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.