as well as her sister’s precautions. I suppose
it was by reason of the fundamental difference between man and woman,
that neither of these ladies divined how their hint would act upon
Edgar. They thought his virtue (for which they half despised him--for
women always have a secret sympathy for the selfish ardour of men in all
questions of love) was so great that he might be trusted to restrain
even Gussy herself in her “impetuosity,” as they called it, without
considering that the young man was disposed to make a goddess of Gussy,
to take her will for law, and compass heaven and earth to procure her a
gratification. Gussy, though she held herself justified in her
unswerving attachment to Edgar, by the fact that, had it not been for
his misfortune, she would long ago have been his wife, would,
notwithstanding this consolation, have died of shame had she known how
entirely her secret had been betrayed. But the betrayal was as a new
life to Edgar. His heart rose with all its natural buoyancy; he seemed
to himself to spurn his lowliness, his inactivity, his depressed and
dejected state from him. That evening he beguiled his hosts into
numberless discussions, out of sheer lightness of heart. He laughed at
Lady Mary about her educational mania, boldly putting forth its comic
side, and begging to know whether German lectures and the use of the
globes were so much better, as means of education, than life itself,
with all its many perplexities and questions, its hard lessons, its
experiences, which no one can escape.

“If a demigod from the sixth form were to come down and seat himself on
a bench in a dame’s school,” cried Edgar, “why, to be sure, he might
learn something; but what would you think of the wisdom of the
proceeding?”

“I am not a demigod from the sixth form,” said Lady Mary.

“Pardon me, but you are. You have been among the regnant class all your
life, which of itself is an enormous cultivation. You have lived
familiarly with people who guide the nation; you have spoken with most
of those who are known to be worth speaking to, in England at least; and
you have had a good share of the problems of life submitted to you. Mr.
Tottenham’s whole career, for instance, which he says you decided--”

“What is that?” said Mr. Tottenham, looking up. “Whatever it is, what
you say is quite true. I don’t know if it’s anything much worth calling
a career; but, such as it is, it’s all her doing. You’re right there.”

“I am backed up by indisputable testimony,” said Edgar, laughing; “and
in the face of all this, you can come and tell me that you want to
educate your mind by means of the feeblest of lectures! Lady Mary, are
you laughing at us? or are the dry lessons of grammar and such like
scaffolding, really of more use in educating the mind than the far
higher lessons of life?”

“How you set yourself to discourage me,” cried Lady Mary, half angry,
half laughing. “That is not what you mean, Mr. Earnshaw. You mean that
it is hopeless to train women to the accuracy, the exactness of thought
which men are trained to. I understand you, though you put it so much
more prettily.”

“I am afraid I don’t know what accuracy means,” said Edgar, “and
exactness of thought suggests only Lord Newmarch to me; and Heaven
deliver us from prigs, male and female! If you find, however, that the
mass of young university men are so accurate, so exact, so accomplished,
so trained to think well and clearly, then I envy you your eyes and
perceptions--for to me they have a very different appearance; many of
them, I should say, never think at all, and know a good deal less than
Phil does, of whom I am the unworthy instructor--save the mark!” he
added, with a laugh. “On the whole, honours have showered on my head; I
have had greatness thrust upon me like Malvolio; not only to instruct
Phil, but to help to educate Lady Mary Tottenham! What a frightful
impostor I should feel myself if all this was my doing, and not yours.”

Lady Mary laughed too, but not without a little flush of offence. It
even crossed her mind to wonder whether the young man had taken more
wine than usual? for there was an exhilaration, a boldness, an _élan_
about him which she had never perceived before. She looked at him with
mingled suspicion and indignation--but caught such a glance from his
eyes, which were full of a new warmth, life, and meaning, that Lady Mary
dropped hers, confused and confounded, not knowing what to make of it.
Had the porter, and the footman, and the under-gardener, who had seen
Edgar kiss Lady Mary’s hand, been present at that moment, they would
certainly have drawn conclusions very unfavourable to Mr. Tottenham’s
peace of mind. But that unsuspecting personage sat engaged in his own
occupation, and took no notice. He was turning over some papers which he
had brought back with him from Tottenham’s that very day.

“When you two have done sparring,” he said--“Time will wait for no man,
and here we are within a few days of the entertainment at the shop.
Earnshaw, I wish you would go in with me on Wednesday, and help me to
help them in their arrangements. I have asked a few people for the first
time, and it will be amusing to see the fine ladies, our customers,
making themselves agreeable to my ‘assistants.’ By-the-way, that affair
of Miss Lockwood gives me a great deal of uneasiness. I don’t like to
send her away. She seemed disposed to confide in you, my dear fellow--”

“I will go and secure her confidence,” said Edgar, with that gay
readiness for everything which Lady Mary, with such amaze, had remarked
already in his tone. Up to this moment he had wanted confidence in
himself, and carried into everything the _insouciance_ of a man who
takes up with friendliness the interests of others, but has none of his
own. All this was changed. He was another man, liberated somehow from
chains which she had never realised until now, when she saw they were
broken. Could her conversation with him to-day have anything to do with
it? Lady Mary was a very clever woman, but she groped in vain in the
dark for some insight into the mind of this young man, who had seemed to
her so simple. And the less she understood him, the more she respected
Edgar; nay, her respect for him began to increase, from the moment when
she found out that he was not so absolutely virtuous as she had taken
him to be.

Next day, as soon as Phil’s lessons were over, Edgar shut himself up,
and, with a flush upon his face, and a certain tremor, which seemed to
him to make his hand and his writing, by some curious paradox, more firm
than usual, began to write letters. He wrote to Lord Newmarch, he wrote
to one or two others whom he had known in his moment of prosperity, with
a boldness and freedom at which he was himself astonished. He recalled
to his old acquaintances, without feeling the least hesitation in doing
so, the story of his past life, about which he had been, up to this
moment, so proudly silent, and appealed to them to find him something to
do. He wrote, not as a humble suitor does, but as one conscious of no
humiliation in asking. The last time he had asked he had been conscious
of humiliation; but every shadow of that self-consciousness had blown
away from him now. He wondered at himself even, while he looked at those
letters closed and directed on his writing-table. What was it that had
taken away from him all sense of dislike to this proceeding, all his old
inclination to let things go as they would? With that curious tremor
which was so full of firmness and force still vibrating through him, he
went out, avoiding Phil, who was lying in wait for him, and who moaned
his absence like a sheep deprived of its lamb--which, I think, was
something like the parental feeling Phil experienced for his tutor--and
set out for a long solitary walk across country, leaping ditches and
stumbling across ploughed fields, by way of exhausting a little his own
superabundant force and energy. Only a day or two since how dreary was
the feeling with which he had left the house, where perhaps, for aught
he knew, Gussy was at the moment thinking, with a sickening at his heart
which seemed to make all nature dim, how he must never see her again,
how he had pledged himself to keep out of the way, never to put himself
consciously where he might have even the dreary satisfaction of a look
at her. The same pledge was upon him still, and Edgar was ready to keep
it to the last letter of his promise; but now it had become a simple
dead letter. There was no more force, no more vital power in it, to keep
the two apart, who had but one strong wish between them. He could keep
it now gaily, knowing that he was in heart emancipated from it. There
was nothing he could not have done on that brilliant wintry afternoon,
when the sun shone upon him as if he had wanted cheering, and every pool
glittered, and the sky warmed and flushed under his gaze with all the
delightful sycophancy of nature for the happy. The dullest afternoon
would have been just the same to Edgar. He was liberated, he was
inspired, he felt himself a strong man, and with his life before him.
Cold winds and dreary skies would have had no effect upon his spirits,
and for this reason, I suppose, everything shone on him and flattered.
To him that hath, shall be given.

He was not to get back, however, without being roused from this beatific
condition to a consciousness of his humanity. As he passed through the
village, chance drew Edgar’s eye to the house which Lady Mary had noted
as that of the doctor, and about which Miss Annetta Baker had discoursed
so largely. A cab was at the door, boxes were standing about the steps,
and an animated conversation seemed to be going on between two men, one
an elderly personage without a hat, who stood on the steps with the air
of a man defending his door against an invader, while another and
younger figure, standing in front of the cab, seemed to demand
admission. “The new doctor has arrived before the old one is ready to go
away,” Edgar said to himself, amused by the awkwardness of the
situation. He slackened his pace, that the altercation might be over
before he passed, and saw the coach man surlily putting back again the
boxes upon the cab. The old doctor pointed over Edgar’s head to a
cottage in the distance, where, he was aware, there was lodgings to be
had; and as Edgar approached, the new doctor, as he supposed the
stranger to be, turned reluctantly away, with a word to some one in the
cab, which also began to turn slowly round to follow him. The stranger
came along the broad sandy road which encircled the Green, towards
Edgar, who, on his side, approached slowly. What was there in this slim
tall figure which filled him with vague reminiscences? He got interested
in spite of himself; was it some one he had known in his better days?
who was it? The same fancy, I suppose, rose in the mind of the
new-comer. When he turned round for the second time, after various
communications with the inmates of the cab, and suddenly perceived
Edgar, who was now within speaking distance, he gave a perceptible
start. Either his reminiscences were less vague, or he was more prepared
for the possibility of such a meeting. He hurried forward, holding out
his hand, while Edgar stood still like one stunned. “Dr. Murray?” he
said, at last, feeling for the moment as if he had been transported back
to Loch Arroch. He was too bewildered to say more.

“You are very much surprised to see me,” said Charles Murray, with his
half-frank, half-sidelong aspect; “and it is not wonderful. When we met
last I had no thought of making any move. But circumstances changed, and
a chance threw this in my way. Is it possible that we are so lucky as to
find you a resident here?”

“For the moment,” said Edgar; “but indeed I am very much surprised. You
are to be Dr. Frank’s successor? It is very odd that you should hit upon
this village of all the world.”

“I hope it is a chance not disagreeable to either of us,” said the young
doctor, with a glance of the suspicion which was natural to him; “but
circumstances once more seem against us,” he added hurriedly, going back
to the annoyance, which was then uppermost. “Here I have to go hunting
through a strange place for lodgings at this hour,--my sister tired by a
long journey. By the way, you have not seen Margaret; she is behind in
the cab; all because the Franks forsooth, cannot go out of their house
when they engaged to do so!”

“But the poor lady, I suppose, could not help it,” said Edgar,
“according to what I have heard.”

“No, I suppose she couldn’t help it--on the whole,” he allowed, crossly.
“Cabman, stop a moment--stop, I tell you! Margaret, here is some one you
have often heard of--our cousin, who has been so good to the dear old
granny--Edgar Earnshaw.”

Dr. Charles pronounced these last words with a sense of going further
than he had ever gone before, in intimacy with Edgar. He had never
ventured to call his cousin by his Christian name; and even now it was
brought in by a side wind, as it were, and scarcely meant so much as a
direct address. Edgar turned with some curiosity to the cab, to see the
sister whom he had seen waiting at the station for Dr. Murray some
months ago. He expected to see a pretty and graceful young woman; but he
was not prepared for the beauty of the face which looked at him from
the carriage-window with a soft appealing smile, such as turns men’s
heads. She was tall, with a slight stoop (though that he could not see)
and wore a hat with a long feather, which drooped with a graceful
undulation somewhat similar, he thought, to the little bow she made him.
She was pale, with very fine, refined features, a large pair of the
softest, most pathetic blue eyes, and that smile which seemed to
supplicate and implore for sympathy. There was much in Margaret’s
history which seemed to give special meaning to the plaintive affecting
character of her face; but her face was so by nature, and looked as if
its owner threw herself upon your sympathies, when indeed she had no
thought of anything of the sort. A little girl of six or seven hung upon
her, standing up in the carriage, and leaning closely against her
mother’s shoulder, in that clinging inseparable attitude, which,
especially when child and mother are both exceptionally handsome, goes
to the heart of the spectator. Edgar was subjugated at once; he took off
his hat and went reverently to the carriage-door, as if she had been a
saint.

“It is very pleasant that you should be here, and I am very glad to see
you,” she said, in soft Scotch accents, in which there was a plaintive,
almost a complaining tone. Edgar found himself immediately voluble in
his regrets as to the annoyance of their uncomfortable reception, and,
ere he knew what he was doing, had volunteered to go with Dr. Charles to
the lodgings, to introduce him, and see whether they were satisfactory.
He could not quite understand why he had done it, and thus associated
himself with a man who did not impress him favourably, as soon as he had
turned from the door of the cab, and lost sight of that beautiful face;
of course he could not help it, he could not have refused his good
offices to any stranger, he said to himself. He went on with his cousin
to the cottage, where the landlady curtseyed most deeply to the
gentleman from Tottenham’s, and was doubly anxious to serve people who
were his friends; and before he left he had seen the beautiful
new-comer, her little girl as always standing by her side leaning
against her, seated on a sofa by a comfortable fire, and forgetting or
seeming to forget, her fatigues. Dr. Charles could not smile so sweetly
or look so interesting as his sister; he continued to inveigh against
Dr. Franks, and his rashness in maintaining possession of the house.

“But the poor thing could not help it,” said Margaret, in her plaintive
voice, but not without a gleam of fun (if that were possible without
absolute desecration) in her eyes.

“They should not have stayed till the last moment; they should have made
sure that nothing would happen,” the doctor said, hurrying in and out,
and filling the little sitting-room with cloaks and wraps, and many
small articles. Margaret made no attempt to help him, but she gave Edgar
a look which seemed to say, “Forgive him! poor fellow, he is worried,
and I am so sorry he has not a good temper.” Edgar did not know what to
make of this angelical cousin. He walked away in the darkening, after
he had seen them settled, with a curious feeling, which he could not
explain to himself. Was he guilty of the meanness of being annoyed by
the arrival of these relatives, who were in a position so different from
that of his other friends? Was it possible that so paltry, so miserable
a feeling could enter his mind--or what was it? Edgar could render no
distinct account to himself of the sensation which oppressed him; but as
he walked rapidly up the avenue in the quickly falling darkness, he felt
that something had happened, which, somehow or other, he could not tell
how, was to affect his future life.




CHAPTER II.

A youthful Solomon.


Edgar felt so strong an inclination to say nothing about the sudden
arrival of his cousins, that he thought it best to communicate at once
what had happened. He told his hosts at dinner, describing the brother
and sister, and Margaret’s remarkable beauty, which had impressed him
greatly.

“And really you did not know she was so pretty?” Lady Mary said, fixing
a searching look upon him. Instant suspicion flashed up in her mind, a
suspicion natural to womankind, that his evident admiration meant at
least a possibility of something else. And if she had been consistent,
no doubt she would have jumped at this, and felt in it an outlet for all
her difficulties, and the safest of all ways of detaching Edgar from any
chance of influence over her niece; but she was as inconsistent as most
other people, and did not like this easy solution of the difficulty. She
offered promptly to call upon the new-comers; but she did not cease to
question Edgar about them with curiosity, much sharpened by suspicion.
She extracted from him, in full detail, the history of the Murrays, of
Margaret’s early widowhood, and the special union which existed between
her and her brother. Harry Thornleigh had arrived at Tottenham’s that
day, and the story interested him still more than it did Lady Mary. Poor
Harry was glad enough to get away from his father’s sole companionship;
but he did not anticipate very much enjoyment of the kindred seclusion
here. He grasped at Edgar as a drowning man grasps at a rope.

“I say, let’s go somewhere and smoke. I have so many things to tell you,
and so many things to ask you,” he cried, when Lady Mary had gone to
bed, and Mr. Tottenham, too, had departed to his private retirement, and
Edgar, not knowing, any more than Harry himself did, that young
Thornleigh was set over him as a sentinel, to guard him from all
possibility of mischief, was but too glad to find himself with an
uninstructed bystander, from whom he could have those bare “news”
without consciousness or under-current of meaning, which convey so much
more information than the scrap of enlightenment which well-meaning
friends dole out with more and more sparing hands, in proportion as the
feelings of the hearer are supposed to be more or less concerned. Harry
was not so ignorant as Edgar thought him. He was not bright, but he
flattered himself on being a man of the world, and was far from being
uninterested in Gussy’s persistent neglect of all possible
“opportunities.” “A girl don’t stand out like that without some cause
for it,” Harry would have said, sagaciously; but he was too knowing to
let it be perceived that he knew.

“There is a deal of difference up at home now,” he said. “I don’t mean
my father--but you can’t think what changes Arden has made. Do you like
to hear, or don’t you like to hear? I’ll guide myself accordingly. Very
well, then I’ll speak. He’s on the right side in politics, you know,
which you never were, and that’s a good thing: but he’s done everything
you felt yourself bound not to do. Clare don’t like it, I don’t think.
You should see the lot of new villas and houses. Arden ain’t a bit like
Arden; it’s a new spick and span Yankee sort of town. I say, what would
the old Squire have thought? but Arthur Arden don’t care.”

“He is right enough, Harry. He was not bound to respect anyone’s
prejudices.”

“Well, there was Clare,” said Thornleigh. “They may be prejudices, you
know; but I wouldn’t spite my wife for money--I don’t think. To be sure,
if a man wants it badly that’s an excuse; but Arden has plenty of money,
thanks to you. What a softy you were, to be sure, not to say anything
disagreeable! Even if I had had to give up in the end, wouldn’t I have
made him pay!”

“Never mind that,” said Edgar. “Tell me some more news. He hasn’t
changed the house, I suppose, and they are very happy, and that sort of
thing? How is she looking”? It is three years since I left, and one
likes to hear of old friends.”

“Happy?” said Harry, “meaning Mrs. Arden? She’s gone off dreadfully; oh,
I suppose she’s happy enough. You know, old fellow,” the young man
continued, with a superior air of wisdom, “I don’t pretend to believe in
the old-fashioned idea of living happy ever after. That’s bosh! but I
daresay they’re just as comfortable as most people. Clare has gone off
frightfully. She’s not a bit the girl she was; and of course Arden can’t
but see that, and a man can’t be always doing the lover.”

“Is it so?” cried Edgar, with flashing eyes. He got up unconsciously, as
if he would have rushed to Clare’s side on the spot, to defend her from
any neglect. All the old affection surged up in his heart. “My poor
Clare!” he said, “and I cannot do anything for you! Don’t think me a
fool, Harry. She’s my only sister, though she doesn’t belong to me; and
that fellow--What do you mean by gone off? She was always pale.”

“Oh, he don’t beat her or that sort of thing,” said Thornleigh. “She’s
safe enough. I wouldn’t excite myself, if I were you; Mrs. Arden can
take care of herself; she’ll give as good as she gets. Well, you needn’t
look so fierce. I don’t think, as far as I’ve heard, that she stood up
like that for you.”

“She was very good to me,” said Edgar, “better than I deserved, for I
was always a trouble to her, with my different ways of thinking; and the
children,” he added, softly, with an ineffable melting of his heart over
Clare’s babies, which took him by surprise. “Tell me all you can, Harry.
Think how you should feel if you had not heard of your own people for so
many years.”

“I don’t know that I should mind much,” said honest Harry; “there are
such heaps of them, for one thing; and children ain’t much in my way.
There’s two little things, I believe--little girls, which riles Arden.
Helena’s got a baby, by the way--did you know?--the rummiest little
customer, bald, like its father. Nell was as mad as could be when I said
so. By Jove! what fun it was! with a sort of spectacled look about the
eyes. If that child don’t take to lecturing as soon as it can speak,
I’ll never trust my judgment again.”

Edgar did not feel in a humour to make any response to young
Thornleigh’s laughter. He felt himself like an instrument which was
being played upon, struck by one rude touch after another, able to do
nothing but give out sounds of pain or excitement. He could do nothing
to help Clare, nothing to liberate Gussy; and yet Providence had thrust
him into the midst of them without any doing of his, and surrounded him
once more with at least the reflection of their lives. He let Harry
laugh and stop laughing without taking any notice. He began to be
impatient of his own position, and to feel a longing to plunge again
into the unknown, it did not matter where, and get rid of those dear
visions. Excitement brought its natural reaction in a sudden fit of
despondency. If he could do nothing--and it was evident he could do
nothing--would it not be better to save himself the needless pain, the
mingled humiliation and anguish of helplessness? So long as he was here,
he could not but ask, he could not but know. Though the ink was scarcely
dry upon the letters he had been writing, the cry for aid to establish
himself somehow, in an independent position which he had sent forth to
all who could help--a sudden revulsion of feeling struck him, brought
out by his despair and sense of impotence. Far better to go away to
Australia, to New Zealand, to the end of the world, and at least escape
hearing of the troubles he could do nothing to relieve, than to stay
here and know all, and be able to do nothing. An instrument upon which
now one strain of emotion, now another, was beaten out--that was the
true image. Lady Mary had played upon him the other day, eliciting all
sorts of confused sounds, wound up by a sudden strain of rapture; and
now Harry struck the passive cords, and brought forth vaguer murmurs of
fury, groans of impotence, and pain. It would not do. He was not a reed
to be thus piped upon, but a man suffering, crying out in his pain, and
he must make an end of it. Thus he thought, musing moodily, while Harry
laughed over his sister’s bald baby. Harry himself was a dumb Memnon,
whom no one had ever woke into sound, and he did not understand anything
about his companion’s state of mind.

“Have you come to an end of your questions?” he said. “You ain’t so
curious as I expected. Now here goes on my side? First and foremost, in
the name of all that’s wonderful, how did you come here?”

Edgar shrugged his shoulders. “You will do me a better service if you
will tell me how to get out of here,” he said. “I was a fool to stay. To
tell the truth, I had not woke up to any particular interest in what
became of me. I had only myself to think of; but I can’t bear to
remember them all, and have nothing to do with them--that’s the truth.”

“You must make up your mind to that, old fellow,” said Harry, the
philosopher; “few people get just all they want. But you can’t go and
run away for that. You shouldn’t have run away at the first. It’s the
coming back that does it. _I_ know. You thought it was all over and done
with, and that you could begin straight off, without coming across old
things and old faces. I’ve turned over about as many new leaves, and
made about as many fresh starts as most people, and I can feel for you.
It ain’t no manner of use; you can’t get done with one set of people and
take up with another; the old ones are always cropping up again,” said
Harry, oracularly. “You’ve got to make up your mind to it. But I must
say,” he added, changing his tone, “that of all places in the world for
getting shut of the past, to come here!”

“I was a fool,” said Edgar, with his head between his hands. Up to this
moment he had thought of Harry Thornleigh as a somewhat stupid boy. Now
the young man of the world had the better of him. For the first time he
fully realised that he had been foolish in coming here, and had placed
himself in an exceptionally difficult position by his own act, and not
by the action of powers beyond his control, as he thought. In short, he
had allowed himself to be passive, to drift where the current led him,
to do what was suggested, to follow any one that took it upon him to
lead. I suppose it is consistent with the curious vagaries of human
nature that this sudden sense of his impotence to direct his fate should
come just after the warm flush of self-assertion and self-confidence
which had made him feel his own fate to be once more worth thinking of.
Harry, elevated on his calm height of matter-of-fact philosophy, had
never in his life experienced so delightful a sense of capacity to
lecture another, and he did not lose the opportunity.

“Don’t be down about it,” he said, condescendingly. “Most fellows make
some mistake or other when they come to again after a bad fall. The
brain gets muzzy, you know; and between a stark staring madman like old
Tottenham, and a mature Syren like Aunt Mary, what were you to do? _I_
don’t blame you. And now you’ve done it, you’ll have to stick to it. As
for Clare Arden, I shouldn’t vex myself about her. She knew the kind of
fellow she was marrying. Besides, if a man was to put himself out for
all his sisters, good Lord! what a life he’d have. I don’t know that
Helena’s happy with that professor fellow. If she ain’t, it’s her own
business; she would have him. And I don’t say Clare’s unhappy. She’s not
the sort of person to go in for domestic bliss, and make a show of
herself. Cheer up, old fellow; things might be a deal worse. And ain’t
old Tottenham a joke? But, by-the-way, take my advice; don’t do too much
for that little cub of his. He’ll make a slave of you, if you don’t
mind. Indeed,” said Harry, lighting a fresh cigar, “they’ll all make a
slave of you. Don’t you let my lady get the upper hand. You can always
manage a woman if you take a little trouble, but you must never let her
get the upper hand.”

“And how do you manage a woman, oh, Solomon?” said Edgar, laughing, in
spite of himself.

“I’ve had a deal of experience,” said Harry, gravely; “it all depends on
whether you choose to take the trouble. The regular dodge about young
men having their fling, and that sort of thing, does for my mother;
she’s simple, poor dear soul. Aunt Mary wants a finer hand. Now you have
the ball at your feet, if you choose to play it; only make a stand upon
your mind, and that sort of thing, and she’ll believe you. She wouldn’t
believe me if I were to set up for a genius, ’cause why? that’s not my
line. Be _difficile_,” said Harry, imposingly, very proud of his French
word; “that’s the great thing; and the more high and mighty you are, the
more she’ll respect you. That’s my advice to _you_. As for dear old
Tottenham, you can take your choice, anything will do for him; he’s the
best old fellow, and the greatest joke in the world.”

With this Harry lit his candle and marched off to bed, very well pleased
with himself. He had done all that Lady Augusta had hoped for. So far as
his own family were concerned, he had comported himself like a
precocious Macchiavelli. He had named no names, he had made no
allusions, he had renewed his old friendship as frankly as possible,
without however indulging Edgar in a single excursion into the past. He
had mentioned Helena, who was perfectly safe and proper to be mentioned,
a sign that he talked to his old friend with perfect freedom; but with
the judgment of a Solomon he had gone no further. Not in vain did Harry
flatter himself on being a man of the world. He was fond of Edgar, but
he would have considered his sister’s choice of him, in present
circumstances, as too ludicrous to be thought of. And there can be
little doubt that Harry’s demeanour had an influence upon Edgar far more
satisfactory for Lady Augusta than her sister’s intervention had been.
All the visionary possibilities that had revealed themselves in Lady
Mary’s warning, disappeared before the blank suavity of Harry. In that
friendly matter-of-fact discussion of his friend’s difficulties, he had
so entirely left out the chief difficulty, so taken it for granted that
nothing of the kind existed, that Edgar felt like a man before whom a
blank wall has suddenly risen, where a moment before there were trees
and gardens. Harry’s was the man’s point of view, not the woman’s. Those
regrets and longings for what might have been, which Lady Mary could not
prevent from influencing her, even when she sincerely wished that the
might have been should never be, were summarily extinguished in Harry’s
treatment. Of course the old must crop up, and confront the new, and of
course the complication must be faced and put up with, not run away
from. Such was the young man of the world’s philosophy. Edgar sat long
after he was gone, once more feeling himself the instrument on which
every one played, rather than a conscious actor in the imbroglio. The
image got possession of his fanciful brain. Like the thrill of the
chords after the hand that struck them had been withdrawn, he seemed to
himself to keep on vibrating with long thrills of after sensation, even
when the primary excitement was over. But words are helpless to describe
the thousand successive changes of feeling of which the mind is capable
at a great crisis, especially without immediate power to act one way or
another. Edgar, in despair, went and shut himself into the library and
read, without knowing well what he read. The passage of those long
processions of words before his eyes, gave him a certain occupation,
even if they conveyed but little meaning. How easy it would be to do
anything; how difficult it was to bear, and go on, and wait!

All this, perhaps, might be easier to support if life were not so
cruelly ironical. That morning Edgar, who felt his own position
untenable, and whose future seemed to be cut off under his feet--who
felt himself to be standing muffled and invisible between two suffering
women, each with the strongest claim upon him, for whom he could do
nothing--was carried off to assist in getting up an entertainment at Mr.
Tottenham’s shop. Entertainments, in the evening--duets, pieces on the
cornet, Trial Scene from Pickwick; and in the morning, lectures, the
improvement of Lady Mary Tottenham’s mind, and the grand office of
teaching the young ladies of Harbour Green to think! What a farce it all
seemed! And what an insignificant farce all the lighter external
circumstances of life always seem to the compulsory actors in them, who
have, simultaneously, the tragedy or even genteel comedy of their own
lives going on, and all its most critical threads running through the
larger lighter foolish web which concerns only the outside of man. The
actor who has to act, and the singer who has to sing, and the romancist
who has to go on weaving his romance through all the personal miseries
of their existence, is scarcely more to be pitied than those
unprofessional sufferers who do much the same thing, without making any
claim, or supposing themselves to have any right to our sympathy. Edgar
was even half glad to go, to get himself out of the quiet, and out of
hearing of the broken bits of talk which went on around him; but I do
not think that he was disposed to look with a very favourable eye on the
entertainment at Tottenham’s, or even on the benevolent whimsey of the
owner of that enormous shop.




CHAPTER III.

Harry.


Harry Thornleigh was anything but content to be left alone at
Tottenham’s. He proposed that he should accompany Edgar and Mr.
Tottenham, but the latter personage, benevolent as he was, had the
faculty of saying No, and declined his nephew’s company. Then he
wandered all about the place, looked at the house, inspected the dogs,
strolled about the plantations, everything a poor young man could do to
abridge the time till luncheon. He took Phil with him, and Phil
chattered eternally of Mr. Earnshaw.

“I wish you wouldn’t call him by that objectionable name,” said Harry.

“It’s a capital good name,” cried Phil. “I wish you could see their
blazon, in Gwillim. Earnshaw says it ain’t his family; but everybody
says he’s a great swell in disguise, and I feel sure he is.”

“Hallo!” said Harry, idly, “what put that into your head? It’s all the
other way, my fine fellow.”

“I don’t know what you mean by the other way. His name wasn’t always
Earnshaw,” said Phil, triumphantly. “They’ve got about half a hundred
quarterings, real old gentry, not upstarts like us.”

“That’s admirable,” said Harry. “I suppose that’s what you study all the
time you are shut up together, eh?”

“No, he don’t care for heraldry, more’s the pity,” said Phil. “I can’t
get him to take any interest. It’s in other ways he’s so jolly. I say,
I’ve made up a coat for us, out of my own head. Listen! First and
fourth, an ellwand argent; second and third, three shawls proper--But
you don’t understand, no more than Earnshaw does. I showed it to the
mother, and she boxed my ears.”

“Serve you right, you little beggar. I say, Phil, what is there to do in
this old place? I’m very fond of Tottenham’s in a general way, but I
never was here in winter before. What are you up to, little ’un? There’s
the hounds on Thursday, I know; but Thursday’s a long way off. What have
you got for a fellow to do, to-day?”

“Come up to the gamekeeper’s and see the puppies,” said Phil; “it’s
through the woods all the way. Earnshaw went with me the other day.
They’re such jolly little mites; and if you don’t mind luncheon very
much, we can take a long stretch on to the pond at Hampton, and see how
it looks. It’s shallower than our pond here.”

“I don’t care for a muddy walk, thanks,” said Harry, contemplating his
boots, “and I do mind luncheon. Come along, and I’ll teach you
billiards, Phil. I suppose there’s a billiard table somewhere about.”

“Teach me!” cried Phil, with a great many notes of admiration; “why, I
can beat Earnshaw all to sticks!”

“If you mention his name again for an hour, I’ll punch your head,” cried
Harry, and strolled off dreamily to the billiard-room, Phil following
with critical looks. The boy liked his cousin, but at the same time he
liked to have his say, and did not choose to be snubbed.

“What a thing it is to have nothing to do!” he said, sententiously. “How
often do you yawn of a morning, Harry? We’re not allowed to do that.
Earnshaw--”

“You little beggar! didn’t I promise to punch your head?” cried Harry;
and they had an amiable struggle at the door of the billiard-room, by
which Phil’s satirical tendencies were checked for the moment.

“Ain’t you strong, just!” Phil said, after this trial, with additional
respect.

But notwithstanding the attractions of the billiard-table, Harry,
yawning, stalked into luncheon with an agreeable sense of variety. “When
you have nothing else to do, eat,” he said, displaying his wisdom in
turn, for the edification of Phil. “That’s a great idea; I learned it at
Oxford where it’s very useful.”

“And not very much else, acknowledge, Harry,” said Lady Mary.

“Well, as much as I was wanted to learn. You are very hard upon a
fellow, Aunt Mary. John, I allow, was intended to do some good; but me,
no one expected anything from me--and why should a fellow bother his
brains when he hasn’t got any, and doesn’t care, and nobody cares for
him? That’s what I call unreasonable. I suppose you’ll keep poor Phil at
high pressure, till something happens. It ain’t right to work the brain
too much at his age.”

“What about John?” said Lady Mary, “he has gone back to Oxford and is
working in earnest now, isn’t he? Your mother told me--”

“Poor dear old mother, she’s so easy taken in, it’s a shame. Yes, he’s
up at old Christ Church, sure enough; but as for work! when a thing
ain’t in a fellow, you can’t get it out of him,” said Harry oracularly.
“I don’t say that _that_ isn’t rather hard upon the old folks.”

“You are a saucy boy to talk about old folks.”

“Well, they ain’t young,” said Harry calmly. “Poor old souls, I’m often
sorry for them. We haven’t turned out as they expected, neither me nor
the rest. Ada an old maid, and Gussy a ‘Sister,’ which is another name
for an old maid, and Jack ploughed, and me--well, I’m about the best if
you look at it dispassionately. By the way, no, little Mary’s the best.
There is one that has done her duty; but Granton has a devil of a temper
though they don’t know it. On the whole, I think the people who have no
children are the best off.”

“Upon what facts may that wise conclusion rest?” said Lady Mary.

“I have just given you a lot of facts; me, Jack, Ada, Gussy, and you may
add, Helena. Five failures against one success; if that ain’t enough to
make life miserable I don’t know what is. I am very sorry for the
Governor; my mother takes it easier on the whole, though she makes a
deal more fuss; but it’s deuced hard upon him, poor old man. The
Thornleighs don’t make such a figure in the county now as they did in
his days; for it stands to reason that eight children, with debts to
pay, &c., takes a good deal out of the spending-money; and of course the
old maids of the family must come upon the estate.”

“When you see the real state of the case so plainly,” said Lady Mary,
“and express yourself so sensibly--don’t you think you might do
something to mend matters, and make your poor father a little happier?”

“Ah, that’s different,” said Harry, “I’ve turned over so many new leaves
I don’t believe in them now. Besides a fellow gets into a groove and
what is he to do?”

“Phil, if you have finished your lunch, you and Molly may run away and
amuse yourselves,” said Lady Mary, feeling that here was an opportunity
for moral influence. The two children withdrew rather unwillingly, for
like all other children they were fond of personal discussions, and
liked to hear the end of everything. Harry laughed as they went away.

“You want to keep Phil out of hearing of my bad example,” he said, “and
you are going to persuade me to be good, Aunt Mary; I know all you’re
going to say. Don’t you know I’ve had it all said to me a hundred times?
Don’t bother yourself to go over the old ground. May I have the honour
of attending your ladyship anywhere this afternoon, or won’t you have
me, any more than Mr. Tottenham?”

“Oh, Harry, you’re a sad boy,” said Lady Mary, shaking her head. She had
thought, perhaps, that she might have put his duty more clearly before
him than any previous monitor had been able to do, for we all have
confidence in our own special powers in this way; but she gave up
judiciously when she saw how her overture was received. “I am going to
the village,” she said, “to call upon those new people, Mr. Earnshaw’s
cousins.”

“Oh, the beauty!” cried Harry with animation, “come along! Sly fellow to
bring her here, where he’ll be always on the spot.”

“Ah, that was my first idea; but he knew nothing of it. To tell the
truth,” said Lady Mary, “I wish it were so; I should be a good deal
easier in my mind, and so would your mother if I could believe he was
thinking seriously of anyone--in his own rank of life.”

“Why, I thought you were a democrat, and cared nothing for rank; I
thought you were of the opinion that all men are equal, not to speak of
women--”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Harry; an abstract belief, one way or other, has
nothing to do with one’s family arrangements. I like Mr. Earnshaw very
much; he is more than my equal, for he is an educated man, and knows
much more than I do, which is my standard of position; but still, at the
same time, I should not like him--in his present circumstances--to enter
my family--”

“Though a few years ago we should all have been very glad of him,” said
Harry. “Oh, _I_ agree with you entirely, Aunt Mary. If Gussy is such a
fool she must be stopped, that’s all. I’d have no hesitation in locking
her up upon bread and water rather than stand any nonsense. I’d have
done the same by Helena if I’d had my way.”

“How odd,” said Lady Mary, veering round instantly, and somewhat abashed
to find herself thus supported, “and yet you are young, and might be
supposed to have some sort of sympathy--”

“Not a bit,” cried Harry, “I don’t mind nonsense; but as soon as it gets
serious I’m serious too. If this fellow, whom you call Earnshaw, has any
notions of that kind I’ll show him the difference. Oh, yes, I like him;
but you may like a fellow well enough, and not give him your sister.
Besides, what made him such a fool as to give up everything? He might
have fought it out.”

“Harry, you are very worldly--you do not understand generous
sentiments--”

“No, I don’t,” said Harry stoutly, “what’s the good of generous
sentiments if all that they bring you to is tutorizing in a private
family? I’d rather put my generous sentiments in my pocket and keep my
independence. Hallo, here’s your pony carriage. Shall you drive, or
shall I?”

Lady Mary was crushed by her nephew’s straightforward worldliness. Had
she been perfectly genuine in her own generosity, I have no doubt she
would have metaphorically flown at his throat; but she was subdued by
the consciousness that, much as she liked Edgar, any sort of man with a
good position and secure income would appear to her a preferable husband
for Gussy. This sense of weakness cowed her, for Harry, though he was
stupid intellectually, was more than a match for his aunt in the calm
certainty of his sentiments on this point. He was a man of the world,
disposed to deal coolly with the hearts and engagements of his sisters,
which did not affect him personally, and quite determined as to the
necessary character of any stranger entering his family, which did
affect him.

“I will have no snobs or cads calling me brother-in-law,” he said. “No,
he ain’t a snob nor a cad; but he’s nobody, which is just the same. It’s
awfully good of you to visit these other nobodies, his relations. Oh,
yes, I’ll go in with you, and see if she’s as pretty as he said.”

The lodging in which Dr. Murray had established himself and his sister,
so much against his will, was a succession of low-roofed rooms in a
cottage of one story, picturesque with creepers and heavy masses of ivy,
but damp, and somewhat dark. The sitting-room was very dim on this
wintry afternoon. It was a dull day, with grey skies and mist; the two
little windows were half-obscured with waving branches of ivy, and the
glimmer of the fire flickered into the dark corners of the dim green
room. You could scarcely pass from the door to the fireplace without
dragging the red and blue tablecloth off the table, or without stumbling
against the sofa on one side, or the little chiffonier on the other.
When Lady Mary went in, like a queen to visit her subjects, two figures
rose simultaneously to meet her. Margaret had been seated in the recess
of the window to catch the last rays of the afternoon, and she let her
work drop hurriedly out of her fingers, and rose up, undecipherable,
except in outline, against the light. Dr. Charles rose too in the same
way against the firelight. Neither of the four could make each other
out, and the strangers were embarrassed and silent, not knowing who
their visitor was. Lady Mary, however, fortunately was equal to the
occasion. She introduced herself, and mentioned Edgar, and introduced
her nephew, all in a breath. “I am so sorry you should have had so
uncomfortable a reception,” she said, “but you must not be angry with
poor Mrs. Franks, for it could not be helped.”

“Oh, no, it could not be helped,” they both said, in unison, with low
Scotch voices, the accent of which puzzled Lady Mary; and then Margaret
added, still more softly, “I am sorry for her, poor woman, stopped at
such a moment.” The voice was very soft, shy, full of self-consciousness
and embarrassment. Harry stood by the window, and looked out, and felt
more bored than ever. He had come to see a beauty, and he saw nothing
but the little grass-plot before the cottage-door, shut in by bushes of
holly and rhododendron. And Lady Mary went on talking in a sort of
professional lady-of-the-manor strain, telling Dr. Murray what he had to
look forward to, and wherein Dr. Franks had been deficient.

“You will find it a very good house, when you can get in to it,” she
said, “and a pleasant neighbourhood;” and then in the little pause that
followed these gracious intimations, Edgar’s name was introduced, and
the mutual surprise with which his cousins and he had met; while the
brother and sister explained, both together, now one strange soft voice
breaking in, now the other, how much and how little they knew of him,
Harry still stood leaning on the window, waiting, with a little
impatience, till his aunt should have got through her civilities. But
just then the mistress of the cottage appeared, holding in both hands a
homely paraffin lamp, by no means free of smell, which she placed on the
table, suddenly illuminating the dim interior. Harry had to move from
the window while she proceeded to draw down the blinds, and thus of a
sudden, without warning or preparation, he received the electric shock
which had been preparing for him. Margaret had seated herself on the end
of the little sofa close to the table. She had raised her eyes to look
at him, probably with something of the same curiosity which had brought
him to the cottage--Lady Mary’s nephew, a person in the best society,
could not be without interest to the new-comers. Margaret looked up at
him with the unconscious look of appeal which never went out of her
beautiful eyes. The young man was, to use his own language, struck “all
of a heap.” He thought she was asking something of him. In his hurry and
agitation, he made a step towards her.

“You were asking--” cried Harry, eagerly, affected as he had never been
in his life before. What was it she wanted? He did not stop to say to
himself how beautiful she was. He felt only that she had asked him for
something, and that if it were the moon she wanted, he would try to get
it for her. His sudden movement, and the sound of his voice, startled
Lady Mary too, who could not make out what he meant.

“I did not say anything,” said Margaret, in the slightly plaintive voice
which was peculiar to her, with a smile, which seemed to the young man
like thanks for the effort he had made. He took a chair, and drew it to
the table, not knowing what he did. A sudden maze and confusion of mind
came over him, in which he felt as if some quite private intercourse had
gone on between this stranger and himself. She had asked him, he could
not tell for what--and he had thrown his whole soul into the attempt to
get it for her; and she had thanked him. Had this happened really, or
was it only a look, a smile that had done it? The poor boy could not
tell. He drew his chair close to the table to be near her. She was not a
stranger to him; he felt at once that he could say anything to her,
accept anything from her. He was dazed and stunned, yet excited and
exhilarated by her mere look, he could not tell why.

And the talk went on again. Harry said nothing; he sat casting a glance
at her from time to time, eager, hoping she would ask that service from
him once more. Perhaps Margaret was accustomed to produce this effect on
strangers. She went on in her plaintive voice, telling how little she
knew of Edgar, and what he had done for his family, in an even flow of
soft speech, answering all Lady Mary’s questions, not looking at the new
worshipper--while Dr. Murray, in his embarrassed way, anxious to make a
good impression, supplemented all his sister said. Margaret was not
embarrassed; she was shy, yet frank; her eyes were cast down generally
as she talked, over the work she held in her hands, but now and then she
raised them to give emphasis to a sentence, looking suddenly full in the
face of the person she was addressing. It was her way. She renewed her
spell thus from moment to moment. Even Lady Mary, though she had all her
wits about her, was impressed and attracted; and as for poor Harry, he
sat drawing his chair closer and closer, trying to put himself so near
as to intercept one of those glances which she raised to Lady Mary’s
face.

“Our old mother brought us up,” she said. “I cannot tell how good she
was to Charles and me, and what it cost us not to be rich enough to help
her.”

“Margaret,” said Dr. Charles, “Lady Mary cannot care to hear all this
about you and me.”

“Oh, pray go on, I am so much interested,” said Lady Mary.

“For we have never been rich, never anything but poor,” said Margaret,
suddenly lifting her beautiful eyes, and thus giving double effect to
the acknowledgment; while her brother fretted a little, and moved on his
chair with impatience of her frankness.

“We have been able to make our way,” he said, in an under-tone.

“You see, I have always been a drag on him, I and my little girl,” she
went on, with a soft sigh, “so that he was not able to help when he
wanted to help. And then Mr. Earnshaw came in, and did all, and more
than all, that Charles could have hoped to do. For this we can never
think too highly of him, never be grateful enough.”

“It was what any fellow would have done,” interrupted Harry, putting his
head forward. He did not know what he was saying. And Lady Mary,
suddenly looking at him, took fright.

“Thank you so much for telling me this,” she said, rising. “I am so glad
to hear another good thing of Mr. Earnshaw who is one of my first
favourites. For his sake you must let me know if there is anything I can
do to make you comfortable. Harry, it is time for us to go; it will be
quite dark in the avenue. Pardon me, Dr. Murray, but I don’t know your
sister’s name; foolishly, I never thought to ask?”

“Mrs. Smith,” said Dr. Charles, as they both got up, filling the little
dark room with their tall figures. Harry did not know how he made his
exit. One moment, it seemed to him he was surrounded with an atmosphere
of light and sadness from those wonderful blue eyes, and the next he was
driving along the darkling road, with the sound of the wheels and the
ponies’ hoofs ringing all about him, and unsympathetic laughter breaking
from under Lady Mary’s veil by his side.

“Mrs. Smith!” she cried; “what a prodigious anti-climax! It was all I
could do to keep my gravity till I got outside. That wonderful creature
with such eyes, and her pretty plaintive voice. It is too absurd. Mrs.
Smith!”

“You seem to enjoy the joke!” said Harry, stiffly, feeling offended.

“Enjoy the joke! don’t you? But it was rather a shock than a joke. What
a pretty woman! what a pretty voice! It reminds me of blue-bells and
birch trees, and all kinds of pleasant things in Burns and Scott. But
Mrs. Smith! And how that lamp smelt! My dear Harry, I wish you would be
a little more cautious, or else give me the reins. I don’t want to be
upset in the mud. Mrs. Smith!”

“You seem to be mightily amused,” said Harry, more gruff than ever.

“Yes, considerably; but I see you don’t share my amusement,” said Lady
Mary, still more amused at this sudden outburst of temper, or propriety,
or whatever it might be.

“I always thought you were very sympathetic, Aunt Mary,” said the young
man, with a tone of dignified reproof. “It is one of the words you
ladies use to express nothing particular, I suppose? The girls are
always dinning it into my ears.”

“And you think I don’t come up to my character, Harry?”

“I don’t understand your joke, I confess,” said Harry, with the loftiest
superiority, drawing up at the great hall door.




CHAPTER IV.

The Education of Women.


Mr. Tottenham came back from town that evening alone. He explained that
Earnshaw had stayed behind on business. “Business partly mine, and
partly his own; he’s the best fellow that ever lived,” was all the
explanation he gave to his wife; and Lady Mary was unquestionably
curious. They talked a great deal about Edgar at dinner that evening,
and Phil made himself especially objectionable by his questions and his
indignation.

“He hasn’t been here so long that he should go away,” said Phil. “Don’t
he like us, papa? I am sure there is something wrong by your face.”

“So am I,” said little Molly. “You only look like that when some one has
been naughty. But this time you must have made a mistake. Even you might
make a mistake. To think of Mr. Earnshaw being naughty, like one of us,
is ridiculous.”

“Naughty!” cried Phil. “Talk of things you understand, child. I’d like
to know what Earnshaw is supposed to have done,” cried the boy, swelling
with indignation and dignity, with tears rising in his eyes.

“I’ve locked him up in the dark closet in the shop till he will promise
to be good,” said the father, with a laugh; “and if you will throw
yourself at my feet, Molly, and promise to bear half of his punishment
for him, I will, perhaps, let him out to-morrow.”

Little Molly half rose from her chair. She gave a questioning glance at
her mother before she threw herself into the breach; while Phil,
reddening and wondering, stood on the alert, ready to undertake he knew
not what.

“Nonsense, children; sit down; your father is laughing at you.
Seriously, Tom, without any absurdity, what is it?” cried Lady Mary. “I
wanted him so to-morrow to hear the first lecture--and he did not mean
to stay in town when he left here this morning.”

“It is business, mere business,” repeated Mr. Tottenham. “We are not all
fine ladies and gentlemen, like you and Phil, Molly. Some of us have to
work for our living. If it hadn’t been for Earnshaw, I should, perhaps,
have stayed myself. I think we had better stay in town the night of the
entertainment, Mary. It will be a long drive for you back here, and
still longer for the children. They are going to have a great turn out.
I have been writing invitations all day to the very finest of people. I
don’t suppose Her Grace of Middlemarch ever heard anything so fine as
Mr. Watson’s solo on the cornet. And, Phil, I rely on you to get an
encore.”

“Oh! I like old Watson. I’ll clap for him,” cried Phil, with facile
change of sentiments; though little Molly kept still eyeing her father
and mother alternately, not quite reassured. And thus the conversation
slid away from Edgar to the usual crotchets of the establishment.

“We have settled all about the seats, and about the refreshments,” said
Mr. Tottenham, with an air of content. “You great people will sit in
front, and the members of the establishment who are non-performers, on
the back seats; and the grandest flunkies that ever were seen shall
serve the ices. Oh! John is nothing to them. They shall be divinely
tall, and powdered to their eyebrows; in new silk stockings taken from
our very best boxes, for that night only. Ah, children, you don’t know
what is before you! Miss Jemima Robinson is to be Serjeant Buzfuz. She
is sublime in her wig. She is out of the fancy department, and is the
best of saleswomen. We are too busy, we have too much to do to spend
time in improving our minds, like you and your young ladies, Mary; but
you shall see how much native genius Tottenham’s can produce.”

Harry Thornleigh kept very quiet during this talk. His head was still
rather giddy, poor fellow; his balance was still disturbed by the face
and the eyes and the look which had come to him like a revelation. It
would be vain to say that he had never been in love before; he had been
in love a dozen times, lightly, easily, without much trouble to himself
or anyone else. But now he did not know what had happened to him. He
kept thinking what she would be likely to like, what he could get for
her--if, indeed, he ever was again admitted to her presence, and had
that voiceless demand made upon him. Oh! what a fool he had been, Harry
thought, to waste his means and forestall his allowance, and spend money
for no good, when all the time there was existing in the world a being
like that! I don’t know what his allowance had to do with it, and
neither, I suppose, did Harry; but the thought went vaguely through his
head amid a flood of other thoughts equally incoherent. He was glad of
Edgar’s absence, though he could not have told why; and when Lady Mary
began, in the drawing-room after dinner, to describe the new-comer to
her husband, he sat listening with glaring eyes till she returned to
that stale and contemptible joke about Mrs. Smith, upon which Harry
retired in dudgeon, feeling deeply ashamed of her levity. He went to the
smoking-room and lit his cigar, and then he strolled out, feeling a want
of fresh air, and of something cool and fresh to calm him down. It was a
lovely starlight night, very cold and keen. All the mists and heavy
vapours had departed with the day, and the sky over Tottenham’s was
ablaze with those silvery celestial lights, which woke I cannot tell how
many unusual thoughts, and what vague inexplicable emotion and delicious
sadness in Harry’s mind. Something was the matter with him; he could
have cried, though nobody was less inclined to cry in general; the water
kept coming to his eyes, and yet his soul was lost in a vague sense of
happiness. How lovely the stars were; how stupid to sit indoors in a
poky room, and listen to bad jokes and foolish laughter when it was
possible to come out to such a heavenly silence, and to all those
celestial lights. The Aurora Borealis was playing about the sky,
flinging waving rosy tints here and there among the stars, and as he
stood gazing, a great shadowy white arm and hand seemed to flit across
the heavens, dropping something upon him. What was it? the fairy gift
for which those blue eyes had asked him, those eyes which were like the
stars? Harry was only roused from his star-gazing by the vigilant
butler, attended by a footman with a lantern, who made a survey of the
house every night, to see that all the windows and doors were shut, and
that no vagrants were about the premises.

“Beg your pardon, Sir,” said that functionary, “but there’s a many
tramps about, and we’re obliged to be careful.”

Harry threw away his cigar, and went indoors; but he did not attempt to
return to the society of his family. Solitude had rather bored him than
otherwise up to this moment; but somehow he liked it that night.

Next morning was as bright and sunshiny as the night had been clear, and
Lady Mary was again bound for the village, with Phil and his sister.

“Come with us, Harry; it will do you good to see what is going on,” she
said.

Harry had no expectation of getting any good, but he had nothing to do,
and it seemed possible that he might see or hear of the beautiful
stranger, so he graciously accompanied the little party in their walk.
Lady Mary was in high spirits. She had brought all her schemes to
completion, and on this day her course of lectures was to begin.
Nothing could surpass her own conscientiousness in the matter. No girl
graduate, or boy graduate either, for that matter, was ever more
determined to work out every exercise and receive every word of teaching
from the instructors she had chosen. I do not think that Lady Mary felt
herself badly equipped in general for the work of life; indeed, I
suppose she must have felt, as most clever persons do, a capability of
doing many things better than other people, and of understanding any
subject that was placed before her, with a rapidity and clearness which
had been too often remarked upon to be unknown to herself. She must have
been aware too, I suppose, that the education upon which she harped so
much, had not done everything for its male possessors which she expected
it to do for the women whose deficiencies she so much lamented. I
suppose she must have known this, though she never betrayed her
consciousness of it; but by whatever means it came about, it is certain
that Lady Mary was a great deal more eager for instruction, and more
honestly determined to take the good of it, than any one of the girls at
Harbour Green for whose benefit she worked with such enthusiasm, and who
acquiesced in her efforts, some of them for fun, some of them with a
half fictitious reflection of her enthusiasm, and all, or almost all,
because Lady Mary was the fashion in her neighbourhood, and it was the
right thing to follow her in her tastes and fancies. There was quite a
pretty assembly in the schoolroom when the party from Tottenham’s
arrived--all the Miss Witheringtons in a row, and the young ladies from
the Rectory, and many other lesser lights. Harry Thornleigh was somewhat
frightened to find himself among so many ladies, though most of them
were young, and many pretty.

“I’ll stay behind backs, thanks,” he said, hurriedly, and took up a
position near the door, where Phil joined him, and where the two
conversed in whispers.

“They’re going to do sums, fancy,” said Phil, opening large eyes, “mamma
and all! though nobody can make them do it unless they like.”

“By Jove!” breathed Harry into his moustache. Amaze could go no further,
and he felt words incapable of expressing his sentiments. I don’t know
whether the spectacle did the young fellow good, but it stupefied and
rendered him speechless with admiration or horror, I should not like to
say which. “What are they doing it for?” he whispered to Phil, throwing
himself in his consternation even upon that small commentator for
instruction.

Phil’s eyes were screwed tightly in his head, round as two great O’s of
amazement; but he only shook that organ, and made no response. I think,
on the whole, Phil was the one of all the assembly (except his mother)
who enjoyed it most. He was privileged to sit and look on, while others
were, before his eyes, subjected to the torture from which he had
temporarily escaped. Phil enjoyed it from this point of view; and Lady
Mary enjoyed it in the delight of carrying out her plan, and riding high
upon her favourite hobby. She listened devoutly while the earliest
propositions of Euclid were being explained to her, with a proud and
happy consciousness that thus, by her means, the way to think was opened
to a section at least of womankind; and what was more, this very clever
woman put herself quite docilely at her lecturer’s feet, and listened to
every word he said with the full intention of learning how to think in
her own person--notwithstanding that, apart from her hobby, she had
about as much confidence in her own power of thought as most people.
This curious paradox, however, is not so uncommon that I need dwell upon
it. The other persons who enjoyed the lecture most, were, I think, Myra
Witherington, who now and then looked across to her friend Phil, and
made up her pretty face into such a delightful copy of the lecturer’s,
that Phil rolled upon his seat with suppressed laughter; and Miss
Annetta Baker, who--there being no possibility of croquet parties at
this time of the year--enjoyed the field-day immensely, and nodded to
her friends, and made notes of Lady Mary’s hat, and of the new Spring
dresses in which the Rectory girls certainly appeared too early, with
genuine pleasure. The other ladies present did their best to be very
attentive. Sometimes a faintly smothered sigh would run through the
assembly; sometimes a little cough, taken up like a fugue over the
different benches, gave a slight relief to their feelings; sometimes it
would be a mere rustle of dresses, indicative of a slight universal
movement. The curate’s wife, unable to keep up her attention, fell to
adding up her bills within herself, a much more necessary mathematical
exercise in her case, but one also which did very little towards paying
the same, as poor Mrs. Mildmay knew too well. Miss Franks, the old
doctor’s eldest daughter, after the first solemnity of the commencement
wore off, began to think of her packing, and what nonsense it was of
papa to send her here when there was so much to do--especially as they
were leaving Harbour Green, and Lady Mary’s favour did not matter now.
There was one real student, besides Lady Mary, and that was Ellen
Gregory, the daughter of the postmistress, who sat far back, and was
quite unthought of by the great people, and whose object was to learn a
little Euclid for an approaching examination of pupil-teachers, and not
in the least the art of thinking. Ellen was quite satisfied as to her
powers in that particular; but she knew the effect that a little Euclid
had upon a school-inspector, and worked away with a will, with a mind as
much intent as Lady Mary’s, and eyes almost as round as Phil’s.

From this it will be seen that Lady Mary’s audience was about as little
prepared for abstract education as most other audiences. When it was
over, there was a pleasant stir of relief, and everybody began to
breathe freely. The lecturer came from behind his table, and the ladies
rose from their benches, and everybody shook hands.

“Oh, it was delightful, Lady Mary!” said the eldest Miss Witherington;
“how it does open up one’s mental firmament.”

“Mr. Thornleigh, will you help me to do the fourth problem?” said Myra.
“I don’t understand it a bit--but of course you know all about it.”

“I!” cried Harry, recoiling in horror, “you don’t mean it, Miss
Witherington? It’s a shame to drag a fellow into this sort of thing
without any warning. I couldn’t do a sum to save my life!”

“Lady Mary, do you hear? is it any shame to me not to understand it,
when a University man says just the same?” cried Myra, laughing. Poor
Harry felt himself most cruelly assailed, as well as ill-used
altogether, by being led into this extraordinary morning’s work.

“I hope there’s more use in a University than that rot,” he said. “By
Jove, Aunt Mary! I’ve often heard women had nothing to do--but if you
can find no better way of passing your time than doing sums and
problems, and getting up Euclid at your time of life----”

“Take him away, for heaven’s sake, Myra!” whispered Lady Mary; “he is
not a fool when you talk to him. He is just like other young men, good
enough in his way; but I can’t be troubled with him now.”

“Ah!” cried Myra, with an unconscious imitation of Lady Mary’s own
manner, which startled, and terrified, and enchanted all the bystanders,
“if the higher education was only open to us poor women, if we were not
persistently kept from all means of improving ourselves--we might get in
time to be as intellectual as Mr. Thornleigh,” she added, laughing in
her own proper voice.

Lady Mary did not hear the end of this speech; she did not see herself
in the little mimic’s satire. She was too much preoccupied, and too
serious to notice the fun--and the smiles upon the faces of her friends
annoyed without enlightening her.

“How frivolous we all are,” she said, turning to the eldest Miss Baker,
with a sigh; “off at a tangent, as soon as ever the pressure is removed.
I am sure I don’t want to think it--but sometimes I despair, and feel
that we must wait for a new generation before any real education is
possible among women. They are all like a set of schoolboys let loose.”

“My dear Lady Mary, that is what I am always telling you; not one in a
hundred is capable of any intellectual elevation,” said the only
superior person in the assembly; and they drew near the lecturer, and
engaged him in a tough conversation, though he, poor man, having done
his duty, and being as pleased to get it over as the audience, would
have much preferred the merrier crowd who were streaming--with
suppressed laughter, shaking their heads and uttering admonitions to
wicked Myra--out into the sunshine, through the open door.

“Don’t do that again,” cried Phil, very red. “I say, Myra, I like you
and your fun, and all that; but I’ll never speak to you again, as long
as I live, if you take off mamma!”

“I didn’t mean it, dear,” said Myra, penitent. “I’m so sorry, I beg your
pardon, Phil. Lady Mary’s a dear, and I wouldn’t laugh at her for all
the world. But don’t you ever mimic anyone, there’s a good boy; for one
gets into the habit without knowing what one does.”

“Oh, that’s all very fine,” said Phil, feeling the exhortation against a
sin for which he had no capability to be out of place; but he did not
refuse to make up the incipient quarrel. As for Harry, he had not
listened, and consequently was not aware how much share he had in the
cause of the general hilarity.

“I should like to know what all the fun’s about,” he said. “Good lord!
to see you all at it like girls at school! Ladies are like sheep, it
seems to me--where one goes you all follow; because that good little
aunt of mine has a craze about education, do you all mean to make muffs
of yourselves? Well, I’m not a man that stands up for superior intellect
and that sort of thing--much; but, good gracious! do you ever see men go
in for that sort of nonsense?”

“That is because you are all so much cleverer, and better educated to
start with, Mr. Thornleigh,” said Sissy Witherington. He looked up at
her to see if she were laughing at him; but Sissy was incapable of
satire, and meant what she said.

“Well, perhaps there is something in that,” said Harry, mollified,
stroking his moustache.

Harry lunched with the Witheringtons at their urgent request, and thus
shook himself free from Phil, who was disposed, in the absence of
Earnshaw, to attach himself to his cousin. Mrs. Witherington made much
of the visitor, not without a passing thought that if by any chance he
should take a fancy to Myra--and of course Myra to him, though that was
a secondary consideration--why, more unlikely things might come to
pass. But Harry showed no dispositions that way, and stood and stared
out of the window of the front drawing-room, after luncheon, towards
Mrs. Smith’s lodgings, on the other side of the Green, with a
pertinacity which amazed his hostesses. When he left them he walked in
the same direction slowly, with his eyes still fixed on the cottage with
its green shutters and dishevelled creepers. Poor Harry could not think
of any excuse for a second call; he went along the road towards the
cottage hoping he might meet the object of his thoughts, and stared in
at the window through the matted growth of holly and rhododendrons in
the little garden, equally without effect. She had been seated there on
the previous evening, but she was not seated there now. He took a long
walk, and came back again once more, crossing slowly under the windows,
and examining the place; but still saw nothing. If Margaret had only
known of it, where she sat listlessly inside feeling extremely dull, and
in want of a little excitement, how much good it would have done her!
and she would not have been so unkind as to refuse her admirer a glance.
But she did not know, and Harry went back very unhappy, dull and
depressed, and feeling as if life were worth very little indeed to him.
Had that heavenly vision appeared, only to go out again, to vanish for
ever, from the eyes which could never forget the one glimpse they had
had of her? Harry had never known what it was to be troubled with
extravagant hopes or apprehensions before.




CHAPTER V.

Mrs. Smith.


“Still no Mr. Earnshaw,” said Lady Mary. “This business of his and yours
is a long affair then, Tom. I wanted to send down to those cousins of
his to ask them to dinner, or something. I suppose I must write a little
civil note, and tell Mrs. Smith why I delay doing so. It is best to wait
till he comes back.”

“I’ll take your note, Aunt Mary,” said Harry, with alacrity. “Oh, no, it
will not inconvenience me in the least. I shall be passing that way.”

“I suppose you want to see the beauty again?” said Lady Mary, smiling.
“She is very pretty. But I don’t care much for the looks of the brother.
He has an uncertain way, which would be most uncomfortable in illness.
If he were to stand on one foot, and hesitate, and look at you like
that, to see what you were thinking of him, when some one was ill! A
most uncomfortable doctor. I wish we may not have been premature about
poor old Dr. Franks.”

“Anyhow it was not your doing,” said Mr. Tottenham.

Lady Mary blushed slightly. She answered with some confusion: “No, I
don’t suppose it was.” But at the same time she felt upon her
conscience the weight of many remarks, as to country practitioners, and
doctors of the old school, and men who did not advance with the progress
of science even in their own profession, which she had made at various
times, and which, no doubt, had gone forth with a certain influence. She
had not had it in her power to influence Dr. Franks as to the person who
should succeed him; but she had perhaps been a little instrumental in
dethroning the old country doctor of the old school, whose want of
modern science she had perceived so clearly. These remarks were made the
second day after the lecture, and Edgar had not yet returned. Nobody at
Tottenham’s knew where he was, or what had become of him; nobody except
the master of the house, who kept his own counsel. Harry had made
another unavailing promenade in front of Mrs. Smith’s lodgings on the
day before, and had caught a glimpse of Margaret in a cab, driving with
her brother to some patient, following the old lofty gig which was Dr.
Franks’ only vehicle. He had taken off his hat, and stood at the gate of
Tottenham’s, worshipping while she passed, and she had given him a smile
and a look which went to his heart. This look and smile seemed the sole
incidents that had happened to Harry; he could not remember anything
else; and when Lady Mary spoke of the note his heart leaped into his
mouth. She had, as usual, a hundred things to do that morning while he
waited, interviews with the housekeeper, with the gardener, with the
nurse, a hundred irrelevant matters. And then she had her letters to
write, a host of letters, at which he looked on with an impatience
almost beyond concealment--letters enclosing circulars, letters asking
for information, letters about her lectures, about other “schemes” of
popular enlightenment, letters to her friends, letters to her family.
Harry counted fifteen while he waited. Good lord! did any clerk in an
office work harder? “And most of them about nothing, I suppose,” Harry
said cynically to himself. Luncheon interrupted her in the middle of her
labours, and Harry had to wait till that meal was over before he could
obtain the small envelope, with its smaller enclosure, which justified
his visit. He hurried off as soon as he could leave the table, but not
without a final arrangement of his locks and tie. The long avenue seemed
to flee beneath his feet as he walked down, the long line of trees flew
past him. His heart went quicker than his steps, and so did his pulse,
both of them beating so that he grew dizzy and breathless. Why this
commotion? he said to himself. He was going to visit a lady whom he had
only seen once before; the loveliest woman he had ever seen in his life,
to be sure; but it was only walking so quickly, he supposed, which made
him so panting and excited. He lost time by his haste, for he had to
pause and get command of himself, and calm down, before he could venture
to go and knock at the shabby little green door.

Margaret was seated on the end of the little sofa, which was placed
beside the fire. This, he said to himself, no doubt was the reason why
he had not seen her at the window. She had her work-basket on the
table, and was sewing, with her little girl seated on a stool at her
feet. The little girl was about seven, very like her mother, seated in
the same attitude, and bending her baby brows over a stocking which she
was knitting. Margaret was very plainly, alas! she herself felt, much
too plainly-dressed, in a dark gown of no particular colour, with
nothing whatever to relieve it except a little white collar; her dark
hair, which she also lamented over as quite unlike and incapable of
being coaxed into, the fashionable colour of hair, was done up simply
enough, piled high up upon her head. She had not even a ribbon to lend
her a little colour. And she was not wise enough to know that chance had
befriended her, and that her beautiful pale face looked better in this
dusky colourless setting, in which there was no gleam or reflection to
catch the eye, than it would have done in the most splendid attire. She
raised her eyes when the door opened and rose up, her tall figure, with
a slight wavering stoop, looking more and more like a flexile branch or
tall drooping flower. She put out her hand quite simply, as if he had
been an old friend, and looked no surprise, nor seemed to require any
explanation of his visit, but seated herself again and resumed her work.
So did the child, who had lifted its violet eyes also to look at him,
and now bent them again on her knitting. Harry thought he had never seen
anything so lovely as this group, the child a softened repetition of the
mother--in the subdued greenish atmosphere with winter outside, and the
still warmth within.

“I came from my aunt with this note,” said Harry, embarrassed. She
looked up again as he spoke, and this way she had of looking at him only
now and then gave a curious particularity to her glance. He thought,
poor fellow, that his very tone must be suspicious, that her eyes went
through and through him, and that she had found him out. “I mean,” he
added, somewhat tremulously, “that I was very glad of--of the chance of
bringing Lady Mary’s note; and asking you how you liked the place.”

“You are very kind to come,” said Margaret in her soft voice, taking the
note. “It’s a little lonely, knowing nobody--and a visit is very
pleasant.”

The way in which she lingered upon the “very,” seemed sweetness itself
to Harry Thornleigh. Had a prejudiced Englishman written down the word,
probably he would, after Margaret’s pronunciation, have spelt it
“varry;” but that would be because he knew no better, and would not
really represent the sound, which had a caressing, lingering
superlativeness in it to the listener. She smiled as she spoke, then
opened her letter, and read it over slowly. Then she raised her eyes to
his again with still more brightness in them.

“Lady Mary is very kind, too,” she said, with a brightening of pleasure
all over her face.

“She’s waiting for your cousin to come back--I suppose she says
so--before asking you to the house; and I hope it will not be long
first, for I am only a visitor here,” said Harry impulsively. Margaret
gave him another soft smile, as if she understood exactly what he meant.

“You are not staying very long, perhaps?” she said.

“Oh, for some weeks, I hope; I hope long enough to improve my
acquaintance with--with Dr. Murray and yourself.”

“I hope so too,” said Margaret, with another smile. “Charlie is troubled
with an anxious mind. To see you so friendly will be very good for him,
very good.”

“Oh, I hope you will let me be friendly!” cried Harry, with a glow of
delight. “When does he go out? I suppose he is busy with the old doctor,
visiting the sick people. You were with him yesterday--”

“He thinks it is good for my health to go with him; and then he thinks I
am dull when he’s away,” said Margaret. “He is a real good brother;
there are not many like him. Yes, he is going about with Dr. Franks
nearly all the day.”

“And you are quite alone, and dull? I am so sorry. I wish you would let
me show you the neighbourhood; or if you would come and walk in the park
or the wood--my aunt, I am sure, would be too glad.”

“Oh, I’m not dull,” said Margaret. “I have my little girl. She is all I
have in the world, except Charles; and we are great companions, are we
no, Sibby?”

This was said with a change in the voice, which Harry thought, made it
still more like a wood-pigeon’s note.

“Ay are we,” said the little thing, putting down her knitting, and
laying back her little head, like a kitten, rubbing against her mother’s
knee. Nothing could be prettier as a picture, more natural, more simple;
and though the child’s jargon was scarcely comprehensible to Harry, his
heart answered to this renewed appeal upon it.

“But sometimes,” he said, “you must want other companionship than that
of a child.”

“Do I?” said Margaret, pressing the little head against her. “I am not
sure. After all, I think I’m happiest with her, thinking of nothing
else; but you, a young man, will scarcely understand that.”

“Though I am a young man, I think I can understand it,” said Harry. He
seemed to himself to be learning a hundred lessons, with an ease and
facility he was never conscious of before. “But if I were to come and
take you both out for a walk, into the woods, or through the park, to
show you the country, that would be good both for her and you.”

“Very good,” said Margaret, raising her eyes, “and very kind of you; but
I think I know why you’re so very good. You know my cousin, Edgar
Earnshaw, too?”

“Yes; I know him very well,” said Harry.

“He must be very good, since everybody is so kind that knows him; and
fancy, _I_ don’t know him!” said Margaret. “Charles and he are friends,
but Sibby and I have only seen him once. We have scarcely a right to
all the kind things that are done for his sake.”

“Oh, it isn’t for his sake,” cried Harry. “I like him very much; but
there are other fellows as good as he is. I wouldn’t have you make a
hero of Edgar; he is odd sometimes, as well as other folks.”

“Tell me something about him; I don’t know him, except what he did for
Granny,” said Margaret. “It’s strange that, though I am his relative,
you should know him so much better. Will you tell me? I would like to
know.”

“Oh, there’s nothing very wonderful to tell,” said Harry, somewhat
disgusted; “he’s well enough, and nice enough, but he has his faults.
You must not think that I came for his sake. I came because I thought
you would feel a little lonely, and might be pleased to have some one to
talk to. Forgive me if I was presumptuous.”

“Presumptuous! no,” said Margaret, with a smile. “You were quite right.
Would you like a cup of tea? it is just about the time. Sibby, go ben
and tell Mrs. Sims we will have some tea.”

“She is very like you,” said Harry, taking this subject, which he felt
would be agreeable, as a new way of reaching the young mother’s heart.

“So they tell me,” said Margaret. “She is like what I can mind of
myself, but gentler, and far more good. For, you see, there were always
two of us, Charlie and me.”

“You have always been inseparable?”

“We were separated, so long as I was married; but that was but two
years,” said Margaret, with a sigh; and here the conversation came to a
pause.

Harry was so touched by her sigh and her pause, that he did not know how
to show his sympathy. He would have liked to say on the spot, “Let me
make it all up to you now;” but he did not feel that this premature
declaration would be prudent. And then he asked himself, what did she
mean? that the time of her separation from her brother was sad? or that
she was sad that it came to an end so soon? With natural instinct, he
hoped it might be the former. He was looking at her intently, with
interest and sympathy in every line of his face, when she looked up
suddenly, as her manner was, and caught him--with so much more in his
looks than he ventured to say.

Margaret was half amused, half touched, half flattered; but she did not
let the amusement show. She said, gratefully, “You are very kind to take
so much interest in a stranger like me.”

“I do not feel as if you were a stranger,” cried Harry eagerly; and then
not knowing how to explain this warmth of expression, he added in haste,
“you know I have known--we have all known your cousin for years.”

Margaret accepted the explanation with a smile, “You all? You are one of
a family too--you have brothers and sisters like Charles and me?”

“Not like you. I have lots of brothers and sisters, too many to think of
them in the same way. There is one of my sisters whom I am sure you
would like,” said Harry, who had always the fear before his eyes that
the talk would flag, and his companion get tired of him--a fear which
made him catch wildly at any subject which presented itself.

“Yes?” said Margaret, “tell me her name, and why you think I would like
her best.”

From this it will be seen that she too was not displeased to keep up the
conversation, nor quite unskilled in the art.

“The tea’s coming,” said little Sibby, running in and taking her seat on
her footstool. Perhaps Harry thought he had gone far enough in the
revelation of his family, or perhaps only that this was a better
subject. He held out his hand and made overtures of friendship to the
little girl.

“Come and tell me your name,” he said, “shouldn’t you like to come up
with me to the house, and play with my little cousins in the nursery?
There are three or four of them, little things. Shouldn’t you like to
come with me?”

“No without mamma,” said little Sibby, putting one hand out timidly, and
with the other clinging to her mother’s dress.

“Oh, no,” said Harry, “not without mamma, she must come too; but you
have not told me your name. She is shy, I suppose.”

“A silly thing,” said Margaret, stroking her child’s dark hair. “Her
name is Sybilla, Sybil is prettier; but in Scotland we call it Sibby,
and sometimes Bell for short. Now, dear, you must not hold me, for the
gentleman will not eat you, and here is the tea.”

Harry felt himself elected into one of the family, when Mrs. Sims came
in, pushing the door open before her, with the tray in her arms; upon
which there was much bread and butter of which he partook, finding it
delightful, with a weakness common to young men in the amiable company
of the objects of their affection. He drew his chair to the table
opposite to Margaret, and set Sibby up on an elevated seat at the other
side, and felt a bewildering sensation come over him as if they belonged
to him. It was not a very high ideal of existence to sit round a red and
blue table in a cottage parlour of a winter’s afternoon, and eat bread
and butter; but yet Harry felt as if nothing so delightful and so
elevating had ever happened to him before in all his life.

It was a sad interruption to his pleasure, when Dr. Murray came in
shortly afterwards, pushing the door open as Mrs. Sims had done, and
entering with the air of a man to whom, and not to Harry, the place
belonged. He had his usual doubtful air, looking, as Lady Mary said, to
see what you thought of him, and not sure that his sister was not
showing an injudicious confidence in thus revealing to Harry the
existence of such a homely meal as tea. But he had no desire to send the
visitor away, especially when Margaret, who knew her brother’s humour,
propitiated him by thrusting into his hand Lady Mary’s note.

“I am sure her Ladyship is very kind,” he said, his face lighting up,
“Margaret, I hope you have written a proper reply.”

“When we have had our tea, Charles--will you not have some tea?” his
sister said; she always took things so easily, so much more easily than
he could ever do.

“Oh, you are having tea with the child, five o’clock tea,” said the poor
doctor, who was so anxious to make sure that everybody knew him to have
been “brought up a gentleman;” and he smiled a bland uneasy smile, and
sat down by Sibby. He would not take any bread and butter, though he was
hungry after a long walk; he preferred Harry to think that he was about
to dine presently, which was far from being the case. But Harry neither
thought of the matter nor cared; he had no time nor attention to spare,
though he was very civil to _her_ brother, and engaged him at once in
conversation, making himself agreeable with all his might.

“I suppose you are making acquaintance with quantities of people, and I
hope you think you will like the place,” he said.

“Yes, a great many people,” said Dr. Charles, “and it was full time that
somebody should come who knew what he was doing. Dr. Franks, I am
afraid, is no better than an old wife.”

“Oh, Charlie, how rashly you speak! he always says out what he thinks,”
said Margaret with an appealing look at Harry, “and it is often very far
from a wise thing to do.”

“Bravo, Aunt Mary will be delighted,” cried Harry, “it is what she
always said.”

“I knew Lady Mary Tottenham was very talented,” said Dr. Murray with
some pomp, “and that she would see the state of affairs. I can’t tell
you what a pleasure and support it is to have a discriminating person in
the neighbourhood. He is just an old wife. You need not shake your head
at me, Margaret, I know Mr. Thornhill is a gentleman, and that he will
not repeat what is said.”

“Surely not,” said Harry, somewhat surprised to find himself thus put on
his honour; “but my name is Thornleigh; never mind, it was a very simple
mistake.”

The doctor blushed with annoyance, and confounded himself in excuses.
Harry took his leave before these apologies were half over. He was
rather glad to get away at the last, feeling that a shadow had come over
his happiness; but before he had left the Green, this momentary shade
disappeared, and all the bliss of recollection came back upon him. What
an hour he had spent, of happiness pure and unalloyed, with so many
smiles, so many looks to lay up as treasures! how lovely she was, how
simple, how superior to everything he had ever seen before! Talk of
fashion, Harry said to himself hotly, talk of rank and society and high
birth, and high breeding! here was one who had no need of such
accessories, here was a perfect creature, made in some matchless mould
that the world had never seen before; and how kindly she had looked at
him, how sweetly talked to him! What had he done, that he should have
suddenly fallen upon such happiness?




CHAPTER VI.

In Love.


Life had become a new thing altogether for Harry Thornleigh. Up to this
time his existence had been that of his immediate surroundings, an
outward life so to speak. The history of the visible day in any
household of which he formed a part would have been his history, not
much more nor less; but this easy external existence was over for him.
He began to have a double being from the moment he saw Margaret. All
that he was most conscious of, was within him, a life of thought, of
recollection, of musing, and imagination; and external matters affected
him but vaguely through the cloud of this more intimate consciousness.
Yet his faculties were at the same time quickened, and the qualities of
his mind brought out--or so at least he felt. He had been very angry
with Lady Mary for her mirth over Mrs. Smith’s name; but his new
feelings (though they originated this anger) seemed to give him prudence
and cleverness enough to make an instrument of the very jest he
detested. He began to speak of Mrs. Smith the morning after his visit to
her, restraining his temper admirably, and opening the subject in the
most good-humoured way.

“I delivered your note, Aunt Mary,” he said; “you are right after all,
about the name. It is ridiculous. Mrs. Smith! after being Miss Murray,
as I suppose she was. She ought to change back again.”

“There are other ways of changing,” said Lady Mary, “and I daresay such
a pretty woman could easily do it if she wished. Yes, I got a very nice
little note from her, thanking me. Though I am disappointed in the
brother, I must show them some civility. Did you hear when they were to
get into their house?”

Harry had not heard; but he propitiated his aunt by telling her what was
Dr. Murray’s opinion of his predecessor, an opinion which greatly
comforted Lady Mary, and made her feel herself quite justified in the
part she had taken in the matter.

“There must be more in him than I thought,” she said, in high
good-humour; and then Harry felt bold to make his request.

“The sister,” he said, toning down the superlatives in which he felt
disposed to speak of that peerless being, with an astuteness of which he
felt half-ashamed, half-proud, “is rather lonely, I should think, in
that poky little place; and she has a nice little girl about Molly’s
age.” (This was a very wild shot, for Harry had about as much idea of
their relative ages as he had about the distances between two stars).
“They don’t know any one, and I don’t think she’s very strong. Without
asking them formally, Aunt Mary, don’t you think you might have her and
the child up to luncheon or something, to see the conservatories and all
that? it would be a little change for them. They looked rather dismal in
Mrs. Sims’ parlour, far from everything they know.”

“How considerate and kind of you, Harry!” cried Lady Mary. “I am ashamed
of myself for not having thought of it. Of course, poor thing, she must
be lonely--nothing to do, and probably not even any books. The Scotch
all read; they are better educated a great deal than we are. To be sure,
you are quite right. I might drive down to-morrow, and fetch her to
lunch. But, by-the-by, I have Herr Hartstong coming to-morrow, who is to
give the botany lecture--”

“An extra lady and a little girl would not hurt Herr Hartstong.”

“There is no telling,” said Lady Mary, with a laugh, “such a pretty
creature as she is. But I think he has a wife already. I only meant I
could not go to fetch her. But to be sure she’s a married woman, and I
don’t see what harm there would be. _You_ might do that.”

“With the greatest pleasure,” cried Harry, trying with all his might to
keep down his exultation, and not let it show too much in his face and
voice.

“Then we’ll settle it so. You can take the ponies, and a fur cloak to
wrap her in, as she’s delicate; and Herr Hartstong must take his chance.
But, by the way,” Lady Mary added, pausing, turning round and looking at
him--“by the way, you are of a great deal more importance. You must
take care she does not harm _you_.”

“Me!” said Harry, with a wild flutter at his heart, forcing to his lips
a smile of contempt. “I am a likely person, don’t you think, to be
harmed by anybody belonging to the country doctor? I thought, Aunt Mary,
you had more knowledge of character.”

“Your class exclusivism is revolting, Harry,” cried Lady Mary, severely.
“A young man with such notions is an anachronism; I can’t understand how
you and I can come of the same race. But perhaps it’s just as well in
this case,” she added, gliding back into her easier tone. “Your mother
would go mad at the thought of any such danger for you.”

“I hope I can take care of myself by this time, without my mother’s
help,” said Harry, doing his best to laugh. He was white with rage and
self-restraint; and the very sound of that laugh ought to have put the
heedless aunt, who was thus helping him on the way to destruction, on
her guard. But Lady Mary’s mind was occupied by so many things, that she
had no attention to bestow on Harry; besides the high confidence she
felt in him as an unimpressionable blockhead and heart-hardened young
man of the world.

To-morrow, however--this bliss was only to come to-morrow--and
twenty-four hours had to be got through somehow without seeing her.
Harry once more threw himself in the way persistently. He went down to
the village, and called upon all his old acquaintances; he kept about
the Green the whole afternoon; but Margaret did not appear. At last,
when his patience would hold out no longer, he called at the cottage,
saying to himself, that in case Lady Mary had forgotten to write, it
would be kind to let her know what was in store for her. But, alas! she
was not to be found at the cottage. How she had been able to go out
without being seen, Harry could not tell, but he had to go back drearily
at night without even a glimpse of her. What progress his imagination
had made in three or four days! The very evening seemed darker, the
stars less divine, the faint glimmers of the Aurora which kept shooting
across the sky had become paltry and unmeaning. If that was all
electricity could do, Harry felt it had better not make an exhibition of
itself. Was it worth while to make confusion among the elements for so
little? was it worth while to suffer the bondage of society, to go
through luncheons and dinners, and all the common action of life without
even a glance or a smile to make a man feel that he had a soul in him
and a heaven above him? Thus wildly visionary had poor Harry become all
in a moment, who had never of his own free will read a line of poetry in
his life.

“I am so sorry to give you the trouble, Harry,” said Lady Mary, pausing
for a moment in her conversation with Herr Hartstong (whose lecture was
to be given next morning) to see the ponies go off.

“Oh! I don’t mind it once in a way,” said the young man, scarcely able
to restrain the laughter with which, partly from sheer delight, partly
from a sense of the ludicrous inappropriateness of her apology, he was
bursting. He went down the avenue like an arrow, the ponies tossing
their heads, and ringing their bells, the wintry sunshine gleaming on
him through the long lines of naked trees. Margaret, to whom Lady Mary
had written, was waiting for him with a flush of pleasure upon her pale
face, and a look of soft grateful friendliness in her beautiful eyes.

“It was kind of you to come for us,” she said, looking up at him.

“I am so glad to come,” said Harry, with all his heart in his voice. He
wrapt her in the warm furs, feeling somehow, with a delicious sense of
calm and security, that, for the moment, she belonged to him. “The
morning is so fine, and the ponies are so fresh, that I think we might
take a turn round the park,” he said. “You are not afraid of them?”

“Oh no! the bonnie little beasties,” cried Margaret, leaning back with
languid enjoyment. She had often harnessed the rough pony at Loch Arroch
with her own hands, and driven him to the head of the loch without
thinking of fear, though she looked now so dainty and delicate; but she
did not feel inclined to tell Harry this, or even to recall to herself
so homely a recollection. Margaret had been intended by nature for a
fine lady. She lay back in the luxurious little carriage, wrapped in the
furred mantle, and felt herself whisked through the sunny wintry air to
the admiration of all beholders, with a profound sense of enjoyment.
She liked the comfort dearly. She liked the dreamy pleasure which was
half of the mind, and half of the body. She liked the curtseys of the
gatekeepers, and the glances of the stray walkers, who looked after her,
she thought, with envy. She felt it natural that she should thus be
surrounded by things worthy, and pleasant, and comfortable. Even the
supreme gratification of the young attendant by her side, whose
infatuation began to shew itself so clearly in his eyes, was a climax of
pleasure to Margaret, which she accepted easily without fear of the
consequences.

Yes, she thought, he was falling in love with her, poor boy; and it is
seldom unpleasant to be fallen in love with. Most probably his people
would put a stop, to it, and as she did not mean to give him what she
called “any encouragement,” there would be no harm done. Whereas, on the
other hand, if his people did not interfere, there was always the chance
that it might come to something. Margaret did not mean any harm--she was
only disposed to take the Scriptural injunction as her rule, and to let
the morrow care for the things of itself.

She lay back in the little carriage with the grey feather in her hat
swaying like her slight figure, and Sibby held fast in her arms.

“I feel as if I were in a nest,” she said, when Harry asked tenderly if
she felt the cold; and thus they flew round the park, where a little
stir of Spring was visible in the rough buds, and where here and there
one dewy primrose peeped forth in a sheltered nook--the ponies’ hoofs
ringing, and their heads tossing, and their bells tinkling--Harry lost
in a foolish joy beyond expression, and she wrapped in delicious
comfort. He was thinking altogether of her, she almost altogether of
herself--and of her child, who was another self.

“I have enjoyed it so much,” she said softly, as he helped her to get
out in front of the hall door.

“I do not think I ever spent so happy a morning,” Harry said very low.

Margaret made no sign of having heard him. She walked upstairs without
any reply, leaving him without ceremony. “He is going too fast,” she
said to herself. And Harry was a little, just a little, mortified, but
soon got over that, and went after her, and was happy once more--happy
as the day was long. Indeed, the visit altogether was very successful.
Margaret was full of adaptability, very ready to accept any tone which
such a personage as Lady Mary chose to give to the conversation, and
with, in reality, a lively and open intelligence, easily roused to
interest. Besides, though an eager young admirer like Harry was pleasant
enough, and might possibly become important, she never for a moment
deceived herself as to the great unlikelihood that his friends would
permit him to carry out his fancy; and the chance that, instead of
bringing advantage, she might bring harm to herself and her brother if
she gave any one a right to say that she had “encouraged” him. Whereas
nothing but unmingled good could come from pleasing Lady Mary, who was,
in every way, the more important person. This being the principle of
Margaret’s conduct, it is almost unnecessary to say that Lady Mary found
it perfect, and felt that nothing could be in better taste than the way
in which the young Scotchwoman kept Harry’s attentions down, and
accorded the fullest attention to her own observations. She even took
her nephew aside after luncheon, to impress upon him a greater respect
for their guest.

“This Mrs. Smith is evidently a very superior person,” said Lady Mary,
“and I am sorry to see, Harry, that you are rather disposed to treat her
simply as a very pretty young woman. I am not at all sure that you have
not been trying to flirt with her during lunch.”

“I--flirt!--Aunt Mary,” stammered Harry, “you altogether mistake--”

“Oh, of course, you never did such a thing in your life,” she said
mocking, “but this is not quite an ordinary young lady. The Scotch are
so well educated--we can see at a glance that she has read a great deal,
and thought as well--which is by no means common. If you take her round
the conservatories, you must recollect that it is not a mere pretty girl
you are with, Harry. She will not understand your nonsense,” said Lady
Mary with a little warmth.

She, herself, had some final arrangements to make with Herr Hartstong,
who was also very much interested in the graceful listener, from whom he
had received such flattering attention. He made her his best bow, and
hoped he should see her next day at the lecture, when Harry, doing his
best to suppress all manifestations of feeling, led her away.

“It is so kind of you to let me treat you without ceremony,” said Lady
Mary. “Show Mrs. Smith the orchids, Harry. Before you get to the palm
tree, I shall be with you--” and then Harry was free and alone with his
enchantress. He could not talk to her--he was so happy--he led her away
quickly out of sight of his aunt--who had seated herself in a corner of
the big drawing-room, to settle all her final arrangements with the
botanist--and of Herr Hartstong’s big yellow eyes, which looked after
him with suspicion. Harry was eager to get her to himself, to have her
alone, out of sight of everybody; but when he had secured this
isolation, he could not make much use of it. He was dumb with bliss and
excitement--he took her into the fairy palace of flowers where summer
reigned in the midst of winter; and instead of making use of his
opportunities in this still perfumy place, where everything suited the
occasion, found that he had nothing to say. He had talked, laboriously
it is true, but still he had talked, when he had called on her at the
cottage; he had made a few remarks while he drove her round the park;
but on this, the first opportunity he had of being alone with her, he
felt his tongue tied. Instead of taking her to the orchids as Lady Mary
had suggested, he conducted her straight to the palm tree, and there
placed her on the sofa, and stood by, gazing at her, concealing his
agitation by cutting sprays of Cape jasmine, of which there happened to
be a great velvety cluster in front of her seat.

“It is like something in a book,” said Margaret, with a sigh. “What a
fine thing it is to be very rich! I never was in such a beautiful
place.”

“Yes, it’s nice to be well off,” said Harry; “but heaps of people are
well off who never could invent anything so pretty. You see Tottenham
was very much in love with Aunt Mary. She’s a nice little woman,” he
added, parenthetically. “A man in love will do a deal to please the
woman he likes.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Margaret, feeling somewhat disposed to laugh;
“and that makes it all the more interesting. Is Mr. Tottenham very
poetical and romantic? I have not seen him yet.”

“Tottenham poetical!” cried Harry, with a laugh; “no, not exactly. And
that’s an old affair now, since they’ve been married about a century;
but it shows what even a dull man can do. Don’t you think love’s a very
rum thing?” said the young man, cutting the Cape jasmine all to pieces;
“don’t you think so? A fellow doesn’t seem to know what he is doing.”

“Does Lady Mary let you cut her plants to pieces, Mr. Thornleigh?” said
Margaret, feeling her voice quaver with amusement. Upon which Harry
stopped short, and looked sheepishly down at the bunch of flowers in his
hand.

“I meant to get you a nosegay, and here is a great sheaf like a
coachman’s bouquet on a drawing-room day,” cried Harry, half conscious
of this very distinct commentary upon his words. “Never mind, I’ll tell
the gardener. I suppose there are heaps more.”

“How delightful to have heaps more!” said Margaret. “I don’t think poor
folk should ever be brought into such fairy places. I used to think
myself so lucky with a half-a-dozen plants.”

“Then you are fond of flowers?” said Harry.

What woman, nay, what civilised person of the present age, ever made but
one answer to such a question? There are a few people left in the world,
and only a few, who still dare to say they are not fond of music; but
fond of flowers!

“I do so wish you would let me keep you supplied,” said Harry, eagerly.
“Trouble! it would be the very reverse of trouble; it would be the very
greatest pleasure--and I could do it so easily--”

“Are you a cultivator, then?” said Margaret, “a great florist?” she said
it with a half-consciousness of the absurdity, yet half deceived by his
earnestness. Harry himself was startled for the moment by the question.

“A florist! Oh, yes, in a kind of a way,” he said, trying to restrain an
abrupt momentary laugh. A florist? yes; by means of Covent Garden, or
some ruinous London nurseryman. But Margaret knew little of such
refinements. “It would be such a pleasure to me,” he said, anxiously.
“May I do it? And then you will not be able quite to forget my very
existence.”

Margaret got up, feeling the conversation had gone far enough. “May not
I see the--orchids? It was the orchids I think that Lady Mary said.”

“This is the way,” said Harry, almost sullen, feeling that he had fallen
from a great height. He went after her with his huge handful of velvety
jasmine flowers. He did not like to offer them, he did not dare to strew
them at her feet that she might walk upon them, which was what he would
have liked best. He flung them aside into a corner in despite and
vexation. Was he angry with her? If such a sentiment had been possible,
that would have been, he felt, the feeling in his mind. But Margaret was
not angry nor annoyed, though she had stopped the conversation, feeling
it had gone far enough. To “give him encouragement,” she felt, was the
very last thing that, in her position, she dared to do. She liked the
boy, all the same, for liking her. It gave her a soothing consciousness
of personal well-being. She was glad to please everybody, partly because
it pleased herself, partly because she was of a kindly and amiable
character. She had no objection to his admiration, to his love, if the
foolish boy went so far, so long as no one had it in his power to say
that she had given him encouragement; that was the one thing upon which
her mind was fully made up; and then, whatever came of it, she would
have nothing with which to reproach herself. If his people made a
disturbance, as they probably would, and put a stop to his passion, why,
then, Margaret would not be to blame; and if, on the contrary, he had
strength of mind to persevere, or they, by some wonderful chance, did
not oppose, why then Margaret would reap the benefit. This seems a
somewhat selfish principle, looking at it from outside, but I don’t
think that Margaret had what is commonly called a selfish nature. She
was a perfectly sober-minded unimpassioned woman, very affectionate in
her way, very kind, loving comfort and ease, but liking to partake these
pleasures with those who surrounded her. If fate had decreed that she
should marry Harry Thornleigh, she knew very well that she would make
him an admirable wife, and she would have been quite disposed to adapt
herself to the position. But in the meantime she would do nothing to
commit herself, or to bring this end, however desirable it might be in
itself, about.




CHAPTER VII.

No Encouragement.


“You must not take any more trouble with me,” said Margaret, “my brother
will come up for me; it will be quite pleasant to walk down in the
gloaming--I mean--” she added, with a slight blush over her vernacular,
“in the twilight, before it is quite dark.”

“Oh! pray don’t give up those pretty Scotch words,” said Lady Mary,
“gloaming is sweeter than twilight. Do you know I am so fond of Scotch,
the accent as well as the words.”

Margaret replied only by a dubious smile. She would rather have been
complimented on her English; and as she could not make any reply to her
patroness’ enthusiasm, she continued what she was saying:

“Charles wishes to call and tell you how much he is gratified by your
kindness, and the walk will be pleasant. You must not let me give you
more trouble.”

“No trouble,” said Lady Mary, “but you shall have the close carriage,
which will be better for you than Harry and the ponies. I hope he did
not frighten you in the morning. I don’t think I could give him a
character as coachman; he all but upset me the other night, when we
left your house--to be sure I had been aggravating--eh, Harry?” she
said, looking wickedly at him. “It was very good of you to let me have
my talk out with the Professor; ladies will so seldom understand that
business goes before pleasure. And I hope you will do as he asked, and
come to the lecture to-morrow.”

“I am not very understanding about lectures,” said Margaret.

“Are not you? you look very understanding about everything,” said Lady
Mary. She too, as well as Harry, had fallen in love with the doctor’s
sister. The effect was not perhaps so sudden; but Lady Mary was a woman
of warm sympathies, and sudden likings, and after a few hours in
Margaret’s society she had quite yielded to her charm. She found it
pleasant to look at so pretty a creature, pleasant to meet her
interested look, her intelligent attention. There could not be a better
listener, or a more delightful disciple; she might not perhaps know a
great deal herself, but then she was so willing to adopt your views, or
at least to be enlightened by them. Lady Mary sat by, and looked at her
after the promenade round the conservatories, with all a woman’s
admiration for beauty of the kind which women love. This, as all the
world knows, is not every type; but Margaret’s drooping shadowy figure,
her pathetic eyes, her soft paleness, and gentle deferential manner,
were all of the kind that women admire. Lady Mary “fell in love” with
the stranger. They were all three seated in the conservatory in the warm
soft atmosphere, under the palm tree, and the evening was beginning to
fall. The great fire in the drawing-room shone out like a red star in
the distance, through all the drooping greenness of the plants, and they
began half to lose sight of each other, shadowed, as this favourite spot
was, by the great fan branches of the palm.

“I think there never was such delightful luxury as this,” said Margaret,
softly. “Italy must be like it, or some of the warm islands in the sea.”

“In the South Sea?” said Lady Mary, smiling, “perhaps; but both the
South Seas and Italy are homes of indolence, and I try all I can to keep
that at arm’s length. But I assure you Herr Hartstong was not so
poetical; he gave me several hints about the management of the heat. Do
come to-morrow and hear him, my dear Mrs. Smith. Botany is wonderfully
interesting. Many people think it a _dilettante_ young-lady-like
science; but I believe in the hands of a competent professor it is
something very different. Do let me interest you in my scheme. You know,
I am sure, and must feel, how little means of education there are--and
as little Sibby will soon be craving for instruction like my child--”

“I suppose there is no good school for little girls here?” said
Margaret, timidly; her tact told her that schools for little girls were
not in question; but she did not know what else to say.

“Oh!” said Lady Mary, with momentary annoyance; “for mere reading and
writing, yes, I believe there is one; but it is the higher instruction I
mean,” she added, recovering herself, “probably you have not had your
attention directed to it; and to be sure in Scotland the standard is so
much higher, and education so much more general.”

Margaret had the good sense to make no reply. She had herself received a
solid education at the parish school of Loch Arroch, along with all the
ploughboys and milkmaids of the district, and had been trained into
English literature and the Shorter Catechism, in what was then
considered a very satisfactory way. No doubt she was so much better
instructed than her patroness that Lady Mary scarcely knew what the
Shorter Catechism was. But Margaret was not proud of this training,
though she was aware that the parochial system had long been a credit to
Scotland--and would much rather have been able to say that she was
educated at Miss So-and-So’s seminary for young ladies. As she could not
claim any such Alma Mater, she held her tongue, and listened devoutly,
and with every mark of interest while Lady Mary’s scheme was propounded
to her. Though, however, she was extremely attentive, she did not commit
herself by any promise, not knowing how far her Loch Arroch scholarship
would carry her in comparison with the young ladies of Harbour Green.
She consented only conditionally to become one of Lady Mary’s band of
disciples.

“If I have time,” she said; and then Lady Mary, questioning, drew from
her a programme of her occupations, which included the housekeeping,
Sibby’s lessons, and constant attendance, when he wanted her, upon her
brother. “I drive with him,” said Margaret, “for he thinks it is good
for my health--and then there is always a good deal of sewing.”

“But,” said Lady Mary, “that is bad political economy. You neglect your
mind for the sake of the sewing, when there are many poor creatures to
whom, so to speak, the sewing belongs, who have to make their livelihood
by working, and whom ladies’ amateur performances throw out of bread.”

Thus the great lady discoursed the poor doctor’s sister, who but for him
would probably have been one of the said poor creatures; this, however,
it did not enter into Lady Mary’s mind to conceive. Margaret was
overawed by the grandeur of the thought. For the first moment, she could
not even laugh covertly within herself at the thought of her own useful
sewing being classified as a lady’s amateur performance. She was silent,
not venturing to say anything for herself, and Lady Mary resumed.

“I really must have you among my students; think how much more use you
would be to Sibby, if you kept up, or even extended, your own
acquirements. Of course, I say all this with diffidence, because I know
that in Scotland education is so much more thought of, and is made so
much more important than it is with us.”

“Oh, no!” cried Margaret. She could not but laugh now, thinking of the
Loch Arroch school. And after all, the Loch Arroch school is the point
in which Scotland excels England, or did excel her richer neighbour; and
the idea of poor Margaret being better educated than the daughter of an
English earl, moved even her tranquil spirit to laughter. “Oh, no; you
would not think that if you knew,” she said, controlling herself with an
effort. If it had not been for a prudent sense that it was best not to
commit herself, she would have been deeply tempted to have her laugh
out, and confide the joke to her companions. As it was, however, this
suppressed sense of ridicule was enough to make her uncomfortable. “I
will try to go,” she said gently, changing the immediate theme, “after
the trouble of the flitting is over, when we have got into our house.”

Lady Mary fell into the snare. She began to ask about the house, and
whether they had brought furniture, or what they meant to do, and
entered into all the details with a frank kindness which went to
Margaret’s heart. During all this conversation, Harry Thornleigh kept
coming and going softly, gliding among the plants, restless, but happy.
He could not have her to himself any longer. He could not talk to her;
but yet she was there, and making her way into the heart of at least one
of his family. While these domestic subjects were discussed, and as the
evening gradually darkened, Harry said to himself that he had always
been very fond of his aunt, and that she was very nice and sympathetic,
and that to secure her for a friend would be wise in any case. It was
almost night before Dr. Murray made his appearance, and he was
confounded by the darkness of the place into which he was ushered, where
he could see nothing but shadows among the plants and against the pale
lightness of the glass roofs. I am not sure, for the moment, that he was
not half offended by being received in so unceremonious a way. He stood
stiffly, looking about him, till Lady Mary half rose from her seat.

“Excuse me for having brought you here,” she said; “this is our
favourite spot, where none but my friends ever come.”

Lady Mary felt persuaded that she saw, even in the dark, the puffing out
of the chest with which this friendly speech was received.

“For such a pleasant reason one would excuse a much worse place,” he
said, with an attempt at ease, to the amusement of the great lady who
was condescending to him. Excuse his introduction to her conservatory!
He should never have it in his power to do so again. Dr. Charles then
turned to his sister, and said, “Margaret, we must be going. You and the
child have troubled her Ladyship long enough.”

“I am delighted with Mrs. Smith’s society, and Sibby has been a godsend
to the children,” said Lady Mary. “Let us go into the drawing-room,
where there are lights, and where we can at least see each other. I like
the gloaming, your pretty Scotch word; but I daresay Dr. Murray thinks
us all rather foolish, sitting like crows in the dark.”

She led the way in, taking Margaret’s arm, while Margaret, with a little
thrill of annoyance, tried through the imperfect light to throw a
warning look at her brother. Why did he speak so crossly, he who was
never really cross; and why should he say ladyship? Margaret knew no
better than he did, and yet instinct kept her from going wrong.

Dr. Murray entered the drawing-room, looking at the lady who had
preceded him, to see what she thought of him, with furtive, suspicious
looks. He was very anxious to please Lady Mary, and still more anxious
to show himself an accomplished man of the world; but he could not so
much as enter a room without this subtle sense of inferiority betraying
itself. Harry, coming after him, thought the man a cad, and writhed at
the thought; but he was not at all a cad. He hesitated between the most
luxurious chair he could find, and the hardest, not feeling sure whether
it was best to show confidence or humility. When he did decide at last,
he looked round with what seemed a defiant look. “Who can say I have no
right to be here?” poor fellow, was written all over his face.

“You have been making acquaintance with your patients? I hope there are
no severe cases,” said Lady Mary.

“No, none at all, luckily for them--or I should not have long answered
for their lives,” he said, with an unsteady smile.

“Ah! you do not like Dr. Franks’ mode of treatment? Neither do I. I have
disapproved of him most highly sometimes; and I assure you,” said Lady
Mary, in her most gracious tone, “I am so very glad to know that there
is now some one on the spot who may be trusted, whatever happens. With
one’s nursery full of children, that question becomes of the greatest
importance. Many an anxious moment I have had.”

And then there was a pause. Dr. Murray was unbending, less afraid of how
people looked at him.

“My cousin Mr. Earnshaw has not yet come back?” he said.

“He is occupied with some business in town. I am only waiting, as I told
your sister, till he comes. As soon as he does so, I hope we may see
more of you here; but in the meantime, Mrs. Smith must come to me. I
hope I shall see a great deal of her; and you must spare her for my
lectures, Dr. Murray. You must not let her give herself up too much to
her housekeeping, and all her thrifty occupations.”

“Margaret has no occasion to be overthrifty,” he said, looking at her.
“I have always begged her to go into society. We have not come to that,
that my sister should be a slave to her housekeeping. Margaret,
remember, I hope you will not neglect what her Ladyship says.”

“After the flitting,” said Margaret, softly.

“Ah, yes; after our removal. We shall then have a room more fit to
receive you in,” he said. “I hear on all hands that it is a very good
house.”

At this moment some one came in to announce the carriage, which Lady
Mary had ordered to take her visitor home; and here there arose another
conflict in Dr. Murray’s mind. Which was best, most like what a man of
the world would do? to drive down with his sister or to walk? He was
tired, and the drive would certainly be the easier; but what if they
should think it odd? The doctor was saved from this dilemma by Harry,
who came unwittingly to the rescue, and proposed to walk down the avenue
with him. Harry had not fallen in love with him as with his sister; but
still he was at that stage when a man is anxious to conciliate everybody
belonging to the woman whom he loves. And then little Sibby was brought
down from the nursery, clasping closely a doll which had been presented
to her by the children in a body, with eyes blazing like two stars, and
red roses of excitement upon her little cheeks. Never in all her life
before had Sibby spent so happy a day. And when she and her mother had
been placed in the warm delicious carriage, is it wonderful that various
dreams floated into Margaret’s mind as she leant back in her corner, and
was whirled past those long lines of trees. Harry had been ready to give
her his arm downstairs, to put her into the carriage. He had whispered,
with a thrill in his voice:

“May I bring those books to-morrow?”

He had all but brushed her dress with his face, bowing over her in his
solicitude. Ah, how comfortable it would be, how delightful to have a
house like that, a carriage like this, admiring, soft-mannered people
about her all day long, and nothing to do but what she pleased to do!
Had she begun to cherish a wish that Harry’s fancy might not be a
temporary one, that he might persevere in it, and overcome opposition?
It would be hard to expect from Margaret such perfection of goodness as
never to allow such a train of thought to enter her mind; but at the
same time her practical virtue stood all assaults. She would never
encourage him; this she vowed over again, though with a sensation almost
of hope, and a wish unexpressed in her heart.

For ah! what a difference there is between being poor and being
rich--between Lady Mary in the great house, and Margaret Murray, or
Smith, in Mrs. Sims’ lodging!--and if you went to the root of the
matter, the one woman was as good as the other, as well adapted to
“ornament her station,” as old-fashioned people used to say. I think, on
the whole, it was greatly to Margaret’s credit, seeing that so much was
at stake, that she never wavered in her determination to give Harry no
encouragement. But she meant to put no barrier definitively in his way,
no obstacle insuperable. She was willing enough to be the reward of his
exertions, should he be successful in the lists; and Lady Mary’s
kindness, nay, affectionateness towards her seemed to point to a
successful issue of the struggle, if Harry went into it with
perseverance and vigour. She could not help being a little excited by
the thought.

Lady Mary, on her side, was charmed with her new friend. “The brother
may be a cad, as you say, but she is perfection,” she said incautiously
to Harry, when he came in with a glowing countenance from his walk.
“What good breeding, what grace, what charming graceful ways she has!
and yet always the simplicity of that pretty Scotch accent, and of the
words which slip out now and then. The children are all in raptures with
little Sibby. Fancy making a graceful name like Sybil into such a
hideous diminutive! But that is Scotch all over. They seem to take a
pleasure in keeping their real refinement in the background, and showing
a rough countenance to the world. They are all like that,” said Lady
Mary, who was fond of generalizations.

Harry did not say much, but he drew a chair close to the fire, and sat
and mused over it with sparkling eyes, when his aunt went to dress for
dinner. He did not feel capable of coherent thought at all; he was lost
in a rapture of feeling which would not go into words. He felt that he
could sit there all night long not wishing to budge, to be still, not
even thinking, existing in the mere atmosphere of the wonderful day
which was now over. Would it come back again? would it prolong itself?
would his life grow into a lengthened sweet repetition of this day? He
sat there with his knees into the fire, gazing into the red depths till
his eyes grew red in sympathy, until the bell for dinner began to peal
through the silent winter air. Mr. Tottenham had come home, and was
visible at the door in evening costume, refreshed and warmed after his
drive, when Harry, half-blind, rushed out to make a hasty toilette. His
distracted looks made his host wonder.

“I hope you are not letting that boy get into mischief,” he said to his
wife.

“Mischief! what mischief could he get into here?” Lady Mary replied,
with a smile; and then they began to talk on very much more important
matters--on Herr Hartstong’s visit, and the preparations at the Shop,
which were now complete.

“I expect you to show a good example, and to treat my people like
friends,” said Mr. Tottenham.

“Oh, friends!--am not I the head shopwoman?” asked Lady Mary, laughing.
“You may be sure I intend to appear so.”

The entertainment was to take place on the next evening, after the
botanical lecture at Harbour Green. It was, indeed, likely to be an
exciting day, with so much going on.

And when the people at Tottenham’s went to dinner, the Murrays had tea,
for which they were all quite ready after the sharp evening air. “You
were wrong to speak about your housekeeping, and all that,” the doctor
said, in the mildest of accents, and with no appearance of suspicion,
for in the bosom of his family he feared no criticism. “Remember always,
Margaret, that people take you at your own estimate. It does not do to
let yourself down.”

“And it does not do to set yourself up, beyond what you can support,”
said Margaret. “We are not rich folk, and we must not give ourselves
airs. And oh, Charles, one thing I wanted to say. If you wouldn’t say
ladyship--at least, not often. No one else seems to do it, except the
servants. Don’t be angry. I watch always to see what people say.”

“I hope I know what to say as well as anyone,” said the doctor, with
momentary offence; but, nevertheless, he made a private note of it,
having confidence in his sister’s keen observation. Altogether, the
start at Harbour Green had been very successful, and it was not
wonderful if both Dr. Charles and his sister felt an inward exhilaration
in such a prosperous commencement of their new life.




CHAPTER VIII.

The Entertainment at the Shop.


The botanical lecture passed off very well indeed, and was productive of
real and permanent advantage to Harbour Green, by giving to Myra
Witherington a totally new study of character. She talked so completely
like Herr Hartstong for the rest of the day, that even her mother was
deceived, and would not enter the drawing-room till she had changed her
cap, in consideration of the totally new voice which she heard
proceeding from within. Strange to say, Harry Thornleigh, who last time
had been so contemptuous, had now thrown himself most cordially into
Lady Mary’s plans, so cordially that he made of himself a missionary to
gain new converts for her.

“I will take those books you promised to Mrs. Smith, and try to persuade
her to come to the lecture. Is there anyone else I can look up for you,
Aunt Mary?” said this reformed character.

“Do, Harry; go to the Red House, and to the Rectory, and tell them
half-past twelve precisely. We did not quite settle upon the hour,” said
Lady Mary. “And you might ask Sissy Witherington to send round to some
of the other people; she knows them all. You will meet us at the
schoolroom? So many thanks!”

“I shall be there,” said Harry, cheerily, marching off with his books
under his arm.

If Lady Mary had not been so busy, no doubt she would have asked herself
the cause of this wonderful conversion; but with a lecture to attend to
in the morning, and an entertainment at night, what time had she for
lesser matters? And she had to send some servants to Berkeley Square to
get the rooms ready, as the family were to dine and sleep there;
altogether she had a great deal upon her hands. Harry had his
difficulties, too, in getting safely out of the house without Phil, who,
abandoned by Edgar, and eluded by his cousin, was in a very restless
state of mind, and had determined this morning, of all others, not to be
left behind. Harry, however, inspired by the thoughts of Mrs. Smith, was
too clever for Phil, and shot down the avenue like an arrow, with his
books under his arm, happy in his legitimate and perfectly correct
errand, to which no one could object. He left his message with the
Witheringtons on his way, for he was too happy not to be virtuous, poor
fellow. It damped his ardour dreadfully to find that no plea he could
put forth would induce Margaret to go to the lecture.

“I don’t take any interest in botany,” she said, “and I have no time for
it, to keep it up if I began.”

“What of that,” said Harry; “do you think I take an interest in
botany?”

“But you are a great florist, Mr. Thornleigh,” she said, demurely. It
was some time before he remembered his pretence about the flowers.

“I shall bring you some specimens of my skill to-morrow,” he said,
laughing, with a flush of pleasure. At least, if she would not come
to-day, here was an excuse for making another day happy--and as a lover
lives upon the future, Harry was partially consoled for his
disappointment. I don’t think he got much good of the lecture; perhaps
no one got very much good. Ellen Gregory did not come, for botany was
not in her list of subjects for the pupil-teachers’ examination, and
Lady Mary did not take any notes, but only lent the students the
encouragement of her presence; for she could not, notwithstanding what
she had said, quite disabuse her own mind from the impression that this
was a young-lady-like science, and not one of those which train the mind
to thought. So that on the whole, as I have said, the chief result was
that Myra “got up” Herr Hartstong to the great delight of all the
light-minded population at Harbour Green, who found the professor much
more amusing in that audacious young mimic’s rendering than in his own
person.

In the afternoon the whole party went to London. “Everybody is going,”
said little Molly, in huge excitement. “It is like the pantomime; and
Phil is to do the cheering. Shouldn’t you like to be him, Harry? It will
almost be as good as being on the stage oneself.”

“Don’t talk of things you don’t understand,” said Phil, who was too
grand to be spoken to familiarly, and whose sense of responsibility was
almost too heavy for perfect happiness. “I sha’n’t cheer unless they
deserve it. But the rehearsal was awful fun,” he added, unbending.
“You’ll say you never saw anything better, if they do half as well
to-night.”

Tottenham’s was gorgeous to behold when the guests began to arrive. The
huge central hall, with galleries all round it, and handsome carpeted
stairs leading on every hand up to the galleries, was the scene of the
festivity. On ordinary occasions the architectural splendour of this
hall was lost, in consequence of the crowd of tables, and goods, and
customers which filled it. It had been cleared, however, for the
entertainment. Rich shawls in every tint of softened colour were hung
about, coloured stuffs draped the galleries, rich carpets covered the
floors; no palace could have been more lavish in its decorations, and
few palaces could have employed so liberally those rich Oriental fabrics
which transcend all others in combinations of colour. Upstairs, in the
galleries, were the humbler servants of the establishment, porters,
errand boys, and their relatives; down below were “the young ladies” and
“the gentlemen” of Tottenham’s occupying the seats behind their patrons
in clouds of white muslin and bright ribbons.

“Very nice-looking people, indeed,” the Duchess of Middlemarch said, as
she came in on Mr. Tottenham’s arm, putting up her eyeglass. Many of the
young ladies curtseyed to Her Grace in sign of personal acquaintance,
for she was a constant patroness of Tottenham’s. “I hope you haven’t
asked any of my sons,” said the great lady, looking round her with
momentary nervousness.

Mr. Tottenham himself was as pleased as if he had been exhibiting “a
bold tenantry their country’s pride” to his friends. “They _are_
nice-looking, though I say it as shouldn’t,” he said, “and many of them
as good as they look.” He was so excited that he began to give the
Duchess an account of their benefit societies, and saving banks, and
charities, to which Her Grace replied with many benevolent signs of
interest, though I am afraid she did not care any more about them than
Miss Annetta Baker did about the lecture. She surveyed the company, as
they arrived, through her double eyeglass, and watched “poor little Mary
Horton that was, she who married the shopkeeper,” receiving her guests,
with her pretty children at her side. It was very odd altogether, but
then, the Hortons were always odd, she said to herself--and graciously
bowed her head as Mr. Tottenham paused, and said, “How very admirable!”
with every appearance of interest.

A great many other members of the aristocracy shared Her Grace’s
feelings, and many of them were delighted by the novelty, and all of
them gazed at the young ladies and gentlemen of the establishment as if
they were animals of some unknown description. I don’t think the
gentlemen and the young ladies were at all offended. They gazed too with
a kindred feeling, and made notes of the dresses, and watched the
manners and habits of “the swells” with equal curiosity and admiration.
The young ladies in the linen and in the cloak and mantle department
were naturally more excited about the appearance of the fine ladies from
a book-of-fashion point of view than were the dressmakers and milliners,
who sat, as it were, on the permanent committee of the “Mode,” and knew
“what was to be worn.” But even they were excited to find themselves in
the same room with so many dresses from Paris, with robes which Wörth
had once tried on, and ribbons which Elise had touched. I fear all these
influences were rather adverse to the due enjoyment of the trial scene
from Pickwick, with Miss Robinson in the part of Serjeant Buzfuz. The
fine people shrugged their shoulders, and lifted their eyebrows at each
other, and cheered ironically now and then with twitters of laughter;
and the small people were too intent upon the study of their betters to
do justice to the performance. Phil, indeed, shrieked with laughter,
knowing all the points, with the exactitude of a showman, and led his
_claque_ vigorously; but I think, on the whole, the _employés_ of
Tottenham’s would have enjoyed this part of the entertainment more had
their attention been undisturbed. After the first part of the
performances was over, there was an interval for “social enjoyment;” and
it was now that the gorgeous footmen appeared with the ices, about whom
Mr. Tottenham had informed his children. Lady Mary, perhaps, required a
little prompting from her husband before she withdrew herself from the
knot of friends who had collected round her, and addressed herself
instead to the young ladies of the shop.

“Must we go and talk to them, Mr. Tottenham? Will they like it? or shall
we only bore them?” asked the fine ladies.

The Duchess of Middlemarch was, as became her rank, the first to set
them the example. She went up with her double eyeglass in her hand to a
group of the natives who were standing timorously together--two young
ladies and a gentleman.

“It has been very nice, has it not,” said Her Grace; “_quite_ clever.
Will you get me an ice, please? and tell me who was the young woman--the
young lady who acted so well? I wonder if I have seen her when I have
been here before.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” said one of the young ladies. “She is in the fancy
department, Miss Robinson. Her father is at the head of the cloaks and
mantles, Your Grace.”

“She did very nicely,” said the Duchess, condescendingly, taking the ice
from the young man whom she had so honoured. “Thanks, this will do very
well, I don’t want to sit down. It is very kind of Mr. Tottenham, I am
sure, to provide this entertainment for you. Do you all live here
now?--and how many people may there be in the establishment? He told me,
but I forget.”

It was the gentleman who supplied the statistics, while the Duchess put
up her eyeglass, and once more surveyed the assembly. “You must make up
quite a charming society,” she said; “like a party in a country-house.
And you have nice sitting-rooms for the evening, and little musical
parties, eh? as so many can sing, I perceive; and little dances,
perhaps?”

“Oh no, Your Grace,” said one of the young ladies, mournfully. “We have
practisings sometimes, when anything is coming off.”

“And we have an excellent library, Your Grace,” said the gentleman, “and
all the new books. There is a piano in the ladies’ sitting-room, and we
gentlemen have chess and so forth, and everything extremely nice.”

“And a great deal of gossip, I suppose,” said Her Grace; “and I hope you
have _chaperons_ to see that there is not too much flirting.”

“Oh, flirting!” said all three, in a chorus. “There is a sitting-room
for the ladies, and another for the gentlemen,” the male member of the
party said, somewhat primly, for he was one of the class of
superintendents, vulgarly called shopwalkers, and he knew his place.

“Oh--h!” said the Duchess, putting down her eyeglass; “then it must be a
great deal less amusing than I thought!”

“It was quite necessary, I assure you, Your Grace,” said the gentleman;
and the two young ladies who had been tittering behind their fans, gave
him each a private glance of hatred. They composed their faces, however,
as Mr. Tottenham came up, called by the Duchess from another group.

“You want me, Duchess?” how fine all Tottenham’s who were within
hearing, felt at this--especially the privileged trio, to whom she had
been talking, “Duchess!” that sublime familiarity elevated them all in
the social scale.

“Nothing is perfect in this world,” said Her Grace, with a sigh. “I
thought I had found Utopia; but even your establishment is not all it
might be. Why aren’t they all allowed to meet, and sing, and flirt, and
bore each other every evening, as people do in a country house?”

“Come, Duchess, and look at my shawls,” said Mr. Tottenham, with a
twinkle out of his grey eyes. Her Grace accepted the bait, and sailed
away, leaving the young ladies in a great flutter. A whole knot of them
collected together to hear what had happened, and whisper over it in
high excitement.

“I quite agree with the Duchess,” said Miss Lockwood, loud enough to be
heard among the fashionables, as she sat apart and fanned herself, like
any fine lady. Her handsome face was almost as pale as ivory, her cheeks
hollow. Charitable persons said, in the house, that she was in a
consumption, and that it was cruel to stop her duet with Mr. Watson, and
to inquire into her past life, when, poor soul, it was clear to see that
she would soon be beyond the reach of all inquiries. It was the
Robinsons who had insisted upon it chiefly--Mr. Robinson, who was at the
head of the department, and who had daughters of his own, about whom he
was very particular. His youngest was under Miss Lockwood, in the shawls
and mantles, and that was why he was so inexorable pursuing the matter;
though why he should make objections to Miss Lockwood’s propriety, and
yet allow Jemima to act in public, as she had just done, was more than
the shop could make out. Miss Lockwood sat by herself, having thus been
breathed upon by suspicion; but no one in the place was more
conspicuous. She had an opera cloak of red, braided with gold, which the
young ladies knew to be quite a valuable article, and her glossy dark
hair was beautifully dressed, and her great paleness called attention to
her beauty. She kept her seat, not moving when the others did, calling
to her anyone she wanted, and indeed, generally taking upon herself the
_rôle_ of fine lady. And partly from sympathy for her illness, partly
from disapproval of what was called the other side, the young ladies and
gentlemen of Tottenham’s stood by her. When she said, “I agree with the
Duchess,” everybody looked round to see who it was that spoke.

When the pause for refreshments was over, Mr. Tottenham led Her Grace
back to her place, and the entertainment recommenced. The second part
was simply music. Mr. Watson gave his solo on the cornet, and another
gentleman of the establishment accompanied one of the young ladies on
the violin, and then they sang a number of part songs, which was the
best part of the programme. The excitement being partially over, the
music was much better attended to than the Trial Scene from Pickwick;
and all the fine people, used to hear Joachim play, or Patti sing,
listened with much gracious restraint of their feelings. It had been
intended at first that the guests and the _employés_ should sup
together, Mr. Robinson offering his arm to Lady Mary, and so on. But at
the last moment this arrangement had been altered, and the visitors had
wine and cake, and sandwiches and jellies in one room, while the
establishment sat down to a splendid table in another, and ate and
drank, and made speeches and gave toasts to their hearts’ content,
undisturbed by any inspection. What a place it was! The customers went
all over it, conducted by Mr. Tottenham and his assistants through the
endless warehouses, and through the domestic portion of the huge house,
while the young ladies and gentlemen of Tottenham’s were at supper. The
visitors went to the library, and to the sitting-rooms, and even to the
room which was used as a chapel, and which was full of rough wooden
chairs, like those in a French country church, and decorated with
flowers. This curious adjunct to the shop stood open, with faint lights
burning, and the spring flowers shedding faint odours.

“I did not know you had been so High Church, Mr. Tottenham,” said the
Duchess. “I was not prepared for this.”

“Oh, this is Saint Gussy’s chapel,” cried Phil, who was too much excited
to be kept silent. “We all call it Saint Gussy’s. There is service every
day, and it is she who puts up the flowers. Ah, ah!”

Phil stopped suddenly, persuaded thereto by a pressure on the arm, and
saw Edgar standing by him in the crowd. There were so many, and they
were all crowding so close upon each other, that his exclamation was
not noticed. Edgar had been conjoining to the other business which
detained him in town a great deal of work about the entertainment, and
he had appeared with the other guests in the evening, but had been met
by Lady Augusta with such a face of terror, and hurried anxious
greeting, that he had withdrawn himself from the assembly, feeling his
own heart beat rather thick and fast at the thought, perhaps, of meeting
Gussy without warning in the midst of this crowd. He had kept himself in
the background all the evening, and now he stopped Phil, to send a
message to his father.

“Say that he will find me in his room when he wants me; and don’t use a
lady’s name so freely, or tell family jokes out of the family,” he said
to the boy, who was ashamed of himself. Edgar’s mind was full of new
anxieties of which the reader shall hear presently. The Entertainment
was a weariness to him, and everything connected with it. He turned away
when he had given the message, glad to escape from the riot--the groups
trooping up and down the passages, and examining the rooms as if they
were a settlement of savages--the Duchess sweeping on in advance on Mr.
Tottenham’s arm, with her double eye-glass held up. He turned away
through an unfrequented passage, dimly lighted and silent, where there
was nothing to see, and where nobody came. In the distance the joyful
clatter of the supper-table, where all the young ladies and gentlemen of
the establishment were enjoying themselves came to his ears on one
side--while the soft laughter and hum of voices on the other, told of
the better bred crowd who were finding their way again round other
staircases and corridors to the central hall. It is impossible, I
suppose, to hear the sounds of festive enjoyment with which one has
nothing to do, and from which one has withdrawn thus sounding from the
distance without some symptoms of a gentle misanthropy, and that sense
of superiority to common pursuits and enjoyments which affords
compensation to those who are left out in the cold, whether in great
things or small things. Edgar’s heart was heavy, and he felt it more
heavy in consequence of the merry-making. Among all these people, so
many of whom he had known, was there one that retained any kind thought
of him--one that would not, like Lady Augusta, the kindest of them all,
have felt a certain fright at his re-appearance, as of one come from the
dead? Alas, he ought to have remained dead, when socially he was so.
Edgar felt, at least, his resurrection ought not to have been here.

With this thought in his mind, he turned a dim corner of the white
passage, where a naked gaslight burned dimly. He was close to Mr.
Tottenham’s room, where he meant to remain until he was wanted. With a
start of surprise, he saw that some one else was in the passage coming
the other way, one of the ladies apparently of the fashionable party.
The passage was narrow, and Edgar stood aside to let her pass. She was
wrapped in a great white cloak, the hood half over her head, and came
forward rapidly, but uncertain, as if she had lost herself. Just before
they met, she stopped short, and uttered a low cry.

Had not his heart told him who it was? Edgar stood stock still, scarcely
breathing, gazing at her. He had wondered how this meeting would come
about, for come it must, he knew--and whether he would be calm and she
calm, as if they had met yesterday? Yet when the real emergency arrived
he was quite unprepared for it. He did not seem able to move, but gazed
at her as if all his heart had gone into his eyes, incapable of more
than the mere politeness of standing by to let her pass, which he had
meant to do when he thought her a stranger. The difficulty was all
thrown upon her. She too had made a pause. She looked up at him with a
tremulous smile and a quivering lip. She put out her hands half timidly,
half eagerly; her colour changed from red to pale, and from pale to red.
“Have you forgotten me, then?” she said.




CHAPTER IX.

Miss Lockwood’s Story.


I am obliged to go back a few days, that the reader may be made aware of
the causes which detained Edgar, and of the business which had occupied
his mind, mingled with all the frivolities of the Entertainment, during
his absence. Annoyance, just alloyed with a forlorn kind of amusement,
was his strongest sentiment, when he found himself appointed by his
patron to be a kind of father-confessor to Miss Lockwood, to ascertain
her story, and take upon himself her defence, if defence was possible.
Why should he be selected for such a delicate office? he asked; and when
he found himself seated opposite to the young lady from the cloak and
shawl department in Mr. Tottenham’s room, his sense of the incongruity
of his position became more and more embarrassing. Miss Lockwood’s face
was not of a common kind. The features were all fine, even refined, had
the mind been conformable; but as the mind was not of a high order, the
fine face took an air of impertinence, of self-opinion, and utter
indifference to the ideas or feelings of others, which no coarse
features could have expressed so well; the elevation of her head was a
toss, the curl of her short upper lip a sneer. She placed herself on a
chair in front of Mr. Tottenham’s writing-table, at which Edgar sat, and
turned her profile towards him, and tucked up her feet on a foot-stool.
She had a book in her hand, which she used sometimes as a fan, sometimes
to shield her face from the fire, or Edgar’s eyes, when she found them
embarrassing. But it was he who was embarrassed, not Miss Lockwood. It
cost him a good deal of trouble to begin his interrogatory.

“You must remember,” he said, “that I have not thrust myself into this
business, but that it is by your own desire--though I am entirely at a
loss to know why.”

“Of course you are,” said Miss Lockwood. “It is one of the things that
no man can be expected to understand--till he knows. It’s because we’ve
got an object in common, sir, you and me----”

“An object in common?”

“Yes; perhaps you’re a better Christian than I am, or perhaps you
pretend to be; but knowing what you’ve been, and how you’ve fallen to
what you are, I don’t think it’s in human nature that you shouldn’t feel
the same as me.”

“What I’ve been, and how I’ve fallen to what I am!” said Edgar, smiling
at the expression with whimsical amazement and vexation. “What is the
object in life which you suppose me to share?”

“To spite the Ardens!” cried the young lady from the mantle department,
with sudden vigour and animation. Her eyes flashed, she clasped her
hands together, and laughed and coughed--the laughter hard and
mirthless, the cough harder still, and painful to hear. “Don’t you
remember what I said to you? All my trouble, all that has ever gone
against me in the world, and the base stories they’re telling you
now--all came along of the Ardens; and now Providence has thrown you in
my way, that has as much reason to hate them. I can’t set myself right
without setting them wrong--and revenge is sweet. Arthur Arden shall rue
the day he ever set eyes on you or me!”

“Wait a little,” said Edgar, bewildered. “In the first place, I don’t
hate the Ardens, and I don’t want to injure them, and I hope, when we
talk it over, you may change your mind. What has Arthur Arden done to
you?”

“That’s my story,” said Miss Lockwood, and then she made a short pause.
“Do you know the things that are said about me?” she asked. “They say in
the house that I have had a baby. That’s quite true. I would not deny it
when I was asked; I didn’t choose to tell a lie. They believed me fast
enough when what I said was to my own disadvantage; but when I told the
truth in another way, because it was to my advantage, they say--Prove
it. I can’t prove it without ruining other folks, or I’d have done it
before now; but I was happy enough as I was, and I didn’t care to ruin
others. Now, however, they’ve forced me to it, and thrown you in my
way.”

“For heaven’s sake,” cried Edgar, “don’t mix me up with your scheme of
vengeance! What have I to do with it?” He was alarmed by the calm white
vehemence with which she spoke.

“Oh! not much with my part of the business,” she said lightly. “This is
how it is: I’m married--excuse enough any day for what I’m charged with;
but they won’t take my word, and I have to prove it. When I tell them
I’m only a widow in a kind of a way, they say to me, ‘Produce your
husband,’ and this is what I’ve got to do. Nearly ten years ago, Mr.
Earnshaw, if that is your name--are you listening to me?--I married
Arthur Arden; or, rather, Arthur Arden married me.”

“Good God!” cried Edgar; he did not at first seem to take in the meaning
of the words, but only felt vaguely that he had received a blow. “You
are mad!” he said, after a pause, looking at her--“you are mad!”

“Not a bit; I am saner than you are, for I never would have given up a
fortune to him. I am the first Mrs. Arthur Arden, whoever the second may
be. He married me twice over, to make it more sure.”

“Good God!” cried Edgar again; his countenance had grown whiter than
hers; all power of movement seemed to be taken out of him. “Prove this
horrible thing that you say--prove it! He never could be such a
villain!”

“Oh, couldn’t he?--much you know about him! He could do worse things
than that, if worse is possible. You shall prove it yourself without me
stirring a foot. Listen, and I will tell you just how it was. When he
saw he couldn’t have me in any other way, he offered marriage; I was
young then, and so was he, and I was excusable--I have always felt I
was excusable; for a handsomer man, or one with more taking ways--You
know him, that’s enough. Well, not to make any more fuss than was
necessary, I proposed the registrar; but, if you please, he was a deal
too religious for that. ‘Let’s have some sort of parson,’ he said,
‘though he mayn’t be much to look at.’ We were married in the Methodist
chapel up on the way to Highgate. I’ll tell you all about it--I’ll give
you the name of the street and the date. It’s up Camden Town way, not
far from the Highgate Road. Father and mother used to attend chapel
there.”

“You were married--to Arthur Arden!” said Edgar; all the details were
lost upon him, for he had not yet grasped the fact--“married to Arthur
Arden! Is this what you mean to say?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Miss Lockwood, in high impatience, waving the
book which she used as a fan--“that is what I meant to say; and there’s
a deal more. You seem to be a slow sort of gentleman. I’ll stop, shall
I, till you’ve got it well into your head?” she said, with a laugh.

The laugh, the mocking look, the devilish calm of the woman who was
expounding so calmly something which must bring ruin and despair upon a
family, and take name and fame from another woman, struck Edgar with
hot, mad anger.

“For God’s sake, hold your tongue!” he cried, not knowing what he
said--“you will drive me mad!”

“I’m sure I don’t see why,” said Miss Lockwood--“why should it?--it
ain’t anything to you. And to hold my tongue is the last thing I mean
to do. You know what I said; I’ll go over it again to make quite sure.”

Then, with a light laugh, she repeated word for word what she had
already said, throwing in descriptive touches about the Methodist chapel
and its pews.

“Father and mother had the third from the pulpit on the right-hand side.
I don’t call myself a Methodist now; it stands in your way sometimes,
and the Church is always respectable; but I ought to like the
Methodists, for it was there it happened. You had better take down the
address and the day. I can tell you all the particulars.”

Edgar did not know much about the law, but he had heard, at least, of
one ordinary formula.

“Have you got your marriage certificate?” he said.

“Oh! they don’t have such things among the Methodists,” said Miss
Lockwood. “Now I’ll tell you about the second time--for it was done
twice over, to make sure. You remember all that was in the papers about
that couple who were first married in Ireland, and then in Scotland, and
turned out not to be married at all? We went off to Scotland, him and
me, for our wedding tour, and I thought I’d just make certain sure, in
case there should be anything irregular, you know. So when we were at
the hotel, I got the landlady in, and one of the men, and I said he was
my husband before them, and made them put their names to it. He was
dreadfully angry--so angry that I knew I had been right, and had seen
through him all the while, and that he meant to deceive me if he could;
but he couldn’t deny it all of a sudden, in a moment, with the certainty
that he would be turned out of the house then and there if he did. I’ve
got that, if you like to call that a marriage certificate. They tell me
it’s hard and fast in Scotch law.”

“But we are in England,” said Edgar, feebly. “I don’t think Scotch law
tells here.”

“Oh! it does, about a thing like this,” said Miss Lockwood. “If I’m
married in Scotland, I can’t be single in England, and marry again, can
I? Now that’s my story. If his new wife hadn’t have been so proud----”

“She is not proud,” said Edgar, with a groan; “it is--her manner--she
does not mean it. And then she has been so petted and flattered all her
life. Poor girl! she has done nothing to you that you should feel so
unfriendly towards her.”

“Oh! hasn’t she?” said Miss Lockwood. “Only taken my place, that’s all.
Lived in my house, and driven in my carriage, and had everything I ought
to have had--no more than that!”

Edgar was like a man stupefied. He stood holding his head with his
hands, feeling that everything swam around him. Miss Lockwood’s
defender?--ah! no, but the defender of another, whose more than life was
assailed. This desperation at last made things clearer before him, and
taught him to counterfeit calm.

“It could not be she who drove you from him,” he said, with all the
composure he could collect. “Tell me how it came about that you are
called Miss Lockwood, and have been here so long, if all you have told
me is true?”

“I won’t say that it was not partly my fault,” she replied, with a
complacent nod of her head. “After awhile we didn’t get on--I was
suspicious of him from the first, as I’ve told you; I know he never
meant honest and right; and he didn’t like being found out. Nobody as I
know of does. We got to be sick of each other after awhile. He was as
poor as Job; and he has the devil’s own temper. If you think I was a
patient Grizel to stand that, you’re very much mistaken. Ill-usage and
slavery, and nothing to live upon! I soon showed him as that wouldn’t do
for me. The baby died,” she added indifferently--“poor little thing, it
was a blessing that the Almighty took it! I fretted at first, but I felt
it was a deal better off than it could ever have been with me; and then
I took another situation. I had been in Grant and Robinson’s before I
married, so as I didn’t want to make a show of myself with them that
knew me, I took back my single name again. They are rather low folks
there, and I didn’t stay long; and I found I liked my liberty a deal
better than studying his temper, and being left to starve, as I was with
him; so I kept on, now here, now there, till I came to Tottenham’s. And
here I’ve never had nothing to complain of,” said Miss Lockwood, “till
some of these prying women found out about the baby. I made up my mind
to say nothing about who I was, seeing circumstances ain’t favourable.
But I sha’n’t deny it; why should I deny it? it ain’t for my profit to
deny it. Other folks may take harm, but I can’t; and when I saw you,
then I felt that the right moment had come, and that I must speak.”

“Why did not you speak before he was married?--had you no feeling that,
if you were safe, another woman was about to be ruined?” said Edgar,
bitterly. “Why did you not speak then?”

“Am I bound to take care of other women?” said Miss Lockwood. “I had
nobody to take care of me; and I took care of myself--why couldn’t she
do the same? She was a lady, and had plenty of friends--I had nobody to
take care of me.”

“But it would have been to your own advantage,” said Edgar. “How do you
suppose anyone can believe that you neglected to declare yourself Arthur
Arden’s wife at the time when it would have been such a great thing for
you, and when he was coming into a good estate, and could make his wife
a lady of importance? You are not indifferent to your own comfort--why
did you not speak then?”

“I pleased myself, I suppose,” she said, tossing her head; then added,
with matter-of-fact composure, “Besides, I was sick of him. He was never
the least amusing, and the most fault-finding, ill-tempered--One’s
spelling, and one’s looks, and one’s manners, and one’s dress--he was
never satisfied. Then,” she went on, sinking her voice--“I don’t deny
the truth--I knew he’d never take me home and let people know I was his
real wife. All I could have got out of him would have been an allowance,
to live in some hole and corner. I preferred my freedom to that, and
the power of getting a little amusement. I don’t mind work, bless
you--not work of this kind--it amuses me; and if I had been left in
peace here when I was comfortable, I shouldn’t have interfered--I should
have let things take their chance.”

“In all this,” said Edgar, feeling his throat dry and his utterance
difficult, “you consider only yourself, no one else.”

“Who else should I consider?” said Miss Lockwood. “I should like to know
who else considered me? Not a soul. I had to take care of myself, and I
did. Why should not his other wife have her wits about her as well as
me?”

Then there was a pause. Edgar was too much broken down by this
disclosure, too miserable to speak; and she sat holding up the book
between her face and the fire, with a flush upon her pale cheeks,
sometimes fanning herself, her nose in the air, her finely-cut profile
inspired by impertinence and worldly selfishness, till it looked ugly to
the disquieted gazer. Few women could have been so handsome, and yet
looked so unhandsome. As he looked at her, sickening with the sight,
Edgar felt bitterly that this woman was indeed Arthur Arden’s true
mate--they matched each other well. But Clare, his sister--Clare, whom
there had been no one to guard--who, rich in friends as she was, had no
brother, no guardian to watch over her interests--poor Clare! The only
thing he seemed able to do for her now was to prove her shame, and
extricate her, if he could extricate her, from the terrible falseness
of her position. His heart ached so that it gave him a physical pain. He
had kept up no correspondence with her whom he had looked upon during
all the earlier part of his life as his sister, and whom he felt in his
very heart to be doubly his sister the moment that evil came in her way.
The thing for him to consider now was what he could do for her, to save
her, if possible--though how she could be saved, he knew not, as the
story was so circumstantial, and apparently true. But, at all events, it
could not but be well for Clare that her enemy’s cause was in her
brother’s hands. Good for Clare!--would it be good for the other woman,
to whom he had promised to do justice? Edgar almost felt his heart stand
still as he asked himself this question. Justice--justice must be done,
in any case, there could be no doubt of that. If Clare’s position was
untenable, she must not be allowed to go on in ignorance, for misery
even is better than dishonour. This was some comfort to him in his
profound and sudden wretchedness. Clare’s cause, and that of this other,
were so far the same.

“I will undertake your commission,” he said gravely; “but understand me
first. Instead of hating the Ardens, I would give my life to preserve my
sister, Mrs. Arden, from the shame and grief you are trying to bring
upon her. Of course, one way or another, I shall feel it my duty now to
verify what you say; but it is right to tell you that her interest is
the first thing I shall consider, not yours.”

“_Her_ interest!” cried Miss Lockwood, starting up in her chair. “Oh!
you poor, mean-spirited creature! Call yourself a man, and let yourself
be treated like a dog--that’s your nature, is it? I suppose they’ve made
you a pension, or something, to keep you crawling and toadying. I
shouldn’t wonder,” she said, stopping suddenly, “if you were to offer me
a good round sum to compromise the business, or an allowance for
life--?”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Edgar, quietly. She stared at him
for a moment, panting--and then, in the effort to speak, was seized upon
by a violent fit of coughing, which shook her fragile figure, and
convulsed her suddenly-crimsoned face. “Can I get you anything?” he
asked, rising with an impulse of pity. She shook her head, and waved to
him with her hand to sit down again. Does the reader remember how
Christian in the story had vile thoughts whispered into his ear, thrown
into his mind, which were none of his? Profoundest and truest of
parables! Into Edgar’s mind, thrown there by some devil, came a wish and
a hope; he did not originate them, but he had to undergo them, writhing
within himself with shame and horror. He wished that she might die, that
Clare might thus be saved from exposure, at least from outward ruin,
from the stigma upon herself and upon her children, which nothing else
could avert. The wish ran through him while he sat helpless, trying with
all the struggling powers of his mind to reject it. Few of us, I
suspect, have escaped a similar experience. It was not his doing, but
he had to bear the consciousness of this inhuman thought.

When Miss Lockwood had struggled back to the power of articulation, she
turned to him again, with an echo of her jaunty laugh.

“They say I’m in a consumption,” she said; “don’t you believe it. I’ll
see you all out, mind if I don’t. We’re a long-lived family. None of us
ever were known to have anything the matter with our chests.”

“Have you spoken to a doctor?” said Edgar, with so deep a remorseful
compunction that it made his tone almost tender in kindness.

“Oh! the doctor--he speaks to me!” she said. “I tell the young ladies
he’s fallen in love with me. Oh! that ain’t so unlikely neither! Men as
good have done it before now; but I wouldn’t have anything to say to
him,” she continued, with her usual laugh. “I don’t make any brag of it,
but I never forget as I’m a married woman. I don’t mind a little
flirtation, just for amusement; but no man has ever had it in his power
to brag that he’s gone further with me.”

Then there was a pause, for disquiet began to resume its place in
Edgar’s mind, and the poor creature before him had need of rest to
regain her breath. She opened the book she held in her hand, and pushed
to him across the table some written memoranda.

“There’s where my chapel is as I was married in,” she said, “and
there’s--it’s nothing but a copy, so, if you destroy it, it won’t do me
any harm--the Scotch certificate. They were young folks that signed it,
no older than myself, so be sure you’ll find them, if you want to.
There, I’ve given you all that’s needed to prove what I say, and if you
don’t clear me, I’ll tell the Master, that’s all, and he’ll do it, fast
enough! Your fine Mrs. Arden, forsooth, that has no more right to be
Mrs. Arden than you had to be Squire, won’t get off, don’t you think it,
for now my blood’s up. I know what Arthur will do,” she cried, getting
excited again. “He’s a man of sense, and a man of the world, he is.
He’ll come to me on his knees, and offer a good big lump of money, or a
nice allowance. Oh! I know him! He ain’t a poor, mean-spirited cur, to
lick the hand that cuffs him, or to go against his own interest, like
you.”

Here another fit of coughing came on, worse than the first. Edgar,
compassionate, took up the paper, and left the room.

“I am afraid Miss Lockwood is ill. Will you send some one to her?” he
said, to the first young lady he met.

“Hasn’t she a dreadful cough? And she won’t do anything for it, or take
any care of herself. I’ll send one of the young ladies from her own
department,” said this fine personage, rustling along in her black silk
robes. Mr. Watson was hovering near, to claim Edgar’s attention, about
some of the arrangements for the approaching festivity.

“Mr. Tottenham bade me say, sir, if you’d kindly step this way, into the
hall,” said the walking gentleman.

Poor Edgar! if he breathed a passing anathema upon enlightened schemes
and disciples of social progress, I do not think that anyone need be
surprised.




CHAPTER X.

A Plunge into the Maze.


“Her plea is simply that she is married--that seems all there is to
say.”

“I am aware she says that,” said Mr. Tottenham. “I hope to heaven she
can prove it, Earnshaw, and end this tempest in a tea-cup! I am sick of
the whole affair! Has her husband deserted her, or is he dead, or what
has become of him? I hope she gave you some proofs.”

“I must make inquiries before I can answer,” said Edgar. “By some
miserable chance friends of my own are involved. I must get at the
bottom of it. Her husband--if he is her husband--has married again; in
his own rank--a lady in whom I am deeply interested----”

“My dear fellow!” said Mr. Tottenham, “what a business for you! Did the
woman know, confound her? There, I don’t often speak rashly, but some of
these women, upon my honour, would try the patience of a saint! I
daresay it’s all a lie. That sort of person cares no more for a lie!
I’ll pack her off out of the establishment, and we’ll think of it no
more.”

“Pardon me, I must think of it, and follow it out,” said Edgar; “it is
too serious to be neglected. Altogether independent of this woman, a
lady’s--my friend’s happiness, her reputation, perhaps her life--for how
could she outlive name and fame, and love and confidence?” he said,
suddenly feeling himself overcome by the horrible suggestion. “It looks
like preferring my own business to yours, but I must see to this first.”

“Go, go, my dear Earnshaw--never mind my business--have some money and
go!” cried Mr. Tottenham. “I can’t tell you how grieved I am to have
brought you into this. Poor lady! poor lady!--I won’t ask who it is. But
recollect they lie like the devil!--they don’t mind what they say, like
you or me, who understand the consequences; they think of nothing beyond
the spite of the moment. I am in for three quarrels, and a resignation,
all because I want to please them!” cried the poor master of the great
shop, dolorously. He accompanied Edgar out to the private door,
continuing his plaint. “A nothing will do it,” he said; “and they don’t
care for what happens, so long as they indulge the temper of the moment.
To lose their employment, or their friends, or the esteem of those who
would try to help them in everything--all this is nought. I declare I
could almost cry like a baby when I think of it! Don’t be cast down,
Earnshaw. More likely than not it’s all a lie!”

“If I cannot get back this evening in time for you--” Edgar began.

“Never mind, never mind. Go to the Square. I’ll tell them to have a room
ready for you. And take some money--nothing is to be done without
money. And, Earnshaw,” lie added, calling after him some minutes later,
when Edgar was at the door, “on second thoughts, you won’t say anything
to Mary about my little troubles? After all, the best of us have got our
tempers; perhaps I am injudicious, and expect too much. She has always
had her doubts about my mode of treatment. Don’t, there’s a good fellow,
betray to them at home that I lost my temper too!”

This little preliminary to the Entertainment was locked in Edgar’s
bosom, and never betrayed to anyone. To tell the truth, his mind was
much too full of more important matters to think upon any such
inconsiderable circumstance; for he was not the Apostle of the Shop, and
had no scheme to justify and uphold in the eyes of all men and women.
Edgar, I fear, was not of the stuff of which social reformers are made.
The concerns of the individual were more important to him at all times
than those of the mass; and one human shadow crossing his way,
interested his heart and mind far beyond a mere crowd, though the crowd,
no doubt, as being multitudinous, must have been more important. Edgar
turned his back upon the establishment with, I fear, very little
Christian feeling towards Tottenham’s, and all concerned with it--hating
the Entertainment, weary of Mr. Tottenham himself, and disgusted with
the strange impersonation of cruelty and selfishness which had just been
revealed to him in the form of a woman. He could not shut out from his
eyes that thin white face, so full of self, so destitute of any generous
feeling.

Such stories have been told before in almost every tone of sympathy and
reprobation; women betrayed have been wept in every language under
heaven, and their betrayer denounced, but what was there to lament
about, to denounce here? A woman sharp and clever to make the best of
her bargain; a man trying legal cheats upon her; two people drawn
together by some semblance of what is called passion, yet each watching
and scheming, how best, on either side, to outwit the other. Never was
tale of misery and despair so pitiful; for this was all baseness,
meanness, calculation on both hands. They were fitly matched, and it was
little worth any man’s while to interfere between them--but, O heaven!
to think of the other fate involved in theirs. This roused Edgar to an
excitement which was almost maddening. To think that these two base
beings had wound into their miserable tangle the feet of Clare--that her
innocent life must pay the penalty for their evil lives, that she must
bear the dishonour while spotless from the guilt!

Edgar posted along the great London thoroughfare, through the
continually varying crowd of passers-by, absorbed in an agitation and
disquiet which drove all his own affairs out of his head. His own
affairs might involve much trouble and distress; but neither shame nor
guilt was in them. Heaven above! to think that guilt or shame could have
anything to do with Clare!

Now Clare had not been, at least at the last, a very good sister to
Edgar--she was not his sister at all, so far as blood went; and when
this had been discovered, and the homeliness of his real origin
identified, Clare had shrunk from him, notwithstanding that for all her
life, in childish fondness and womanly sympathy, she had loved him as
her only brother. Edgar had mournfully consented to a complete severance
between them. She had married his enemy; and he himself had sunk so much
out of sight that he had felt no further intercourse to be possible,
though his affectionate heart had felt it deeply. But as soon as he
heard of her danger, all his old love for his sister had sprung up in
Edgar’s heart. He took back her name, as it were, into the number of
those sounds most familiar to him. “Clare,” he said to himself, feeling
a thrill of renewed warmth go through him, mingled with poignant
pain--“Clare, my sister, my only sister, the sole creature in the world
that belongs to me!” Alas! she did not belong to Edgar any more than any
inaccessible princess; but in his heart this was what he felt. He pushed
his way through the full streets, with the air and the sentiment of a
man bound upon the most urgent business, seeing little on his way,
thinking of nothing but his object--the object in common which Miss
Lockwood had supposed him to have with herself. But Edgar did not even
remember that--he thought of nothing but Clare’s comfort and well-being
which were concerned, and how it would be possible to confound her
adversaries, and save her from ignoble persecution. If he could keep it
from her knowledge altogether! But, alas! how could that be done? He
went faster and faster, driven by his thoughts.

The address Miss Lockwood had given him was in a small street off the
Hampstead Road. That strange long line of street, with here and there a
handful of older houses, a broader pavement, a bit of dusty garden, to
show the suburban air it once had possessed; its heterogeneous shops,
furniture, birdcages, perambulators, all kinds of out-of-the-way wares
fled past the wayfarer, taking wings to themselves, he thought. It is
not an interesting quarter, and Edgar had no time to give to any
picturesque or historical reminiscences. When he reached the little
street in which the chapel he sought was situated, he walked up on one
side and down on the other, expecting every moment to see the building
of which he was in search. A chapel is not a thing apt to disappear,
even in the changeful district of Camden Town. Rubbing his eyes, he went
up and down again, inspecting the close lines of mean houses. The only
break in the street was where two or three small houses, of a more
bilious brick than usual, whose outlines had not yet been toned down by
London soot and smoke, diversified the prospect. He went to a little
shop opposite this yellow patch upon the old grimy garment to make
inquiries.

“Chapel! there ain’t no chapel hereabouts,” said the baker, who was
filling his basket with loaves.

“Hold your tongue, John,” said his wife, from the inner shop. “I’ll set
you all right in a moment. There’s where the chapel was, sir, right
opposite. There was a bit of a yard where they’ve built them houses. The
chapel is behind; but it ain’t a chapel now. It’s been took for an
infant school by our new Rector. Don’t you see a little bit of an entry
at that open door? That’s where you go in. But since it’s been shut up
there’s been a difference in the neighbourhood. Most of us is church
folks now.”

“And does nothing remain of the chapel--nobody belonging to it, no books
nor records?” cried Edgar, suddenly brought to a standstill. The woman
looked at him surprised.

“I never heard as they had any books--more than the hymn-books, which
they took with them, I suppose. It’s our new Rector as has bought it--a
real good man, as gives none of us no peace----”

“And sets you all on with your tongues,” said her husband, throwing his
basket over his shoulder.

Edgar did not wait to hear the retort of the wife, and felt no interest
in the doings of the new Rector. He did not know what to do in this
unforeseen difficulty. He went across the road, and up the little entry,
and looked at the grimy building beyond, which was no great satisfaction
to his feelings. It was a dreary little chapel, of the most ordinary
type, cleared of its pews, and filled with the low benches and staring
pictures of an infant school, and looked as if it had been thrust up
into a corner by the little line of houses built across the scrap of
open space which had formerly existed in front of its doors. As he gazed
round him helplessly, another woman came up, who asked with bated breath
what he wanted.

“We’re all church folks now hereabouts,” she said; “but I don’t mind
telling you, sir, as a stranger, I was always fond of the old chapel.
What preaching there used to be, to be sure!--dreadful rousing and
comforting! And it’s more relief, like, to the mind, to say, ‘Lord, ha’
mercy upon us!’ or, ‘Glory, glory!’ or the like o’ that, just when you
pleases, than at set times out o’ a book. There’s nothing most but
prayers here now. If you want any of the chapel folks, maybe I could
tell you. I’ve been in the street twenty years and more.”

“I want to find out about a marriage that took place here ten years
ago,” said Edgar.

“Marriage!” said the woman, shaking her head. “I don’t recollect no
marriage. Preachings are one thing, and weddings is another. I don’t
hold with weddings out of church. If there’s any good in church--”

Edgar had to stop this exposition by asking after the “chapel-folks” to
whom she could direct him, and in answer was told of three tradesmen in
the neighbourhood who “held by the Methodys,” one of whom had been a
deacon in the disused chapel. This was a carpenter, who could not be
seen till his dinner-hour, and on whom Edgar had to dance attendance
with very indifferent satisfaction; for the deacon’s report was that the
chapel had never been, so far as he could remember, licensed for
marriages, and that none had taken place within it. This statement,
however, was flatly contradicted by the pork-butcher, whose name was the
next on his list, and who recollected to have heard that some one had
been married there just about the time indicated by Miss Lockwood.
Finally, Edgar lighted on an official who had been a local preacher in
the days of the chapel, and who was now a Scripture-reader, under the
sway of the new Rector, who had evidently turned the church and parish
upside-down. This personage had known something of the Lockwoods, and
was not disinclined--having ascertained that Edgar was a stranger, and
unlikely to betray any of his hankerings after the chapel--to gossip
about the little defunct community. Its books and records had, he said,
been removed, when it was closed, to some central office of the
denomination, where they would, no doubt, be shown on application. This
man was very anxious to give a great deal of information quite apart
from the matter in hand. He gave Edgar a sketch of the decay of the
chapel, in which, I fear, the young man took no interest, though it was
curious enough; and he told him about the Lockwoods, and about the
eldest daughter, who, he was afraid, had come to no good.

“She said as she was married, but nobody believed her. She was always a
flighty one,” said the Scripture-reader.

This was all that Edgar picked up out of a flood of unimportant
communications. He could not even find any clue to the place where these
denominational records were kept, and by this time the day was too far
advanced to do more. Drearily he left the grimy little street, with its
damp pavements, its poor little badly-lighted shops and faint lamps, not
without encountering the new Rector in person, an omniscient personage,
who had already heard of his inquiries, and regarded him suspiciously,
as perhaps a “Methody” in disguise, planning the restoration of dissent
in a locality just purged from its taint. Edgar was too tired, too
depressed and down-hearted to be amused by the watchful look of the
muscular Christian, who saw in him a wolf prowling about the fold. He
made his way into the main road, and jumped into a hansom, and drove
down the long line of shabby, crowded thoroughfare, so mean and small,
yet so great and full of life. Those miles and miles of mean, monotonous
street, without a feature to mark one from another, full of crowds of
human creatures, never heard of, except as counting so many hundreds,
more or less, in the year’s calendar of mortality--how strangely
impressive they become at last by mere repetition, mass upon mass, crowd
upon crowd, poor, nameless, mean, unlovely! Perhaps it was the general
weariness and depression of Edgar’s whole being that brought this
feeling into his mind as he drove noisily, silently along between those
lines of faintly-lighted houses towards what is impertinently, yet
justly, called the habitable part of London. For one fair, bright path
in the social, as in the physical world, how many mean, and darkling,
and obscure!--how small the spot which lies known and visible to the
general eye!--how great the confused darkness all round! Such
reflections are the mere growth of weariness and despondency, but they
heighten the depression of which they are an evidence.

The whole of noisy, crowded London was as a wilderness to Edgar. He
drove to his club, where he had not been since the day when he met Mr.
Tottenham. So short a time ago, and yet how his life had altered in the
interval! He was no longer drifting vaguely upon the current, as he had
been doing. His old existence had caught at him with anxious hands.
Notwithstanding all the alterations of time, circumstances, and being,
he was at this moment not Edgar Earnshaw at all, but the Edgar Arden of
three years ago, caught back into the old sphere, surrounded by the old
thoughts. Such curious vindications of the unchangeableness of
character, the identity of being, which suddenly seize upon a man, and
whirl him back in a moment, defying all external changes, into his old,
his unalterable self, are among the strangest things in humanity. Dizzy
with the shock he had received, harassed by anxiety, worn out by
unsuccessful effort, Edgar felt the world swim round with him, and
scarcely could answer to himself who he was. Had all the Lockwood
business been a dream? Was it a dream that he had been as a stranger for
three long years to Clare, his sister--to Gussy, his almost bride? And
yet his mind at this moment was as full of their images as if no
interval had been.

After he had dined and refreshed himself, he set to work with, I
think,--notwithstanding his anxiety, the first shock of which was now
over,--a thrill of conscious energy, and almost pleasure in something to
do, which was so much more important than those vague lessons to Phil,
or vaguer studies in experimental philosophy, to which his mind had
been lately turned. To be here on the spot, ready to work for Clare when
she was assailed, was something to be glad of, deeply as the idea of
such an assault upon her had excited and pained him. And at the same
time as his weariness wore off, and the first excitement cooled down, he
began to feel himself more able to realize the matter in all its
particulars, and see the safer possibilities. It began to appear to him
likely enough that all that could be proved was Arthur Arden’s villainy,
a subject which did not much concern him, which had no novelty in it,
and which, though Clare was Arthur Arden’s wife, could not affect her
more now than it had done ever since she married him. Indeed, if it was
but this, there need be no necessity for communicating it to Clare at
all. It was more probable, when he came to think of it, that an educated
and clever man should be able to outwit a dressmaker girl, however
deeply instructed in the laws of marriage by novels and _causes
célèbres_, than that she should outwit him; and in this case there was
nothing that need ever be made known to Clare.

Edgar was glad, and yet I don’t know that a certain disappointment,
quite involuntary and unawares, did not steal into his mind with this
thought; for he had begun to cherish an idea of seeing his sister, of
perhaps resuming something of his old intercourse with her, and at least
of being known to have worked for and defended her. These thoughts,
however, were but the secondary current in his mind, while the working
part of it was planning a further enterprise for the morrow. He got the
directory, and, after considerable trouble, found out from it the names
and addresses of certain officials of the Wesleyan body, to whom he
could go in search of the missing registers of the Hart Street
Chapel--if registers there were--or who could give him definite and
reliable information, in face of the conflicting testimony he had
already received, as to whether marriages had ever been celebrated in
it.

Edgar knew, I suppose, as much as other men generally do about the
ordinary machinery of society, but he did not know where to lay his hand
on any conclusive official information about the Hart Street Chapel,
whether it had ever been licenced, or had any legal existence as a place
of worship, any more than--you or I would, dear reader, were we in a
similar difficulty. Who knows anything about such matters? He had lost a
day already in the merest A B C of preliminary inquiry, and no doubt
would lose several more.

Then he took out the most important of Miss Lockwood’s papers, which he
had only glanced at as yet. It was dated from a small village in the
Western Highlands, within reach, as he knew, of Loch Arroch, and was a
certificate, signed by Helen Campbell and John Mactaggart, that Arthur
Arden and Emma Lockwood had that day, in their presence, declared
themselves to be man and wife. Edgar’s knowledge of such matters had, I
fear, been derived entirely from novels and newspaper reports, and he
read over the document, which was alarmingly explicit and
straightforward, with a certain panic. He said to himself that there
were no doubt ways in law by which to lessen the weight of such an
attestation, or means of shaking its importance; but it frightened him
just as he was escaping from his first fright, and brought back all his
excitement and alarm.

He did not go to Berkeley Square, as Mr. Tottenham had recommended, but
to his old lodgings, where he found a bed with difficulty, and where
once more his two lives seemed to meet in sharp encounter. But his head
by this time was too full of schemes for to-morrow to permit of any
personal speculation; he was far, as yet, from seeing any end to his
undertaking, and it was impossible to tell what journeys, what
researches might be still before him.




CHAPTER XI.

In the Depths.


Next morning he went first to his old lawyer, in whom he had confidence,
and having copied the certificate, carefully changing the names,
submitted it to him. Mr. Parchemin declared that he knew nothing of
Scotch law, but shook his head, and hoped there was nothing very
unpleasant in the circumstances, declaring vehemently that it was a
shame and disgrace that such snares should be spread for the unwary on
the other side of the border. Was it a disgrace that Arthur Arden should
not have been protected in Scotland, as in England, from the
quick-wittedness of the girl whom he had already cheated and meant to
betray? Edgar felt that there might be something to be said on both
sides of the question, as he left his copy in Mr. Parchemin’s hands, who
undertook to consult a Scotch legal authority on the question; then he
went upon his other business. I need not follow him through his manifold
and perplexing inquiries, or inform the reader how he was sent from
office to office, and from secretary to secretary, or with what loss of
time and patience his quest was accompanied. After several days’ work,
however, he ascertained that the chapel in Hart Street had indeed been
licensed, but only used once or twice for marriages, and that no record
of any such marriage as that which he was in search of could be found
anywhere. A stray record of a class-meeting which Emma Lockwood had been
admonished for levity of demeanour, was the sole mention of her to be
found; and though the officials admitted a certain carelessness in the
preservation of books belonging to an extinct chapel, they declared it
to be impossible that such a fact could have been absolutely ignored.
There was, indeed, a rumour in the denomination that a local preacher
had been found to have taken upon himself to perform a marriage, for
which he had been severely reprimanded; but as he had been possessed of
no authority to make such a proceeding legal, no register had been made
of the fact, and only the reprimanded was inscribed on the books of the
community. This was the only opening for even a conjecture as to the
truth of Miss Lockwood’s first story. If the second could only have been
dissipated as easily!

Edgar’s inquiries among the Wesleyan authorities lasted, as I have said,
several days, and caused him more fatigue of limb and of mind than it is
easy to express. He went to Tottenham’s--where, indeed, he showed
himself every day, getting more and more irritated with the
Entertainment, and all its preparations--as soon as he had ascertained
beyond doubt that the marriage at Hart Street Chapel was fictitious.
Miss Lockwood, he was informed, was an invalid, but would see him in the
young ladies’ dining-room, where, accordingly, he found her, looking
sharper, and whiter, and more worn than ever. He told her his news
quietly, with a natural pity for the woman deceived; a gleam of sudden
light shone in her eyes.

“I told you so,” she said, triumphantly; “now didn’t I tell you so? He
wanted to take me in--I felt it from the very first; but he hadn’t got
to do with a fool, as he thought. I was even with him for that.”

“I have written to find out if your Scotch witnesses are alive,” said
Edgar.

“Alive!--why shouldn’t they be alive, like I am, and like he is?” she
cried, with feverish irritability. “Folks of our ages don’t die!--what
are you thinking of? And if they were dead, what would it
matter?--there’s their names as good as themselves. Ah! I didn’t botch
my business any more than he botched his. You’ll find it’s all right.”

“I hope you are better,” Edgar said, with a compassion that was all the
more profound because the object of it neither deserved, nor would have
accepted it.

“Better--oh! thank you, I am quite well,” she said lightly--“only a bit
of a cold. Perhaps on the whole it’s as well I’m not going to sing
to-night; a cold is so bad for one’s voice. Good-bye, Mr. Earnshaw.
We’ll meet at the old gentleman’s turnout to-night.”

And she waved her hand, dismissing poor Edgar, who left her with a
warmer sense of disgust, and dislike than had ever moved his friendly
bosom before. And yet it was in this creature’s interests he was
working, and against Clare! Mr. Tottenham caught him on his way out, to
hand him a number of letters which had arrived for him, and to call for
his advice in the final preparations. The public had been shut out of
the hall in which the Entertainment was to be, on pretence of
alterations.

“Three more resignations,” Mr. Tottenham said, who was feverish and
harassed, and looked like a man at the end of his patience. “Heaven be
praised, it will be over to-night? Come early, Earnshaw, if you can
spare the time, and stand by me. If any of the performers get cross, and
refuse to perform, what shall I do?”

“Let them!” cried Edgar; “ungrateful fools, after all your kindness.”

Edgar was too much harassed and annoyed himself to be perfectly rational
in his judgments.

“Don’t let us be uncharitable,” said Mr. Tottenham; “have they perhaps,
after all, much reason for gratitude? Is it not my own crotchet I am
carrying out, in spite of all obstacles? But it will be a lesson--I
think it will be a lesson,” he added. “And, Earnshaw, don’t fail me
to-night.”

Edgar went straight from the shop to Mr. Parchemin’s, to receive the
opinion of the eminent Scotch law authority in respect to the marriage
certificate. He had written to Robert Campbell, at Loch Arroch Head,
suggesting that inquiries might be made about the persons who signed it,
and had heard from him that morning that the landlady of the inn was
certainly to be found, and that she perfectly remembered having put her
name to the paper. The waiter was no longer there, but could be easily
laid hands upon. There was accordingly no hope except in the Scotch
lawyer, who might still make waste paper of the certificate. Edgar found
Mr. Parchemin hot and red, after a controversy with this functionary.

“He laughs at my indignation,” said the old lawyer. “Well, I suppose if
one did not heat one’s self in argument, what he says might have some
justice in it. He says innocent men that let women alone, and innocent
women that behave as they ought to do, will never get any harm from the
Scotch marriage law; and that it’s always a safeguard for a poor girl
that may have been led astray without meaning it. He says--well, I see
you’re impatient--though how such an anomaly can ever be suffered so
near to civilization! Well, he says it’s as good a marriage as if it had
been done in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s
all the comfort I’ve got to give you. I hope it hasn’t got anything
directly to say to you.”

“Thanks,” said Edgar, faintly; “it has to do with some--very dear
friends of mine. I could scarcely feel it more deeply if it concerned
myself.”

“It is a disgrace to civilization!” cried the lawyer--“it is a
subversion of every honest principle. You young men ought to take
warning--”

“--To do a villainy of this kind, when we mean to do it, out of
Scotland?” said Edgar, “or we may find ourselves the victims instead of
the victors? Heaven forbid that I should do anything to save a
scoundrel from his just deserts!”

“But I thought you were interested--deeply interested----”

“Not for him, the cowardly blackguard!” cried Edgar, excited beyond
self-control.

He turned away from the place, holding the lawyer’s opinion, for which
he had spent a large part of his little remaining stock of money,
clutched in his hand. A feverish, momentary sense, almost of
gratification, that Arden should have been thus punished, possessed
him--only for a moment. He hastened to the club, where he could sit
quiet and think it over. He had not been able even to consider his own
business, but had thrust his letters into his pocket without looking at
them.

When he found himself alone, or almost alone, in a corner of the
library, he covered his face with his hands, and yielded to the crushing
influence of this last certainty. Clare was no longer an honoured
matron, the possessor of a well-recognized position, the mother of
children of whom she was proud, the wife of a man whom at least she had
once loved, and who, presumably, had done nothing to make her hate and
scorn him. God help her! What was she now? What was her position to be?
She had no relations to fall back upon, or to stand by her in her
trouble, except himself, who was no relation--only poor Edgar, her
loving brother, bound to her by everything but blood; but, alas! he knew
that in such emergencies blood is everything, and other ties count for
so little. The thought made his heart sick; and he could not be silent,
could not hide it from her, dared not shut up this secret in his own
mind, as he might have done almost anything else that affected her
painfully. There was but one way, but one step before him now.

His letters tumbled out of his pocket as he drew out Miss Lockwood’s
original paper, and he tried to look at them, by way of giving his
overworn mind a pause, and that he might be the better able to choose
the best way of carrying out the duty now before him. These letters
were--some of them, at least--answers to those which he had written in
the excitement and happy tumult of his mind, after Lady Mary’s
unintentional revelation. He read them as through a mist; their very
meaning came dimly upon him, and he could with difficulty realize the
state of his feelings when, all glowing with the prospect of personal
happiness, and the profound and tender exultation with which he found
himself to be still beloved, he had written these confident appeals to
the kindness of his friends. Most likely, had he read the replies with a
disengaged mind, they would have disappointed him bitterly, with a
dreariness of downfall proportioned to his warmth of hope. But in his
present state of mind every sound around him was muffled, every blow
softened. One nail strikes out another, say the astute Italians. The
mind is not capable of two profound and passionate preoccupations at
once. He read them with subdued consciousness, with a veil before his
eyes. They were all friendly, and some were warmly cordial. “What can we
do for you?” they all said. “If you could take a mastership, I have
interest at more than one public school; but, alas! I suppose you did
not even take your degree in England,” one wrote to him. “If you knew
anything about land, or had been trained to the law,” said another, “I
might have got you a land agency in Ireland, a capital thing for a man
of energy and courage; but then I fear you are no lawyer, and not much
of an agriculturist.” “What can you do, my dear fellow?” said a third,
more cautiously. “Think what you are most fit for--you must know best
yourself--and let me know, and I will try all I can do.”

Edgar laughed as he bundled them all back into his pocket. What was he
most fit for? To be an amateur detective, and find out secrets that
broke his heart. A dull ache for his own disappointment (though his mind
was not lively enough to feel disappointed) seemed to add to the general
despondency, the lowered life and oppressed heart of which he had been
conscious without this. But then what had he to do with personal comfort
or happiness? In the first place there lay this tremendous passage
before him--this revelation to be made to Clare.

It was late in the afternoon before he could nerve himself to write the
indispensable letter, from which he felt it was cowardly to shrink. It
was not a model of composition, though it gave him a great deal of
trouble. This is what he said:--


             “SIR,

     “It is deeply against my will that I address you, so long after
     all communication has ended between us; and it is possible that you
     may not remember even the new name with which I sign this. By a
     singular and unhappy chance, facts in your past life, affecting the
     honour and credit of the family, have been brought to my knowledge,
     of all people in the world. If I could have avoided the confidence,
     I should have done so; but it was out of my power. When I say that
     these facts concern a person called Lockwood (or so called, at
     least, before her pretended marriage), you will, I have no doubt,
     understand what I mean. Will you meet me, at any place you may
     choose to appoint, for the purpose of discussing this most
     momentous and fatal business? I have examined it minutely, with the
     help of the best legal authority, from whom the real names of the
     parties have been concealed, and I cannot hold out to you any hope
     that it will be easily arranged. In order, however, to save it from
     being thrown at once into professional hands, and exposed to the
     public, will you communicate with me, or appoint a time and place
     to meet me? I entreat you to do this, for the sake of your children
     and family. I cannot trust myself to appeal to any other sacred
     claim upon you. For God’s sake, let me see you, and tell me if you
     have any plea to raise!

                                                      “EDGAR EARNSHAW.”


He felt that the outburst at the end was injudicious, but could not
restrain the ebullition of feeling. If he could but be allowed to manage
it quietly, to have her misery broken to Clare without any
interposition of the world’s scorn or pity. She was the one utterly
guiltless, but it was she who would be most exposed to animadversion; he
felt this, with his heart bleeding for his sister. If he had but had the
privilege of a brother--if he could have gone to her, and drawn her
gently away, and provided home and sympathy for her, before the blow had
fallen! But neither he nor anyone could do this, for Clare was not the
kind of being to make close friends. She reserved her love for the few
who belonged to her, and had little or none to expend on strangers. Did
she still think of him as one belonging to her, or was his recollection
altogether eclipsed, blotted out from her mind? He began half a dozen
letters to Clare herself, asking if she still thought of him, if she
would allow him to remember that he was once her brother, with a
humility which he could not have shown had she been as happy and
prosperous as all the world believed her to be. But after he had written
these letters, one after another, retouching a phrase here, and an
epithet there, which was too weak or too strong for his excited fancy,
and lingering over her name with tears in his eyes, he destroyed them
all. Until he heard from her husband, he did not feel that he could
venture to write to his sister. His sister!--his poor, forlorn, ruined,
solitary sister, rich as she was, and surrounded by all things
advantageous! a wife, and yet no wife; the mother of children whose
birth would be their shame! Edgar rose up from where he was writing in
the intolerable pang of this thought--he could not keep still while it
flashed through his mind. Clara, the proudest, the purest, the most
fastidious of women--how could she bear it? He said to himself that it
was impossible--impossible--that she must die of it! There was no way of
escape for her. It would kill her, and his was the hand which had to
give the blow.

In this condition, with such thoughts running over in his vexed brain,
to go back to the shop, and find poor Mr. Tottenham wrestling among the
difficulties which, poor man, were overwhelming him, with dark lines of
care under his eyes, and his face haggard with anxiety--imagine, dear
reader, what it was! He could have laughed at the petty trouble; yet no
one could laugh at the pained face, the kind heart wounded, the manifest
and quite overwhelming trouble of the philanthropist.

“I don’t even know yet whether they will keep to their engagements; and
we are all at sixes and sevens, and the company will begin to arrive in
an hour or two!” cried poor Mr. Tottenham. Edgar’s anxieties were so
much more engrossing and terrible that to have a share in these small
ones did him good; and he was so indifferent that he calmed everybody,
brought the unruly performers back to their senses, and thrust all the
arrangements on by the sheer carelessness he felt as to whether they
were ready or not. “Who cares about your play?” he said to Watson, who
came to pour out his grievances. “Do you think the Duchess of
Middlemarch is so anxious to hear you? They will enjoy themselves a
great deal better chatting to each other.”

This brought Mr. Watson and his troupe to their senses, as all Mr.
Tottenham’s agitated remonstrances had not brought them. Edgar did not
care to be in the way of the fine people when they arrived. He got a
kind word from Lady Mary, who whispered to him, “How ill you are
looking! You must tell us what it is, and let us help you;” for this
kind woman found it hard to realise that there were things in which the
support of herself and her husband would be but little efficacious; and
he had approached Lady Augusta, as has been recorded, with some wistful,
hopeless intention of recommending Clare to her, in case of anything
that might happen. But Lady Augusta had grown so pale at the sight of
him, and had thrown so many uneasy glances round her, that Edgar
withdrew, with his heart somewhat heavy, feeling his burden rather more
than he could conveniently bear. He had gone and hid himself in the
library, trying to read, and hearing far off the din of applause--the
distant sound of voices. The noise of the visitors’ feet approaching had
driven him from that refuge, when Mr. Tottenham, in high triumph, led
his guests through his huge establishment. Edgar, dislodged, and not
caring to put himself in the way of further discouragement, chose this
moment to give his message to Phil, and strayed away from sound and
light into the retired passages, when that happened to him in his time
of extremity which it is now my business to record.




CHAPTER XII.

A New Event.


“Have you--forgotten me--then?”

“Forgotten you!” cried Edgar.

Heaven help him!--he did not advance nor take her hands, which she held
out, kept back by his honour and promise--till he saw that her eyes were
full of tears, that her lips were quivering, unable to articulate
anything more, and that her figure swayed slightly, as if tottering.
Then all that was superficial went to the winds. He took her back
through the half-lighted passage, supporting her tenderly, to Mr.
Tottenham’s room. The door closed behind them, and Gussy turned to him
with swimming eyes--eyes running over with tears and wistful happiness.
She could not speak. She let him hold her, and looked up at him, all her
heart in her face. Poor Edgar was seized upon at the same moment, all
unprepared as he was, by that sudden gush of long-restrained feeling
which carries all before it. “Is this how it is to be?” he said, no
louder than a whisper, holding her fast and close, grasping her slender
arm, as if she might still flee from him, or revolt from his touch. But
Gussy had no mind to escape. Either she had nothing to say, or she was
still too much shaken to attempt to say it. She let her head drop like a
flower overcharged, and leaned on him and fell a-sobbing--fell on his
neck, as the Bible says, though Gussy’s little figure fell short of
that, and she only leaned as high as she could reach, resting there like
a child. If ever a man came at a step out of purgatory, or worse, into
Paradise, it was this man. Utterly alone half an hour ago, now companied
so as all the world could not add to him. He did not try to stop her
sobbing, but bent his head down upon hers, and I think for one moment
let his own heart expand into something which was like a sob too--an
inarticulate utterance of all this sudden rapture, unexpected, unlooked
for, impossible as it was.

I do not know which was the first to come to themselves. It must have
been Gussy, whose sobs had relieved her soul. She stirred within his
arm, and lifted her head, and tried to withdraw from him.

“Not yet, not yet,” said Edgar. “Think how long I have wanted you, how
long I have yearned for you; and that I have no right to you even now.”

“Right!” said Gussy, softly--“you have the only right--no one can have
any right but you.”

“Is it so?--is it so? Say it again,” said Edgar. “Say that I am not a
selfish hound, beguiling you; but that you will have it so. Say you will
have it so! What I will is not the question--it is your will that is my
law.”

“Do you know what you are saying--or have you turned a little foolish?”
said the Gussy of old, with a laugh which was full of the tears with
which her eyes were still shining and bright; and then she paused, and
looking up at him, blushing, hazarded an inquiry--“Are you in love with
me now?” she said.

“Now; and for how long?--three years--every day and all day long!” cried
Edgar. “It could not do you any harm so far off. But I should not have
dared to think of you so much if I had ever hoped for this.”

“Do not hold me so tight now,” said Gussy. “I shall not run away. Do you
remember the last time--ah! we were not in love with each other then.”

“But loved each other--the difference is not very great,” he said,
looking at her wistfully, making his eyes once more familiar with her
face.

“Ah! there is a great difference,” said Gussy. “We were only, as you
said, fond of each other; I began to feel it when you were gone. Tell me
all that has happened since,” she said, suddenly--“everything! You said
you had been coming to ask me that dreadful morning. We have belonged to
each other ever since; and so much has happened to you. Tell me
everything; I have a right to know.”

“Nothing has happened to me but the best of all things,” said Edgar,
“and the worst. I have broken my word; I promised to your mother never
to put myself in the way; I have disgraced myself, and I don’t care. And
this has happened to me,” he said low in her ear, “my darling! Gussy,
you are sure you know what you are doing? I am poor, ruined, with no
prospects for the moment----”

“Don’t, please,” said Gussy, throwing back her head with the old pretty
movement. “I suppose you don’t mean to be idle and lazy, and think me a
burden; and I can make myself very useful, in a great many ways. Why
should I have to think what I am doing more than I ought to have done
three years ago, when you came to Thornleigh that morning? I had done my
thinking then.”

“And, please God, you shall not repent of it!” cried the happy young
man--“you shall not repent it, if I can help it. But your mother will
not think so, darling; she will upbraid me with keeping you back--from
better things.”

“That will be to insult me!” cried Gussy, flaming with hot, beautiful
anger and shame. “Edgar, do you think I should have walked into your
arms like this, not waiting to be asked, if I had not thought all this
time that we have been as good as married these three years? Oh! what am
I saying?” cried poor Gussy, overwhelmed with sudden confusion. It had
seemed so natural, so matter-of-fact a statement to her--until she had
said the words, and read a new significance in the glow of delight which
flashed up in his eyes.

Is it necessary to follow this couple further into the foolishness of
their mutual talk?--it reads badly on paper, and in cold blood. They had
forgotten what the hour was, and most other things, when Mr. Tottenham,
very weary, but satisfied, came suddenly into the room, with his head
full of the Entertainment. His eyes were more worn than ever, but the
lines of care under them had melted away, and a fatigued, half-imbecile
smile of pleasure was hanging about his face. He was too much worn out
to judge anyone--to be hard upon anyone that night. Fatigue and relief
of mind had affected him like a genial, gentle intoxication of the
spirit. He stopped short, startled, and perhaps shocked for the moment,
when Edgar, and that white little figure beside him, rose hastily from
the chairs, which had been so very near each other. I am afraid that,
for the first moment, Mr. Tottenham felt a chill of dread that it was
one of his own young ladies from the establishment. He did not speak,
and they did not speak for some moments. Then, with an attempt at
severity, Mr. Tottenham said,

“Gussy, is it possible? How should you have come here?”

“Oh! uncle, forgive us!” said Gussy, taking Edgar’s arm, and clinging to
it, “and speak to mamma for us. I accepted him three years ago, Uncle
Tom. He is the same man--or, rather, a far nicer man,” and here she gave
a closer clasp to his arm, and dropped her voice for the moment, “only
poor. Only poor!--does that make all the difference? Can you tell me any
reason, Uncle Tottenham, why I should give him up, now he has come
back?”

“My dear,” said Mr. Tottenham, alarmed yet conciliatory, “your
mother--no, I don’t pretend I see it--your mother, Gussy, must be the
best judge. Earnshaw, my dear fellow, was it not understood between us?
I don’t blame you. I don’t say I wouldn’t have done the same; but was it
not agreed between us? You should have given me fair warning, and she
should never have come here.”

“I gave Lady Mary fair warning,” said Edgar, who felt himself ready at
this moment to confront the whole world. “I promised to deny myself; but
no power in the world should make me deny Gussy anything she pleased;
and this is what she pleases, it appears,” he said, looking down upon
her with glowing eyes. “A poor thing, sir, but her own--and she chooses
it. I can give up my own will, but Gussy shall have her will, if I can
get it for her. I gave Lady Mary fair warning; and then we met
unawares.”

“And it was all my doing, please, uncle,” said Gussy, with a little
curtsey. She was trembling with happiness, with agitation, with the
mingled excitement and calm of great emotion; but still she could not
shut out from herself the humour of the situation--“it was all my doing,
please.”

“Ah! I see how it is,” said Mr. Tottenham. “You have been carried off,
Earnshaw, and made a prey of against your will. Don’t ask me for my
opinion, yes or no. Take what good you can of to-night, you will have a
pleasant waking up, I promise you, to-morrow morning. The question is,
in the meantime, how are you to get home? Every soul is gone, and my
little brougham is waiting, with places for two only, at the door. Send
that fellow away, and I’ll take you home to your mother.”

But poor Gussy had very little heart to send her recovered lover away.
She clung to his arm, with a face like an April day, between smiles and
tears.

“He says quite true. We shall have a dreadful morning,” she said,
disconsolately. “When can you come, Edgar? I will say nothing till you
come.”

As Gussy spoke there came suddenly back upon Edgar a reflection of all
he had to do. Life had indeed come back to him all at once, her hands
full of thorns and roses piled together. He fixed the time of his visit
to Lady Augusta next morning, as he put Gussy into Mr. Tottenham’s
brougham, and setting off himself at a great pace, arrived at Berkeley
Square as soon as they did, and attended her to the well-known door.
Gussy turned round on the threshold of the house where he had been once
so joyfully received, but where his appearance now, he knew, would be
regarded with horror and consternation, and waved her hand to him as he
went away. But having done so, I am afraid her courage failed, and she
stole away rapidly upstairs, and took refuge in her own room, and even
put herself within the citadel of her bed.

“I came home with Uncle Tottenham in his brougham,” she said to Ada,
who, half-alarmed, paid her a furtive visit, “and I am so tired and
sleepy!”

Poor Gussy, she was safe for that night, but when morning came what was
to become of her? So far from being sleepy, I do not believe that,
between the excitement, the joy, and the terror, she closed her eyes
that whole night.

Mr. Tottenham, too, got out of the brougham at Lady Augusta’s door; his
own house was on the other side of the Square. He sent the carriage
away, and took Edgar’s arm, and marched him solemnly along the damp
pavement.

“Earnshaw, my dear fellow,” he said, in the deepest of sepulchral tones,
“I am afraid you have been very imprudent. You will have a _mauvais
quart d’heure_ to-morrow.”

“I know it,” said Edgar, himself feeling somewhat alarmed, in the midst
of his happiness.

“I am afraid--you ought not to have let her carry you off your feet in
this way; you ought to have been wise for her and yourself too; you
ought to have avoided any explanation. Mind, I don’t say that my
feelings go with that sort of thing; but in common prudence--in justice
to her----”

“Justice to her!” cried Edgar. “If she has been faithful for three
years, do you think she is likely to change now? All that time not a
word has passed between us; but you told me yourself she would not hear
of--anything; that she spoke of retiring from the world. Would that be
wiser or more prudent? Look here, nobody in the world has been so kind
to me as you. I want you to understand me. A man may sacrifice his own
happiness, but has he any right to sacrifice the woman he loves? It
sounds vain, does it not?--but if she chooses to think this her
happiness, am I to contradict her? I will do all that becomes a man,”
cried Edgar, unconsciously adopting, in his excitement, the well-known
words, “but do you mean to say it is a man’s duty to crush, and balk,
and stand out against the woman he loves?”

“You are getting excited,” said Mr. Tottenham. “Speak lower, for
heaven’s sake! Earnshaw; don’t let poor Mary hear of it to-night.”

There was something in the tone in which he said _poor_ Mary, with a
profound comic pathos, as if his wife would be the chief sufferer, which
almost overcame Edgar’s gravity. Poor Mr. Tottenham was weak with his
own sufferings, and with the blessed sense that he had got over them for
the moment.

“What a help you were to me this afternoon,” he said, “though I daresay
your mind was full of other things. Nothing would have settled into
place, and we should have had a failure instead of a great success but
for you. You think it was a great success? Everybody said so. And your
poor lady, Earnshaw--your--friend--what of her? Is it as bad as you
feared?”

“It is as bad as it is possible to be,” said Edgar, suddenly sobered. “I
must ask further indulgence from you, I fear, to see a very bad business
to an end.”

“You mean, a few days’ freedom? Yes, certainly; perhaps it might be as
well in every way. And money--are you sure you have money? Perhaps it is
just as well you did not come to the Square, though they were ready for
you. Do you come with me to-night?”

“I am at my old rooms,” said Edgar. “Now that the Entertainment is over,
I shall not return till my business is done--or not then, if you think
it best.”

“Nothing of the sort!” cried his friend--“only till it is broken to poor
Mary,” he added, once more lachrymose. “But, Earnshaw, poor fellow, I
feel for you. You’ll let me know what Augusta says?”

And Mr. Tottenham opened his door with his latch-key, and crept upstairs
like a criminal. He was terrified for his wife, to whom he felt this bad
news must be broken with all the precaution possible; and though he
could not prevent his own thoughts from straying into a weak-minded
sympathy with the lovers, he did not feel at all sure that she would
share his sentiments.

“Mary, at heart, is a dreadful little aristocrat,” he said to himself,
as he lingered in his dressing-room to avoid her questions; not knowing
that Lady Mary’s was the rash hand which had set this train of
inflammables first alight.

Next morning--ah! next morning, there was the rub!--Edgar would have to
face Lady Augusta, and Gussy her mother, and Mr. Tottenham, who felt
himself by this time an accomplice, his justly indignant wife; besides
that the latter unfortunate gentleman had also to go to the shop, and
face the resignations offered to himself, and deadly feuds raised
amongst his “assistants,” by the preliminaries of last night. In the
meantime, all the culprits tried hard not to think of the terrible
moment that awaited them, and I think the lovers succeeded. Lovers have
the best of it in such emergencies; the enchanted ground of recollection
and imagination to which they can return being more utterly severed from
the common world than any other refuge.

The members of the party who remained longest up were Lady Augusta and
Ada, who sat over the fire in the mother’s bed-room, and discussed
everything with a generally satisfied and cheerful tone in their
communings.

“Gussy came home with Uncle Tottenham in his brougham,” said Ada. “She
has gone to bed. She was out in her district a long time this morning,
and I think she is very tired to-night.”

“Oh, her district!” cried Lady Augusta. “I like girls to think of the
poor, my dear--you know I do--I never oppose anything in reason; but why
Gussy should work like a slave, spoiling her hands and complexion, and
exposing herself in all weathers for the sake of her district! And it is
not as if she had no opportunities. I wish _you_ would speak to her,
Ada. She _ought_ to marry, if it were only for the sake of the boys; and
why she is so obstinate, I cannot conceive.”

“Mamma, don’t say so--you know well enough why,” said Ada quietly. “I
don’t say you should give in to her; but at least you know.”

“Well, I must say I think my daughters have been hard upon me,” said
Lady Augusta, with a sigh--“even you, my darling--though I can’t find it
in my heart to blame you. But, to change the subject, did you notice,
Ada, how well Harry was looking? Dear fellow! he has got over his little
troubles with your father. Tottenham’s has done him good; he always got
on well with Mary and your odd, good uncle. Harry is so good-hearted and
so simple-minded, he can get on with anybody; and I quite feel that I
had a good inspiration,” said Lady Augusta, with a significant nod of
her head, “when I sent him there. I am sure it has been for everybody’s
good.”

“In what way, mamma?” said Ada, who was not at all so confident in
Harry’s powers.

“Well, dear, he has been on the spot,” said Lady Augusta; “he has
exercised an excellent influence. When poor Edgar, poor dear fellow,
came up to me to-night, I could not think what to do for the best, for I
expected Gussy to appear any moment; and even Mary and Beatrice, had
they seen him, would have made an unnecessary fuss. But he took the hint
at my first glance. I can only believe it was dear Harry’s doing,
showing him the utter hopelessness--Poor fellow!” said Lady Augusta,
putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “Oh! my dear, how inscrutable are
the ways of Providence! Had things been ordered otherwise, what a
comfort he might have been to us--what a help!”

“When you like him so well yourself, mamma,” said gentle Ada, “you
should understand poor Gussy’s feelings, who was always encouraged to
think of him--till the change came.”

“That is just what I say, dear,” said Lady Augusta; “if things had been
ordered otherwise! We can’t change the arrangements of Providence,
however much we may regret them. But at least it is a great comfort
about dear Harry. How well he was looking!--and how kind and
affectionate! I almost felt as if he were a boy again, just come from
school, and so glad to see his people. It was by far the greatest
pleasure I had to-night.”

And so this unsuspecting woman went to bed. She had a good night, for
she was not afraid of the morrow, dismal as were the tidings it was
fated to bring to her maternal ear.




CHAPTER XIII.

Berkeley Square.


At eleven o’clock next morning, Edgar, with a beating heart, knocked at
the door in Berkeley Square. The footman, who was an old servant, and
doubtless remembered all about him, let him in with a certain
hesitation--so evident that Edgar reassured him by saying, “I am
expected,” which was all he could manage to get out with his dry lips.
Heaven send him better utterance when he gets to the moment of his
trial! I leave the reader to imagine the effect produced when the door
of the morning room, in which Lady Augusta was seated with her
daughters, was suddenly opened, and Edgar, looking very pale, and
terribly serious, walked into the room.

They were all there. The table was covered with patterns for Mary’s
trousseau, and she herself was examining a heap of shawls, with Ada, at
the window. Gussy, expectant, and changing colour so often that her
agitation had already been remarked upon several times this morning, had
kept close to her mother. Beatrice was practising a piece of music at
the little piano in the corner, which was the girls’ favourite refuge
for their musical studies. They all stopped in their various
occupations, and turned round when he came in. Lady Augusta sprang to
her feet, and put out one hand in awe and horror, to hold him at arm’s
length. Her first look was for him, her second for Gussy, to whom she
said, “Go--instantly!” as distinctly as eyes could speak; but, for once
in her life, Gussy would not understand her mother’s eyes. And, what was
worst of all, the two young ones, Mary and Beatrice, when they caught
sight of Edgar, uttered each a cry of delight, and rushed upon him with
eager hands outstretched.

“Oh! you have come home for It!--say you have come home for It!” cried
Mary, to whom her approaching wedding was the one event which shadowed
earth and heaven.

“Girls!” cried Lady Augusta, severely, “do not lay hold upon Mr.
Earnshaw in that rude way. Go upstairs, all of you. Mr. Earnshaw’s
business, no doubt, is with me.”

“Oh! mamma, mayn’t I talk to him for a moment?” cried Mary, aggrieved,
and unwilling, in the fulness of her privileges, to acknowledge herself
still under subjection.

But Lady Augusta’s eyes spoke very decisively this time, and Ada set the
example by hastening away. Even Ada, however, could not resist the
impulse of putting her hand in Edgar’s as she passed him. She divined
everything in a moment. She said “God bless you!” softly, so that no one
could hear it but himself. Only Gussy did not move.

“I must stay, mamma,” she said, in tones so vehement that even Lady
Augusta was awed by them. “I will never disobey you again, but I must
stay!”

And then Edgar was left alone, facing the offended lady. Gussy had
stolen behind her, whence she could throw a glance of sympathy to her
betrothed, undisturbed by her mother. Lady Augusta did not ask him to
sit down. She seated herself in a stately manner, like a queen receiving
a rebel.

“Mr. Earnshaw,” she said, solemnly, “after all that has passed between
us, and all you have promised--I must believe that there is some very
grave reason for your unexpected visit to-day.”

What a different reception it was from that she had given him,
when--coming, as she supposed, on the same errand which really brought
him now--he had to tell her of his loss of everything! Then the whole
house had been pleasantly excited over the impending proposal; and Gussy
had been kissed and petted by all her sisters, as the heroine of the
drama; and Lady Augusta’s motherly heart had swelled with gratitude to
God that she had secured for her daughter not only a good match, but a
good man. It was difficult for Edgar, at least, to shut out all
recollection of the one scene in the other. He answered with less
humility than he had shown before, and with a dignity which impressed
her, in spite of herself,

“Yes, there is a very grave reason for it,” he said--“the gravest
reason--without which I should not have intruded upon you. I made you a
voluntary promise some time since, seeing your dismay at my
re-appearance, that I would not interfere with any of your plans, or put
myself in your way.”

“Yes,” said Lady Augusta, in all the horror of suspense. Gussy, behind,
whispered, “You have not!--you have not!” till her mother turned and
looked at her, when she sank upon the nearest seat, and covered her face
with her hands.

“I might say that I have not, according to the mere letter of my word,”
said Edgar; “but I will not stand by that. Lady Augusta, I have come to
tell you that I have broken my promise. I find I had no right to make
it. I answered for myself, but not for another dearer than myself. The
pledge was given in ignorance, and foolishly. I have broken it, and I
have come to ask you to forgive me.”

“You have broken your word? Mr. Earnshaw, I was not aware that gentlemen
ever did so. I do not believe you are capable of doing so,” she cried,
in great agitation. “Gussy, go upstairs, you have nothing to do with
this discussion--you were not a party to the bargain. I cannot--cannot
allow myself to be treated in this way! Mr. Earnshaw, think what you are
saying! You cannot go back from your word!”

“Forgive me,” he said, “I have done it. Had I known all, I would not
have given the promise; I told Lady Mary Tottenham so; my pledge was for
myself, to restrain my own feelings. From the moment that it was
betrayed to me that she too had feelings to restrain, my very principle
of action, my rule of honour, was changed. It was no longer my duty to
deny myself to obey you. My first duty was to her, Lady Augusta--if in
that I disappoint you, if I grieve you----”

“You do more than disappoint me--you _horrify_ me!” cried Lady Augusta.
“You make me think that nothing is to be relied upon--no man’s word to
be trusted, No, no, we must have no more of this,” she said, with
vehemence. “Forget what you have said, Mr. Earnshaw, and I will try to
forget it. Go to your room, Gussy--this is no scene for you.”

Edgar stood before his judge motionless, saying no more. I think he felt
now how completely the tables were turned, and what an almost cruel
advantage he had over her. His part was that of fact and reality, which
no one could conjure back into nothingness; and hers that of opposition,
disapproval, resistance to the inevitable. He was the rock, and she the
vexed and vexing waves, dashing against it, unable to overthrow it. In
their last great encounter these positions had been reversed, and it was
she who had command of the situation. Now, howsoever parental authority
might resist, or the world oppose, the two lovers knew very well, being
persons in their full senses, and of full age, that they had but to
persevere, and their point would be gained.

Lady Augusta felt it too--it was this which had made her so deeply
alarmed from the first, so anxious to keep Edgar at arm’s length. The
moment she caught sight of him on this particular morning, she felt that
all was over. But that certainty unfortunately does not quench the
feelings of opposition, though it may take all hope of eventual success
from them. All that this secret conviction of the uselessness of
resistance did for Lady Augusta was to make her more hot, more
desperate, more _acharnée_ than she had ever been. She grew angry at the
silence of her opponent--his very patience seemed a renewed wrong, a
contemptuous evidence of conscious power.

“You do not say anything,” she cried. “You allow me to speak without an
answer. What do you mean me to understand by this--that you defy me? I
have treated you as a friend all along. I thought you were good, and
honourable, and true. I have always stood up for you--treated you almost
like a son! And is this to be the end of it? You defy me! You teach my
own child to resist my will! You do not even keep up the farce of
respecting my opinion--now that she has gone over to your side!”

Here poor Lady Augusta got up from her chair, flushed and trembling,
with the tears coming to her eyes, and an angry despair warring against
very different feelings in her mind. She rose up, not looking at either
of the culprits, and leant her arm on the mantelpiece, and gazed
unawares at her own excited, troubled countenance in the glass. Yes,
they had left her out of their calculations; she who had always (she
knew) been so good to them! It no longer seemed worth while to send
Gussy away, to treat her as if she were innocent of the complot. She had
gone over to the other side. Lady Augusta felt herself deserted,
slighted, injured, with the two against her--and determined, doubly
determined, never to yield.

“Mamma,” said Gussy, softly, “do not be angry with Edgar. Don’t you
know, as well as I, that I have always been on his side?”

“Don’t venture to say a word to me, Gussy,” said Lady Augusta. “I will
not endure it from you!”

“Mamma, I must speak. It was you who turned my thoughts to him first.
Was it likely that _I_ should forget him because he was in trouble? Why,
_you_ did not! You yourself were fond of him all along, and trusted him
so that you took his pledge to give up his own will to yours. But I
never gave any pledge,” said Gussy, folding her hands. “You never asked
me what I thought, or I should have told you. I have been waiting for
Edgar. He has not dared to come to me since he came back to England,
because of his promise to you; and I have not dared to go to him,
because--simply because I was a woman. But when we met, mamma--when we
_met_, I say--not his seeking or my seeking--by accident, as you call
it----”

“Oh! accident!” cried Lady Augusta, with a sneer, which sat very
strangely upon her kind face. “Accident! One knows how such accidents
come to pass!”

“If you doubt our truth,” cried Gussy, in a little outburst, “of course
there is no more to say.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the mother, faintly. She had put herself in
the wrong. The sneer, the first and only sneer of which poor Lady
Augusta had known herself to be guilty, turned to a weapon against her.
Compunction and shame filled up the last drop of the conflicting
emotions that possessed her. “It is easy for you both to speak,” she
said, “very easy; to you it is nothing but a matter of feeling. You
never ask yourself how it is to be done. You never think of the thousand
difficulties with the world, with your father, with circumstances. What
have I taken the trouble to struggle for? You yourself do me justice,
Gussy! Not because I would not have preferred Edgar--oh! don’t come near
me!” she cried, holding out her hand to keep him back; as he approached
a step at the softening sound of his name--“don’t work upon my feelings!
It is cruel; it is taking a mean advantage. Not because I did not prefer
him--but because life is not a dream, as you think it, not a romance,
nor a poem. What am I to do?” cried Lady Augusta, clasping her hands,
and raising them with unconscious, most natural theatricalness. “What am
I to do? How am I to face your father, your brothers, the world?”

I do not know what the two listeners could have done, after the climax
of this speech, but to put themselves at her feet, with that instinct of
nature in extreme circumstances which the theatre has seized for its
own, and given a partially absurd colour to; but they were saved from
thus committing themselves by the sudden and precipitate entrance of
Lady Mary, who flung the door open, and suddenly rushed among them
without warning or preparation.

“I come to warn you,” she cried, “Augusta!” Then stopped short, seeing
at a glance the state of affairs.

They all stood gazing at each other for a moment, the others not
divining what this interruption might mean, and feeling instinctively
driven back upon conventional self-restraint and propriety, by the
entrance of the new-comer. Lady Augusta unclasped her hands, and stole
back guiltily to her chair. Edgar recovered his wits, and placed one for
Lady Mary. Gussy dropped upon the sofa behind her mother, and cast a
secret glance of triumph at him from eyes still wet with tears. He alone
remained standing, a culprit still on his trial, who felt the number of
his judges increased, without knowing whether his cause would take a
favourable or unfavourable aspect in the eyes of the new occupant of the
judicial bench.

“What have you all been doing?” said Lady Mary--“you look as much
confused and scared by my appearance as if I had disturbed you in the
midst of some wrong-doing or other. Am I to divine what has happened? It
is what I was coming to warn you against; I was going to say that I
could no longer answer for Mr. Earnshaw--”

“I have spoken for myself,” said Edgar. “Lady Augusta knows that all my
ideas and my duties have changed. I do not think I need stay longer. I
should prefer to write to Mr. Thornleigh at once, unless Lady Augusta
objects; but I can take no final negative now from anyone but Gussy
herself.”

“And that he shall never have!” cried Gussy, with a ring of premature
triumph in her voice. Her mother turned round upon her again with a
glance of fire.

“Is that the tone you have learned among the Sisters?” said Lady
Augusta, severely. “Yes, go, Mr. Earnshaw, go--we have had enough of
this.”

Edgar was perhaps as much shaken as any of them by all he had gone
through. He went up to Lady Augusta, and took her half-unwilling hand
and kissed it.

“Do you remember,” he said, “dear Lady Augusta, when you cried over me
in my ruin, and kissed me like my mother? _I_ cannot forget it, if I
should live a hundred years. You have never abandoned me, though you
feared me. Say one kind word to me before I go.”

Lady Augusta tried hard not to look at the supplicant. She turned her
head away, she gulped down a something in her throat which almost
overcame her. The tears rushed to her eyes.

“Don’t speak to me!” she cried--“don’t speak to me! Shall I not be a
sufferer too? God bless you, Edgar! I have always felt like your mother.
Go away!--go away!--don’t speak to me any more!”

Edgar had the sense to obey her without another look or word. He did not
even pause to glance at Gussy (at which she was much aggrieved), but
left the room at once. And then Gussy crept to her mother’s side, and
knelt down there, clinging with her arms about the vanquished
Rhadamantha; and the three women kissed each other, and cried together,
not quite sure whether it was for sorrow or joy.

“You are in love with him yourself, Augusta!” cried Lady Mary, laughing
and crying together before this outburst was over.

“And so I am,” said Gussy’s mother, drying her kind eyes.

Edgar, as he rushed out, saw heads peeping over the staircase, of which
he took no notice, though one of them was no less than the curled and
shining head of the future Lady Granton, destined Marchioness (one day
or other) of Hauteville. He escaped from these anxious spies, and rushed
through the hall, feeling himself safest out of the house. But on the
threshold he met Harry Thornleigh, who looked at him from head to foot
with an insolent surprise which made Edgar’s blood boil.

“You here!” said Harry, with unmistakably disagreeable intention; then
all at once his tone changed--Edgar could not imagine why--and he held
out his hand in greeting. “Missed you at Tottenham’s,” said Harry; “they
all want you. That little brute Phil is getting unendurable. I wish
you’d whop him when you go back.”

“I shall not be back for some days,” said Edgar shortly. “I have
business----”

“Here?” asked Harry, with well-simulated surprise. “If you’ll let me
give you a little advice, Earnshaw, and won’t take it amiss--I can’t
help saying you’ll get no good here.”

“Thank you,” said Edgar, feeling a glow of offence mount to his face. “I
suppose every man is the best judge in his own case; but, in the
meantime, I am leaving town--for a day or two.”

“_Au revoir_, then, at Tottenham’s,” said Harry, with a nod,
half-hostile, half-friendly, and marched into his own house, or what
would one day be his own house, with the air of a master. Edgar left it
with a curious sense of the discouragement meant to be conveyed to him,
which was half-whimsical, half-painful. Harry meant nothing less than to
make him feel that his presence was undesired and inopportune, without,
however, making any breach with him; he had his own reasons for keeping
up a certain degree of friendship with Edgar, but he had no desire that
it should go any further than he thought proper and suitable. As for his
sister’s feelings in the matter, Harry ignored and scouted them with
perfect calm and self-possession. If she went and entered a Sisterhood,
as they had all feared at one time, why, she would make a fool of
herself, and there would be an end of it! “I shouldn’t interfere,” Harry
had said. “It would be silly; but there would be an end of her--no more
responsibility, and that sort of thing. Let her, if she likes, so long
as you’re sure she’ll stay.” But to allow her to make “a low marriage”
was an entirely different matter. Therefore he set Edgar down, according
to his own consciousness, even though he was quite disinclined to
quarrel with Edgar. He was troubled by no meltings of heart, such as
disturbed the repose of his mother. He liked the man well enough, but
what had that to do with it? It was necessary that Gussy should marry
well if she married at all--not so much for herself as for the future
interests of the house of Thornleigh. Harry felt that to have a set of
little beggars calling him “uncle,” in the future ages, and sheltering
themselves under the shadow of Thornleigh, was a thing totally out of
the question. The heir indeed might choose for himself, having it in his
power to bestow honour, as in the case of King Cophetua. But probably
even King Cophetua would have deeply disapproved, and indeed interdicted
beggar-maids for his brother, how much more beggar-men for his
sisters--or any connection which could detract from the importance of
the future head of the house.




CHAPTER XIV.

A Suggestion.


Having found his family in considerable agitation, the cause of which
they did not disclose to him, but from which he formed, by his unaided
genius, the agreeable conclusion that Edgar had been definitely sent
off, probably after some presumptuous offer, which Gussy at last was
wise enough to see the folly of--“I see you’ve sent that fellow off for
good,” he said to his sister; “and I’m glad of it.”

“Oh! yes, for good,” said Gussy, with a flash in her eyes, which he, not
very brilliant in his perceptions, took for indignation at Edgar’s
presumption.

“He is a cheeky beggar,” said unconscious Harry; “a setting down will do
him good.”

But though his heart was full of his own affairs, he thought it best, on
the whole, to defer the confidence with which he meant to honour Lady
Augusta, to a more convenient season. Harry was not particularly bright,
and he felt his own concerns to be so infinitely more important than
anything concerning “the girls,” that the two things could not be put in
comparison; but yet the immediate precedent of the sending away of
Gussy’s lover was perhaps not quite the best that could be wished for
the favourable hearing of Harry’s love. Besides, Lady Augusta was not so
amiable that day as she often was. She was surrounded by a flutter of
girls, putting questions, teasing her for replies, which she seemed very
little disposed to give; and Harry had somewhat fallen in his mother’s
opinion, since it had been proved that to have him “on the spot” had
really been quite inefficacious for her purpose. Her confidence in him
had been so unjustifiably great, though Harry was totally ignorant of
it, that her unexpected disapproval was in proportion now.

“It was not Harry’s fault,” Ada had ventured to say. “How could he guide
events that happened in London when he was at Tottenham’s?”

“He ought to have paid more attention,” was all that Lady Augusta said.
And unconsciously she turned a cold shoulder to Harry, rather glad, on
the whole, that there was somebody, rightly or wrongly, to blame.

So Harry returned to Tottenham’s with his aunt, hurriedly proffering a
visit a few days after. Nobody perceived the suppressed excitement with
which he made this offer, for the house was too full of the stir of one
storm, scarcely blown over, to think of another. He went back,
accordingly, into the country stillness, and spent another lingering
twilight hour with Margaret. How different the atmosphere seemed to be
in which she was! It was another world to Harry; he seemed to himself a
better man. How kind he felt towards the little girl!--he who would have
liked to kick Phil, and thought the Tottenham children so ridiculously
out of place, brought to the front, as they always were. When little
Sibby was “brought to the front,” her mother seemed but to gain a grace
the more, and in the cottage Harry was a better man. He took down with
him the loveliest bouquet of flowers that could be got in Covent Garden,
and a few plants in pots, the choicest of their kind, and quite
unlikely, had he known it, to suit the atmosphere of the poky little
cottage parlour.

Mr. Franks had begun to move out of the doctor’s house, and very soon
the new family would be able to make their entrance. Margaret and her
brother were going to town to get some furniture, and Harry volunteered
to give them the benefit of his experience, and join their party.

“But we want cheap things,” Margaret said, true to her principle of
making no false pretences that could be dispensed with. This did not in
the least affect Harry; he would have stood by and listened to her
cheapening a pot or kettle with a conviction that it was the very best
thing to do. There are other kinds of love, and some which do not so
heartily accept as perfect all that is done by their object; and there
are different stages of love, in not all of which, perhaps, is this
beautiful satisfaction apparent; but at present Harry could see nothing
wrong in the object of his adoration. Whatever she did was right,
graceful, beautiful--the wisest and the best. I do not suppose it is in
the nature of things that this lovely and delightful state of sentiment
could last--but for the moment so it was. And thus, while poor Lady
Augusta passed her days peacefully enough--half happy, half wretched,
now allowing herself to listen to Gussy’s anticipations, now asking
bitterly how on earth they expected to exist--_this_ was preparing for
her which was to turn even the glory of Mary’s approaching wedding into
misery, and overwhelm the whole house of Thornleigh with dismay. So
blind is human nature, that Lady Augusta had not the slightest
apprehension about Harry. He, at least, was out of harm’s way--so long
as the poor boy could find anything to amuse him in the country--she
said to herself, with a sigh of satisfaction and relief.

At the other Tottenham’s, things were settling down after the
Entertainment, and happily the result had been so gratifying and
successful that all the feuds and searching of hearts had calmed down.
The supper had been “beautiful,” the guests gracious, the enjoyment
almost perfect. Thereafter, to his dying day, Mr. Robinson was able to
quote what Her Grace the Duchess of Middlemarch had said to him on the
subject of his daughter’s performance, and the Duchess’s joke became a
kind of capital for the establishment, always ready to be drawn upon. No
other establishment had before offered a subject of witty remark (though
Her Grace, good soul, was totally unaware of having been witty) to a
Duchess--no other young ladies and gentlemen attached to a house of
business had ever hobbed and nobbed with the great people in society.
The individuals who had sent in resignations were too glad to be allowed
to forget them, and Mr. Tottenham was in the highest feather, and felt
his scheme to have prospered beyond his highest hopes.

“There is nothing so humanizing as social intercourse,” he said. “I
don’t say my people are any great things, and we all know that society,
as represented by Her Grace of Middlemarch, is not overwhelmingly witty
or agreeable--eh, Earnshaw? But somehow, in the clash of the two
extremes, something is struck out--a spark that you could not have
otherwise--a really improving influence. I have always thought so; and,
thank heaven, I have lived to carry out my theory.”

“At the cost of very hard work, and much annoyance,” said Edgar.

“Oh! nothing--nothing, Earnshaw--mere bagatelles. I was tired, and had
lost my temper--very wrong, but I suppose it will happen sometimes; and
not being perfect myself, how am I to expect my people to be perfect?”
said the philanthropist. “Never mind these little matters. The pother
has blown over, and the good remains. By the way, Miss Lockwood is
asking for you, Earnshaw--have you cleared up that business of hers?
She’s in a bad way, poor creature! She would expose herself with bare
arms and shoulders, till I sent her an opera-cloak, at a great
sacrifice, from Robinson’s department, to cover her up; and she’s caught
more cold. Go and see her, there’s a good fellow; she’s always asking
for you.”

Miss Lockwood was in the ladies’ sitting-room, where Edgar had seen her
before, wrapped in the warm red opera-cloak which Mr. Tottenham had
sent her, and seated by the fire. Her cheeks were more hollow than ever,
her eyes full of feverish brightness.

“Look here,” she said, when Edgar entered, “I don’t want you any longer.
You’ve got it in your head I’m in a consumption, and you are keeping my
papers back, thinking I’m going to die. I ain’t going to die--no such
intention--and I’ll trouble you either to go on directly and get me my
rights, or give me back all my papers, and I’ll look after them myself.”

“You are very welcome to your papers,” said Edgar. “I have written to
Mr. Arden, to ask him to see me, but that is not on your account. I will
give you, if you please, everything back.”

This did not content the impatient sufferer.

“Oh! I don’t want them back,” she said, pettishly--“I want you to push
on--to push on! I’m tired of this life--I should like to try what a
change would do. If he does not choose to take me home, he might take me
to Italy, or somewhere out of these east winds. I’ve got copies all
ready directed to send to his lawyers, in case you should play me false,
or delay. I’m not going to die, don’t you think it; but now I’ve made up
my mind to it, I’ll have my rights!”

“I hope you will take care of yourself in the meantime,” said Edgar,
compassionately, looking at her with a somewhat melancholy face.

“Oh! get along with your doleful looks,” said Miss Lockwood, “trying to
frighten me, like all the rest. I want a change--that’s what I
want--change of air and scene. I want to go to Italy or somewhere. Push
on--push on, and get it settled. I don’t want your sympathy--_that’s_
what I want of you.”

Edgar heard her cough echo after him as he went along the long narrow
passage, where he had met Gussy, back to Mr. Tottenham’s room. His
patron called him from within as he was passing by.

“Earnshaw!” he cried, dropping his voice low, “I have not asked you
yet--how did you get on, poor fellow, up at the Square?”

“I don’t quite know,” said Edgar--“better than I hoped; but I must see
Mr. Thornleigh, or write to him. Which will be the best?”

“Look here,” said Mr. Tottenham, “I’ll do that for you. I know
Thornleigh; he’s not a bad fellow at bottom, except when he’s worried.
He sees when a thing’s no use. I daresay he’d make a stand, if there was
any hope; but as you’re determined, and Gussy’s determined----”

“We are,” said Edgar. “Don’t think I don’t grudge her as much as anyone
can to poverty and namelessness; but since it is her choice----”

“So did Mary,” said Mr. Tottenham, following out his own thoughts, with
a comprehensible disregard of grammar. “They stood out as long as they
could, but they had to give in at last; and so must everybody give in at
last, if only you hold to it. That’s the secret--stick to it!--nothing
can stand against that.” He wrung Edgar’s hand, and patted him on the
back, by way of encouragement. “But don’t tell anyone I said so,” he
added, nodding, with a humorous gleam out of his grey eyes.

Edgar found more letters awaiting him at his club--letters of the same
kind as yesterday’s, which he read with again a totally changed
sentiment. Clare had gone into the background, Gussy had come uppermost.
He read them eagerly, with his mind on the stretch to see what might be
made of them. Everybody was kind. “Tell us what you can do--how we can
help you,” they said. After all, it occurred to him now, in the
practical turn his mind had taken, “What could he do?” The answer was
ready--“Anything.” But then this was a very vague answer, he suddenly
felt; and to identify any one thing or other that he could do, was
difficult. He was turning over the question deeply in his mind, when a
letter, with Lord Newmarch’s big official seal, caught his eye. He
opened it hurriedly, hoping to find perhaps a rapid solution of his
difficulty there. It ran thus:--


          “MY DEAR EARNSHAW,

     “I am sorry to be obliged to inform you that, after keeping us in a
     state of uncertainty for about a year, Runtherout has suddenly
     announced to me that he feels quite well again, and means to resume
     work at once, and withdraw his resignation. He attributes this
     fortunate change in his circumstances to Parr’s Life Pills, or
     something equally venerable. I am extremely sorry for this
     _contretemps_, which at once defeats my desire of serving you, and
     deprives the department of the interesting information which I am
     sure your knowledge of foreign countries would have enabled you to
     transmit to us. The Queen’s Messengers seem indeed to be in a
     preternaturally healthy condition, and hold out few hopes of any
     vacancy. Accept my sincere regrets for this disappointment, and if
     you can think of anything else I can do to assist you, command my
     services.

                      “Believe me, dear Earnshaw,
                              “Very truly yours,
                                        “NEWMARCH.

     “P.S.--What would you say to a Consulship?”


Edgar read this letter with a great and sharp pang of disappointment. An
hour before, had anyone asked him, he would have said he had no faith
whatever in Lord Newmarch; yet now he felt, by the keenness of his
mortification, that he had expected a great deal more than he had ever
owned even to himself. He flung the letter down on the table beside him,
and covered his face with his hands. It seemed to him that he had lost
one of the primary supports on which, without knowing, he had been
building of late. Now was there nothing before Gussy’s betrothed--he who
had ventured to entangle her fate with his, and to ask of parents and
friends to bless the bargain--but a tutorship in a great house, and kind
Mr. Tottenham’s favour, who was no great man, nor had any power, nor
anything but mere money. He could not marry Gussy upon Mr. Tottenham’s
money, or take her to another man’s house, to be a cherished and petted
dependent, as they had made him. I don’t think it was till next day,
when again the wheel had gone momentarily round, and he had set out on
Clare’s business, leaving Gussy behind him, that he observed the
pregnant and pithy postscript, which threw a certain gleam of light upon
Lord Newmarch’s letter. “How should you like a Consulship?” Edgar had no
great notion what a Consulship was. What kind of knowledge or duties was
required for the humblest representative of Her Majesty, he knew almost
as little as if this functionary had been habitually sent to the moon.
“Should I like a Consulship?” he said to himself, as the cold, yet
cheerful sunshine of early Spring streamed over the bare fields and
hedgerows which swept past the windows of the railway carriage in which
he sat. A vague exhilaration sprang up in his mind--perhaps from that
thought, perhaps from the sunshine only, which always had a certain
enlivening effect upon this fanciful young man. Perhaps, after all,
though he did not at first know what it was, this was the thing that he
could do, and which all his friends were pledged to get for him. And
once again he forgot all about his present errand, and amused himself,
as he rushed along, by attempts to recollect what the Consul was like at
various places he knew where such a functionary existed, and what he
did, and how he lived. The only definite recollection in his mind was of
an office carefully shut up during the heat of the day, with cool, green
_persiane_ all closed, a soft current of air rippling over a marble
floor, and no one visible but a dreamy Italian clerk, to tell when H. B.
M.’s official representative would be visible. “I could do that much,”
Edgar said to himself, with a smile of returning happiness; but what the
Consul did when he was visible, was what he did not know. No doubt he
would have to sing exceedingly small when there was an ambassador within
reach, or even the merest butterfly of an _attaché_, but apart from such
gorgeous personages, the Consul, Edgar knew, had a certain importance.

This inquiry filled his mind with animation during all the long,
familiar journey towards Arden, which he had feared would be full of
painful recollections. He was almost ashamed of himself, when he stopped
at the next station before Arden, to find that not a single recollection
had visited him. Hope and imagination had carried the day over
everything else, and the problematical Consul behind his green
_persiane_ had routed even Clare.

The letter, however, which had brought him here had been of a
sufficiently disagreeable kind to make more impression upon him. Arthur
Arden had never pretended to any loftiness of feeling, or even civility
towards his predecessor, and Edgar’s note had called forth the following
response:--


     “SIR,--I don’t know by what claim you, an entire stranger to my
     family, take it upon you to thrust yourself into my affairs. I have
     had occasion to resent this interference before, and I am certainly
     still less inclined to support it now. I know nothing of any
     person named Lockwood, who can be of the slightest importance to
     me. Nevertheless, as you have taken the liberty to mix yourself up
     with some renewed annoyance, I request you will meet me on Friday,
     at the ‘Arden Arms,’ at Whitmarsh, where I have some business--to
     let me know at once what your principal means--I might easily add
     to answer to me what you have to do with it, or with me, or my
     concerns.

                                                             “A. ARDEN.

     “P.S.--If you do not appear, I will take it as a sign that you have
     thought better of it, and that the person you choose to represent
     has come to her senses.”


Edgar had been able to forget this letter, and the interview to which it
conducted him, thinking of his imaginary Consul! I think the reader will
agree with me that his mind must have been in a very peculiar condition.
He kept his great-coat buttoned closely up, and his hat down over his
eyes, as he got out at the little station. He was not known at
Whitmarsh, as he had been known at Arden, but still there was a chance
that some one might recognize him. The agreeable thoughts connected with
the Consul, fortunately, had left him perfectly cool, and when he got
out in Clare’s county, on her very land, the feeling of the past began
to regain dominion over him. If he should meet Clare, what would she say
to him? Would she know him? would she recognize him as her brother, or
hold him at arm’s length as a stranger? And what would she think, he
wondered, with the strangest, giddy whirling round of brain and mind, if
she knew that the dream of three years ago was, after all, to come true;
that, though Arden was not his, Gussy was his; and that, though she no
longer acknowledged him as her brother, Gussy had chosen him for her
husband. It was the only question there was any doubt about at one time.
Now it was the only thing that was true.

With this bewildering consciousness of the revolutions of time, yet the
steadfastness of some things which were above time, Edgar walked into
the little old-fashioned country inn, scarcely venturing to take off his
hat for fear of recognition, and was shown into the best parlour, where
Mr. Arden awaited him.




CHAPTER XV.

The Ardens.


Arthur Arden, Esq., of Arden, was a different man from the needy cousin
of the Squire, the hanger-on of society, the fine gentleman out at
elbows, whose position had bewildered yet touched the supposed legal
proprietor of the estates, and head of the family, during Edgar’s brief
reign. A poor man knocking about the world, when he has once lost his
reputation, has no particular object to stimulate him to the effort
necessary for regaining it. But when a man who sins by will, and not by
weakness of nature, gains a position in which virtue is necessary and
becoming, and where vice involves a certain loss of prestige, nothing is
easier than moral reformation. Arthur Arden had been a strictly moral
man for all these years; he had given up all vagabond vices, the
peccadilloes of the Bohemian. He was _rangé_ in every sense of the word.
A more decorous, stately house was not in the county; a man more correct
in all his duties never set an example to a parish. I do not know that
the essential gain was very great. He took his vices in another way; he
was hard as the nether millstone to all who came in his way, grasping
and tyrannical. He did nothing that was not exacted from him, either by
law, or public opinion, or personal vanity; on every other side he was
in panoply of steel against all prayers, all intercessions, all
complaints.

Mrs. Arden made him an excellent wife. She was as proud as he was, and
held her head very high in the county. The Countess of Marchmont, Lord
Newmarch’s mother, was nothing in comparison with Mrs. Arden of Arden.
But people said she was too cold in her manners ever to be popular. When
her husband stood for the county, and she had to show the ordinary
gracious face to all the farmers and farm-men, Clare’s manners lost more
votes than her beauty and her family might have gained. She could not be
cordial to save her life. But then the Ardens were always cold and
proud--it was the characteristic of the family--except the last poor
fellow, who was everybody’s friend, and turned out to be no Arden at
all, as anyone might have seen with half an eye.

Mr. Arden’s horse and his groom were waiting in the stableyard of the
“Arden Arms.” He himself, looking more gloomy than usual, had gone
upstairs to the best room, to meet the stranger, of whom all the “Arden
Arms” people felt vaguely that they had seen him before. The landlady,
passing the door, heard their voices raised high now and then, as if
there was some quarrel between them; but she was too busy to listen,
even had her curiosity carried her so far. When Mrs. Arden, driving
past, stopped in front of the inn, to ask for some poor pensioner in the
village, the good woman rushed out, garrulous and eager.

“The Squire is here, ma’am, with a gentleman. I heard him say as his
horse was dead beat, and as he’d have to take the train home. What a
good thing as you have come this way! Please now, as they’ve done their
talk, will your ladyship step upstairs?”

“If Mr. Arden is occupied with some one on business--” said Clare,
hesitating; but then it suddenly occurred to her that, as there had been
a little domestic jar that morning, it might be well to show herself
friendly, and offer to drive her husband home. “You are sure he is not
busy?” she said, doubtfully, and went upstairs with somewhat hesitating
steps. It was a strange thing for Mrs. Arden to do, but something
impelled her unconscious feet, something which the ancients would have
called fate, an impulse she could not resist. She knocked softly at the
door, but received no reply; and there was no sound of voices within to
make her pause. The “business,” whatever it was, must surely be over.
Clare opened the door, not without a thrill at her heart, which she
could scarcely explain to herself, for she knew of nothing to make this
moment or this incident specially important. Her husband sat, with his
back to her, at the table, his head buried in his hands; near him,
fronting the door, his face very serious, his eyes shining with
indignant fire, stood Edgar. Edgar! The sight of him, so unexpected as
it was, touched her heart with a quick, unusual movement of warmth and
tenderness. She gave a sudden cry, and rushed into the room.

Arthur Arden raised his head from his hands at the sound of her
voice--he raised himself up, and glanced at her, half-stupefied.

“What has brought you here?” he cried, hoarsely.

But Clare had no eyes for him, for the moment. She went up to her
brother, who stood, scarcely advancing to meet her, with no light of
pleasure on his face at the sight of her. They had not met for three
years.

“Edgar!” she said, with pleasure so sudden that she had not time to
think whether it was right and becoming on the part of Mrs. Arden of
Arden to express such a sentiment. But, before she had reached him, his
pained and serious look, his want of all response to her warm
exclamation, and the curious atmosphere of agitation in the room,
impressed her in spite of herself. She stopped short, her tone changed,
the revulsion of feeling which follows an overture repulsed, suddenly
clouded over her face. “I see I am an intruder,” she said. “I did not
mean to interfere with--business.” Then curiosity got the upper hand.
She paused and looked at them--Edgar so determined and serious, her
husband agitated, sullen--and as pale as if he had been dying. “But what
business can there be between you two?” she asked, with a sharp tone of
anxiety in her voice. The two men were like criminals before her. “What
is it?--what is it?” she cried. “Something has happened. What brings you
two together must concern me.”

“Go home, Clare, go home,” said Arthur Arden, hoarsely. “We don’t want
you here, to make things worse--go home.”

She looked at Edgar--he shook his head and turned his eyes from her. He
had given her no welcome, no look even of the old affection. Clare’s
blood was up.

“I have a right to know what has brought you together,” she said,
drawing a chair to the table, and suddenly seating herself between them.
“I will go home when you are ready to come with me, Arthur. What is it?
for, whatever it is, I have a right to know.”

Edgar came to her side and took her hand, which she gave to him almost
reluctantly, averting her face.

“Clare,” he said, almost in a whisper, “this is the only moment for all
these years that I could not be happy to see you. Go home, for God’s
sake, as he says----”

“I will not,” said Clare. “Some new misfortune has occurred to bring you
two together. Why should I go home, to be wretched, wondering what has
happened? For my children’s sake, I will know what it is.”

Neither of them made her any answer. There were several papers lying on
the table between them--one a bulky packet, directed in what Clare knew
to be his solicitor’s handwriting, to Arthur Arden. Miss Lockwood had
played Edgar false, and, even while she urged him on, had already placed
her papers in the lawyer’s hands. Arden had thus known the full dangers
of the exposure before him, when, with some vague hopes of a
compromise, he had met Edgar, whom he insisted on considering Miss
Lockwood’s emissary. He had been bidding high for silence, for
concealment, and had been compelled to stomach Edgar’s indignant
refusal, which for the moment he dared not resent, when Clare thus burst
upon the scene. They were suddenly arrested by her appearance, stopped
in mid-career.

“Is it any renewal of the past?--any new discovery? Edgar, you have
found something out--you are, after all----”

He shook his head.

“Dear Clare, it is nothing about me. Let me come and see you after, and
tell you about myself. This is business-mere business,” said Edgar,
anxiously. “Nothing,” his voice faltered, “to interest you.”

“You tell lies badly,” she said; “and he says nothing. What does it
mean? What are these papers?--always papers--more papers--everything
that is cruel is in them. Must I look for myself?” she continued, her
voice breaking, with an agitation which she could not explain. She laid
her hand upon some which lay strewed open upon the table. She saw Edgar
watch the clutch of her fingers with a shudder, and that her husband
kept his eyes upon her with a strange, horrified watchfulness. He seemed
paralyzed, unable to interfere till she had secured them, when he
suddenly grasped her hand roughly, and cried, “Come, give them up; there
is nothing there for you!”

Clare was not dutiful or submissive by nature. At the best of times such
an order would have irritated rather than subdued her.

“I will not,” she repeated, freeing her hand from the clutch that made
it crimson. Only one of the papers she had picked up remained, a scrap
that looked of no importance. She rose and hurried to the window with
it, holding it up to the light.

“She must have known it one day or other,” said Edgar, speaking rather
to himself than to either of his companions. It was the only sound that
broke the silence. After an interval of two minutes or so, Clare came
back, subdued, and rather pale.

“This is a marriage certificate, I suppose,” she said. “Yours, Arthur!
You were married, then, before? You might have told me. Why didn’t you
tell me? I should have had no right to be vexed if I had known before.”

“Clare!” he stammered, looking at her in consternation.

“Yes, I can’t help being vexed,” she said, her lip quivering a little,
“to find out all of a sudden that I am not the first. I think you should
have told me, Arthur, not left me to find it out. But, after all, it is
only a shock and a mortification, not a crime, that you should look so
frightened,” she added, forcing a faint smile. “I am not a termagant, to
make your life miserable on account of the past.” Here Clare paused,
looked from one to the other, and resumed, with a more anxious voice:
“What do you mean, both of you, by looking at me? Is there more behind?
Ay, I see!” her lip quivered more and more, her face grew paler, she
restrained herself with a desperate effort. “Tell me the worst,” she
said, hurriedly. “There are other children, older than mine! My boy will
not be the heir?”

“Clare! Clare!” cried Edgar, putting his arm round her, forgetting all
that lay between them, tears starting to his eyes, “my dear, come away!
Don’t ask any more questions. If you ever looked upon me as your
brother, or trusted me, come--come home, Clare.”

She shook off his grasp impatiently, and turned to her husband.

“Arthur, I demand the truth from you,” she cried. “Let no one interfere
between us. Is there--an older boy than mine? Let me hear the worst! Is
not my boy your heir?”

Arthur Arden, though he was not soft-hearted, uttered at this moment a
lamentable groan.

“I declare before God I never thought of it!” he cried. “I never meant
it for a marriage at all!”

“Marriage!” said Clare, looking at him like one bewildered.
“Marriage!--I am not talking of marriage! Is there--a boy--another
heir?”

And then again there was a terrible silence. The man to whom Clare
looked so confidently as her husband, demanding explanations from him,
shrank away from her, cowering, with his face hidden by his hands.

“Will no one answer me?” she said. Her face was ghastly with
suspense--every drop of blood seemed to have been drawn out of it. Her
eyes went from her husband to Edgar, from Edgar back to her husband.
“Tell me, yes or no--yes or no! I do not ask more!”

“Clare, it is not that! God forgive me! The woman is alive!” said Arthur
Arden, with a groan that seemed to come from the bottom of his heart.

“The woman is alive!” she cried, impatiently. “I am not asking about any
woman. What does he mean? The woman is alive!” She stopped short where
she stood, holding fast by the back of her chair, making an effort to
understand. “The woman! What woman? What does he mean?”

“His wife,” said Edgar, under his breath.

Clare turned upon him a furious, fiery glance. She did not understand
him. She began to see strange glimpses of light through the darkness,
but she could not make out what it was.

“Will not you speak?” she cried piteously, putting her hand upon her
husband’s shoulder. “Arthur, I forgive you for keeping it from me; but
why do you hide your face?--why do you turn away? All you can do for me
now is to tell me everything. My boy!--is he disinherited? Stop,” she
cried wildly; “let me sit down. There is more--still more! Edgar, come
here, close beside me, and tell me in plain words. The woman! What does
he mean?”

“Clare,” cried Edgar, taking her cold hands into his, “don’t let it kill
you, for your children’s sake. They have no one but you. The woman--whom
he married then--is living now.”

“The woman--whom he married then!” she repeated, with lips white and
stammering. “The woman!” Then stopped, and cried out suddenly--“My God!
my God!”

“Clare, before the Lord I swear to you I never meant it--I never thought
of it!” exclaimed Arden, with a hoarse cry.

Clare took no notice; she sat with her hands clasped, staring blankly
before her, murmuring, “My God! my God!” under her breath. Edgar held
her hands, which were chill and trembled, but she did not see him. He
stood watching her anxiously, fearing that she would faint or fall. But
Clare was not the kind of woman who faints in a great emergency. She sat
still, with the air of one stupefied; but the stupor was only a kind of
external atmosphere surrounding her, within the dim circle of which--a
feverish circle--thought sprang up, and began to whirl and twine. She
thought of everything all in a moment--her children first, who were
dishonoured; and Arden, her home, where she had been born; and her life,
which would have to be wrenched up--plucked like a flower from the soil
in which she had bloomed all her life. They could not get either sound
or movement from her, as she sat there motionless. They thought she was
dulled in mind by the shock, or in body, and that it was a merciful
circumstance to deaden the pain, and enable them to get her home.

While she sat thus, her husband raised himself in terror, and consulted
Edgar with his eyes.

“Take her home--take her home,” he whispered behind Clare’s back--“take
her home as long as she’s quiet; and till she’s got over the shock,
I’ll keep myself out of the way.”

Clare heard him, even through the mist that surrounded her, but she
could not make any reply. She seemed to have forgotten all about him--to
have lost him in those mists. When Edgar put his hand on her shoulder,
and called her gently, she stirred at last, and looked up at him.

“What is it?--what do you want with me?” she asked.

“I want you to come home,” he said softly. “Come home with me; I will
take care of you; it is not a long drive.”

Poor Edgar! he was driven almost out of his wits, and did not know what
to say. She shuddered with a convulsive trembling in all her limbs.

“Home!--yes, I must go and get my children,” she said. “Yes, you are
quite right. I want some one to take care of me. I must go and get my
children; they are so young--so very young! If I take them at once, they
may never know----”

“Clare,” cried her husband, moaning, “you won’t do anything rash? You
won’t expose our misery to all the world?”

She cast a quick glance at him--a glance full of dislike and horror.

“Take me away,” she said to Edgar--“take me away! I must go and fetch
the children before it is dark.” This with a pause and a strange little
laugh. “I speak as if they had been out at some baby-party,” she said.
“Give me your arm. I don’t see quite clear.”

Arden watched them as they went out of the room--she tottering, as she
leant on Edgar’s arm, moving as he moved, like one blind. Arthur Arden
was left behind with his papers, and with the thought of that other
woman, who had claimed him for her husband. How clearly he remembered
her--her impertinence, her rude carelessness, her manners, that were of
the shop, and knew no better training! Their short life together came
back to him like a picture. How soon his foolish passion for her (as he
described it to himself) had blown over!--how weary of her he had grown!
And now, what was to become of him? If Clare did anything desperate--if
she went and blazoned it about, and removed the children, and took the
whole matter in a passionate way, it would not be she alone who would be
the sufferer. The woman is the sufferer, people say, in such cases; but
this man groaned when he thought, if he could not do something to avert
it, what ruin must overtake him. If Clare left his house, all honour,
character, position would go with her; he could never hold up his head
again. He would retain everything he had before, yet he would lose
everything--not only her and his children, of whom he was as fond as it
was possible to be of any but himself, but every scrap of popular
regard, society, the support of his fellows. All would go from him if
this devil could not be silenced--if Clare could not be conciliated.

He rose to his feet, feeling sick and giddy, and from a corner, behind
the shadow of the window-curtains, saw his wife--that is, the woman who
was no longer his wife--drive away from the door. He was so wretched
that he could not even relieve his mind by swearing at Edgar. He had not
energy enough to think of Edgar, or any one else. Sometimes, indeed,
with a sharp pang, there would gleam across him a sudden vision of his
little boy, Clare’s son, the beautiful child he had been so proud of,
but who--even if Clare should make it up, and brave the shame and
wrong--was ruined and disgraced, and no more the heir of Arden than any
beggar on the road. Poor wretch! when that thought came across him, I
think all the wrongs that Arthur Arden had done in this world were
avenged. He writhed under the sudden thought. He burst out in sudden
crying and sobbing for one miserable moment. It was intolerable--he
could not bear it; yet had to bear it, as we all have, whether our
errors are of our own making or not.

And Clare drove back over the peaceful country, beginning to green over
faintly under the first impulse of Spring--between lines of ploughed and
grateful fields, and soft furrows of soft green corn. She did not even
put her veil down, but with her white face set, and her eyes gazing
blankly before her, went on with her own thoughts, saying nothing,
seeing nothing. All her faculties had suddenly been concentrated within
her--her mind was like a shaded lamp for the moment, throwing intense
light upon one spot, and leaving all others in darkness. Edgar held her
hand, to which she did not object, and watched her with a pity which
swelled his heart almost to bursting. He could take care of her
tenderly in little things--lift her out of the carriage, give her the
support of his arm, throw off the superabundant wraps that covered her.
But this was all; into the inner world, where she was fighting her
battle, neither he nor any man could enter--there she had to fight it
out alone.




CHAPTER XVI.

The Old Home.


Clare went to her own room, and shut herself up there. She permitted
Edgar to go with her to the door, and there dismissed him, almost
without a word. What Edgar’s feelings were on entering the house where
he had once been master, and with which so many early associations both
of pleasure and pain were connected, I need not say; he was excited
painfully and strangely by everything he saw. It seemed inconceivable to
him that he should be there; and every step in the staircase, every turn
in the corridor, reminded him of something that had happened in that
brief bit of the past in which his history was concentrated, which had
lasted so short a time, yet had been of more effect than many years. The
one thing, however, that kept him calm, and restrained his excitement,
was the utter absorption of Clare in her own troubles, which were more
absorbing than anything that had ever happened to him. She showed no
consciousness that it was anything to him to enter this house, to lead
her through its familiar passages. She ignored it so completely that
Edgar, always impressionable, felt half ashamed of himself for
recollecting, and tried to make believe, even to himself, that he
ignored it too. He took her to the door of her room, his head throbbing
with the sense that he was here again, where he had never thought to be;
and then went downstairs, to wait in the room which had once been his
own library, for Arthur Arden’s return. Fortunately the old servants
were all gone, and if any of the present household recognised Edgar at
all, their faces were unfamiliar to him. How strange to look round the
room, and note with instinctive readiness all the changes which another
man’s taste had made! The old cabinet, in which the papers had been
found which proved him no Arden, stood still against the wall, as it had
always done. The books looked neglected in their shelves, as though no
one ever touched them. It was more of a business room than it once was,
less of a library, nothing at all of the domestic place, dear to man and
woman alike, which it had been when Edgar never was so happy as with his
sister beside him. How strange it was to be there--how dismal to be
there on such an errand. In this room Clare had given him the papers
which were his ruin; here she had entreated him to destroy them; here he
had made the discovery public; and now to think the day should have come
when he was here as a stranger, caring nothing for Arden, thinking only
how to remove her of whom he seemed to have become the sole brother and
protector, from the house she had been born in!

He walked about and about the rooms, till the freshness of these
associations was over, and he began to grow impatient of the stillness
and suspense. He had told Clare that he would wait, and that she should
find him there when he was wanted. He had begged her to do nothing that
night--to wait and consider what was best; but he did not even know
whether she was able to understand him, or if he spoke to deaf ears.
Everything had happened so quickly that a sense of confusion was in
Edgar’s mind, confusion of the moral as well as the mental functions;
for he was not at all sure whether the link of sympathetic horror and
wonder between Arden and himself, as to what Clare would do, did not
approach him closer, rather than separate him further from this man, who
hated him, to begin with, and who was yet not his sister’s husband.
Somehow these two, who, since they first met, had been at opposite poles
from each other, seemed to be drawn together by one common misfortune,
rather than placed in a doubly hostile position, as became the injurer
and the defender of the injured.

When Arden came in some time after, this feeling obliterated on both
sides the enmity which, under any other circumstances, must have blazed
forth. Edgar, as he looked at the dull misery in Arthur’s face, felt a
strange pity for him soften his heart. This man, who had done so well
for himself, who had got Arden, who had married Clare, who had received
all the gifts that heaven could give, what a miserable failure he was
after all, cast down from all that made his eminence tenable or good to
hold. He was the cause of the most terrible misfortune to Clare and her
children, and yet Edgar felt no impulse to take him by the throat, but
was sorry for him in his downfall and misery. As for Arthur Arden, his
old dislike seemed exorcised by the same spirit. In any other
circumstances he would have resented Edgar’s interference deeply--but
now a gloomy indifference to everything that could happen, except one
thing, had got possession of him.

“What does she mean to do?” he said, throwing himself into a chair. All
power of self-assertion had failed in him. It seemed even right and
natural to him that Edgar should know this better than he himself did,
and give him information what her decision was.

“I think,” said Edgar, instinctively accepting the rôle of adviser,
“that the best and most delicate thing you could do would be to leave
the house to her for a few days. Let it be supposed you have business
somewhere. Go to London, if you think fit, and investigate for yourself;
but leave Clare to make up her mind at leisure. It would be the most
generous thing to do.”

Arthur stared at him blankly for a moment, with a dull suspicion in his
eyes at the strange, audacious calmness of the proposal. But seeing that
Edgar met his gaze calmly, and said these words in perfect
single-mindedness, and desire to do the best in the painful emergency,
he accepted them as they were given; and thus they remained together,
though they did not talk to each other, waiting for Clare’s appearance,
or some intimation of what she meant to do, till darkness began to fall.
When it was nearly night a maid appeared, with a scared look in her
face, and that strange consciousness of impending evil which servants
often show, like animals, without a word being said to them--and brought
to Edgar the following little note from Clare:--

“I am not able to see you to-night; and I cannot decide where to go
without consulting you; besides that there are other reasons why I
cannot take the children away, as I intended, at once. I have gone up to
the nursery beside them, and will remain there until to-morrow. Tell him
this, and ask if we may remain so, in his house, without being molested,
till to-morrow.”

Edgar handed this note to Arden without a word. He saw the quick flutter
of excitement which passed over Arthur’s face. If the letter had been
more affectionate, I doubt whether Clare’s husband could have borne it;
but as it was he gulped down his agitation, and read it without
betraying any angry feeling. When he had glanced it over, he looked
almost piteously at his companion.

“You think that is what I ought to do?” he said, almost with an appeal
against Edgar’s decision. “Then I’ll go; you can write and tell her so.
I’ll stay away if she likes, until--until she wants me,” he broke off
abruptly, and got up and left the room, and was audible a moment after,
calling loudly for his servant in the hall.

Edgar wrote this information to Clare. He told her that Arden had
decided to leave the house to her, that she might feel quite free to
make up her mind; and that he too would go to the village, where he
would wait her call, whensoever she should want him. He begged her once
more to compose herself, not to hasten her final decision, and to
believe that she would be perfectly free from intrusion or interference
of any kind--and bade God bless her, the only word of tenderness he
dared venture to add.

When he had written this, he walked down the avenue alone, in the dusk,
to the village. Arden had gone before him. The lodge-gates had been left
open, and gave to the house a certain forlorn air of openness to all
assault, which, no doubt, existed chiefly in Edgar’s fancy, but
impressed him more than I can say. To walk down that avenue at all was
for him a strange sensation; but Edgar by this time had got over all the
weaknesses of recollection. It was not hard for him at any time to put
himself to one side. He did it now completely. He felt like a man
walking in a dream; but he no longer consciously recalled to himself the
many times he had gone up and down there, and how it had once been to
him his habitual way home--the entrance to his kingdom. No doubt in his
painful circumstances these thoughts would have been hard upon him. They
died quite naturally out of his mind now. What was to become of
Clare?--where could he best convey her for shelter or safety?--and how
provide for her? His own downfall had made Clare penniless, and now that
she was no longer Arthur Arden’s wife, she could and would, he knew,
accept nothing from _him_. How was she to be provided for? This was a
far more important question to think of than any maunderings of personal
regret over the associations of his past life.

Next morning he went up again to the Hall, after a night passed not very
comfortably at the “Arden Arms,” where everyone looked at him curiously,
recognising him, but not venturing to say so. As he went up the avenue,
Arthur Arden overtook him, arriving, too, from a different direction. A
momentary flash of indignation came over Edgar’s face.

“You promised to leave Arden,” he said.

“And so I did,” said the other. “But I did not say I would not come back
to hear what she said. My God, I may have been a fool, but may I not see
my--my own children before they go? I am not made of wood or stone, do
you suppose, though I may have been in the wrong?”

His eyes were red and bloodshot, his appearance neglected and wild. He
looked as if he had not slept, nor even undressed, all night.

“Look here,” he said hoarsely, “I have got another letter, saying _she_
would accept money--a compromise. Will you persuade Clare to stay, and
make no exposure, and hush it all up, for the sake of the children--if
we have _her_ solemnly bound over to keep the secret and get her sent
away? Will you? What harm could it do you? And it might be the saving of
the boy.”

“Arden, I pity you from my heart!” said Edgar; “but I could not give
such advice to Clare.”

“It’s for the boy,” cried Arden. “Look here. We’ve never been friends,
you and I, and it’s not natural we should be; but that child shall be
brought up to think more of you than of any man on earth--to think of
you as his friend, his--well, his uncle, if you will. Grant that I’m
done for in this world, and poor Clare too, poor girl; but, Edgar, if
you liked, you might save the boy.”

“By falsehood,” said Edgar, his heart wrung with sympathetic
emotion--“by falsehood, as I was myself set up, till the time came, and
I fell. Better, surely, that he should be trained to bear the worst. You
would not choose for him such a fate as mine?”

“It has not done you any harm,” said Arden, looking keenly at the man he
had dispossessed--from whom he had taken everything. “You have always
had the best of it!” he cried, with sudden fire. “You have come out of
it all with honour, while everyone else has had a poor enough part to
play. But in this case,” he added, anxiously, in a tone of conciliation,
“nothing of the kind can happen. Who like her son and mine could have
the right here--every right of nature, if not the legal right? And I
declare to you, before God, that I never meant it. I never intended to
marry--that woman.”

“You intended only to betray her.” It was on Edgar’s lips to say these
words, but he had not the heart to aggravate the misery which the
unhappy man was already suffering. They went on together to the house,
Arden repeating at intervals his entreaties, to which Edgar could give
but little answer. He knew very well Clare would listen to no such
proposal; but so strangely did the pity within him mingle with all less
gentle sentiments, that Edgar’s friendly lips could not utter a harsh
word. He said what he could, rather, to soothe; for, after all, his
decision was of little importance, and Clare did not take the matter so
lightly as to make a compromise a possible thing to think of.

The house had already acquired something of that look of agitation which
steals so readily into the atmosphere wherever domestic peace is
threatened. There were two or three servants in the hall, who
disappeared in different directions when the gentlemen were seen
approaching; and Edgar soon perceived, by the deference with which he
himself was treated, that the instinct of the household had jumped to a
conclusion very different from the facts, but so pleasing to the
imagination as to be readily received. He had been recognised, and it
was evident that he was thought to be “righted,” to have got “his own
again.” Arthur Arden was anything but beloved at home, and the popular
heart as well as imagination sprang up, eager to greet the return of the
real master, the true heir.

“Mrs. Arden, sir, has ordered the carriage to meet the twelve o’clock
train. She’s in the morning-room, sir,” said the butler, with solemnity.

He spoke to Arthur, but he looked at Edgar. They were all of one way of
thinking; further evidence had been found out, or something had occurred
to turn the wheel of fortune, and Edgar had been restored to “his own.”

Clare was seated alone, dressed for a journey, in the little room which
had always been her favourite room. She was dressed entirely in black,
which made her extraordinary paleness more visible. She had always been
pale, but this morning her countenance was like marble--not a tinge of
colour on it, except the pink, pale also, of her lips. She received them
with equal coldness, bending her head only when the two men, both of
them almost speechless with emotion, came into her presence. She was
perfectly calm; that which had befallen her was too tremendous for any
display of feeling; it carried her beyond the regions of feeling into
those of the profoundest passion--that primitive, unmingled condition of
mind which has to be diluted with many intricate combinations before it
drops into ordinary, expressible emotion. Clare had got beyond the pain
that could be put into words, or cries or tears; she was stern, and
still, and cold, like a woman turned to stone.

“I want to explain what I am about to do,” she said, in a low tone. “We
are leaving, of course, at once. Mr. Arden” (her voice faltered for one
moment, but then grew more steady than ever), “I have taken with me what
money I have; there is fifty pounds--I will send it back to you when I
have arranged what I am to do. You will wish to see the children; they
are in the nursery waiting. Edgar will go with me to town, and help me
to find a place to live in. I do not wish to make any scandal, or cause
any anxiety. Of course I cannot change my name, as it is my own name,
as well as yours, and my children will be called what their mother is
called, as I believe children in their unfortunate position always are.”

“Clare, for God’s sake do not be so pitiless! Hear me speak. I have
much--much to say to you. I have to beg your pardon on my knees----”

“Don’t!” she cried suddenly; then went on in her calm tone--“We are past
all the limits of the theatre, Mr. Arden,” she said. “Your knees can do
me no good, nor anything else. All that is over. I cannot either upbraid
or pardon. I will try to forget your existence, and you will forget
mine.”

“That is impossible!” he cried, going towards her. His eyes were so
wild, and his manner so excited, that Edgar drew near to her in terror;
but Clare was not afraid. She looked up at him with the large, calm,
dilated eyes, which seemed larger and bluer than ever, out of the
extreme whiteness of her face.

“When I swear to you that I never meant it, that I am more wretched--far
more wretched--than you can be--that I would hang myself, or drown
myself like a dog, if that would do any good----!”

“Nothing can do any good,” said Clare. Something like a moan escaped
from her breast. “What are words?” she went on, with a certain
quickening of excitement. “I could speak too, if it came to that. There
is nothing--nothing to be said or done. Edgar, when one loses name and
fame, and home, _you_ know what to do.”

“I know what I did; but I am different from you,” said Edgar--“you, with
your babies. Clare, let us speak; we are not stones--we are men.”

“Ah! stones are better than men--less cruel, less terrible!” she cried.
“No, no; I cannot bear it. We will go in silence; there is nothing that
anyone can say.”

“You see,” said Edgar, turning to Arden--“what is my advice or my
suggestions now? To speak of compromise or negotiation----”

“Compromise!” said Clare, her pale cheek flaming; she rose up with a
sudden impulse of insupportable passion--“compromise!--to me!” Then,
turning to Edgar, she clutched at his arm, and he felt what force she
was putting upon herself, and how she trembled. “Come,” she said, “this
air kills me; take me away!”

He let her guide him, not daring to oppose her, out to the air--to the
door, down the great steps. She faltered more and more at every step she
took, then, suddenly stopping, leaned against him.

“Let me sit down somewhere. I am growing giddy,” she said.

She sat down on the steps, on the very threshold of the home she was
quitting, as she thought, for ever. The servants, in a group behind,
tried to gaze over their master’s shoulders at this extraordinary scene.
Where was she going?--what did she mean? There was a moment during which
no one spoke, and Clare, to her double horror, felt her senses forsaking
her. Her head swam, the light fluttered in her eyes. A moment more, and
she would be conscious of nothing round her. I have said she was not the
kind of woman who faints at a great crisis, but the body has its
revenges, its moments of supremacy, and she had neither slept nor
eaten, neither rested nor forgotten, for all these hours.

It was at this moment that the messenger from the “Arden Arms,” a boy,
whom no one had noticed coming up the avenue, thrust something into
Edgar’s hand.

“Be that for you, sir?” said the boy.

The sound of this new, strange voice roused everybody. Clare came out of
her half-faint, and regained her full sense of what was going on, though
she was unable to rise. Arthur Arden came close to them down the steps,
with wild eagerness in his eyes. Edgar only would have thrust the paper
away which was put into his hands. “Tush!” he said, with the momentary
impulse of tossing it from him; then, suddenly catching, as it were, a
reflection of something new possible in Arden’s wild look, and even a
gleam of some awful sublime of tragic curiosity in the opening eyes of
Clare, he looked at the paper itself, which came to him at that moment
of fate. It was a telegram, in the vulgar livery which now-a-days the
merest trifles and the most terrible events wear alike in England. He
tore it open; it was from Mr. Tottenham, dated that morning, and
contained these words only:--

“_Miss Lockwood died here at nine o’clock._”

Edgar thrust it into Arden’s hand. He felt something like a wild sea
surging in his ears; he raised up Clare in his arms, and drew her
wondering, resisting, up the great steps.

“Come back,” he cried--“come home, Clare.”




CHAPTER XVII.

Harry’s Turn.


It would be vain to tell all that was said, and all that was done, and
all the calculations that were gone through in the house in Berkeley
Square, where Edgar’s visit had produced so much emotion. The interviews
carried on in all the different rooms would furnish forth a volume. The
girls, who had peered over the staircase to see him go away, and whose
state of suspense was indescribable, made a dozen applications at
Gussy’s door before the audience of Ada, who had the best right to hear,
was over. Then Mary insisted upon getting admission in her right of
bride, as one able to enter into Gussy’s feelings, and sympathise with
her; and poor little Beatrice, left out in the cold, had to content
herself with half a dozen words, whispered in the twilight, when they
all went to dress for dinner. Beatrice cried with wounded feeling, to
think that because she, by the decrees of Providence, was neither the
elder sister, nor engaged to be married, she was therefore to be shut
out from all participation in Gussy’s secrets.

“Could I be more interested if I was twice as old as Ada, and engaged to
six Lord Grantons!” cried the poor child. And Gussy’s prospects were in
that charming state of uncertainty that they would stand discussing for
hours together; whereas, by the time Lord Granton had been pronounced a
darling, and the dresses all decided upon, even down to the colour of
the bridesmaids’ parasols, there remained absolutely nothing new to be
gone over with Mary, but just the same thing again and again.

“When do you think you shall be married?” said Beatrice, tremulously.

“I don’t know, and I don’t very much care, so long as it is all right,”
said Gussy, half laughing, half crying.

“But what if papa will not consent?” said Mary, with a face of awe.

“Papa is too sensible to fight when he knows he should not win the
battle,” said the deliciously, incomprehensibly courageous Gussy.

There was some gratification to be got out of a betrothed sister of this
fashion. Beatrice even began to look down upon Mary’s unexciting loves.

“As for your affair, it is so dreadfully tame,” she said, contemptuously
lifting her little nose in the air. “Everybody rushing to give their
consent, and presents raining down upon you, and you all so
self-satisfied and confident.”

Mary was quite taken down from her pedestal of universal observation.
She became the commonest of young women about to be married, by Gussy’s
romantic side.

Alas! the Thornleighs were by no means done with sensation in this
_genre_. Two days after these events, before Edgar had come back, Harry
came early to the house one morning and asked to see his mother alone.
Lady Augusta was still immersed in patterns, and she had that morning
received a letter from her husband, which had brought several lines upon
her forehead. Mr. Thornleigh had the reputation, out of doors, of being
a moderate, sensible sort of man, not apt to commit himself, though
perhaps not brilliant, nor very much to be relied upon in point of
intellect. He deserved, indeed, to a considerable extent this character;
but what the world did not know, was that his temper was good and
moderate, by reason of the domestic safety-valve which he had always by
him. When anything troublesome occurred he had it out with his wife,
giving her full credit for originating the whole business.

“You ought to have done this, or you ought to have done that,” he would
say, “and then, of course, nothing of the kind could have happened.”
After, he would go upstairs, and brush his hair, and appear as the most
sensible and good-tempered of men before the world. Mr. Thornleigh had
got Mr. Tottenham’s letter informing him of the renewed intercourse
between Edgar and Gussy; and the Squire had, on the spot, indited a
letter to his wife, breathing fire and flame. This was the preface of a
well-conditioned, gentlemanly letter to Mr. Tottenham, in which the
father expressed a natural regret that Gussy should show so little
consideration of external advantages, but fully acknowledged Edgar’s
excellent qualities, and asked what his prospects were, and what he
thought of doing.

“I will never be tyrannical to any of my children,” Mr. Thornleigh
said; “but, on the other hand, before I can give my sanction, however
unwillingly, to any engagement, I must fully understand his position,
and what he expects to be able to do.”

But Lady Augusta’s letter was not couched in these calm and friendly
terms; and knowing as she did the exertions she had made to keep Edgar
at arm’s length, poor Lady Augusta felt that she did not deserve the
assault made upon her, and consequently took longer to calm down than
she generally did. It was while her brow was still puckered, and her
cheek flushed with this unwelcome communication, that Harry came in.
When he said, “I want to speak to you, mother,” her anxious mind already
jumped at some brewing harm. She took him into the deserted library,
feeling that this was the most appropriate place in which to hear any
confession her son might have to make to her. The drawing-room, where
invasion was always to be feared, and the morning-room, which was
strewed with patterns and girls, might do very well for the confession
of feminine peccadilloes, but a son’s ill-doing was to be treated with a
graver care. She led Harry accordingly into the library, and put herself
into his father’s chair, and said, “What is it, my dear boy?” with a
deeper gravity than usual. Not that Harry was to be taken in by such
pretences at severity. He knew his mother too well for that.

“Mother,” he said, sitting down near her, but turning his head partially
away from her gaze, “you have often said that my father wanted me--to
marry.”

“To marry!--why, Harry? Yes, dear, and so he does,” said Lady Augusta;
“and I too,” she added, less decidedly. “I wish it, too--if it is some
one very nice.”

“Well,” said Harry, looking at her with a certain shamefaced ostentation
of boldness, “I have seen some one whom I could marry at last.”

“At last! You are not so dreadfully old,” said the mother, with a smile.
“You, too! Well, dear, tell me who it is. Some one you have met at your
Aunt Mary’s”? Oh! Harry, my dear boy, I trust most earnestly it is some
one very nice!”

“It is some one much better than nice--the most lovely creature, mother,
you ever saw in your life. I never even dreamt of anything like her,”
said Harry, with a sigh.

“I hope she is something more than a lovely creature,” said Lady
Augusta. “Oh! Harry, your father is so put out about Gussy’s business; I
do hope, dear, that this is something which will put him in good-humour
again. I can take her loveliness for granted. Tell me--do tell me who
she is?”

“You don’t mean to say that you are going to let that fellow marry
Gussy’?” said Harry, coming to a sudden pause.

“Harry, if this is such a connection as I hope, it will smooth
everything,” said Lady Augusta. “My dearest boy, tell me who she is.”

“She is the only woman I will ever marry,” said Harry, doggedly.

And then his poor mother divined, without further words, that the match
was not an advantageous one, and that she had another disappointment on
her hands.

“Harry, you keep me very anxious. Is she one of Mary’s neighbours? Tell
me her name.”

“Yes, she is one of Aunt Mary’s neighbours and chief favourites,” said
Harry. “Aunt Mary is by way of patronizing her.” And here he laughed;
but the laugh was forced, and had not the frank amusement in it which he
intended it to convey.

Lady Augusta’s brow cleared for a moment, then clouded again.

“You do not mean Myra Witherington?” she said, faintly. “Oh! not one of
that family, I hope!”

“Myra Witherington!” he cried. “Mother, what do you take me for? It is
clear you know nothing about my beautiful Margaret. In her presence, you
would no more notice Myra Witherington than a farthing candle in the
sun!”

Poor Lady Augusta took courage again. The very name gave her a little
courage. It is the commonest of all names where Margaret came from; but
not in England, where its rarity gives it a certain distinction.

“My dear boy,” she said tremulously, “don’t trifle with me--tell me her
name.”

A strange smile came upon Harry’s lips. In his very soul he, too, was
ashamed of the name by which some impish trick of fortune had shadowed
his Margaret. An impulse came upon him to get it over at once; he felt
that he was mocking both himself and his mother, and her, the most of
all, who bore that terrible appellation. He burst into a harsh, coarse
laugh, a bravado of which next moment he was heartily ashamed.

“Her name,” he said, with another outburst, “is--Mrs. Smith!”

“Good heavens, Harry!” cried Lady Augusta, with a violent start. Then
she tried to take a little comfort from his laughter, and said, with a
faint smile, though still trembling, “You are laughing at me, you unkind
boy!”

“I am not laughing at all!” cried Harry, “except, indeed, at the
misfortune which gave her such a name. It is one of Aunt Mary’s
favourite jokes.” Then he changed his tone, and took his mother’s hand
and put it up caressingly to his cheek to hide the hot flush that
covered it. “Mother, you don’t know how I love her. She is the only
woman I will ever marry, though I should live a hundred years.”

“Oh! my poor boy--my poor boy!” cried Lady Augusta. “This is all I
wanted to make an end of me. I think my heart will break!”

“Why should your heart break?” said Harry, putting down her hand and
looking half cynically at her. “What good will that do? Look here,
mother. Something much more to the purpose will be to write to my
father, and break the news quietly to him--gently, so as not to bother
him, as I have done to you; you know how.”

“Break the news to him!” she said. “I have not yet realised it myself.
Harry, wait a little. Why, she is not even----. Mrs. Smith! You mean
that she is a widow, I suppose?”

“You did not think I could want to marry a wife, did you?” he growled.
“What is the use of asking such useless questions? Of course she is a
widow--with one little girl. There, now you know the worst!”

“A widow, with one little girl!”

Lady Augusta looked at him aghast. What could make up for these
disadvantages? The blood went back upon her heart, then rallied slightly
as she remembered her brother-in-law’s shopkeeping origin, and that the
widow might be some friend of his.

“Is she--very rich?” she stammered.

To do her justice, she was thinking then of her husband, not herself;
she was thinking how she could write to him, saying, “These are terrible
drawbacks, but nevertheless----”

But nevertheless--Harry burst into another loud, coarse laugh. Poor
fellow! nobody could feel less like laughing; he did it to conceal his
confusion a little, and the terrible sense he began to have that, so far
as his father and mother were concerned, he had made a dreadful mistake.

“I don’t know how rich she is, nor how poor. That is not what I ever
thought of,” he cried, with lofty scorn.

This somehow appeased the gathering terror of Lady Augusta.

“I don’t suppose you did think of it,” she said; “but it is a thing your
father will think of. Harry, tell me in confidence--I shall never think
you mercenary--what is her family? Are they rich people? Are they
friends of your uncle Tottenham? Dear Harry, why should you make a
mystery of this with me?”

“Listen, then,” he said, setting his teeth, “and when you know
everything you will not be able to ask any more questions. She is a
cousin of your Edgar’s that you are so fond of. Her brother is the new
doctor at Harbour Green, and she lives with him. There, now you know as
much as I know myself.”

Words would fail me to tell the wide-eyed consternation with which Lady
Augusta listened. It seemed to her that everything that was obnoxious
had been collected into this description. Poor, nobody, the sister of a
country doctor; a widow with a child; and finally, to wind up
everything, and make the combination still more and more terrible,
Edgar’s cousin! Heaven help her! It was hard enough to think of this for
herself; but to let his father know!--this was more than any woman could
venture to do. She grew sick and faint in a horrible sense of the
desperation of the circumstances; the girls might be obstinate, but they
would not take the bit in their teeth and go off, determined to have
their way, like the boy, who was the heir, and knew his own importance;
and what could any exhortation of hers do for Harry, who knew as well as
she did the frightful consequences, and had always flattered himself on
being a man of the world? She was so stupefied that she scarcely
understood all the protestations that he poured into her ear after this.
What was it to her that Margaret was the loveliest creature in the
world? Faugh! Lady Augusta turned sickening from the words. Lovely
creatures who rend peaceful families asunder; who lead young men astray,
and ruin all their hopes and prospects; who heighten all existing
difficulties, and make everything that was bad before worse a thousand
times--is it likely that a middle-aged mother should be moved by their
charms?

“It is ruin and destruction!--ruin and destruction!” she repeated to
herself.

And soon the whole house had received the same shock, and trembled under
it to its foundations. Harry went off in high dudgeon, not finding the
sympathy he (strangely enough, being a man of the world) had looked
forward to as his natural right. The house, as I have said, quivered
with the shock; a sense of sudden depression came over them all. Little
Mary cried, thinking what a very poor-looking lot of relations she would
carry with her into the noble house she was about to enter. Gussy, with
a more real sense of the fatal effect of this last complication, felt,
half despairing, that her momentary gleam of hope was dying away in the
darkness, and began to think the absence of Edgar at this critical
moment almost a wrong to her. He had been absent for years, and she had
kept steadily faithful to him, hopeful in him; but his absence of to-day
filled her with a hopeless, nervous irritability and pain. As for Lady
Augusta, she lost heart altogether.

“Your father will never listen to it,” she said--“never, never; he will
think they are in a conspiracy. You will be the sufferer, Gussy, you and
poor Edgar, for Harry will not be restrained; he will take his own way.”

What could Gussy reply? She was older than Harry; she was sick of
coercion--why should not she, too, have her own way? But she did not say
this, being grieved for the unfortunate mother, whom this last shock had
utterly discomposed. Ada could do nothing but be the grieved spectator
and sympathizer of all; as for the young Beatrice, her mind was divided
between great excitement over the situation generally, and sorrow for
poor Gussy, and an illegitimate, anxious longing to see the “lovely
creature” of whom Harry had spoken in such raptures. Why should not
people love and marry, without all these frightful complications?
Beatrice was not so melancholy as the rest. She got a certain amount of
pleasure out of the imbroglio; she even hoped that for herself there
might be preparing something else even more romantic than Gussy’s--more
desperate than Harry’s. Fate, which had long forgotten the Thornleigh
household, and permitted them to trudge on in perfect quiet, had now
roused out of sleep, and seemed to intend to give them their turn of
excitement again.

Edgar made his appearance next day, looking so worn and fatigued that
Lady Augusta had not the heart to warn him, as she had intended to do,
that for the present she could not receive his visits--and that Gussy
had not the heart to be cross. He told them he had been to Arden on
business concerning Clare, and that Arthur Arden had come to town with
him, and that peace and a certain friendship reigned, at least for the
moment, between them. He did not confide even to Gussy what the cause of
this singular amity was; but after he had been a little while in her
company, his forehead began to smoothe, his smile to come back, the
colour to appear once more in his face. He took her aside to the window,
where the girls had been arranging fresh Spring flowers in a
_jardinière_. He drew her arm into his, bending over the hyacinths and
cyclamens. Now, for the first time, he could ask the question which had
been thrust out of his mind by all that had happened within the last few
days. A soft air of Spring, of happiness, of all the sweetness of life,
which had been so long plucked from him, seemed to blow in Edgar’s face
from the flowers.

“How should we like a Consulship?” he said, bending down to whisper in
her ear.

“A what?” cried Gussy, astonished. She thought for the moment that he
was speaking of some new flower.

Then Edgar took Lord Newmarch’s letter from his pocket, and held out the
postscript to her, holding her arm fast in his, and his head close to
hers.

“How should you like a Consulship?” he said.

Then the light and the life in his face communicated itself to her.

“A Consulship! Oh! Edgar, what does it mean?”

“To me it means you,” he said--“it means life; it means poverty too,
perhaps, and humility, which are not what I would choose for my Gussy;
but to me it means life, independence, happiness. Gussy, what am I to
say?”

“Say!” she cried--“yes, of course--yes. What else? Italy, perhaps, and
freedom--freedom once in our lives--and our own way; but, ah! what is
the use of speaking of it?” said Gussy, dropping away from his arm, and
stamping her foot on the ground, and falling into sudden tears, “when we
are always to be prevented by other people’s folly, always stopped by
something we have nothing to do with? Ask mamma, Edgar, what has
happened since you went away.”

Then Lady Augusta drew near, having been a wondering and somewhat
anxious spectator all the time of this whispered conversation, and told
him with tears of her interview with Harry.

“What can I do?” she cried. “I do not want to say a word against your
cousin. She may be nice, as nice as though she were a duke’s daughter;
but Harry is our eldest son, and all my children have done so badly in
this way except little Mary. Oh! my dears, I beg your pardon!” cried
poor Lady Augusta, drying her eyes, “but what can I say? Edgar, I have
always felt that I could ask you to do anything, if things should ever
be settled between Gussy and you. Oh! save my boy! She cannot be very
fond of him, she has known him so little; and his father will be
furious, and will never consent--never! And until Mr. Thornleigh dies,
they would have next to nothing, Oh! Edgar, if she is sensible, and
would listen to reason, I would go to her myself--or Gussy could go.”

“Not I,” said Gussy, stealing a deprecating look at Edgar, who stood
stupefied by this new complication--“how could I? It is terrible. How
can I, who am pleasing myself, say anything to Harry because he wants to
please himself?--or to _her_, who has nothing to do with our miserable
and mercenary ways? Oh! yes, they are miserable and mercenary!” cried
Gussy, crying in her turn; “though I can’t help feeling as you do,
though my mind revolts against this poor girl, whom I don’t know, and I
want to save Harry, too, as you say. But how dare I make Harry unhappy,
in order to be happy myself? Oh! mamma, seek some other messenger--not
me!--not me!”

“My darling,” said Lady Augusta, “it is for Harry’s good.”

“And it was for my good a little while ago!” cried Gussy. “You meant it,
and so did they all. If you could have persuaded me to marry some one I
cared nothing for, with my heart always longing for another, you would
have thought it for my good; and now must I try to buy my happiness by
ruining Harry’s?” cried the girl; “though I, too, am so dreadful, that I
think it would be for Harry’s good. Oh! no, no, let it be some one
else!”

“Edgar,” said Lady Augusta, “speak to her, show her the difference.
Harry never saw this--this young woman till about a fortnight since.
What can he know of her, what can she know of him, to be ready to marry
him in a fortnight? Oh! Edgar, try to save my boy! Even if you were to
represent to him that it would be kind to let your business be settled
first,” she went on, after a pause. “A little time might do everything.
I hope it is not wrong to scheme a little for one’s own children and
their happiness. You might persuade him to wait, for Gussy’s sake--not
to make his father furious with two at a time.”

Thus the consultation went on, if that could be called a consultation
where the advice was all on one side. Edgar was fairly stupefied by this
new twist in his affairs. He saw the fatal effect as clearly as even
Lady Augusta could see it, but he could not see his own way to interfere
in it, as she saw. To persuade Harry Thornleigh to give up or postpone
his own will, in order that he, Edgar Earnshaw, might get his--an object
in which Harry, first of all, had not the slightest sympathy--was about
as hopeless an attempt as could well be thought of; and what right had
he to influence Margaret, whom he did not know, to give up the brother,
in order that he himself might secure the sister? Edgar left the house
in as sore a dilemma as ever man was in. To give up Gussy now was a
simple impossibility, but to win her by persuading her brother to the
sacrifice of his love and happiness, was surely more impossible still.




CHAPTER XVIII.

Other People’s Affairs.


Thus, after the long lull that had happened in his life, Edgar found
himself deep in occupation, intermingled in the concerns of many
different people. Arthur Arden had come with him to town, and, by some
strange operation of feeling, which it is difficult to follow, this man,
in his wretchedness, clung to Edgar, who might almost be supposed the
means of bringing it about. All his old jealousy, his old enmity, seemed
to have disappeared. He who had harshly declined to admit that the
relationship of habit and affection between his wife and her supposed
brother must survive even when it was known that no tie of blood existed
between them, acknowledged the fact now without question, almost with
eagerness, speaking to the man he had hated, and disowned all connection
with, of “your sister,” holding by him as a link between himself and the
wife he had so nearly lost. This revolution was scarcely less wonderful
than the position in which Edgar found himself in respect to Clare. Not
a reference to their old affection had come from her lips, not a word of
present regard. She had scarcely even given him her hand voluntarily;
but she had accepted him at once and instinctively as her natural
support, her “next friend,” whose help and protection she took as a
matter of course. Clare treated him as if his brotherhood had never been
questioned, as if he was her natural and legal defender and sustainer:
up to this moment she had not even opened her mind to him, or told him
what she meant to do, but she had so far accepted his guidance, and
still more accepted his support, without thanking him or asking him for
it, as a matter of course.

Edgar knew Clare too well to believe that when the marriage ceremony
should be repeated between her husband and herself--which was the next
step to be taken--their life would simply flow on again in the same
channel, as if this tragical interruption to its course had never
occurred. This was what Arthur Arden fondly pictured to himself, and a
great many floating intentions of being a better husband, and a better
man, after the salvation which had suddenly come to him, in the very
moment of his need, were in his mind, softening the man imperceptibly by
their influence. But Edgar did not hope for this; he made as little
answer as he could to Arthur’s anticipations of the future, to his
remorseful desire to be friendly.

“After it’s all over you must not drift out of sight again,--you must
come to us when you can,” Arden said. “You’ve always behaved like a
brick in all circumstances; I see it now. You’ve been my best friend in
this terrible business. I wish I may never have a happy hour if I ever
think otherwise of you than as Clare’s brother again.”

All this Edgar did his best to respond to, but he could not but feel
that Arden’s hopes were fallacies. Clare had given him no insight into
her plans, perhaps, even, had not formed any. She had gone back into the
house at Edgar’s bidding; she had dully accepted the fact that the
situation was altered, and consented to the private repetition of her
marriage; but she had never looked at her husband, never addressed him;
and Edgar felt, with a shudder, that, though she would accept such
atonement as was possible, she was far, very far, from having arrived at
the state of mind which could forgive the injury. That a woman so deeply
outraged should continue tranquilly the life she had lived before she
was aware of the outrage, was, he felt, impossible. He had done what he
could to moderate Arden’s expectations on this point, but with no
effect; and, as he did not really know, but merely feared, some
proceeding on Clare’s part which should shatter the expected happiness
of the future, he held his peace, transferring, almost involuntarily, a
certain share of his sympathy to the guilty man, whose guilt was not to
escape retribution.

Edgar’s next business was with Mr. Tottenham, who, all unaware of
Harry’s folly, showed to him, with much pleasure, and some
self-satisfaction, the moderate and sensible letter of Mr. Thornleigh
above referred to, in which he expressed his natural regret, etc., but
requested to know what the young man’s prospects were, and what he meant
to do. Then Edgar produced once more Lord Newmarch’s letter, and, in the
consultation which followed, almost forgot, for the moment, all that
was against him. For Mr. Tottenham thought it a good opening enough, and
began, with sanguine good-nature, to prophesy that Edgar would soon
distinguish himself--that he would be speedily raised from post to post,
and that, “with the excellent connections and interest you will have,”
advancement of every kind would be possible.

“Why, in yesterday’s _Gazette_,” said Mr. Tottenham, “no farther gone,
there is an appointment of Brown, Consul-General, to be Ambassador
somewhere--Argentine States, or something of that sort. And why should
not you do as well as Brown? A capital opening! I should accept it at
once.”

And Edgar did so forthwith, oblivious of the circumstance that the
Consulship, such as it was, the first step upon the ladder, had been,
not offered, but simply suggested to him--nay, scarcely even that. This
little mistake, however, was the best thing that could have happened;
for Lord Newmarch, though at first deeply puzzled and embarrassed by the
warm acceptance and thanks he received, nevertheless was ashamed to fall
back again, and, bestirring himself, did secure the appointment for his
friend. It was not very great in point of importance, but it was ideal
in point of situation; and when, a few days after, Edgar saw his name
gazzetted as Her Majesty’s Consul at Spezzia, the emotions which filled
his mind were those of happiness as unmingled as often falls to the lot
of man. He was full of cares and troubles at that particular moment, and
did not see his way at all clear before him; but he suddenly felt as a
boat might feel (if a boat could feel anything) which has been lying
high and dry ashore, when at last the gentle persuasion of the sunshiny
waves reaches it, lifts, floats it off into soft, delicious certainty of
motion; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, as shipwrecked
sailors might feel when they see their cobbled boat, their one ark of
salvation, float strong and steady on the treacherous sea. This was the
little ark of Edgar’s happier fortunes, and lo! at last it was afloat!

After he had written his letter to Lord Newmarch, he went down to
Tottenham’s, from which he had been absent for a fortnight, to the total
neglect of Phil’s lessons, and Lady Mary’s lectures, and everything else
that had been important a fortnight ago. He went by railway, and they
met him at the station, celebrating his return by a friendly
demonstration. On the road by the green they met Harry, walking towards
Mrs. Sims’ lodgings. He gave Edgar a very cold greeting.

“Oh! I did not know you were coming back,” he said, and pursued his way,
affecting to take a different turn, as long as they were in sight.

Harry’s countenance was lowering and overcast, his address scarcely
civil. He felt his interests entirely antagonistic to those of his
sister and her betrothed. The children burst into remarks upon his
bearishness as they went on.

“He was bearable at first,” said Phil, “but since you have been away,
and while papa has been away, he has led us such a life, Mr. Earnshaw.”

“He is always in the village--always, always in the village; and Sibby
says she _hates_ him!” cried little Molly, who was enthusiastic for her
last new friend.

“Hush, children--don’t gossip,” said their mother; but she too had a
cloud upon her brow.

Then Edgar had a long conversation with Lady Mary in the conservatory,
under the palm-tree, while the children had tea. He told her of all his
plans and prospects, and of the Consulship, upon which he reckoned so
confidently, and which did not, to Lady Mary’s eyes, look quite so fine
an opening as it seemed to her husband.

“Of course, then, we must give you up,” she said, regretfully; “but I
think Lord Newmarch might have done something better for an old friend.”

Something better! The words seemed idle words to Edgar, so well pleased
was he with his prospective appointment. Then he told her of Mr.
Thornleigh’s letter, which was so much more gracious than he could have
hoped for; and then the cloud returned to Lady Mary’s brow.

“I am not at all easy about Harry,” she said. “Mr. Earnshaw--no, I will
call you Edgar, because I have always heard you called Edgar, and always
wanted to call you so; Edgar, then--now don’t thank me, for it is quite
natural--tell me one thing. Have you any influence with your cousin?”

“The doctor?”

“No, not the doctor; if I wanted anything of him, I should ask it
myself. His sister; she is a very beautiful young woman, and, so far as
I can see, very sensible and well-behaved, and discreet--no one can say
a word against her; but if you had any influence with her, as being her
cousin----”

“Is it about Harry?” asked Edgar, anxiously.

“About Harry!--how do you know?--have you heard anything?”

“Harry has told his mother,” said Edgar; “they are all in despair.”

“Oh! I knew it!” cried Lady Mary. “I told Tom so, and he would not
believe me. What, has it come so far as that, that he has spoken to his
mother? Then, innocent as she looks, she must be a designing creature,
after all.”

“He may not have spoken to her, though he has spoken to his mother,”
said Edgar. Was it the spell of kindred blood working in him? for he did
not like this to be said of Margaret, and instinctively attempted to
defend her.

Lady Mary shook her head.

“Do you think any man would be such a fool as to speak to his parents
before he had spoken to the woman?” she said. “One never knows how such
a boy as Harry may act, but I should not have thought that likely.
However, you have not answered my question. Do you think you have any
influence, being her cousin, over her?”

“I do not know her,” said Edgar. “I have only spoken to her once.”

Would this be sufficient defence for him? he wondered, or must he hear
himself again appealed to, to interfere in another case so like his own?

“That is very unfortunate,” said Lady Mary, with a sigh; but, happily
for him, she there left the subject. “I cannot say that she has ever
given him any encouragement,” she said presently, in a subdued tone.
Margaret had gained her point; she was acquitted of this sin, at least;
but Lady Mary pronounced the acquittal somewhat grudgingly. Perhaps,
when a young man is intent upon making a foolish marriage, it is the
best comfort to his parents and friends to be able to feel that _she_ is
artful and designing, and has led the poor boy away.

Edgar went out next morning to see his cousins; he announced his
intention at the breakfast-table, to make sure of no encounter with poor
Harry, who was flighty and unpleasant in manner, and seemed to have some
wish to fix a quarrel upon him. Harry looked up quickly, as if about to
speak, but changed his mind, and said nothing. And Edgar went his
way--hoping the doctor might not be gone upon his round of visits, yet
hoping he might; not wishing to see Margaret, and yet wishing to see
her--in a most uncomfortable and painful state of mind. To his partial
surprise and partial relief, he met her walking along the green towards
the avenue with her little girl. It was impossible not to admire her
grace, her beautiful, half-pathetic countenance, and the gentle
maternity of the beautiful young woman never separate from the beautiful
child, who clung to her with a fondness and dependence which no
indifferent mother ever earns. She greeted Edgar with the sudden smile
which was like sunshine on her face, and held out her hand to him with
frank sweetness.

“I am very glad you have come back,” she said. “It has been unfortunate
for us your being away.”

“Only unfortunate for me, I think,” said Edgar, “for you seem to have
made friends with my friends as much as if I had been here to help it
on. Is this Sibby? I have heard of nothing but Sibby since I came back.”

“Lady Mary has been very kind,” said Margaret, with, he thought, a faint
flush over her pale, pretty cheek.

“And you like the place? And Dr. Charles has got acquainted with his
patients?”

“My brother would like to tell you all that himself,” said Margaret;
“but I want to speak to you of Loch Arroch, and of the old house, and
dear granny. Did you know that she was ill again?”

Margaret looked at him with her beautiful eyes full of tears. Edgar was
not for a moment unfaithful to his Gussy, but after that look I believe
he would have dared heaven and earth, and Mr. Thornleigh, rather than
interfere with anything upon which this lovely creature had set her
heart. Could it be that she had set her heart on Harry Thornleigh, he
asked himself with a groan?

“No,” he said; “they write to me very seldom. When did you hear?”

“Mr. Earnshaw, I have had a letter this morning--it has shaken me very
much,” said Margaret. “Will you come to the cottage with me till I tell
you? Do you remember?--but you could not remember--it was before your
time.”

“What?--I may have heard of it--something which agitates you?”

“Not painfully,” said Margaret, with a faltering voice and unsteady
smile; “gladly, if I could put faith in it. Jeanie had a brother that
was lost at sea, or we thought he was lost. It was his loss that made
her so--ill; and she took you for him--you are like him, Mr. Earnshaw.
Well,” said Margaret, two tears dropping out of her eyes, “they have had
a letter--he is not dead, he is perhaps coming home.”

“What has become of him, then?--and why did he never send word?” cried
Edgar. “How heartless, how cruel!”

Margaret laid her hand softly on his arm.

“Ah! you must not say that!” she cried. “Sailors do not think so much of
staying away a year or two. He was shipwrecked, and lost everything, and
he could not come home in his poverty upon granny. Oh! if we were all as
thoughtful as that! Mr. Earnshaw, sailors are not just to be judged like
other men.”

“He might have killed his poor little sister!” cried Edgar, indignantly;
“that is a kind of conduct for which I have no sympathy. And granny, as
you call her----”

“Ah! you never learnt to call her granny,” said Margaret, with
animation. “Dear granny has never been strong since her last attack--the
shock, though it was joy, was hard upon her. And she was afraid for
Jeanie; but Jeanie has stood it better than anybody could hope; and
perhaps he is there now,” said Margaret, with once more the tears
falling suddenly from her eyes.

“You know him?” said Edgar.

“Oh! _know_ him! I knew him like my own heart!” cried Margaret, a flush
of sudden colour spreading over her pale face. She did not look up, but
kept her eyes upon the ground, going softly along by Edgar’s side, her
beautiful face full of emotion. “He would not write till he had gained
back again what was lost. He is coming home captain of his ship,” she
said, with an indescribable soft triumph.

At that moment a weight was lifted off Edgar’s mind--it was as when the
clouds suddenly break, and the sun bursts forth. He too could have
broken forth into songs or shoutings, to express his sense of release.
“I am glad that everything is ending so happily,” he said, in a subdued
tone. He did not trust himself to look at her, any more than Margaret
could trust herself to look at him. When they reached the cottage, she
went in, and got her letter, and put it into his hand to read; while she
herself played with Sibby, throwing her ball for her, entering into the
child’s glee with all the lightness of a joyful heart. Edgar could not
but look at her, between the lines of Jeanie’s simple letter. He seemed
to himself so well able to read the story, and to understand what
Margaret’s soft blush and subdued excitement of happiness meant.

And yet Harry Thornleigh was still undismissed, and hoped to win her. He
met him as he himself returned to the house. Harry was still uncivil,
and had barely acknowledged Edgar’s presence at breakfast; but he
stopped him now, almost with a threatening look.

“Look here, Earnshaw,” he said, “I daresay they told you what is in my
mind. I daresay they tried to set you over me as a spy. Don’t you think
I’ll bear it. I don’t mean to be tricked out of my choice by any set of
women, and I have made my choice now.”

“Do you know you are mighty uncivil?” said Edgar. “If you had once
thought of what you were saying, you would not venture upon such a word
as spy to me.”

“Venture!” cried the young man. Then, calming himself, “I didn’t mean
it--of course I beg your pardon. But these women are enough to drive a
man frantic; and I’ve made my choice, let them do what they will, and
let my father rave as much as he pleases.”

“This is not a matter which I can enter into,” said Edgar; “but just one
word. Does the lady know how far you have gone?--and has she made her
choice as well as you?”

Harry’s face lighted up, then grew dark and pale.

“I thought so once,” he said, “but now I cannot tell. She is as
changeable as--as all women are,” he broke off, with a forced laugh.
“It’s their way.”

Edgar did not see Harry again till after dinner, and then he was
stricken with sympathy to see how ill he looked. What had happened? But
there was no time or opportunity to inquire what had happened to him.
That evening the mail brought him a letter from Robert Campbell, at
Loch Arroch Head, begging him, if he wanted to see his grandmother
alive, to come at once. She was very ill, and it was not possible that
she could live more than a day or two. He made his arrangements
instantly to go to her, starting next morning, for he was already too
late to catch the night mail. When he set out at break of day, in order
to be in time for the early train from London, he found Margaret already
at the station. She had been summoned also. He had written the night
before a hurried note to Gussy, announcing his sudden call to Loch
Arroch, but he was not aware then that he was to have companionship on
his journey. He put his cousin into the carriage, not ill-pleased to
have her company, and then, leaving many misconceptions behind him,
hurried away, to wind up in Scotland one portion of his
strangely-mingled life.




CHAPTER XIX.

Margaret.


The relations between Harry Thornleigh and Margaret had never come to
any distinct explanation. They had known each other not much more than a
fortnight, which was quite reason enough, on Margaret’s side, at least,
for holding back all explanation, and discouraging rather than helping
on the too eager young lover.

During all the time of Edgar’s absence, it would be useless to deny that
Harry’s devotion suggested very clearly to the penniless young widow,
the poor doctor’s sister, such an advancement in life as might well have
turned any woman’s head. She who had nothing, who had to make a hard
light to get the ends to meet for the doctor and herself, who had for
years exercised all the shifts of genteel poverty, and who, before that,
had been trained to a homely life anything but genteel--had suddenly set
open to her the gates of that paradise of wealth, and rank, and luxury,
which is all the more ecstatic to the poor for being unknown. She, too,
might “ride in her carriage,” might wear diamonds, might go to Court,
might live familiarly with the great people of the land, like Lady Mary;
she who had been bred at the Castle Farm on Loch Arroch, and had known
what it was to “supper the beasts,” and milk the kye; she who had not
disdained the household work of her own little house, in the days of the
poor young Glasgow clerk whom she had married. There had been some
natural taste for elegance in the brother and sister, both handsome
young people, which had developed into gentility by reason of his
profession, and their escape from all the associations of home, where no
one could have been deceived as to their natural position. But Dr.
Charles had made no money anywhere; he had nothing but debts; though
from the moment when he had taken his beautiful sister to be his
housekeeper and companion, he had gradually risen in pretension and aim.
Their transfer to England, a step which always sounds very grand in
homely Scotch ears, had somehow dazzled the whole kith and kin. Even
Robert Campbell, at Loch Arroch Head, had been induced to draw his
cautious purse, and contribute to this new establishment. And now the
first fruits of the venture hung golden on the bough--Margaret had but
to put forth her hand and pluck them; nay, she had but to be passive,
and receive them in her lap. She had held Harry back from a premature
declaration of his sentiments, but she had done this so sweetly that
Harry had been but more and more closely enveloped in her toils; and she
had made up her mind that his passion was to be allowed to ripen, and
that finally she would accept him, and reign like a princess, and live
like Lady Mary, surrounded by all the luxuries which were sweet to her
soul.

It is not necessary, because one is born poor, that one should like the
conditions of that lowly estate, or have no taste for better things. On
the contrary, Margaret was born with a love of all that was soft, and
warm, and easy, and luxurious. She loved these things and prized them;
she felt it in her to be a great lady; her gentle mind was such that she
would have made an excellent princess, all the more sweet, gracious, and
good the less she was crossed, and the more she had her own way.

I am disposed to think, for my own part, that for every individual who
is mellowed and softened by adversity, there are at least ten in the
world whom prosperity would mollify and bring to perfection; but then
that latter process of development is more difficult to attain to.
Margaret felt that it was within her reach. She would have done nothing
unwomanly to secure her lover; nay, has it not been already said that
she had made up her mind to be doubly prudent, and to put it in no one’s
power to say that she had “given him encouragement?” But with that
modest reserve, she had made up her mind to Harry’s happiness and her
own. In her heart she had already consented, and regarded the bargain as
concluded. She would have made him a very sweet wife, and Harry would
have been happy. No doubt he was sufficiently a man of the world to have
felt a sharp twinge sometimes, when his wife’s family was brought in
question; but he thought nothing of that in his hot love, and I believe
she would have made him so good a wife, and been so sweet to Harry, that
this drawback would have detracted very little from his happiness.

So things were going on, ripening pleasantly towards a _dénouement_
which could not be very far off, when that unlucky letter arrived from
Loch Arroch, touching the re-appearance of Jeanie’s brother, the lost
sailor, who had been Margaret’s first love. This letter upset her, poor
soul, amid all her plans and hopes. If it had not, however, unluckily
happened that the arrival of Edgar coincided with her receipt of the
letter, and that both together were followed by the expedition to Loch
Arroch, to the grandmother’s deathbed, I believe the sailor’s return
would only have caused a little tremulousness in Margaret’s resolution,
a momentary shadow upon her sweet reception of Harry, but that nothing
more would have followed, and all would have gone well. Dear reader,
forgive me if I say all would have gone well; for, to tell the truth,
though it was so much against Edgar’s interests, and though it partook
of the character of a mercenary match, and of everything that is most
repugnant to romance, I cannot help feeling a little pang of regret that
any untoward accident should have come in Margaret’s way. Probably the
infusion of her good, wholesome Scotch blood, her good sense, and her
unusual beauty, would have done a great deal more good to the Thornleigh
race than a Right Honourable grandfather; and she would have made such a
lovely great lady, and would have enjoyed her greatness so much (far
more than any Lady Mary ever could enjoy it), and been so good a wife,
and so sweet a mother! That she should give up all this at the first
returning thrill of an old love, is perhaps very much more poetical and
elevating; but I who write am not so young or so romantic as I once was,
and I confess that I look upon the interruption of the story, which was
so clearly tending towards another end, with a great deal of regret.
Even Edgar, when he found her ready to accompany him to Scotland, felt a
certain excitement which was not unmingled with regret. He felt by
instinct that Harry’s hopes were over, and this thought gave him a great
sense of personal comfort and relief. It chased away the difficulties
out of his own way; but at the same time he could not but ask himself
what was the inducement for which she was throwing away all the
advantages that Harry Thornleigh could give her?--the love of a rough
sailor, captain at the best, of a merchant-ship, who had been so little
thoughtful of his friends as to leave them three or four years without
any news of him, and who probably loved her no longer, if he had ever
loved her. It was all to Edgar’s advantage that she should come away at
this crisis, and what was it to him if she threw her life away for a
fancy? But Edgar had never been in the way of thinking of himself only,
and the mingled feelings in his mind found utterance in a vague warning.
He did not know either her or her circumstances well enough to venture
upon more plain speech.

“Do you think you are right to leave your brother just at this moment,
when he is settling down?” Edgar said.

A little cloud rose upon Margaret’s face. Did not she know better than
anyone how foolish it was?

“Ah!” she said, “but if granny is dying, as they say, I must see her,”
and the ready tears sprung to her eyes.

Edgar was so touched by her looks, that, though it was dreadfully
against his own interest, he tried again.

“Of all the women in the world,” he said, “she is the most considerate,
the most understanding. It is a long and an expensive journey, and your
life, she would say, is of more importance than her dying.”

He ventured to look her in the face as he spoke these words, and
Margaret grew crimson under his gaze.

“I do not see how it can affect my life, if I am away for a week or
two,” she said lightly, yet with a tone which showed him that her mind
was made up. Perhaps he thought she was prudently retiring to be quit of
Harry--perhaps withdrawing from a position which became untenable; or
why might it not be pure gratitude and love to the only mother she had
known in her life? Anyhow, whatever might be the reason, there was no
more to be said.

I will not attempt to describe the feelings of Harry Thornleigh, when he
found that Margaret had gone away, and gone with Edgar. He came back to
Lady Mary raving and white with rage, to pour out upon her the first
outburst of his passion.

“The villain!--the traitor!--the low, sneaking rascal!” Harry cried,
foaming. “He has made a catspaw of Gussy and a fool of me. We might have
known it was all a lie and pretence. He has carried her off under our
very eyes.”

Even Lady Mary was staggered, strong as was her faith in Edgar; and
Harry left her doubtful, and not knowing what to make of so strange a
story, and rushed up to town, to carry war and devastation into his
innocent family. He went to Berkeley Square, and flung open the door of
the morning-room, where they were all seated, and threw himself among
them like a thunderbolt. Gussy had received Edgar’s note a little while
before, and she had been musing over it, pensive, not quite happy, not
quite pleased, and saying to herself how very wrong and how very foolish
she was. Of course, if his old mother were dying, he must go to her--he
had no choice; but Gussy, after waiting so long for him, and proving
herself so exceptionally faithful, felt that she had a certain right to
Edgar’s company now, and to have him by her side, all the more that Lady
Augusta had protested that she did not think it would be right to permit
it in the unsettled state of his circumstances, and of the engagement
generally. To have your mother hesitate, and declare that she does not
think she ought to admit him, and then to have your lover abstain from
asking admission, is hard upon a girl. Lord Granton (though, to be sure,
he was a very young man, with nothing to do) was dangling constantly
about little Mary; and Gussy felt that Edgar’s many businesses, which
led him here, and led him there, altogether out of her way, were
inopportune, to say the least.

Harry assailed his mother fiercely, without breath or pause. He accused
her of sending “that fellow” down to Tottenham’s, on purpose to
interfere with him, to be a spy upon him, to ruin all his hopes.

“I have seen a change since ever he came!” he cried wildly. “If it is
your doing, mother, I will never forgive you! Don’t think I am the sort
of man to take such a thing without resenting it! When you see me going
to the devil, you will know whose fault it is. _Her_ fault?--no, she has
been deceived. You have sent that fellow down upon her with his devilish
tongue, to persuade her and delude her. It is he that has taken her
away. No, it is not her fault, it is your fault!” cried Harry. “I should
have grown a good man. I should have given up everything she did not
like; and now you have made up some devilish conspiracy, and you have
taken her away.”

“Harry, do you remember that you are talking to your mother?” cried Lady
Augusta, with trembling lips.

“My mother! A mother helps one, loves one, makes things easy for one!”
he cried. “That’s the ordinary view. Excuses you, and does her best for
you, not her worst; when you take up your _rôle_ as you ought, I’ll take
mine. But since you’ve set your mind on thwarting, deceiving, injuring
me in my best hopes!” cried Harry, white with rage, “stealing from me
the blessing I had almost got, that I would have got, had you stopped
your d----d interference!”

His voice broke here; he had not meant to go so far. As a gentleman at
least, he ought, he knew, to use no oath to ladies; but poor Harry was
beside himself. He stopped short, half-appalled, half-satisfied that he
had spoken his mind.

“Harry, how dare you?” cried Gussy, facing him. “Do you not see how you
are wounding mamma? Has there ever been a time when she has not stood up
for you? And now because she is grieved to think that you are going to
ruin yourself, unwilling that you should throw yourself away----”

“All this comes beautifully from you!” cried Harry, with a sneer--“you
who have never thought of throwing yourself away. But I am sorry for
you, Gussy. I don’t triumph over you. You have been taken in, poor girl,
the worst of the two!”

Gussy was shaken for the moment by his change of tone, by his sudden
compassion. She felt as if the ground had suddenly been cut from under
her feet, and a dizzy sense of insecurity came over her. She looked at
her mother, half frightened, not knowing what to think or say.

“When you have come to your senses, Harry, you will perhaps tell us the
meaning of this!” cried Lady Augusta. “Girls, it is time for you to keep
your appointment with Elise. Ada will go with you to-day, for I don’t
feel quite well. If you have anything to say to me another time,” she
added with dignity, addressing her son, “especially if it is of a
violent description, you will be good enough to wait until Mary has left
the room. I do not choose that she should carry away into her new family
the recollection of brutality at home.”

Lady Augusta’s grand manner was known in the household. Poor Gussy,
though sad and sorry enough, found it difficult to keep from a laugh in
which there would have been but little mirth. But Harry’s perceptions
were not so lively, or his sense of the ridiculous so strong. He was
somehow cowed by the idea of his little sister carrying a recollection
of brutality into so new and splendid a connection as the Marquis of
Hauteville’s magnificent family.

“Oh, bosh!” he said; but it was almost under his breath. And then he
told them of Edgar’s departure from Tottenham’s, and of the discovery he
had made that Margaret had gone too. “You set him on, I suppose, to
cross me,” said Harry; “because I let you know there was one woman in
the world I could fancy--therefore you set him on to take her from me.”

“Oh! Harry, how can you say so? _I_ set him on!” cried Lady Augusta.
“What you are telling me is all foolishness. You are both of you
frightening yourselves about nothing. If there is anyone dying, and they
were sent for, there is no harm in two cousins travelling together.
Harry, did this lady--know what your feelings were?”

“I suppose,” said Harry, after a moment’s hesitation, “women are not
such fools but that they must know.”

“Then you had said nothing to her?” said his mother, pursuing the
subject. Perhaps she permitted a little gleam of triumph to appear in
her eye, for he jumped up instantly, more excited than ever.

“I am going after them,” he said. “I don’t mean to be turned off without
an answer. Whether she has me or not, she shall decide herself; it shall
not be done by any plot against us. This is what you drive me to, with
your underhand ways. I shall not wait a day longer. I’ll go down to
Scotland to-night.”

“Do not say anything to him, Gussy,” cried Lady Augusta. “Let him accuse
his mother and sister of underhand ways, if he likes. And you can go,
sir, if you please, on your mad errand. If the woman is a lady, she will
know what to think of your suspicions. If she is not a lady----”

“What then?” he cried, in high wrath.

“Probably she will accept you,” said Lady Augusta, pale and grand. “I do
not understand the modes of action of such people. You will have had
your way, in any case--and then you will hear what your father has to
say.”

Harry flung out of the house furious. He was very unhappy, poor fellow!
He was chilled and cast down, in spite of himself, by his mother’s
speech. Why should he follow Margaret as if he suspected her? What right
had he to interfere with her actions? If he went he might be supposed to
insult her--if he stayed he should lose her. What was he to do? Poor
Harry!--if Dr. Murray had not been so obnoxious to him, I think he would
have confided his troubles to, and asked advice from, Margaret’s
brother; but Dr. Charles had replied to his inquiry with a confidential
look, and a smile which made him furious.

“She will be back in a week or two. I am not afraid just now, in present
circumstances, that she will forsake me for long,” he had said. “We
shall soon have her back again.”

We!--whom did the fellow mean by we? Harry resolved on the spot that, if
she ever became his wife, she should give up this cad of a brother.
Which I am glad to say, for her credit, was a thing that Margaret would
never have consented to do.

But the Thornleigh family was not happy that day. Gussy, though she had
never doubted Edgar before, yet felt cold shivers of uncertainty shoot
through her heart now. Margaret was beautiful, and almost all women
exaggerate the power of beauty. They give up instinctively before it,
with a conviction, which is so general as to be part of the feminine
creed, that no man can resist that magic power. No doubt Edgar meant to
do what was best; no doubt, she said to herself, that in his heart he
was true--but with a lovely woman there, so lovely, and with claims upon
his kindness, who could wonder if he went astray? And this poor little
scanty note which advised Gussy of his necessary absence, said not a
word about Margaret. She read it over and over again, finding it each
time less satisfactory. At the first reading it had been disappointing,
but nothing more; now it seemed cold, unnecessarily hurried, careless.
She contrasted it with a former one he had written to her, and it seemed
to her that no impartial eye could mistake the difference. She
sympathized with her brother, and yet she envied him, for he was a man,
and could go and discover what was false and what was true; but she had
to wait and be patient, and betray to no one what was the matter, though
her heart might be breaking--yes, though her heart might be breaking!
For, after all, might it not be said that it was she who made the first
overtures to Edgar, not he to her? It might be pity only for her long
constancy that had drawn him to her, and the sight of this woman’s
beautiful face might have melted away that false sentiment. When the
thoughts once fall to such a catastrophe as this, the velocity with
which they go (does not science say so?) doubles moment by moment. I
cannot tell you to what a pitch of misery Gussy had worn herself before
the end of that long--terribly long, silent, and hopeless Spring day.




CHAPTER XX.

Loch Arroch once more.


Edgar and Margaret (accompanied, as she always was, by her child)
arrived at Loch Arroch early on the morning of the second day. They were
compelled to stay in Glasgow all night--she with friends she had there,
he in an inn. It was a rainy, melancholy morning when they got into the
steamer, and crossed the broad Clyde, and wound upward among the hills
to Loch Arroch Head, where Robert Campbell, with an aspect of formal
solemnity, waited with his gig to drive them to the farm.

“You’re in time--oh ay, you’re in time; but little more,” he said, and
went on at intervals in a somewhat solemn monologue, as they drove down
the side of the grey and misty loch, under dripping cloaks and
umbrellas. “She’s been failing ever since the new year,” he said. “It’s
not to be wondered at, at her age; neither should we sorrow, as them
that are without hope. She’s lived a good and useful life, and them that
she brought into the world have been enabled to smooth her path out of
it. We’ve nothing to murmur at; she’ll be real glad to see you
both--you, Marg’ret, and you, Mr. Edgar. Often does she speak of you.
It’s a blessing of Providence that her life has been spared since the
time last Autumn when we all thought she was going. She’s had a real
comfortable evening time, with the light in it, poor old granny, as she
had a right to, if any erring mortal can be said to have a right. And
now, there’s Willie restored, that was thought to be dead and gone.”

“Has Willie come back?” asked Margaret hastily.

“He’s expected,” said Robert Campbell, with a curious dryness, changing
the lugubrious tone of his voice; “and I hope he’ll turn out an altered
man; but it’s no everyone going down to the sea in ships that sees the
wisdom o’ the Lord in the great waters, as might be hoped.”

The rain blew in their faces, the mists came down over the great
mountain range which separates Loch Arroch from Loch Long, and the
Castle Farm lay damp and lonely in its little patch of green, with the
low ruins on the other side of the house shining brown against the cut
fields and the slaty blueness of the loch. It was not a cheerful
prospect, nor was it cheerful to enter the house itself, full of the
mournful bustle and suppressed excitement of a dying--that high
ceremonial, to which, in respect, or reverence, or dire curiosity, or
acquisitiveness, more dreadful still, so many spectators throng in the
condition of life to which all Mrs. Murray’s household belonged.

In the sitting-room there were several people seated. Mrs. MacColl, the
youngest daughter, in her mother’s chair, with her handkerchief to her
eyes, and Mrs. Campbell opposite, telling her sister, who had but lately
arrived, the details of the illness; Jeanie MacColl, who had come with
her mother, sat listlessly at the window, looking out, depressed by the
day and the atmosphere, and the low hum of talk, and all the dismal
accessories of the scene. James Murray’s wife, a hard-featured, homely
person, plain in attire, and less refined in manner than any of the
others, went and came between the parlour and the kitchen.

“They maun a’ have their dinner,” she said to Bell, “notwithstanding
that there’s a dying person in the house;” and with the corners of her
mouth drawn down, and an occasional sigh making itself audible, she laid
the cloth, and prepared the table.

Now and then a sound in the room above would make them pause and
listen--for, indeed, at any moment they might all be called to witness
the exit of the departing soul. Bell’s steps in the kitchen, which were
unsubduable in point of sound, ran through all the more gentle stir of
this melancholy assembly. Bell was crying over her work, pausing now and
then to go into a corner, and wipe the tears from her cheeks; but she
could not make her footsteps light, or diminish the heaviness of her
shoes.

There was a little additional bustle when the strangers arrived, and
Margaret and her child, who were wrapped up in cloaks and shawls, were
taken into the kitchen to have their wraps taken off, and to be warmed
and comforted. Edgar gave his own dripping coat to Bell, and stole
upstairs out of “the family,” in which he was not much at home. Little
Jeanie had just left her grandmother’s room on some necessary errand,
when he appeared at the top of the stair. She gave a low cry, and the
little tray she was carrying trembled in her hands. Her eyes were large
with watching, and her cheeks pale, and the sudden sight of him was
almost more than the poor little heart could bear; but, after a moment’s
silence, Jeanie, with an effort, recovered that command of herself which
is indispensable to women.

“Oh! but she’ll be glad--glad to see you!” she cried--“it’s you she’s
aye cried for night and day.”

Edgar stood still and held her hand, looking into the soft little face,
in which he saw only a tender sorrow, not harsh or despairing, but deep
and quiet.

“Before even I speak of her,” he said, “my dear little Jeanie, let me
say how happy I am to hear about your brother--he is safe after all.”

Jeanie’s countenance was moved, like the loch under the wind. Her great
eyes, diluted with sorrow, swelled full; a pathetic smile came upon her
lips.

“He was dead, and is alive again,” she said softly; “he was lost and is
found.”

“And now you will not be alone, whatever happens,” said Edgar.

I don’t know what mixture of poignant pain came over the grateful gleam
in little Jeanie’s face. She drew her hand from him, and hastened
downstairs. “What does it matter to him, what does it matter to anyone,
how lonely I am?” was the thought that went through her simple heart.
Only one creature in the world had ever cared, chiefly, above everything
else, for Jeanie’s happiness, and that one was dying, not to be detained
by any anxious hold. Jeanie, simple as she was, knew better than to
believe that anything her brother could give her would make up for what
she was about to lose.

Edgar went into the sick-room reverently, as if he had been going into a
holy place. Mrs. Murray lay propped up with pillows on the bed. For the
first moment it seemed to him that the summons which brought him there
must have been altogether uncalled for and foolish. The old woman’s eyes
were as bright and soft as Jeanie’s; the pale faint pink of a Winter
rose lingered in her old cheeks; her face seemed smoothed out of many of
the wrinkles which he used to know; and expanded into a calm and
largeness of peace which filled him with awe. Was it that all mortal
anxieties, all fears and questions of the lingering day were over? By
the bedside, in her own chair, sat the minister of the parish, an old
man, older than herself, who had known her all her life. He had been
reading to her, with a voice more tremulous than her own; and the two
old people had been talking quietly and slowly of the place to which
they were so near. I have no doubt that in the pulpit old Mr. Campbell,
like other divines, talked of golden streets, and harps and crowns, in
the New Jerusalem above. But here there was little room for such
anticipations. A certain wistfulness was in their old eyes, for the
veil before them was still impenetrable, though they were so near it;
but they were not excited.

“You’re sure of finding Him,” the old man was saying; “and where He is,
there shall His people be.”

“Ay,” said Mrs. Murray. “And, oh! it’s strange lying here, no sure
sometimes if it’s me or no; no sure which me it is--an auld woman or a
young woman; and then to think that a moment will make a’ clear.”

This was the conversation that Edgar interrupted. She held out her
withered hand to him with a glow of joy that lighted up her face.

“_My_ son,” she said. There was something in the words that seemed to
fill the room, Edgar thought, with an indescribable warmth and fulness
of meaning, yet with that strange uncertainty which belongs to the last
stage of life. He felt that she might be identifying him, unawares, with
some lost son of thirty years ago, not forgetting his own individuality,
yet mingling the two in one image. “This is the one I told you of,” she
said, turning to her old friend.

“He is like his mother,” said the old man dreamily, putting out a hand
of silent welcome.

They might have been two spirits talking over him, Edgar felt, as he
stood, young, anxious, careful, and troubled, between the two who were
lingering so near the calm echoes of the eternal sea.

“You’ve come soon, soon, my bonnie man,” said Mrs. Murray, holding his
hand between hers; “and, oh, but I’m glad to see you! Maybe it’s but a
fancy, and maybe it’s sinful vanity, but, minister, when I look at him,
he minds me o’ mysel’. Ye’ll say it’s vain--the like of him, a comely
young man, and me; but it’s no in the outward appearance. I’ve had much,
much to do in my generation,” she said, slowly looking at him, with a
smile in her eyes. “And, Edgar, my bonnie lad, I’m thinking, so will
you----”

“Don’t think of me,” he said; “but tell me how you are. You are not
looking ill, my dear old mother. You will be well again before I go.”

“Oh! ay, I’ll be well again,” she said. “I’m no ill--I’m only slipping
away; but I would like to say out my say. The minister has his ain way
in the pulpit,” she went on, with a smile of soft humour, and with a
slowness and softness of utterance which looked like the very perfection
of art to cover her weakness; “and so may I on my deathbed, my bonnie
man. As I was saying, I’ve had much, much to do in my generation,
Edgar--and so will you.”

She smoothed his hand between her own, caressing it, and looking at him
always with a smile.

“And you may say it’s been for little, little enough,” she went on. “Ah!
when my bairns were bairns, how muckle I thought of them! I toiled, and
I toiled, and rose up early and lay down late, aye thinking they must
come to mair than common folk. It was vanity, minister, vanity; I ken
that weel. You need not shake your head. God be praised, it’s no a’ in
a moment you find out the like o’ that. But I’m telling you, Edgar, to
strengthen your heart. They’re just decent men and decent women, nae
mair--and I’ve great, great reason to be thankful; and it’s you, my
bonnie man, the seed that fell by the wayside--none o’ my training, none
o’ my nourishing---- Eh! how the Lord maun smile at us whiles,” she
added, slowly, one lingering tear running over her eyelid, “and a’ our
vain hopes!--no laugh. He’s ower tender for that.”

“Or weep, rather,” said Edgar, penetrated by sympathetic understanding
of the long-concealed, half-fantastic pang of wounded love and pride,
which all these years had wrung silently the high heart now so near
being quieted for ever. She could smile now at her own expectations and
vanities--but what pathos was in the smile!

“We must not put emotions like our own into His mind that’s over all,”
said the old minister. “Smiling or weeping’s no for Him.”

“Eh, but I canna see that,” said the old woman. “Would He be kinder down
yonder by the Sea of Tiberias than He is up there in His ain house? It’s
at hame that the gentle heart’s aye kindest, minister. Mony a day I’ve
wondered if it mightna be just like our own loch, that Sea of
Galilee--the hills about, and the white towns, as it might be Loch
Arroch Head (though it’s more grey than white), and the fishing-cobbles.
But I’m wandering--I’m wandering. Edgar, my bonnie man, you’re tired
and hungry; go down the stair and get a rest, and something to eat.”

Little though Edgar was disposed to resume the strange relationship
which linked him to the little party of homely people in the farm
parlour, with whom he felt so little sympathy, he had no alternative but
to obey. The early dinner was spread when he got downstairs, and a large
gathering of the family assembled round the table. All difference of
breeding and position disappear, we are fond of saying, in a common
feeling--a touch of nature makes the whole world kin; but Edgar felt, I
am afraid, more like the unhappy parson at tithing time, in Cowper’s
verses, than any less prosaic hero. With whimsical misery he felt the
trouble of being too fine for his company--he, the least fine of mortal
men.

Margaret, upon whom his eye lingered almost lovingly, as she appeared
among the rest, a lily among briers, was not ill at ease as he was;
perhaps, to tell the truth, she was more entirely at her ease than when
she had sat, on her guard, and very anxious not to “commit any
solecism,” at Lady Mary’s table. To commit a solecism was the bugbear
which had always been held before her by her brother, whose fears on
this account made his existence miserable. But here Margaret felt the
sweetness of her own superiority, without being shocked by the
homeliness of the others. She had made a hurried visit to her
grandmother, and had cried, and had been comforted, and was now smiling
softly at them all, full of content and pleasant anticipations. Jeanie,
who never left her grandmother, was not present; the Campbells, the
MacColls and the Murrays formed the company, speaking low, yet eating
heartily, who thus waited for the death which was about to take place
above.

“I never thought you would have got away so easy,” said Mrs. Campbell.
“I would scarcely let your uncle write. ‘How can she leave Charles, and
come such a far gait, maybe just for an hour or two?’ I said. But here
you are, Margaret, notwithstanding a’ my doubts. Ye’ll have plenty of
servant-maids, and much confidence in them, that ye can leave so easy
from a new place?”

“We are not in our house yet, and we have no servant,” said Margaret.
“Charles is in lodgings, with a very decent person. It was easy enough
to get away.”

“Lodgings are awful expensive,” said Mrs. MacColl. “I’m sure when we
were in lodgings, Mr. MacColl and me, the Exhibition year, I dare not
tell what it cost. You should get into a house of your ain--a doctor is
never anything thought of without a house of his ain.”

“I hope you found the information correct?” said Robert Campbell,
addressing Edgar. “The woman at Dalmally minded the couple fine. It was
the same name as your auld friend yonder,” and he pointed with his thumb
over his left shoulder, to denote England, or Arden, or the world in
general. “One of the family, perhaps?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! I want to spy into no secrets. Things of this kind are often
turning up. They may say what they like against our Scotch law, but it
prevents villainy now and then, that’s certain. Were you interested for
the man or the leddy, if it’s a fair question? For it all depends upon
that.”

“In neither of them,” said Edgar. “It was a third party, whom they had
injured, that I cared for. When is--Jeanie’s brother--expected back?”

“He may come either the day or the morn,” said Mrs. MacColl. “I wish he
was here, for mother’s very weak. Do you not think she’s weaker since
the morning? I thought her looking just wonderful when I saw her first,
but at twelve o’clock--What did the doctor think?”

“He canna tell more than the rest of us,” said James Murray’s wife.
“She’s going fast--that’s all that can be said.”

And then there was a little pause, and everybody looked sad for the
moment. They almost brightened up, however, when some hasty steps were
heard overhead, and suspended their knives and forks and listened.
Excitement of this kind is hard to support for a stretch. Nature longs
for a crisis, even when the crisis is more terrible than their mild
sorrow could be supposed to be. When it appeared, however, that nothing
was about to happen, and the steps overhead grew still again, they all
calmed down and resumed their dinner, which was an alleviation of the
tedium.

“She’s made a’ the necessary dispositions?” said James Murray’s wife,
interrogatively. “My man is coming by the next steamer. No that there
can be very muckle to divide.”

“Nothing but auld napery, and the auld sticks of furniture. It will
bring very little--and the cow,” said Robert Campbell. “Jean likes the
beast, so we were thinking of making an offer for the cow.”

“You’ll no think I’m wanting to get anything by my mother’s death,” said
Mrs. MacColl; “for I’m real well off, the Lord be thanked! with a good
man, and the bairns doing well; I would rather give than take, if there
was any occasion; but Robert has aye had a great notion of the old clock
on the stairs. There’s a song about it that one of the lassies sings. I
would like that, to keep the bairns in mind o’ their granny. She’s been
a kind granny to them all.”

She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and Margaret and Jeanie MacColl
cried a little. The rest of the company shook their heads, and assented
in different tones.

“Real good and kind, good and kind to everybody! Ower guid to some that
little deserved it!” was the general burden, for family could not but
have its subdued fling at family, even in this moment of melancholy
accord.

“You are forgetting,” said Edgar, “the only one of the family who is not
provided for. What my grandmother leaves should be for little Jeanie.
She is the only helpless one of all.”

At this there was a little murmur round the table, of general
objection.

“Jeanie has had far more than her share already,” said one.

“She’s no more to granny than all the rest of the bairns,” cried
another.

Robert Campbell, the only other man present, raised his voice, and made
himself heard.

“Jeanie will never want,” he said; “here’s her brother come back, no
very much of a man, but still with heart enough in him to keep her from
wanting. Willie’s but a roving lad, but the very rovingness of him is
good for this, that he’ll not marry; and Jeanie will have a support,
till she gets a man, which is aye on the cards for such a bonnie lass.”

This was said with more than one meaning. Edgar saw Margaret’s eyelashes
flutter on her cheek, and she moved a little uneasily, as though unable
to restrain all evidence of a painful emotion. Just at this moment,
however, a shadow darkened the window. Margaret, more keenly on the
watch than anyone, lifted her eyes suddenly, and, rising to her feet,
uttered a low cry. A young man in sailor’s dress came into the room,
with a somewhat noisy greeting.

“What, all of you here! What luck!” he cried. “But where’s granny?”

He had to be hushed into silence, and to have all the circumstances
explained to him; while Jeanie MacColl, half-reluctant to go, was sent
upstairs to call her cousin and namesake, and to take her place as nurse
for the moment. Edgar called her back softly, and offered himself for
this duty. He cast a glance at the returned prodigal as he left the
room, the brother for whom Jeanie had taken him, and whom everybody had
acknowledged his great likeness to. Edgar looked at him with mingled
amusement and curiosity, to see what he himself must look like. Perhaps
Willie had not improved during his adventurous cruise. Edgar did not
think much of himself as reflected in his image; and how glad he was to
escape from his uncle and his aunt, and their family talk, to the
stillness and loftier atmosphere of the death-chamber upstairs!




CHAPTER XXI.

The End of a Drama.


Mrs. Murray lived two days longer. They were weary days to Edgar. It
seems hard to grudge another hour, another moment to the dying, but how
hard are those last lingerings, when hope is over, when all work is
suspended, and a whole little world visibly standing still, till the
lingerer can make up his mind to go! The sufferer herself was too human,
too deeply experienced in life, not to feel the heavy interval as much
as they did. “I’m grieved, grieved,” she said, with that emphatic
repetition which the Scotch peasant uses in common with all naturally
eloquent races, “to keep you waiting, bairns.” Sometimes she said this
with a wistful smile, as claiming their indulgence; sometimes with a
pang of consciousness that they were as weary as she was. She had kissed
and blessed her prodigal returned, and owned to herself with a groan,
which was, however, breathed into her own breast, and of which no one
was the wiser, that Willie, too, was “no more than common folk.”

I cannot explain more than the words themselves do how this high soul in
homely guise felt the pang of her oft-repeated disappointment. Children
and grandchildren, she had fed them not with common food, the bread
earned with ordinary labours, but with her blood, like the pelican; with
the toil of man and woman, of ploughman and hero, all mingled into one.
High heart, heroic in her weakness as in her strength! They had turned
out but “common folk,” and, at each successive failure, that pang had
gone through and through her which common folk could not comprehend. She
looked at Willie the last, with a mingled pleasure and anguish in her
dying mind--I say pleasure, and not joy, for the signs of his face were
not such as to give that last benediction of happiness. Nature was glad
in her to see the boy back whom she had long believed at the bottom of
the sea; but her dying eyes looked at him wistfully, trying to penetrate
his heart, and reach its excuses.

“You should have written, to ease our minds,” she said gently.

“How was I to know you would take it to heart so? Many a man has stayed
away longer, and no harm come of it,” cried Willie, self-defending.

The old woman put her hand upon his bended head, as he sat by her
bedside, half sullen, half sorry. She stroked his thick curling locks
softly, saying nothing for a few long silent moments. She did not blame
him further, nor justify him, but simply was silent. Then she said,

“You will take care of your sister, Willie, as I have taken care of her?
She has suffered a great deal for you.”

“But oh!” cried Jeanie, when they were alone together--kneeling by the
bedside, with her face upon her grandmother’s hand, “you never called
him but Willie--you never spoke to him soft and kind, as you used to
do.”

“Was I no kind?” said the dying woman, with a mingled smile and sigh;
but she kept “My bonnie man!” her one expression of homely fondness, for
Edgar’s ear alone.

They had more than one long conversation before her end came. Edgar was
always glad to volunteer to relieve the watchers in her room, feeling
infinitely more at home there than with the others below. On the night
before her death, she told him of the arrangements she had made.

“You gave me your fortune, Edgar, ower rashly, my bonnie man. Your deed
was so worded, they tell me, that I might have willed your siller away
from you, had I no been an honest woman.”

“And so I meant,” said Edgar, though he was not very clear that at the
time he had any meaning at all. “And there is Jeanie----”

“You will not take Jeanie upon you,” said the old woman--“I charge ye
not to do it. The best thing her brother can have to steady him and keep
him right, is the thought of Jeanie on his hands--Jeanie to look for him
when he comes home. You’ll mind what I say. Meddling with nature is aye
wrong; I’ve done it in my day, and I’ve repented. To make a’ sure, I’ve
left a will, Edgar, giving everything to you--everything. What is it? My
auld napery, and the auld, auld remains of my mother’s--most of it her
spinning and mine. Give it to your aunts, Edgar, for they’ll think it
their due; but keep a something--what are the auld rags worth to
you?--keep a little piece to mind me by--a bit of the fine auld
damask--so proud as I was of it once! I’ve nae rings nor bonny-dies,
like a grand leddy, to keep you in mind of me.”

She spoke so slowly that these words took her a long time to say, and
they were interrupted by frequent pauses; but her voice had not the
painful labouring which is so common at such a moment; it was very low,
but still sweet and clear. Then she put out her hand, still so fine, and
soft, and shapely, though the nervous force had gone out of it, upon
Edgar’s arm.

“I’m going where I’ll hear nothing of you, maybe, for long,” she said.
“I would like to take all the news with me--for there’s them to meet
yonder that will want to hear. There’s something in your eye, my bonnie
man, that makes me glad. You’re no just as you were--there’s more light
and more life. Edgar, you’re seeing your way?”

Then, in the silence of the night, he told her all his tale. The
curtains had been drawn aside, that she might see the moon shining over
the hills. The clearest still night had succeeded many days of rain; the
soft “hus-sh” of the loch lapping upon the beach was the only sound that
broke the great calm. He sat between her and that vision of blue sky and
silvered hill which was framed in by the window; by his side a little
table, with a candle on it, which lighted one side of his face; behind
him the shadowy dimness of the death-chamber; above him that gleam of
midnight sky. He saw nothing but her face; she looked wistfully,
fondly, as on a picture she might never see more, upon all the
circumstances of this scene. He told her everything--more than he ever
told to mortal after her--how he had been able to serve Clare, and how
she had been saved from humiliation and shame; how he had met Gussy, and
found her faithful; and how he was happy at the present moment, already
loved and trusted, but happier still in the life that lay before him,
and the woman who was to share it. She listened to every word with
minute attention, following him with little exclamations, and all the
interest of youth.

“And oh! now I’m glad!” cried the old woman, making feeble efforts,
which wasted almost all the little breath left to her, to draw something
from under her pillow--“I’m glad I have something that I never would
part with. You’ll take her this, Edgar--you’ll give her my blessing.
Tell her my man brought me this when I was a bride. It’s marked out mony
a weary hour and mony a light one; it’s marked the time of births and of
deaths. When my John died, my man, it stoppit at the moment, and it was
long, long or I had the heart to wind it again and set it going. It’s
worn now, like me; but you’ll bid her keep it, Edgar, my bonnie man!
You’ll give her my blessing, and you’ll bid her to keep it, for your old
mother’s sake.”

Trembling, she put into his hand an old watch, which he had often seen,
but never before so near. It was large and heavy, in an old case of
coppery gold, half hid under partially-effaced enamel, wanting
everything that a modern watch should have, but precious as an antiquity
and work of art.

“A trumpery thing that cost five pounds would please _them_ better,” she
said. “It’s nae value, but it’s old, old, and came to John from a
far-off forbear. You’ll give it to her with my blessing. Ay, blessings
on her!--blessings on her sweet face!--for sweet it’s bound to be; and
blessings on her wise heart, that’s judged weel! eh, but I’m glad to
have one thing to send her. And, Edgar, now I’ve said all my say, turn
me a little, that I may see the moon. Heaven’s but a step on such a
bonnie night. If I’m away before the morning, you’ll shed nae tear, but
praise the Lord the going’s done. No, dinna leave it; take it away. Put
it into your breast-pocket, where you canna lose it. And now say
fare-ye-weel to your old mother, my bonnie man.”

These were the last words she said to him alone. When some one came to
relieve him, Edgar went out with a full heart into the silvery night.
Not a sound of humanity broke the still air, which yet had in it a
sharpness of the spring frosts. The loch rose and fell upon its pebbles,
as if it hushed its own very waves in sorrow. The moon shone as if with
a purpose--as if holding her lovely lamp to light some beloved wayfarer
up the shining slope.

“Heaven’s but a step on such a night,” he said to himself, with tears of
which his manhood was not ashamed. And so the moon lighted the traveller
home.

With the very next morning the distractions of common earth returned.
Behind the closed shutters, the women began to examine the old napery,
and the men to calculate what the furniture, the cow, the cocks and hens
would bring. James Murray valued it all, pencil and notebook in hand.
Nothing would have induced the family to show so little respect as to
shorten the six or seven days’ interval before the funeral, but it was a
very tedious interval for them all. Mrs. Campbell drove off with her
husband to her own house on the second day, and James Murray returned to
Greenock; but the MacColls stayed, and Margaret, and made their “blacks”
in the darkened room below, and spoke under their breath, and wearied
for the funeral day which should release them.

Margaret, perhaps, was the one on whom this interval fell most lightly;
but yet Margaret had her private sorrows, less easy to bear than the
natural grief which justified her tears. The sailor Willie paid but
little attention to her beauty and her pathetic looks. He was full of
plans about his little sister, about taking her with him on his next
voyage, to strengthen her and “divert” her; and poor Margaret, whose
heart had gone out of her breast at first sight of him, as it had done
in her early girlhood, felt her heart sicken with the neglect, yet could
not believe in it. She could not believe in his indifference, in his
want of sympathy with those feelings which had outlived so many other
things in her mind. She went to Edgar a few days after their
grandmother’s death with a letter in her hand. She went to him for
advice, and I cannot tell what it was she wished him to advise her. She
did not know herself; she wanted to do two things, and she could but
with difficulty and at a risk to herself do one.

“This is a letter I have got from Mr. Thornleigh,” she said, with
downcast looks. “Oh! Cousin Edgar, my heart is breaking! Will you tell
me what to do?”

Harry’s letter was hot and desperate, as was his mind. He implored her,
with abject entreaties, to marry him, not to cast him off; to remember
that for a time she had smiled upon him, or seemed to smile upon him,
and not to listen now to what anyone might say who should seek to
prejudice her against him. “What does my family matter when I adore
you?” cried poor Harry, unwittingly betraying himself. And he begged her
to send him one word, only one word--permission to come down and speak
for himself. Edgar felt, as he read this piteous epistle, like the wolf
into whose fangs a lamb had thrust its unsuspecting head.

“How can I advise you how to answer?” he said, giving her back the
letter, glad to get it out of his hands. “You must answer according to
what is in your heart.”

Upon this Margaret wept, wringing her lily hands.

“Mr. Edgar,” she said, “you cannot think that I am not moved by such a
letter. Oh! I’m not mercenary, I don’t think I am mercenary! but to have
all this put at my feet, to feel that it would be for Charles’s good
and for Sibby’s good, if I could make up my mind!”

Here she stopped, and cast a glance back at the house again. Edgar had
been taking a melancholy walk along the side of the loch, where she had
joined him. Her heart was wrung by a private conflict, which she could
not put into words, but which he divined. He felt sure of it, from all
he had seen and heard since they came, as well as from the impression
conveyed to his mind the moment she had named the sailor Willie’s name.
I do not know why it should be humbling for a woman to love without
return, when it is not humbling for a man; but it is certain that for
nothing in the world would Margaret have breathed the cause of her
lingering unwillingness to do anything which should separate her from
Willie; and that Edgar felt hot and ashamed for her, and turned away his
eyes, that she might not see any insight in them. At the same time,
however, the question had another side for him, and involved his own
fortunes. He tried to dismiss this thought altogether out of his mind,
but it was hard to do so. Had she loved Harry Thornleigh, Edgar would
have felt himself all the more pledged to impartiality, because this
union would seriously endanger his own; but to help to ruin himself by
encouraging a mercenary marriage, this would be hard indeed!

“Are you sure that you would get so many advantages?--to Charles and to
Sibby?” he cried, with a coldness impossible to conceal.

She looked at him startled, the tears arrested in her blue eyes. She
had never doubted upon this point. Could she make up her mind to marry
Harry, every external advantage that heart could desire she felt would
be secured. This first doubt filled her with dismay.

“Would I no?” she cried faltering. “He is a rich man’s heir, Lady Mary’s
nephew--a rich gentleman. Oh! Cousin Edgar, what will you think of me? I
have always been poor, and Charles is poor--how can I put that out of my
mind?”

“I do not blame you,” said Edgar, feeling ashamed both of himself and
her. And then he added, “He is a rich man’s son, but his father is not
old; and he would not receive you gladly into his family. Forgive me
that I say so--I ought to tell you that I am not a fair judge. I am
going to marry Harry’s sister, and they object very much to me.”

“Object to _you_!--they are ill to please,” cried Margaret, with simple
natural indignation. “But if you were in the family, that would make
things easier for us,” she added, wistfully, looking up in his face.

“You have made up your mind, then, to run the risk?” said Edgar, feeling
his heart sink.

“I did not say that.” She gave another glance at the house again. Willie
was standing at the door, in the morning sunshine, and beckoned to her
to come back. She turned to him, as a flower turns to the sun. “No, I am
far, far from saying that,” said the young woman, with a mixture of
sadness and gladness, turning to obey the summons.

Edgar stood still, looking after her with wondering gaze. The
good-looking sailor, whose likeness to himself did not make him proud,
was a poor creature enough to be as the sun in the heavens to this
beautiful, stately young woman, who looked as if she had been born to be
a princess. What a strange world it is, and how doubly strange is human
nature! Willie had but to hold up a finger, and Margaret would follow
him to the end of the earth; though the rest of his friends judged him
rightly enough, and though even little Jeanie, though she loved, could
scarcely approve her brother, Margaret was ready to give up even her
hope of wealth and state, which she loved, for this Sultan’s notice.
Strange influence, which no man could calculate upon, which no prudence
restrained, nor higher nor lower sentiment could quite subdue!

Edgar followed his beautiful cousin to the house with pitying eyes. He
did not want her to marry Harry Thornleigh, but even to marry Harry
Thornleigh, though she did not love him, seemed less degrading than to
hang upon the smile, the careless whistle to his hand, of a man so
inferior to her. I don’t know if, in reality, Willie was inferior to
Margaret. She, for one, would have been quite satisfied with him; but
great beauty creates an atmosphere about it which dazzles the beholder.
It was not fit, Edgar felt, in spite of himself, that a woman so lovely
should thus be thrown away.

As this is but an episode in my story, I may here follow Margaret’s
uncomfortable wooing to its end. Poor Harry, tantalized and driven
desperate by a letter, which seemed, to Margaret, the most gently
temporising in the world, and which was intended to keep him from
despair, and to retain her hold upon him until Willie’s purposes were
fully manifested, at last made his appearance at Loch Arroch Head, where
she was paying the Campbells a visit, on the day after Edgar left the
loch. He came determined to hear his fate decided one way or another,
almost ill with the excitement in which he had been kept, wilder than
ever in the sudden passion which had seized upon him like an evil
spirit. He met her, on his unexpected arrival, walking with Willie, who,
having nothing else to do, did not object to amuse his leisure with his
beautiful cousin, whose devotion to him, I fear, he knew. Poor Margaret!
I know her behaviour was ignoble, but I regret--as I have confessed to
the reader--that she did not become the great lady she might have been;
and, notwithstanding that Edgar’s position would have been deeply
complicated thereby, I wish the field had been left clear for Harry
Thornleigh, who would have made her a good enough husband, and to whom
she would have made, in the end, a very sweet wife. Forgive me, young
romancist, I cannot help this regret. Even at that moment Margaret did
not want to lose her young English Squire, and her friends were so far
from wanting to lose him that Harry, driven to dire disgust, hated them
ever after with a strenuous hatred, which he transferred to their nation
generally, not knowing any better. He lingered for a day or more,
waiting for the answer which Margaret was unwilling to give, and
tortured by Willie, who, seeing the state of affairs, felt his vanity
involved, and was more and more loverlike to his cousin. The issue was
that Harry rushed away at last half mad, and went abroad, and wasted his
substance more than he had ever done up to that moment, damaged his
reputation, and encumbered his patrimony, and fell into that state of
cynical disbelief in everybody, which, bad as are its effects even upon
the cleverest and brightest intelligence, has a worse influence still
upon the stupid, to whom there is no possibility of escape from its
withering power.

When Harry was fairly off the scene, his rival slackened in his
attentions; and after a while Margaret returned to her brother, and they
did their best to retrieve their standing at Tottenham’s, and to make
the position of the doctor’s family at Harbour Green a pleasant one. But
Lady Mary, superior to ordinary prejudices as she was, was not so
superior as to be altogether just to Margaret, who, though she deserved
blame, got more blame than she deserved. The Thornleighs all believed
that she had “laid herself out” to “entrap” Harry--which was not the
case; and Lady Mary looked coldly upon the woman who had permitted
herself to be loved by a man so far above her sphere. And then Lady Mary
disliked the doctor, who never could think even of the most interesting
“case” so much as to be indifferent to what people were thinking of
himself. So Harbour Green proved unsuccessful, as their other
experiments had proved, and the brother and sister drifted off again
into the world, where they drift still, from place to place, always
needy, anxious, afraid of their gentility, yet with that link of
fraternal love between them, and with that toleration of each other and
mutual support, which gives a certain beauty, wherever they go, to the
family group formed by this handsome brother and sister, and the
beautiful child, whom her uncle cherishes almost as dearly as her mother
does.

Ah, me! if Margaret had made that “good match,” though it was not all
for love, would it not have been better for everybody concerned?




CHAPTER XXII.

Another Winding-up.


I hope it will not give the reader a poor idea of Edgar’s heart if I say
that it was with a relief which it was impossible to exaggerate that he
felt the last dreary day of darkness pass, and was liberated from his
melancholy duties. This did not affect his sorrow for the noble
old woman who had made him at once her confidant and her
inheritor--inheritor not of land or wealth, but of something more subtle
and less tangible. But indeed for her there was no sorrow needed. Out of
perennial disappointments she had gone to her kind, to those with whom
she could no longer be disappointed. Heaven had been “but a step” to
her, which she took smiling. For her the hearse, the black funeral, the
nodding plumes, were inappropriate enough; but they pleased the family,
of whom it never could be said by any detractor that they had not paid
to their mother “every respect.”

Edgar felt that his connection with them was over for ever when he took
leave of them on the evening of the funeral. The only one over whom his
heart yearned a little was Jeanie, who was the true mourner of the only
mother she had ever known, but who, in the midst of her mourning, poor
child, felt another pang, perhaps more exquisite, at the thought of
seeing him, too, no more. All the confusion of sentiment and feeling, of
misplaced loves and indifferences, which make up the world were in this
one little family. Jeanie had given her visionary child’s heart to
Edgar, who, half aware of, half disowning the gift, thought of her ever
with tender sympathy and reverence, as of something sacred. Margaret,
less exquisite in her sentiments, yet a loving soul in her way, had
given hers to Willie, who was vain of her preference, and laughed at
it--who felt himself a finer fellow, and she a smaller creature because
she loved him. Dr. Charles, uneasy soul, would have given his head had
he dared to marry Jeanie, yet would not, even had she cared for him,
have ventured to burden his tottering gentility with a wife so homely.

Thus all were astray from the end which might have made each a nobler
and certainly a happier creature. Edgar never put these thoughts into
words, for he was too chivalrous a man even to allow to himself that a
woman had given her heart to him unsought; but the complications of
which he was conscious filled him with a vague pang--as the larger
complications of the world--that clash of interests, those broken
threads, that never meet, those fulnesses and needinesses, which never
can be brought to bear upon each other--perplex and pain the spectator.
He was glad, as we all are, to escape from them; and when he reached
London, where his love was, and where, the first thing he found on his
arrival was the announcement of his appointment, his heart rose with a
sudden leap, spurning the troubles of the past, in elastic revulsion. He
had his little fortune again, not much, at any time, but yet something,
which Gussy could hang at her girdle, and his old mother’s watch for
her, quaint, but precious possession. He was scarcely anxious as to his
reception, though she had written him but one brief note since his
absence; for Edgar was himself so absolutely true that it did not come
into his heart that he could be doubted. But he could not go to Gussy at
once, even on his arrival. Another and a less pleasant task remained for
him. He had to meet his sister at the hotel she had gone to, and be
present at the clandestine marriage--for it was no better--which was at
last to unite legally the lives of Arthur Arden and Clare.

Clare had arrived in town the evening before. He found her waiting for
him, in her black dress, her children by her, in black also. She was
still as pale as when he left her at Arden, but she received him with
more cordiality than she had shown when parting with him. There was
something in her eyes which alarmed him--an occasional vagueness, almost
wildness.

“We did wrong, Edgar,” she said, when the children were sent away, and
they were left together--“we did wrong.”

“In what did we do wrong, Clare?”

“In ever thinking of those--those papers. We should have burnt them, you
and I together. What was it to anyone what happened between us? We were
the sole Ardens of the family--the only ones to be consulted.”

“Clare! Clare! I am no Arden at all. Would you have had me live on a lie
all my life, and build my own comfort upon some one else’s wrong?”

“You were always too high-flown, Edgar,” she said, with the practical
quiet of old. “Why did you come to me whenever you heard that trouble
was coming? Because you were my brother. Instinct proves it. If you are
my brother, then it is you who should be master at Arden, and
not--anyone else.”

“It is true I am your brother,” he said, sitting down by her, and
looking tenderly into her colourless face.

“Then we were wrong, Edgar--we were wrong--I know we were wrong; and now
we must suffer for it,” she said, with a low moan. “My boy will be like
you, the heir, and yet not the heir; but for him I will do more than I
did for you. I will not stop for lying. What is a lie? A lie does not
break you off from your life.”

“Does it not? Clare, if you would think a moment----”

“Oh! I think!” she cried--“I think!--I do nothing but think! Come, now,
we must not talk any more; it is time to go.”

They drove together in a street cab to an obscure street in the city,
where there was a church which few people ever entered. I doubt if this
choice was so wise as they thought, but the incumbent was old, the clerk
old, and everything in their favour, so far as secrecy was concerned.
Arthur Arden met them there, pale, but eager as any bridegroom could be.
Clare had her veil--a heavy veil of black lace--over her face; the very
pew-opener shuddered at such a dismal wedding, and naturally all the
three officials, clergyman, clerk, and old woman, exerted all their aged
faculties to penetrate the mystery. The bridal party went back very
silently in another cab to Clare’s hotel, where Arthur Arden saw his
children, seizing upon them with hungry love and caresses. He did not
suspect, as Edgar did, that the play was not yet played out.

“You have never said that you forgive me, Clare,” he said, after, to his
amazement, she had sent her boy and girl away.

“I cannot say what I do not mean,” she said, in a very low and tremulous
voice. “I have said nothing all this time; now it is my turn to speak.
Oh! don’t look at me so, Edgar!--don’t ask me to be merciful with your
beseeching eyes! We were not merciful to you.”

“What does she mean?” said Arthur Arden, looking dully at him; and then
he turned to his wife. “Well, Clare, you’ve had occasion to be angry--I
don’t deny it. I don’t excuse myself. I ought to have looked deeper into
that old affair. But the punishment has been as great on me as on you.”

“Oh, the punishment!” she cried. “What is the punishment in comparison?
It is time I should tell you what I am going to do.”

“There, there now!” he said, half frightened, half coaxing. “We are
going home. Things will come right, and time will mend everything. No
one knows but Edgar, and we can trust Edgar. I will not press you for
pardon. I will wait; I will be patient----”

“I am not going home any more. I have no home,” she said.

“Clare, Clare!”

“Listen to what I say. I am ill. There shall be no slander--no story for
the world to talk of. I have told everybody that I am going to Italy for
my health. It need not even be known that you don’t go with me. I have
made all my arrangements. You go your way, and I go mine. It is all
settled, and there is nothing more to say.”

She rose up and stood firm before them, very pale, very shadowy, a
slight creature, but immovable, invincible. Arthur Arden knew his wife
less than her brother did. He tried to overcome her by protestations, by
entreaties, by threats, by violence. Nothing made any impression upon
her; she had made her decision, and Heaven and earth could not turn her
from it. Edgar had to hold what place he could between them--now
seconding Arden’s arguments, now subduing his violence; but neither the
one nor the other succeeded in their efforts. She consented to wait in
London a day or two, and to allow Edgar to arrange her journey for
her--a journey upon which she needed and would accept no escort--but
that was all. Arden came away a broken man, on Edgar’s arm, almost
sobbing in his despair.

“You won’t leave me, Edgar--you’ll speak for me--you’ll persuade her it
is folly--worse than folly!” he cried.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was long before Edgar could leave him, a little quieted by promises
of all that could be done. Arden clung to him as to his last hope. Thus
it was afternoon when at last he was able to turn his steps towards
Berkeley Square.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gussy knew he was to arrive in town that morning, and, torn by painful
doubts as she was, every moment of delay naturally seemed to her a
further evidence that Edgar had other thoughts in his mind more
important to him than she was. She had said nothing to anyone about
expecting him, but within herself had privately calculated that by
eleven o’clock at least she might expect him to explain everything and
make everything clear. Eleven o’clock came, and Gussy grew _distraite_,
and counted unconsciously the beats of the clock, with a pulsation
quicker and quite as loud going on in her heart. Twelve o’clock, and her
heart grew sick with the deferred hope, and the explanation seemed to
grow dim and recede further and further from her. He had never mentioned
Margaret in his letters, which were very short, though frequent; and
Gussy knew that her brother, in wild impatience, had gone off two days
before to ascertain his fate. But she was a woman, and must wait till
her fate came to her, counting the cruel moments, and feeling the time
pass slowly, slowly dragging its weary course. One o’clock; then
luncheon, which she had to make a pretence to eat, amid the chatter of
the girls, who were so merry and so loud that she could not hear the
steps without and the knocks at the door.

When they were all ready to go out after, Gussy excused herself. She had
a headache, she said, and indeed she was pale enough for any headache.
He deserved that she should go out as usual, and wait no longer to
receive him; but she would not treat him as he deserved. When they were
all gone she could watch at the window, in the shade of the curtains, to
see if he was coming, going over a hundred theories to explain his
conduct. That he had been mistaken in his feeling all along, and never
had really cared for her; that Margaret’s beauty had been too much for
him, and had carried him away; that he cared for her a little, enough to
fulfil his engagements, and observe a kindly sort of duty towards her,
but that he had other friends to see, and business to do, more important
than she was. All these fancies surged through her head as she stood,
the dark damask half hiding her light little figure at the window.

The days had lengthened, the sounds outside were sounds of spring, the
trees in the square garden were coloured faintly with the first tender
wash of green. Steps went and came along the pavement, carriages drew
up, doors opened and shut, but no Edgar. She was just turning from the
window, half blind and wholly sick with the strain, when the sound of a
light, firm foot on the stair caught her ears, and Edgar made his
appearance at last. There was a glow of pleasure on his face, but care
and wrinkles on his forehead. Was the rush with which he came forward
to her, and the warmth of his greeting, and the light on his face,
fictitious? Gussy felt herself warm and brighten, too, involuntarily,
but yet would have liked best to sit down in a corner and cry.

“How glad I am to find you alone!” he said. “What a relief it is to get
here at last! I am tired, and dead beat, and sick and sorry, dear. Now I
can breathe and rest.”

“You have been long, long of coming,” said Gussy, half wearily, half
reproachfully.

“Haven’t I? It seems about a year since I arrived this morning, and not
able to get near you till now. Gussy, tell me, first of all, did you see
it?--do you know?”

“What?” Her heart was melting--all the pain and all the anger, quite
unreasonably as they had risen, floating away.

“Our Consulship,” he said, opening up his newspaper with one hand, and
spreading it out, to be held by the other hand, on the other side of
her. The two heads bent close together to look at this blessed
announcement. “Not much for you, my darling--for me everything,” said
Edgar, with a voice in which bells of joy seemed to be ringing, dancing,
jostling against each other for very gladness. “I was half afraid you
would see it before I brought the news.”

“I had no heart to look at the paper this morning,” she said.

“No heart! Something has happened? Your father--Harry--what is it?”
cried Edgar, in alarm.

“Oh! nothing,” cried Gussy, crying. “I was unhappy, that was all. I did
not know what you would say to me. I thought you did not care for me. I
had doubts, dreadful doubts! Don’t ask me any more.”

“Doubts--of me!” cried Edgar, with a surprised, frank laugh.

Never in her life had Gussy felt so much ashamed of herself. She did not
venture to say another word about those doubts which, with such
laughing, pleasant indifference, he had dismissed as impossible. She sat
in a dream while he told her everything, hearing it all like a tale that
she had read in a book. He brought out the old watch and gave it to her,
and she kissed it and put it within her dress, and cried when he
described to her the last words of his old mother. Loch Arroch and all
its homely circumstances became as a scene of the Scriptures to Gussy;
she seemed to see a glory of ideal hills and waters, and the moonlight
filling the sky and earth, and the loveliness of the night which made it
look “but a step” between earth and heaven. Her heart grew so full over
those details that Edgar, unsuspicious, never discovered the compunction
which mingled in that sympathetic grief. He told her about his journey;
then paused, and looked her in the eyes.

“Last year it was you who travelled with me. You were the little
sister?” he said. “Ah! yes, I know it was you. You came and kissed me in
my sleep----”

“Indeed I did not, sir!” cried Gussy, in high indignation. “I would not
have done such a thing for all the world.”

Edgar laughed, and held her so fast that she could not turn from him.

“You did in spirit,” he said; “and I had it in a dream. Ever since I
have had a kind of hope in my life; I dreamt that you put the veil
aside, and I saw you. When I woke I could not believe it, though I knew
it; but the other sister, the real one, would not tell me your name.”

“Poor sister Susan!” cried Gussy, the tears disappearing, the sunshine
bursting out over all her face; “she will not like me to go back into
the world.”

“Nor to go out to Italy as a Consul,” said Edgar, gay as a boy in his
new happiness, “to talk to all the ships’ captains, and find out about
the harbour dues.”

“Foolish! there are no ship captains, nor ships either, nor dues of any
kind--”

“Nothing but the bay and the hills, and the sunsets and the moonrises;
the Riviera, which means Paradise--”

“And to be together--”

“Which has the same meaning,” he said. And then they stopped in this
admirable fooling, and laughed the foolish laughter of mere happiness,
which is not such a bad thing, when one can have it, once in a way.

“What a useless, idle, Sybarite life you have sketched out for us!”
Gussy said at last. “I hope it is not a mere sunshiny sinecure. I hope
there is something to do.”

“I am very good at doing nothing,” Edgar replied--too glad, at last, to
return to homely reality and matter of fact; and until the others came
home, these two talked as much nonsense as it is given to the best of us
to talk; and got such good of it as no words can describe.

When Lady Augusta returned, she pretended to frown upon Edgar, and
smiled; and then gave him her hand, and then inclined her cheek towards
him. They had the paper out again, and she shook her head; then kissed
Gussy, and told them that Spezzia was the most lovely place in all the
world. Edgar stayed to dinner, as at last a recognised belonging of the
household, and met Lord Granton, who was somewhat frightened of him, and
respectful, having heard his praises celebrated by Mary as something
more than flesh and blood; and for that evening “the Grantons” that were
to be, were nobodies--not even redeemed from insignificance by the fact
that their marriage was approaching, while the other marriage was still
in the clouds.

“How nice it would be if they could be on the same day!” little Mary
whispered, rather, I fear, with the thought of recovering something of
her natural consequence as bride than for any other reason.

“As if the august ceremonial used at an Earl’s wedding would do for a
Consul’s!” cried saucy Gussy, tossing her curls as of old. And
notwithstanding Edgar’s memories, and the dark shadow of Clare’s
troubles that stood by his side, and the fear that now and then
overwhelmed them all about Harry’s movements--in spite of all this, I do
not think a merrier evening was ever spent in Berkeley Square. Gussy had
been in a cloud, in a veil, for all these years; she had not thought it
right to laugh much, as the Associate of a Sisterhood--which is to say
that Gussy was not happy enough to want to laugh, and founded that grey,
or brown, or black restriction for herself, with the ingenuity of an
unscrupulous young woman. But now sweet laughter had become again as
natural to her as breath.




CHAPTER XXIII.

H.B.M.’s Consul.--Conclusion.


Clare carried out her intentions, unmoved by all the entreaties
addressed to her. She heard everything that was said with perfect calm;
either her capabilities of emotion were altogether exhausted, or her
passionate sense of wrong was too deep to show at the surface, and she
was calm as a marble statue; but she was equally inflexible. Edgar
turned, in spite of himself, into Arthur Arden’s advocate; pleaded with
her, setting forth every reason he could think of, partly against his
own judgment--and failed. Her husband, against whom she did not
absolutely close her door, threw himself at her feet, and entreated, for
the children’s sake, for the sake of all that was most important to them
both--the credit of their house, the good name of their boy. These were
arguments which with Clare, in her natural mind, would have been
unanswerable; but that had happened to Clare which warps the mind from
its natural modes of thought. The idea of disgrace had got into her very
soul, like a canker. She was unable to examine her reasons--unable to
resist, even in herself, this overwhelming influence; it overcame her
principles, and even her prejudices, which are more difficult to
overcome. The fear of scandal, which those who knew Clare would have
supposed sufficient to make her endure anything, failed totally here.
She knew that her behaviour would make the world talk, and she even felt
that, with this clue to some profound disagreement between her husband
and herself, the whole story might be more easily revealed, and her
boy’s heirship made impossible; but even with this argument she could
not subdue herself, nor suffer herself to be subdued. The sense of
outrage had taken possession of her; she could not forget it--could not
realize the possibility of ever forgetting it. It was not that she had
been brought within the reach of possible disgrace. She _was_ disgraced;
the very formality of the new marriage, though she consented to it
without question, as a necessity, was a new outrage. In short, Clare,
though she acted with a determination and steadiness which seemed to add
force to her character, and showed her natural powers as nothing else
had ever done, was not, for the first time in her life, a free agent.
She had been taken possession of by a passionate sense of injury, which
seized upon her as an evil spirit might seize upon its victim. In the
very fierceness of her individual resentment, she ceased to be an
individual, and became an abstraction, a woman wronged, capable of
feeling, knowing, thinking of nothing but her wrong. This made all
arguments powerless, all pleas foolish. She could not admit any
alternative into her mind; her powers of reasoning failed her altogether
on this subject; on all others she was sane and sensible, but on this
had all the onesidedness, the narrowness of madness--or of the
twin-sister of madness--irrepressible and irrepressed passion.

Without knowing anything of the real facts of the story, the Thornleighs
were admitted to see her, on Clare’s own suggestion; for her warped mind
was cunning to see where an advantage could be drawn from partial
publicity. They found her on her sofa, looking, in the paleness which
had now become habitual to her, like a creature vanishing out of the
living world.

“Why did you not let us know you were ill? You must have been suffering
long, and never complained!” cried Lady Augusta, moved almost to tears.

“Not very long,” said Clare.

She had permitted her husband to be present at this interview, to keep
up appearances to the last; and Arthur felt as if every word was a dart
aimed at him, though I do not think she meant it so.

“Not long! My dear child, you are quite thin and wasted; this cannot
have come on all at once. But Italy will do you all the good in the
world,” Lady Augusta added, trying to be cheerful. “_They_, you know,
are going to Italy too.”

“But not near where I shall be,” said Clare.

“You must go further south? I am very sorry. Gussy and you would have
been company for each other. You are not strong enough for company? My
poor child! But once out of these cold spring winds, you will do well,”
said kind Lady Augusta.

But though she thus took the matter on the surface, she felt that there
was more below. Her looks grew more and more perplexed as they discussed
Edgar’s appointment, and the humble beginning which the young couple
would make in the world.

“It is very imprudent--very imprudent,” Lady Augusta said, shaking her
head. “I have said all I can, Mrs. Arden, and so has Mr. Thornleigh. I
don’t know how they are to get on. It is the most imprudent thing I ever
heard of.”

“Nothing is imprudent,” said Clare, with a hard, dry intonation, which
took all pleasant meaning out of the words, “when you can trust fully
for life or death; and my brother Edgar is one whom everybody can
trust.”

“At all events, we are both of us old enough to know our own minds,”
said Gussy, hastily, trying to laugh off this impression. “If we choose
to starve together, who should prevent us?”

Arthur Arden took them to their carriage, but Lady Augusta remarked that
he did not go upstairs again. “There is something in all this more than
meets the eye,” she said, oracularly.

Many people suspected this, after Lady Augusta, when Clare was gone, and
when it came out that Mr. Arden was not with her, but passing most of
his time in London, knocking about from club to club, through all the
dreary winter. He made an effort to spend his time as virtuously as
possible that first year; but the second year he was more restless and
less virtuous, having fallen into despair. Then everybody talked of the
breach between them, and a great deal crept out that they had thought
buried in silence. Even the real facts of the case were guessed at,
though never fully established, and the empty house became the subject
of many a tale. People remarked that there were many strange stories
about the Ardens; that they had behaved very strangely to the last
proprietor before Arthur; that nobody had ever heard the rights of that
story, and that Edgar had been badly used.

Whilst all this went on, Clare lived gloomy and retired by herself, in a
little village on the Neapolitan coast. She saw nobody, avoiding the
wandering English, and everybody who could have known her in better
times; and I don’t know how long her reason could have stood the wear
and tear, but for the illness and death of the poor little heir, whose
hapless position had given the worst pang to her shame and horror.
Little Arthur died, his mother scarcely believing it, refusing to think
such a thing possible. Her husband had heard incidentally of the child’s
illness, and had hurried to the neighbourhood, scarcely hoping to be
admitted. But Clare neither welcomed him nor refused him admission, but
permitted his presence, and ignored it. When the child was gone,
however, it was Arthur’s vehement grief which first roused her out of
her stupor.

“It is you who have done it!” she cried, turning upon him with eyes full
of tearless passion. But she did not send him out of her house. She felt
ill, worn out in body and mind, and left everything in his hands. And
by-and-by, when she came to herself, Clare allowed herself to be taken
home, and fled from her duties no longer.

This was the end of their story. They were more united in the later
portion of their lives than in the beginning, but they have no heir to
come after them. The history of the Ardens will end with them, for the
heir-at-law is distant in blood, and has a different name.

As for the other personages mentioned in this story, Mr. Tottenham still
governs his shop as if it were an empire, and still comes to a
periodical crisis in the shape of an Entertainment, which threatens to
fail up to the last moment, and then is turned into a great success. The
last thing I have heard of Tottenham’s was, that it had set up a little
daily newspaper of its own, written and printed on the establishment,
which Mr. Tottenham thought very likely to bring forward some latent
talent which otherwise might have been lost in dissertations on the
prices of cotton, or the risings and fallings of silks. After Gussy’s
departure, I hear the daily services fell off in the chapel; flowers
were no longer placed fresh and fragrant on the temporary altar, there
was no one to play the harmonium, and the attendance gradually
decreased. It fell from a daily to a weekly service, and then came to an
end altogether, for it was found that the young ladies and the gentlemen
preferred to go out on Sunday, and to choose their own preachers after
their differing tastes. How many of them strayed off to chapel instead
of church, it would have broken Gussy’s heart to hear. I do not think,
however, that this disturbed Mr. Tottenham much, who was too viewy not
to be very tolerant, and who liked himself to hear what every new
opinion had to say for itself. Lady Mary was very successful with her
lectures, and I hope improved the feminine mind very much at Harbour
Green. She thought she improved her own mind, which was of course a
satisfaction; and did her best to transmit to little Molly very high
ideas of intellectual training; but Molly was a dunce, as providentially
happens often in the families of very clever people; and distinguished
herself by a curious untractableness, which did not hinder her from
being her mother’s pride, and the sweetest of all the cousins--or so at
least Lady Mary thought.

The marriage of “the Grantons” took place in April, with the greatest
_éclat_. It was at Easter, when everybody was in the country; and was
one of the prettiest of weddings, as well as the most magnificent, which
Thornleigh ever saw. Mary’s presents filled a large room to overflowing.
She got everything possible and impossible that ever bride was blessed
with; and the young couple went off with a maid, and a valet and a
courier, and introductions to every personage in Europe. Their movements
were chronicled in the newspapers; their letters went and came in
ambassadorial despatch boxes. Short of royalty, there could have been
nothing more splendid, more “perfectly satisfactory,” as Lady Augusta
said. The only drawback was that Harry would not come to his sister’s
wedding; but to make up for that everybody else came--all the great
Hauteville connections, and Lady Augusta’s illustrious family, and all
the Thornleighs, to the third and fourth generations. Not only
Thornleigh itself, but every house within a radius of ten miles was
crowded with fine people and their servants; and the bells were rung in
half a dozen parish churches in honour of the wedding. It was described
fully in the _Morning Post_, with details of all the dresses, and of the
bride’s ornaments and _coiffure_.

“We shall have none of these fine things, I suppose,” Gussy said, when
it was all over, turning to Edgar with a mock sigh.

“No, my dear; and I don’t see how you could expect them,” said Lady
Augusta. “Instead of spending our money vainly on making a great show
for you, we had much better save it, to buy some useful necessary things
for your housekeeping. Mary is in quite a different case.”

“Buy us pots and pans, mamma,” said Gussy, laughing; “though perhaps
earthen pipkins would do just as well in Italy. We shall not be such a
credit to you, but we shall be much cheaper. There is always something
in that.”

“Ah! Gussy, it is easy to speak now; but wait till you are buried in the
cares of life,” said her mother, going away to superintend the
arrangements for the ball in the evening. So grand a wedding was
certainly very expensive; she never liked to tell anyone how much that
great ceremonial cost.

A little later, the little church dressed itself in a few modest spring
flowers, and the school-children, with baskets full of primroses--the
last primroses of the season--made a carpet under Gussy’s feet as she,
in her turn, went along the familiar path between the village
gravestones, a bride. There were not more than a dozen people at the
breakfast, and Lady Augusta’s little brougham took them to the station
afterwards, where they set out quite humbly and cheerily by an ordinary
train.

“Quite good enough for a Consul,” Gussy said, always the first to laugh
at her own humbleness. She wore a grey gown to go away in, which did not
cost a tenth part so much as Lady Granton’s, and the _Post_ took no
notice of them. They wandered about their own country for a week or two,
like the Babes in the Wood, Gussy said, expected in no great country
house, retiring into no stately seclusion, but into the far more
complete retirement of common life and common ways. Gussy, as she was
proud to tell, had learned to do many things in her apprenticeship to
the sisters of the Charity-house as associate of the order; and I think
the pleasure to her of this going forth unattended, unsuspected, in the
freedom of a young wife--the first smack of absolute freedom which women
ever taste--had something far more exquisite in it to Gussy than any
delight her sister could have in her more splendid honeymoon. Lord and
Lady Granton were limited, and kept in curb by their own very greatness;
they were watched over by their servants, and kept by public opinion in
the right way; but Edgar and Gassy went where they would, as free as
the winds, and thought of nobody’s opinion. The Consul in this had an
unspeakable advantage over the Earl.

They got to their home at last on a May evening, when Italy is indeed
Paradise; they had driven all day long from the Genoa side along the
lovely Riviera di Levante, tracing the gracious curves from village to
village along that enchanting way. The sun was setting when they came in
sight of Spezzia, and before they reached the house which had been taken
for them, the Angelus was sounding from the church, and the soft
dilating stars of Italian skies had come out to hear the homely litany
sung shrilly in side-chapels, and out of doors, among the old nooks of
the town, of the angelic song, “Hail, Mary, full of grace!” The women
were singing in an old three-cornered piazzetta, close under the loggia
of the Consul’s house, which looked upon the sea. On the sea itself the
magical sky was shining with all those listening stars. In Italy the
stars take more interest in human life than they do in this colder
sphere. Those that were proper to that space of heaven, crowded
together, Edgar thought to himself, to see his bride. On the horizon the
sea and sky blended in one infinite softness and blueness; the lights
began to twinkle in the harbour and in its ships; the far-off villages
among the woods lent other starry tapers to make the whole landscape
kind and human. Heaven and earth were softly illuminated, not for
them--for the dear common uses and ends of existence; yet unconsciously
with a softer and fuller lustre, because of the eyes that looked upon
them so newly, as if earth and heaven, and the kindly light, and all the
tender bonds of humanity, had been created fresh that very day.


                               THE END.


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