IT was with this idea strong in his mind that Arthur marked out for himself a certain scheme of operations during his stay at the Red House. He had still ten days to remain there, and time, it must be allowed, hung sometimes heavy on his hands. To play croquet with devotion for several hours every day requires a mind free from agitation and innocent of scheming—or, at least, not burdened with schemes which are very important—or any warm personal anxiety in the bigger game of life. Alice Pimpernel was good for two hours in the morning, with her little sisters, when they had done their lessons; and Arden felt that it was a very pretty group on the first day of his visit, when he looked up from his newspaper, and let his eyes stray over the well-kept lawn, with its background of trees, and all the airy figures in their light dresses that were standing about. But, then, Alice was good also for four hours in the afternoon, when there was nothing better going on—namely, from half-past two, when luncheon was just over, till half-past six; when it was time to dress for dinner. Young Denbigh, by right of his youth, was equal to this long continued enjoyment; but Arthur was not equal to it. And, as at that moment there were no other visitors at the Red House, time was hard to kill. He felt that if he had been a little younger he would have been driven, in self defence, to make love to somebody—Alice or her mother, it did not much matter which—but it was too great a bore, with all his anxieties on his mind, and with the amount of real feeling he had in respect to Clare. Accordingly, it was rather a godsend to him when Mr. Pimpernel threw this suggestion into his mind. He did not take it up with any active feeling of enmity to Edgar, nor even with any great hope of success. If it were as he thought, the Squire had either been uncertain to the last of his wife’s guilt, or he had been sufficiently infatuated to accept the consequences, finally and irredeemably—in which latter case, no doubt, he must have destroyed any evidence that existed against her; while, in the former case, there could have been no evidence sufficiently strong to convict her. In either point of view, it was madness, after all this lapse of time, to attempt to make any discoveries. Yet Arthur made up his mind to try to do so, with a resolution which grew stronger the more he thought of it. And from this moment he thought of little else. He had believed his own hypothesis steadily for so many years; and it was so much to his interest to believe it, if proof of any description could be found. He strolled down to the village next morning, not knowing exactly what he wanted, and stopped at old Sarah’s cottage, and beguiled her into conversation. Jeanie, he noted, had been sent away at his approach, and this fact alone determined him to see Jeanie. He went upstairs, again, undaunted by the experience of yesterday, and knocked softly at the door of the little parlour. “Mrs. Murray,” he said from the landing, not even presuming to enter, “I have something to say to Sarah, and I cannot manage it below, with these two girls listening and staring. Would it disturb you to let us come up here?” There was a pause, and a little rustle, as of movement and telegraphed communications, before any answer was made to him; and then Arthur smiled to find that his appeal to Scotch politeness was not made in vain. “Come in, sir,” Mrs. Murray said, gravely. Jeanie was seated at the open window with her needlework, and her grandmother in her usual place by the table, engaged in her usual occupation of knitting. “Take a seat, sir; we’ll leave you to yourselves,” said Mrs. Murray. But this did not suit Arthur, who, even in the midst of a new interest, loved to have two strings to his bow.
“By no means,” he said; “what I have to say may be said quite well before you. I have to put a question or two about my cousins at the Hall. Here is a chair for you, Sarah; sit down, and don’t be frightened. Nothing is going to happen. I want you to tell me what you know about Mrs. Arden, that is all.”
“How could I know aught about Mrs. Arden, Mr. Arthur,” said Sarah, wonderingly, “when she died afore I come? I took Miss Clare from a baby, but her poor dear mamma was dead and gone. My brother Simon he knows, and so do the Rector, and poor Miss Letty, at the Doctor’s; but I don’t know no more than this good lady, as is a stranger to the place. There’s her name on the stone, top of t’oud Squire’s pew in t’church, and that’s all as I know.”
“Are there none of the old servants about that knew her?” asked Arthur.
At which point a very strange interruption ensued.
“I canna tell, sir, why you are asking, or if it is for good or evil,” said Mrs. Murray. “I dinna belong to the place, as Sarah says, nor I’m no one that ought to ken; but I have seen Mrs. Arden, if its about her ye want to ken——”
“You have seen Mrs. Arden!” said Arthur, in amazement; and old Sarah echoed his exclamation.
“Yes, I have seen her; no often, but more than once. If that is all, I can tell you what like she was, and all I ken about her; or, if not all—— She was ill in health and troubled in spirit, poor thing, when I saw her. I cannot think she was ever either strong or gay.”
“Was that after her—children were born?” asked Arthur, eagerly.
“It was before she had any bairn. It was thought she never would have one, and her husband was sore disturbed. But, ye see, the doctors turned out fools, as they do so often,” Mrs. Murray added hastily, turning and fixing her eyes upon him. She made a pause between the two sentences, and changed her tone completely. The first was mere reminiscence, the other had a certain defiance in it; and Arthur felt there was some meaning, though one he could not read, in the suddenly watchful expression of her eyes.
“Yes,” he said, thoughtfully, “so it appears.” And as he spoke the watchfulness went off Mrs. Murray’s face, and she evidently (though why he could not think) calmed herself down. “So it appears,” he repeated vaguely. “She was some time married, then, I suppose, before my cousin Edgar was born?”
“I have heard say five years,” said the old woman, once more rousing up, with a watchful light in each steady eye.
“Ah, then, that’s impossible,” he said to himself. An idea had been growing in Arthur’s mind that the Squire’s wife might have been a widow with an infant child—an explanation which would make everything clear, yet save her from the imputation of a capital crime in respect to her husband. That was impossible. He mused on it for a minute or two, and then he resumed his questions.
“Who was Mrs. Arden? I am anxious to know,” he said, and then corrected himself, for his tone had been peremptory. “I am thinking of the family history,” he added. “She was a stranger, and we don’t know even where she belongs to. That will explain my curiosity to you. I am anxious to know.”
“She was Mrs. Arden when I saw her, and I ken nothing more,” said the Scotchwoman, shortly; and again he noted that her interest had failed. Evidently she knew something which it might possibly concern him much to know, but what kind of knowledge it was remained a mystery to him. He had not even light enough on the subject to guide him as to what questions he ought to put to her. Old Sarah sat gazing, open-mouthed and full of wonder. Only little Jeanie took no interest in the inquiry. She sat at the window, now dreaming, now working, sometimes playing with a long tendril of the honeysuckle, sometimes pausing to look out from the window. The talk was nothing to her. And Arthur’s interest flagged as this pretty figure caught his eye. Why should he attempt to find out anything about Edgar’s mother? What difference could it ever make to him? Whereas, here was a human plaything which it would be pleasant to toy with, which would amuse and distract him in the midst of his cares. What a pretty little thing she was! much prettier than Alice Pimpernel—in some things even more attractive than Clare. Ah, Clare! This thought brought him back to his original subject; but yet the other thought was in his mind, and found expression first.
“Your daughter seems better,” he said. “I don’t think she is frightened for me now; are you, Jeanie? You know I am a friend now. The man must have been a wretch who frightened such a sensitive sweet little creature. I don’t think he can have been like me.”
“Sir, did ye speak?” said Jeanie, with a start. And she turned to him an innocent, unconscious face, moved with a little wonder only at the sound of her name.
“No; the gentleman did not speak to you,” said her grandmother. “Go ben the house, my darling, where you will be quiet, and away from all clashes. Sir, my bairn is Jeanie to her own folk,” she added, as the docile girl withdrew into the inner room, “but no to every stranger that hears her innocent name. It will be kindest of you not to speak to her. The attack might come again.”
“I suppose you know your own business best,” said Arthur, shrugging his shoulders; “but you seem very foolish about the child. How can I hurt her by speaking to her? To return to Mrs. Arden. She was Scotch, I suppose, as you knew her so well?”
“She was not Scotch that ever I heard; and I did not know her well,” said Mrs. Murray, and then there was a pause. “If you’ll tell me what you have to do with it, and what you want to know, I will answer you—if I can give you any information,” she said with decision. “I may not know what you want to hear, but if you’ll tell me what you have to do with it——”
“I am only the nearest relation that Mr. Arden and his sister have in the world,” said Arthur, in spite of himself shrinking from her eye.
“And the heir if this bonnie lad should—die—or fail——” This was spoken with an eagerness which puzzled him more and more. He felt that he was put on his defence. And yet there was no indignation in her look. It was guilt of conscience that startled him, and brought the colour to his cheek.
“Well,” he said, crimson and angry with consciousness, “what then? My cousin is much younger, and more likely to live than I am. Nothing can be more unlikely than that I should be his heir. That has nothing to do with what I want to know.”
“Aye, he’s younger than you, and far liker to live. He’s strong, and he’s got a constitution that will bear trouble. I should ken,” she said under her breath, whispering to herself. And then she too coloured, and faced him with a certain gleam of fear in her eyes. “Aye,” she repeated, “Mr. Edgar’s a bonnie lad, bless him, and real well and strong. It’s no likely you’ll ever live to be his heir.”
“It is unnecessary to remind me of that; haven’t I just said it?” said Arthur, hastily. “I trust he’ll live a hundred years. That has nothing to do with the matter.”
“A hundred years!” said old Sarah. “That’s a great age. I know’d an ou’d man up Thornleigh way—but, bless you, Mr. Edgar’s young and strong—as like as not he’ll live to a hundred. I never heard as he’d anything the matter all his life. It would be a credit to the family, I do declare——”
“And so it would,” said Arthur, with a smile of disdain. “No, you need not be afraid,” he went on, turning again to Mrs. Murray. “I am ten years older than he is. I am a poor devil without a penny, and he has everything. Never mind. I am going to write a book about the family, and that will make me rich. I can’t do your favourite any harm——”
“Has he everything?” said the Scotchwoman, earnestly. “You’ll no think me presuming, Mr. Arden, but I would like to hear. It’s no fair to the rest when everything goes to one. I canna think it is fair. He should share with you a bit of the land, or some of the siller, or one thing or another. And you as sib to the race as he? I would like well to ken——”
“It is very good of you to take my interest so much to heart,” said Arthur, with a certain contempt which was not unmixed with bitterness. “No, nothing comes to me. One cousin is a prince and one is a beggar. That’s the way of the world. So you can’t tell me Mrs. Arden’s name, nor anything about her friends or her family? Had she any one with her except her husband when you made her acquaintance? What kind of a woman did you take her to be?——”
“I ken neither her name nor her kin, nor nought about her. They were travelling, and no a creature with them, no even a maid—but there might be reasons. She was a young sorrowful thing, sore broken down with a tyrant of a man. That is all I can tell; and whatever was done, good or evil, was his doing, and not hers. It was him that did, and said, and settled everything. I have nothing more to say——”
“It does not sound much,” said Arthur, with an accent of discontent; and then it seemed to him that a certain gleam of relief shot across her face. “And yet you look as if you could tell me more,” he added, with a suspicion which he could not explain. She eyed him as a man fighting a duel might regard his adversary who had just fired upon him, but made no reply.
“With ne’er a maid?—now that’s strange!” cried old Sarah. “That is the strangest of all, saving Mr. Arthur’s presence. And them very words clears it all up to me, as I’ve wondered and wondered many a day. If madam as was, poor soul, had been a lady like the other ladies, there would have been a deal more things for Miss Clare. She ain’t got anything of her mother’s, the dear. Most young ladies they have their mamma’s rings, or her jewels, or something. They tell you this was my mamma’s, or this was my grandmamma’s, or such like. But Miss Clare, she hasn’t a thing—— And travelling with ne’er a maid? She wasn’t a lady born, wasn’t Madam Arden; that’s as clear as clear——”
“I canna tell ye who she was—she was a broken-hearted thing,” said Mrs. Murray, with some solemnity; “and what was done in her life, if it was good or if it was evil, it wasna her blame.”
This was all Arthur Arden made of his first investigation. He was working in the dark. He went away a short time after, leaving Sarah full of excited questions, to which she received very scanty response. He was a little excited himself, he could not tell why. This woman was a relation of Perfitt’s, which, of course (he supposed), explained her acquaintance with his cousin’s mother. But still she was a strange woman, and knew something he was sure that might be of use to him, if he could only find out what it was. What could it be? Could she have been Mrs. Arden’s maid, and in her secrets; or had the proud Squire married some one beneath him—some one probably connected with this stranger? It was all quite dark, and no thread to be found in the gloom. Was it worth his while to try to penetrate that gloom? And he would have liked to see little Jeanie before he left, the pretty creature. He would rather have questioned her than her grandmother. What could the old woman mean by keeping her so persistently out of his way?