“IT was kind of you to come and see my brother,” said Clare at length, with something of that high and lofty sweetness which half implies—“it was kind, but it was a piece of presumption.” She meant no harm to her old nurse, whom she was fond of in her heart, and who was besides a privileged person, free to be fond of the Ardens; but Edgar had been badly used all his life, and his sister was more proud on his behalf than if he had been the worshipped heir, always foremost. She drew herself up just a little, not knowing what to make of it. In one way it was right, and she approved; for even a king may be tender to his favoured dependents without derogation—but yet, certainly it was not the Arden way.
“Miss Clare, you don’t think that, and you oughtn’t for to say it,” said old Sarah, with some natural heat; “but I’ve been about the house ever since you were born: and staying still to-day in my little place with my plain-sewing was more nor I could do. If there had been e’er a little maid to look to—but I ain’t got none in hands now.”
“I beg your pardon, Sarah,” said Clare promptly; “and Mrs. Fillpot has something to say to you about that. If you will go up to the house and speak to her, now that you have seen Edgar, it will be very nice of you. We are going down to the village to see some of his old friends.”
“The young master don’t know the village, Miss Clare, as he ought to have done,” said old Sarah, shaking her head. She had said such words often before, but never with the same result as now; for Clare was divided between allegiance to the father whom she loved, who was dead, and whom she could not now admit to have ever done any wrong—and the brother whom she loved, who was there by her side, and of whose injuries she was so keenly sensible. The blood rushed to her cheek—her fine blue eyes grew like steel—the lines of her beautiful face hardened. Poor old Sarah shrank back instinctively, almost as if she expected a blow. Clare’s lips were formed to speak when her brother interrupted her, and probably the words would not have been pleasant which she was about to say.
“The more reason I should know it now,” he said in his lighthearted way. “If it had not been so early, Sarah, you should have come back and made me some tea. What capital tea she used to make for you in the nursery, Clare, you lucky girl! It is Miss Arden’s village I am going to see, Sarah. It shall always be hers to do what she likes with it. You can tell the people nothing is changed there.”
“Edgar, I think we should go,” said Clare, restraining him with once more that soft shade of possible haughtiness. “Stay till we come back, Sarah;” and with a little movement of her hand in sign of farewell, she led her brother away. “You must not tell your plans to that sort of person,” she said with a quick breath, in which her momentary passion found relief.
“What! not your old nurse, Clare?” he cried. “You must not snub the old woman so. We had better make a bargain in time, we who are so different. You shall snub me when you please for my democratic ways, but you must not snub the others, Clare.”
“What others?”
Edgar made no direct answer. He laughed and drew his sister’s arm close within his own. “You are such a pretty picture with those great-lady looks of yours,” he said; “they make me think of ruffs and hoops, and dresses all covered with pearls. What is a farthingale? I am sure that is what you ought to wear.”
“You mean it is out of fashion to remember that one is well born, and of an old family,” said Clare with energy, “but you will never bring me to see that. One has enough to do to keep one’s proper place with all those encroachments that are going on, without one’s own brother to take their part. But oh! forgive me, Edgar; I forgot: I will never say another word,” she said, with the tears rushing to her eyes.
“What did you forget?” he said gently—“that I have been brought up as never any Arden was before me, and am not an Arden at all, so to speak? Perhaps on the whole it is better, for Arden ways are not the ways of our time. They are very splendid and very imposing, and, in you, dear, I don’t object to them, but——”
“Oh, Edgar, don’t speak so!” said his sister, with a certain horror.
“But I must speak so, and think so, too,” he said. “Could not you try to imagine, Clare, among all the many theories on the subject, that this was what was meant by my banishment? It is as good a way of accounting for it as another. Imagine, for instance, that Arden ways were found to be a little behind the generation, and that, hard as it was, and, perhaps, cruel as it was——”
“Edgar—— I don’t say it is not true; but oh, don’t say so, for I can’t bear it!”
“I shall say nothing you can’t bear,” he said softly, “my kind sister! you always did your best for me. I hope I should not have behaved badly anyhow; but you can’t tell what a comfort it is that you always stood by me, Clare.”
“I always loved you, Edgar,” she cried, eagerly; “and then I used to wonder if it was my fault—if I got all the love because I was like the family, and a girl—taking it from you. I wish we had been a little bit like, do you know—just a little, so that people should say—‘Look at that brother and sister.’ Sometimes one sees a boy and a girl so like—just a beard to one and long hair to the other, to make the necessary difference; and then one sees they belong to each other at the first glance.”
“Never mind,” said Edgar with a smile, “so long as we resemble each other in our hearts.”
“But not in our minds,” said Clare, sorrowfully. “I can see how it will be. You will always be thinking one thing when I am thinking another. Whatever there may be to consider, you and I will always take different views of it. You are for the present, and I am for the past. I know only our own Arden ways, and you know the ways of the world. It is so hard, Edgar; but, dear, I don’t for a moment say it is your fault,” she said, holding his arm clasped between her hands, and looking up with her blue eyes at their softest, into his face. He looked down upon her at the same time with a curious, tender, amused smile. Clare, who knew only Arden ways, was so sure they must be right ways, so certain that there was a fault somewhere in those who did not understand them—but not Edgar’s fault, poor fellow! He had been brought up away from home, and was to be pitied, not blamed. And this was why her brother looked down upon her with that curious amused smile.
“No,” he said, “it was not my fault; but I think you should take my theory on the subject into consideration, Clare. Suppose I had been sent off on purpose to inaugurate a new world?”
Clare gave a little shudder, but she did not speak. She was troubled even that he could joke on such a matter, or suggest theories, as if it had been a mere crotchet on the part of her father, who was incapable of anything of the kind; but she could not make a direct reply, for, by tacit mutual consent, neither of them named the old Squire.
“Let us think so at least,” he answered gaily, “for the harm is done, I fear; and it would not be so bad to be a deserter from Arden ways, if one had been educated for that purpose, don’t you think? So here we are at the village! Don’t tell me anything. I remember every bit of it as well as if I had been here yesterday. Where is the old lathe-and-plaster house that used to stand here?”
“To think you should recollect it!” said Clare, her eyes suddenly lighting up; and then in an apologetic tone—“It was so old. I allow it was very picturesque and charming to look at; but oh, Edgar, you would not blame me if you knew how dreadfully tumble-down and miserable it was inside. The rain kept coming in, and when the brook was flooded in winter it came right into the kitchen; and the children kept having fevers. I felt very much disposed to cry over it, I can tell you; but you would not have blamed me had you seen how shocking it was inside.”
“I wonder if Mistress Arden, in a ruff and a farthingale, would have thought about the drainage,” he answered, laughing. “Fancy my blaming you, Clare! I tell you it is your village, and you shall do what you like with it. Is that Mr. Fielding at his gate? Let us cross over and shake hands with him before we go any further. He is not so old, surely, as he once was.”
“It is we who are old,” said Clare, with the first laugh that had yet come from her lips. “He is putting on his gloves to go and call on you, Edgar. The bell-ringers must have made it known everywhere. Mr. Fielding and Dr. Somers will come to-day, and the Thornleighs and Evertons to-morrow, and after that everybody; now see if it does not happen just as I say!”
“Let us stop the first of these visits,” said Edgar, and he went forward holding out his hand, while the parson at the gate, buttoning his grey gloves, peered at him through a pair of short-sighted eyes. “It will be very kind of you to name yourself, Sir, for I am very short-sighted,” the Rector said, looking at him with that semi-suspicion which is natural to a rustic of the highest as well as the lowest social position. The newcomer was a stranger, and therefore had little right and no assignable place in the village world. Mr. Fielding, who was short-sighted besides, peered at him very doubtfully from the puckered corners of his eyes.
“Don’t you know me?” said Edgar; and “Oh, Mr. Fielding, don’t you know Edgar?” came with still greater earnestness from the lips of Clare.
“It is not possible!” said Mr. Fielding, very decidedly; and then he let his slim umbrella drop out of his fingers, and held out both his hands. “Is it really you, my dear boy!” he said. “Excuse my blind eyes. If you had been my own son I would not have known you. I was on my way to call. But though this is not so solemn or so correct it will do as well. And Clare: Will you come in and have some breakfast? It cannot be much past your breakfast hour.”
“Nor yours either,” said Clare; “it is so naughty of you and so wrong of you to sit up like that, when you might just as well read in daylight, and go to bed when everybody else does. But we don’t follow such a bad example. We mean to have breakfast always by eight o’clock.”
Mr. Fielding gave a little sigh, and shook his venerable head. “That is all very pretty, my dear, and very nice when you can do it; but you know it never lasts. Anyhow, don’t let us stand here. Come in, my dear boy, come in, and welcome home again. And welcome to your own, Edgar,” he added, turning quickly round as he led them into his study, a large low room, looking out upon the trim parsonage garden. He put out both his hands as he said this, and grasped both those of Edgar, and looked not at all disinclined to throw himself upon his neck. “Welcome to your own,” he repeated fervently, and his eyes strayed beyond Edgar’s head, as if he were confronting and defying some one. And then he added more solemnly, “And God bless you, and enable you to fill your high position like a man. Amen. I wonder what the old Doctor will say now.”
“What should he say?” said Edgar, fun dancing in his bright brown eyes; “and how is he? I suppose he is unchangeable, like everything here.”
“Not unchangeable,” said Mr. Fielding, with a slight half-perceptible shake of his head at the levity, one of those momentary assumptions of the professional which most old clergymen indulge in now and then; “nothing is unchangeable in this transitory world. But old Somers is as steady as most things,” he added, with a responsive glance of amusement. “We go on quarrelling, he and I, but it would be hard upon us if we had to part. But tell me about yourself, Edgar, which is more interesting. When did you get home?”
“Late last night,” said Edgar. “I came straight through from Cologne. I began to get impatient as soon as I had settled which day I was to reach home, and came before my time. Clare was in bed, poor child; but she got up, fancy, when she heard it was me.”
“Of course she did; and she wants a cup of chocolate now,” said the old parson, “when her colour changes like that from red to white, you should give her some globules instantly, or else a cup of chocolate. I am not a homœopathist, so I always recommend the chocolate. Mrs. Solmes please, Miss Clare is here.”
“Shall I make two, sir?” said the housekeeper, who had heard the unusual commotion, and put her head in softly to see what was the matter. She did not quite understand it, even now. But she was too highly trained a woman, and too good a servant to take any notice. The chocolate was her affair, while the identity of the new comer was not.
“Don’t you know my brother, Mrs. Solmes?” cried Clare. “He has come home. Edgar, she takes such good care of dear Mr. Fielding. I don’t know how he managed without her before she came.”
Edgar was not failing in his duty on the occasion. He stepped forward and shook hands with the radiant and flattered woman, “as nat’ral as if I had known him all his life,” she said in the kitchen afterwards; for Mrs. Solmes was a stranger and foreigner, belonging to the next parish, who could not but disapprove of Arden and Arden ways, which were different from the habits of Thornleigh parish, to which she belonged. Edgar made her quite a little speech as he stood and held her hand—“Anybody who is good to Mr. Fielding is good to Clare and me. He has always been so kind to us all our lives.”
“He loves you like his own children, sir,” said Mrs. Solmes, quickly; and then she turned and went away to make the chocolate, not wishing to presume; while her master walked about the room, rubbing his hands softly, and peering at the young man from amid the puckers of his eyelids with pleased and approving satisfaction. “It is very nicely said,” cried Mr. Fielding, “very nice feeling, and well expressed. After that speech, I should have known him anywhere for an Arden, Clare.”
“But the Ardens don’t make pretty speeches,” said Clare, under her breath. She never could be suite sure of him. Everything he did had a spontaneous look about it that puzzled his sister. To be in Arden, and to know that a certain hereditary course of action is expected from you is a great advantage, no doubt, yet it sometimes gives a certain sobriety and stiffness to the external aspect. Edgar, on the contrary, was provokingly easy, with all the spontaneousness of a man who said and did exactly what he liked to do and to say. Clare’s loyalty to her race could not have permitted any such freedom of action, and it puzzled her at every turn.
“We must send for old Somers,” said Mr. Fielding. “Poor old fellow, he is very crotchety and fond of his own notions; but he’s a very good fellow. We are the two oldest friends you have in the world, you young people; and if we might not get a little satisfaction out of you I don’t know who should. Mrs. Solmes,” this was called from the study door in a louder voice, “send Jack over with my compliments to Dr. Somers, and ask him to step this way for a minute. No, Edgar, don’t go; I want to surprise him here.”
“But no one says anything about Miss Somers,” said Edgar; “how is she?”
“Ah, poor thing,” said Mr. Fielding, shaking his head, “she is confined to bed now. She is growing old, poor soul. For that matter, we are all growing old. And not a bad thing either,” he added, pausing and looking round at the two young figures so radiant in life and hope. “You children are sadly sorry for us—but fading away out of the world is easier than you think.”
Edgar grasped Mr. Fielding’s hand, not quite knowing why, with the compunction of youth for the departing existence to which its own beginning seems so harsh a contrast, and yet with a reverential sympathy that closed his lips. Clare, on the contrary, looked at him with something almost matter-of-fact in her blue eyes. “You are not so old,” she said quietly. “We thought you looked quite young as we came to the door. Please don’t be angry, but I used to think you were a hundred. You have grown ever so much younger these last three years.”
“I should be very proud if I were a hundred,” said Mr. Fielding, with a laugh; but he liked the grasp of Edgar’s hand, and that sympathetic glance in his eyes. Clare was Clare, the recognised and accustomed princess, whom no one thought of criticising; but her brother was on his trial. Every new look, every movement, spoke for or against him; and, so far, everything was in his favour. “Of course, he is like his mother’s family,” the old Rector said to himself, “more sympathetic than the pure Ardens, but with all their fine character and best qualities. I wonder what old Somers will think of him. And here he comes,” he continued aloud, “the best doctor in the county, though he is as crotchety as an old magician. Somers, here’s our young squire.”