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.