THESE days of mutual study had been very sweet to Clare. They had soothed her out of her agitation, without, however, stilling it altogether. She had acquired a new habit, and it was pleasant. While Arthur sat at the great table with the old MSS., which her father had partially arranged and prepared, she sat at the bureau, going over hosts of letters, which sometimes amused, sometimes interested her, but which were for the greater part quite unimportant—old bills and receipts and invitations, the broken fragments and relics of social life. If there had been any excitement in her mind to begin with—as it was natural there should be when she felt herself thus standing, as it were, on the edge of any secrets which her father might have had—it all died away on the first day. How innocent the life must have been of which only such harmless evidences remained! There were letters from some of his old friends—some with dead jokes in them, and dead pieces of news, embalmed and preserved, as if they were worth preserving. Clare took a pleasure in these, because it was to her father they were addressed; and she would look up now and then, and read a few words aloud to her fellow-student, who, on his side, had many things to communicate to her out of his MSS. Sometimes Arthur was obliged to get up and bring them to her that she might help him with a difficult sentence. Sometimes it was she who had to call him. They were such near relations, their interest in the family was almost the same, and it was very natural that they should constantly refer to and consult each other. Sometimes a momentary compunction crossed Clare’s mind when she thought of her brother. Would he like it? Would not he prefer to go over these papers himself, and be the first to discover his father’s secrets—if there were any secrets? But he would not care for them, Clare thought to herself. He confessed openly that his interest in the Ardens was limited; whereas her own interest was without limits. If she felt sometimes a more lively compunction still at the thought that she was absolutely foiling all Edgar’s precautions, and making his unwilling absence from home ridiculous by receiving thus, if not secretly, still without avowal, the visits of her cousin, her natural pride arose and put the whisper down. “Why should I give in to Edgar?” she asked herself. “It is my life, not his, that is concerned. It is my happiness that is concerned. I took care of myself before Edgar came; and why do I need his guardianship now?”
This view of the matter made it almost a duty to balk him. Had she foreseen that Arthur was going to remain in the neighbourhood, of course she would have told her brother; but she did not know. Nobody could be more surprised than she was to find him with the Pimpernels; and it was no pleasure to her, but quite the reverse, that he should be with the Pimpernels. Besides, it might justify and strengthen Edgar in his democratic ways if he heard that his cousin, so much more true an Arden than himself, was staying at the Red House. Accordingly, she wrote to her brother less frequently than usual, and said nothing about Arthur, which was not perhaps quite what Edgar might have expected from his sister. Probably, if he heard of it, he would manage in some insidious way to get her carried off to town, which Clare detested; or he would return himself, which, in present circumstances, Clare did not desire. So she let the days run on, finding a subtle sweetness in them. There was nothing said between her kinsman and herself which all the world might not have heard—except, perhaps, by times, a tone, an inflection of voice, an almost imperceptible inference. Arthur was skilful in such ways of making himself secretly understood; but he said nothing to agitate or alarm her. And thus they went on with their respective pursuits, side by side. What could be more sober, more grave, less like any sentiment or romance or nonsense? But Clare lived in those hours, which were thus sensibly and seriously spent. All the evening she remembered, all the morning she looked for them. She had not been into the village for a week; she had not seen the Rector except at church, nor any of her old friends. She took her evening ramble through the park all alone, and happy to be alone. “It is just as it used to be,” she said to herself; but Clare knew very well that it was not as it used to be. Even now a dread of the arrival of some friendly visitor, bent upon taking care of her, would sometimes overcloud her mind. If they but knew how she detested being taken care of—if they but understood how happy she could be alone!
And thus it was with her on the morning of that day which Arthur spent playing croquet and telling stories to Alice Pimpernel. She had got safely over the post and her letters. There was not one from old Miss Arden at Escott, proposing a visit, such as, from day to day, she trembled to receive; neither did Clare’s old governess, Mrs. Seldon, throw herself upon her pupil’s hospitality; and though Edgar begged her again to reconsider her decision, and join him for at least a week or two “to see the pictures,” there was no violence of urgency in his letter. She was safe for another day, and the sunny hours were drawing on, bringing the afternoon and its visitor. “I shall finish that first drawer to-day,” Clare said to herself, with a half-conscious exaggeration of the importance of her work. She went into the library more than once to see that all was ready—that the shutters were closed to keep out the noonday sun, and the waste-paper basket cleared of all the fragments that had been thrown into it. “It is odd how pleasant such an occupation can grow,” she said to herself; “I don’t so much wonder at the passion for old papers that some people have.” She liked to keep this thought well before her mind. Her new study was so curious and full of interest. Such a lesson, too, in life, the smallest details of which were so absorbing as long as it lasted, so sadly, amusingly insignificant now. “Some day or other some one will read my letters like that,” she would add, with an incredulous smile. It was impossible, and yet no doubt it would come to pass; but would any one ever know how full and strong the blood was running in her veins—how vigorous life was, and warm and intense? Never before in her life had she so felt the power of the present—the moment that was hers, whatever might be taken from her. The clock was about to strike, and by this time no doubt he was coming up the avenue—her fellow-student—and the pleasantest work she had ever tried was about to begin.
Clare sat down to her tapestry to occupy the moment till he should arrive—he was very exact generally, punctual to his hour. It surprised her when the little French clock chimed a quarter-past. It was strange—it gave her a little chill in the midst of her expectation—but of course it could only be accidental. Another chime, and her heart began to beat—what if he should not be coming! Clare had known little of the vicissitudes to which such intercourse as this is specially subject. Except the few days of utter loneliness which she had passed after Edgar’s departure, none of the heats and chills of wooing had ever been hers. She had been mistress of the situation. It had been in her power to send him away, to discourage him, and remind him that he was utterly at her mercy; but it had never occurred to her that such power is mutual, and that she, too, was at his mercy. As she waited and listened and heard nothing, her heart began to beat high and loud. Not only or even in the first place was it mere disappointment. A certain angry amazement and wild pride sprang up along with it. What, slight her! neglect to come when she expected him! It was an enormity which startled Clare, and shook her mind to its foundations. She could not understand nor believe it, and yet she could not believe either the suggestions of accident which she tried to make to herself. Could it be intentional neglect, discourtesy—and to her! Then there came another chime, and then the hour; he was a whole hour behind time. Clare bent her head over her tapestry as she heard a footstep approaching, and laboured as if she were labouring for her daily bread. A hot steady flush of angry excitement came to her cheek. She would not raise her head to see who it was. Had he broken his leg it might have been some excuse; but if it was he who was walking into the room, as she supposed, of course he had not broken his leg. The first thing she saw, however, was Wilkins’ hand suddenly appearing before her, holding a silver tray with a letter upon it. She took it with a sense that some one had given her a blow. “Is this all?” she said mechanically. “Mr. Perfitt is waiting downstairs to see you, Miss Arden, if you will please to receive him,” said Wilkins. Perfitt! what could he have to do with——“I hope nothing has happened,” said Clare, holding, as if it were a serpent, the letter in her hand.
“I don’t think so, Miss Arden; only he would like to speak a word to you if you are not too busy.”
“I am much too busy,” said Clare, in her anger. “I mean, let him come up in five minutes,” she added, waving her hand to the alarmed servant. Then she tore open Arthur’s note.
“My dear Cousin—A cursed chance (forgive the adjective, I can’t help it) keeps me from Arden to-day. I have been fighting and struggling all the morning, but I cannot get off. Imagine how I hate the day and everything round me! To have to stay and be bored to death, instead of going on with the work most interesting to me in the world! Please postpone yours till to-morrow. I shall go crazy if I think you are at it without me.—In the deepest wretchedness and devotion, ever yours,
“A. A.”
Clare read it twice over, and then put it from her. She stopped herself for the first moment from all expression even in her own mind. She took up her needle, and went on again furiously. Ye know, ye youths and maidens, how the air all darkened round her, how the day became odious! “Does he think it matters to me, I wonder?” she said at length aloud, and laughed; and then threw her work down, and covered her face, and burst into violent tears. They must have been lying very near the surface, they fell so hot and so suddenly, and were over so soon. When Mr. Perfitt was ushered in five minutes later, he found Miss Arden seated with her usual dignity, a little flushed, but showing no other traces of that sudden tumult. Mr. Perfitt himself was considerably disturbed; he crushed his hat in his hand, and seated himself, when she graciously invited him to be seated, on the very edge of his chair.
“Miss Arden,” he said, “I’ve come to make a bit complaint—tho’ indeed it’s no a complaint; it’s rather that you might maybe speak a warning word—— You’re young to meddle or trouble with such things; but you’re no like other young ladies. You aye were the grand authority in old Mr. Arden’s time; and so ye are with the present lad—I mean with the present Squire.”
“Would you please tell me what it is? I am very busy,” said Clare. “Has anything happened, Mr. Perfitt? Of course I am the only person to refer to in my brother’s absence, whatever it may be.”
“It’s no just that anything has happened,” said Perfitt, crushing his hat, and then anxiously examining its wounds. “It’s a thing I would ask nobody about, but soon settle, if it was not a gentleman connected with the house. You see it’s me that brought Mr. Arthur Arden’s note; but I got it like by chance, turning in as I was passing to see little Jeanie Murray. You’ll see what I’m meaning now. He’s a gentleman that has always behaved gentlemanly to me; but a bit lassie, Miss Arden, and no just right in her mind—no mad, I’m no meaning that—but scarce wise enough to understand it’s a a’ nonsense that such a gentleman says.”
“Is Mr. Arthur Arden with Jeanie now?” said Clare, in her most distinct chill tones. She had been frozen suddenly where she sat—frozen to her very heart; but the shock had brought her back to perfect possession of herself.
“Na, na! trust me for that,” said Perfitt, with a laugh. “Before I left the house I saw my lord off the premises—ye may trust me for that. And there’s nae harm done, Miss Arden. I do not for a moment suppose there’s any harm. But Mr. Arthur was aye a thought wild, saving your presence——”
“I will take care,” said Clare, steadily, “that it does not occur again.” Her voice was frozen too. In the shadowy warmth of the room, in the heat of the summer afternoon, it went like a touch of ice through Perfitt’s bones. How will she manage that, I would like to know? he said to himself, but was so chilled that he only gasped audibly, and had no other answer to make.
“I will take care it does not occur again,” said Clare. “You were quite right to tell me. If there is anything else you want to say, pray go on.”
“Nothing else—nothing else, Miss Arden,” said Perfitt, stumbling to his feet; and then he stood awkwardly clasping his hat for a minute more. “And I have no fear on my mind that any harm’s been done,” he added. “There’s no harm done, Miss Arden. I wouldna give you a wrong idea. But only Mr. Arthur——”
“I have told you,” repeated Clare, still more and more coldly, “that it shall not occur again.”