PERFITT went away from Arden, as, indeed, he had gone to the house, in a very perplexed and uncomfortable state of mind. “I have great doubts in my mind if I should have spoken,” he said to himself as he went away; and then all at once there flashed upon him a report he had once heard which connected Arthur Arden’s name with that of Clare. When he recalled this, he slapped himself upon the thigh with supreme self-contempt. “My man, you’ve gone and put your foot in it now,” he thought; “could you no have taken care of your ain flesh and blood yourself, without bothering that poor lassie? Dash ye! and dash him, the ne’er-do-weel!” This was how Mr. Perfitt contemplated his own conduct as he went away; but it was a very different kind of self-discussion that he left behind.
Clare was absolutely stunned by the blow which had just fallen upon her. Had she taken time to think, no doubt she would have seen that she was unjust—but she did not take any time to think. It was the first great slight she had ever received in her life—a slight greater than any other kind of disrespect that could be shown to a woman. A man who had been devoting himself to her, who had caught at every opportunity for showing his devotion since the moment he reappeared at Arden—that he should venture to go and excuse himself to her on the ground of inevitable engagements, and then be discovered hanging about a village girl, recommending himself so potently that her friends interfered! Oh, how glad she was, how grateful to Perfitt for bringing that complaint to her! She might never have known; she might have believed that he was worthy, and that he loved her, but for that revelation. She was grateful to Perfitt, and yet how she hated him! But for him she might still have been partially happy. She would have received the excuse, and to-morrow all might have been well; that was to say, she would have allowed herself to be deceived, which, of all fates, was surely the meanest and most humiliating. And then to think how much good she had intended to her cousin! In this moment of bitter humiliation Clare ceased to trifle with herself. She tore off the veil which she had wrapt so willingly over her eyes, and admitted to herself that she had meant to bestow everything upon her kinsman. She had even gone the length of being quite content to despoil her brother for his sake. She had made up her mind that Old Arden should be his, and that if she could not make him the head of the family she would at least secure to him its oldest possessions. All this she admitted to herself in the tumult of rage and shame which filled her mind. She was ready to do all this, and he—— He could not sacrifice to her a passing fancy for the pretty face of a girl; for there could be nothing more than that in it. And where was the mother who should have taken charge of the girl? Clare tried hard to persuade herself that it was Jeanie’s fault, or that the grandmother had some artful design upon Arthur. She tried very hard to believe that she believed this, but it was a difficult attempt. The thought came back to her with renewed bitterness that it was he—he only—who was in fault, he to whom she would have given everything! Then her mind took a sudden leap, as the mind will sometimes do at its own will and pleasure, and pictured to her what might have happened had she actually done what she had been willing to do. The future, which had been so likely an hour ago, which was so impossible now, opened up upon her with a great flash and glow. She saw herself his wife, dependent upon him for all her happiness, pledged to him for ever and ever; his honour hers, his credit hers; the burden of any scandal, of any shame that might come upon him, to be borne by her equally; and it seemed to her as if she were gazing into a mirror, in which she saw herself seated alone and neglected in the house which she had bestowed upon him, while he himself roamed about the world, finding at every turn some facile love—some Jeanie, she said to herself—and yet was so just that she paused and blushed, knowing she did an innocent creature wrong.
This extraordinary revulsion of feeling shook Clare to the very depths of her being. She had been floating so smoothly down the stream that she was not aware how very fast she had been going; and now this sudden and terrible obstacle seized her and maddened her, and enveloped her in a whirlwind of wild thoughts, as a sudden Niagara might seize and rend a pleasure-boat. She had been prepared for some dangers. He might have got “involved,” as people say, with Alice Pimpernel, and been compelled by honour to marry her for her money’s sake. Such a catastrophe, Clare thought, she could have borne. And he might have been a treacherous enemy to her brother; for that she had been afraid, and had prepared herself. But for this she was unprepared. False to her, false to his own interests, wooing ruin instead of prosperity, giving up his reputation and his life, as well as slighting the true love she had waiting for him. Oh, how miserable, how mean, how wretched it was! Was it possible that he could hold life so cheap as to spend it thus? And he not a boy—no longer a boy who might be tempted and led astray. She made an effort to calm the wild misery in her own breast, by forgetting herself, and making believe that pity for him was the only sentiment that moved her. He was a fool, he was mad, she said to herself; and then the something that burned within her, the terrible pain that gnawed and gnawed at her heart, came uppermost. It was the first slight she had ever received—and such a slight! The Princess had found that a beggar might be preferred to her. The proud, upright, spotless Clare had discovered an attempt to deceive her. The thought made her writhe, as any poor living creature might writhe against the spear that pinned it to the earth. Oh, if she could but escape it, forget, throw Arthur Arden out of her thoughts! But that was impossible. She had to bear it, and get the better of it if she could.
And underneath there existed a still deeper feeling, at which Clare almost trembled. She would be avenged on him one way or other. She would punish him for his inconstancy and, for what was worse, his deception. This incident should not, could not, must not pass over as if it had happened to any common milk-and-water girl. The intensity of her passion dismayed even herself. She would bear it, so that no man should ever have it in his power to say he had broken Clare Arden’s heart; and she would not bear it, so that no man should dare believe it was possible to slight her or treat her as a nobody. She took up his letter, crushing it as if it were a real enemy, and her eye caught the entreaty that she would postpone her work, as he was obliged to postpone his. It was a satisfaction to her to be able to contradict him practically and at once. She tore his letter up into little pieces, and then she went with a rapid step to the library. To do instantly and energetically what he had begged her not to do, was in its way a consolation to Clare.
She had but just entered the library when a timid knock came to the door. It was repeated again, even after she had said languidly, “Come in——” “Come in,” she repeated, with that impatient irritability which is natural to a disturbed and excited mind. Then, after a little pause, the head of Mrs. Fillpot, the housekeeper, appeared timidly at the half-opened door. “May I speak a word with you, Miss Clare?” said Mrs. Fillpot in a tone of fright. “Come in!” repeated Clare, this time imperiously. The housekeeper at Arden was an old servant. She had been supreme in the house ever since Clare was born. And though Miss Arden’s decided character had quietly shorn her of all transferable authority, yet Clare herself had sufficient sense of the woman’s value to be respectful of Mrs. Fillpot’s opinions. The housekeeper had not given in without a struggle, and she had a great awe of Clare: but at the same time she was conscientious, and had an opinion of her own; so that there was now and then a little skirmishing between the two, always ending in a victory for Clare, but yet never without a certain effect upon her. Mrs. Fillpot came in with the air of a woman who had made up her mind to something desperate. She gave a frightened glance round the room, and then approached her young mistress. “I beg your pardon, Miss Clare,” she said, “for disturbing you; but I thought Mr. Arthur Arden was here——”
“Mr. Arthur Arden is not here, you perceive,” said Clare, feeling as if his name choked her; “and I should be very glad to know what you want at once, for I am busy. It can wait till to-morrow if it is anything about the house.”
“It is nothing about the house,” said Mrs. Fillpot, breathing hard with alarm and excitement; and then she made another pause, which drove Clare wild with impatience.
“For heaven’s sake say what it is,” she cried, “and leave me; don’t you see I have something to do?”
“Miss Clare,” said Mrs. Fillpot, solemnly, “I’ve been about you since you were a baby. When your poor dear mamma died, though it was Sarah as took you from the month, I had all the responsibility. When you was a little girl with governesses and that sort, it was always me as was referred to——”
“Please to tell me what all this is about,” said Clare, coldly. “You see I am engaged; I have a great many things to think of. I don’t want to go over all my childish days now——”
“Miss Clare, it’s not my wish to make myself disagreeable—it never was,” said Mrs. Fillpot, growing breathless, “but when I see things going on as are not what they should be, and gentlemen’s visits which it’s not nice for a young lady to be known as one that would put up with them, and going on day after day, and the Squire not here, nor no lady companion, nor even a servant a-setting in the room——”
“What do you mean?” said Clare sharply, stopping her in the midst of this harangue.
“I mean just what I am saying, Miss,” said Mrs. Fillpot, in her excitement; “it’s not nice for no young lady—it’s a thing as no young lady should do, Miss. I’ve held my tongue as long as I could, and I won’t no longer. I’ll write to Master, Miss—I’ll speak to Mr. Arthur—I must do something. Not so much as a maid a-setting in the room and ne’er a lady in the house—and him coming and coming. I will say of Mr. Arthur as I thought he had more sense.”
Clare had chilled and hardened into stone as she was thus addressed. A deep blush had covered her face at first, but that had faded, leaving her more pale than usual; and her blue eyes shot glances that were like arrows of ice into the good woman’s heart. Those blue eyes, which were sometimes so sweet, how cold, how blighting, how withering they could be! She pointed her hand to the door before she could speak. She made a spasmodic effort to retain her composure and dignity. “Do precisely what you please,” she said, “but do not let me see you again.”
“Miss Clare!” said the woman. “Oh, Miss Clare, it’s your good I am thinking of. What could I want but your good?—me that has nursed you, and loved you, and took an interest——”
“Go away, please,” said Clare, with a choked voice. “Go away; I don’t wish to see you again.”
“Oh, Miss Clare!——”
“Go. Don’t you see I am—— occupied? Can’t you see? Good heavens! are you a woman, and have no more sense than to stand and drive me frantic there?”
“But Miss Clare——”
“I have no more to say to you. Go, please,” said Clare, falling back into her seat. She leaned her head against the old bureau, which had been her father’s. He had sat there a thousand times bending over it as she was doing now. Would he have been any aid to her in this terrible emergency! Shame, too, as well as everything else! She had been no better than Jeanie—less maidenly than Alice Pimpernel. She had cared too much for him to remember the maidenly decorums in which she had been brought up. She had laid herself open to the comments of this woman, and probably of every servant in the house. No doubt they had found her out, and laughed to see how she, too, indulged herself when her own feelings were touched, indifferent to all proprieties—she who had made so many indignant remonstrances on that very subject, and so often bidden the village girls to have a due respect for themselves. She sat with her face turned away, pretending to search among the drawers of the bureau, while Mrs. Fillpot stood explaining and protesting behind. Clare did not even know when the housekeeper retired, weeping and wondering. She sat absorbed in her own misery, drawing to herself such pictures of her own conduct as the most guilty could scarcely have exceeded. She did not know how long she sat opening and shutting mechanically the drawers of the bureau, idly examining, without seeing what she was doing, its inner corners. Half in abstraction, half in determination to prove to herself that she was pursuing the researches which Arthur had begged her not to pursue, she had opened a little door which was locked, and which shut in a nest of smaller drawers which had not as yet been examined. It was these she was now playing with unconsciously, not thinking or seeing what she did. One of them, however, was very stiff, and the little material obstacle roused her up almost against her will. She pulled at it in her confusion of mind, growing angry over the difficulty. Was everything to resist her, even such a thing as this? Then she perceived there was a bundle of papers within which kept it from opening. Clare woke up, and took pains when she felt herself, as it were, held at bay. She took a great deal of trouble over it, and at last succeeded in opening the drawer. That was all she wanted—her interest failed as soon as the bundle fell out. It was a packet of letters enclosed in a piece of paper sealed at the ends and endorsed. She had found twenty such already, all of the most ordinary description—“Poor Howard’s letters,” “Applications for leases,” “Papers about the woods.” This was the sort of endorsing she had generally found. The new packet, doubtless, was no more important than the others. She took it into her hand and threw it down again into the open pigeon-hole which was nearest to her. And then only for the first time she perceived that it was growing dark, and that the day was almost over. The shutters had never been opened which she had closed in the morning to keep out the sun. To keep out the sun! would the sunshine ever come in again? She locked up the bureau slowly, and went wandering out, not knowing where she went. Sunshine and light had departed from Arden. Was it for evermore?