Squire Arden; Volume 2 by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXVIII.

HOW did it happen?—a question so easy to ask—recalling so often in the midst of the most tragic seriousness a moment of utter levity, gaiety, and carelessness—a light impulse for which never all his life long will some one forgive himself. “It was my fault,” Arthur Arden explained, with a voice choked and broken. “I had driven Miss Pimpernel to the station to meet her father, and we met and stopped to talk to Jeanie on the way. We talked to her, and offered her carelessly a drive when we came back. On the way back we found her still on the same spot. I got down to speak to her, and so did old Pimpernel—Heaven knows why! Then there was some talk about this drive. She did not understand us—she had no intention of coming. It was I who almost lifted her into the carriage. I had my foot on the step to mount after her, when Alice seized the reins, and dashed on. Don’t ask me any more. And now, God help us, that innocent creature is dying—and it is my fault——”

“It is more Miss Pimpernel’s fault,” said Edgar, but he turned from his kinsman with a dislike and sense of repulsion which he could hardly explain. Arthur, on the contrary, clung to him with painful anxiety. “Don’t leave me until we hear,” he cried. He kept his arm within Edgar’s, holding him fast, feeling him to be a defence against the Pimpernels, against Mrs. Murray, against even the sour looks of Dr. Somers, when he should come. No doubt, Arthur felt, the whole world would blame him, and consider Jeanie as his victim. The Pimpernels would forsake him, and Clare——“Arden,” he said, with sudden weakness, “I have had a great deal to annoy me since you went away. These people, the Pimpernels, invited me after a while, and I stayed, thinking—I don’t hesitate to say, for you know—thinking I should be near your sister. And Clare has behaved to me——”

“Hush, for Heaven’s sake,” said Edgar, angrily. “I will have nothing said of Clare. Let us see what comes of this business in the first place—it is enough for the moment.”

“You blame me,” said Arthur; “of course I knew you would blame me. But, as you have said yourself, it was that fool of a girl who was to blame. Good God! how could she drive these fiery brutes—I told her it was impossible. If it had only been herself she had killed, and not poor Jeanie—little Jeanie.”

“For Heaven’s sake, be silent!” cried Edgar, furiously, trying to shake off the hand on his arm. Excitement and apprehension had produced upon Arthur the effect of wine. His nerves were so shaken that he almost wept as he repeated Jeanie’s name. Remorse, and anxiety, and pity, which were as much for himself as for any of the others, unmanned him altogether. He was deeply distressed for the girl whom his folly had helped to place in such jeopardy, but he was also distressed for himself, wondering and asking himself what he should do, how he should ever free himself from the consequences of such a misfortune. Clare was lost unless her brother interposed; and though he was innocent, surely, in respect to Alice Pimpernel, she was lost too, with her thirty thousand pounds. And Jeanie, poor little innocent victim, was probably dying. No gratification to himself or his vanity could be got out of further pursuit of her. This selfish compunction was but the undercurrent, it is true. Above that was a stream of genuine grief and distress for the suffering creature; but he had thought of himself too long to be able altogether to dismiss the consideration now.

Half the village had gathered about the door when the dogcart which played so large a part in the scene dashed up again, bringing Dr. Somers. Of all houses in the world it was the cottage of Sally Timms, the one nearest the end of the village, into which Jeanie had been carried. Sally was as prompt and ready of resource as she was thriftless and untidy; but the surrounding villagers did not respect her house sufficiently to keep out of it, or to keep silent. The Doctor dispersed them with a few sharp words. “Take those children away instantly, and keep the place quiet, or I’ll bring Perfitt down upon you,” he said emphatically. Perfitt’s name did what Perfitt’s master had not thought of doing. And Edgar immediately bestirred himself to second the Doctor. He partly coaxed, partly frightened the crowd away; while Arthur stood gloomily leaning against the little garden gate chewing the cud of very bitter reflections. Then there was a long pause, a pause of intense expectation. The women who had been sent away watched from the corner and from their own doors for the reappearance of the Doctor. The children slunk away into distant groups, now and then seduced into a shout or gambol, which was instantly put a stop to by some indignant spectator. The very birds and insects seemed to pause, the leaves rustled less loudly. A stranger seeing so many silent spectators all with their eyes turned towards the cottage door, all in such a stillness of suspense, would have found the scene very difficult to interpret. The dogcart stood at the corner of the road with the groom in it gathering up the reins close in his hands, and ready to rush anywhere for whatever might be wanted. Edgar stood in the middle of the dusty road with a sense that if he approached a step nearer the very sound of his step might disturb the patient. And Sally Timms’ youngest child, awe-stricken and silent, sat in the dust and gazed up with wide-open eyes at Arthur Arden leaning upon the garden gate.

At length Dr. Somers came out, and everybody made one sudden step forward. He held out his hands warning them off. “No noise,” he said; “no excitement. Silence—quiet is everything. Come with me and I will tell you what to do.”

She will live if all this care has to be taken, was the thought that past like lightning through Arthur Arden’s mind, and he recovered his courage a little. The two cousins followed the Doctor towards the little conclave of women at the corner. “Now, look here,” he said, making an address to the community in general, “that poor child is lying between life and death. She may go any moment; but if you will keep everything quiet, and those confounded children of yours, and keep away from the house, and stop all noises, we may bring her through yet.”

“God bless you, sir!” cried old Sarah, who was present with her girls, crying and curtseying. The other women were silent, and perhaps not so much impressed. They were ready to give any amount of wondering attentive sympathy, but to keep their children quiet was another matter. One rushed away out of the circle with a baby which was beginning to cry; another administered a private box on the ear to an urchin who had no thoughts of making any noise. But yet they murmured a little in their hearts.

“The Doctor means,” said Edgar, “that the poor girl is a stranger, and that all you Arden folks are too friendly and kind to mind a little trouble. You shall send the children to play in the park, and the men will help me to have straw put over the causeway at once. Where is John Hesketh? I know you will all do your very best.”

“And that we will, Squire,” cried the women. There was nothing in this speech about “confounded children.” But the results to the children were more terrible than anything proposed by the Doctor. The mothers made a general rush at them, and put them to bed. “Bless you, it’s the only place they’re quiet,” cried one and another; and Edgar, hurrying to the house of the most respected inhabitant of Arden, got a little party organised at once to lay down straw upon the road. He went with them himself, eager and busy, while Arthur stood at the corner with the Doctor. “Just like him,” Dr. Somers said, “and very unlike the Ardens. Was it he that helped on this catastrophe, that he is so anxious and busy now?”

“No,” said Arthur, without seeing the full meaning of the question; “he had nothing to do with it. It was I who was to blame.”

“Ah! I thought so,” cried Dr. Somers, rubbing his hands together with a suppressed chuckle. His professional gravity was over for the moment, having lasted as long as was necessary; and now he was at leisure to indulge in his ordinary speculations.

“Why did you think so?” asked Arthur, coldly.

“Because you are a true Arden, and you are taking no trouble about it,” was the reply; and Dr. Somers went on, after he had discharged this shaft, with an inward satisfaction not unnatural in the circumstances. It was not that he was indifferent to poor Jeanie’s fate; but he was used to danger, and was not awe-stricken by it, as are the inexperienced. Even while he walked up the side-path into the village street he was turning over with professional seriousness and anxiety what measures it would be best to take—pondering closely which was most suitable; but he could not refuse himself the pleasure of shooting that javelin. It did not do Arthur Arden any great harm, and it relieved him about Jeanie more than a more favourable judgment of her case would have done. In his ignorance he concluded that a doctor could not jibe at other men if his patient was in very great danger; and as for the straw and so forth, that was in Edgar’s way, not his. Edgar was the master, and free to order what he pleased; and, besides, was a commonplace being, who naturally thought of such matters of detail. So long as Jeanie was not going to die, that was all that absolutely affected him. And heaven knows, being relieved of that first dread, he had enough on his hands and his mind. There were the Pimpernels, whom he would have to face with the consciousness that he had been instrumental in risking their daughter’s life, or, at least, in putting her in circumstances to risk it; and—what was still worse—that he had thought nothing of Alice, done nothing for her, had not even inquired if she was badly hurt or in danger. This last reflection disconcerted him wholly. He could not hasten to the Red House, as he had intended, to show a tardy but still eager sympathy, while still he was unaware what had happened to Alice. He had to hasten after his cousin, who knew all about her, pursuing him to the home-farm and the stacks, where he was loading his volunteer labourers, and losing the precious time which he ought to have spent in smoothing down the Pimpernels. “Wait a little; I have no time to speak to you,” Edgar said to him. “I am busy; watch the road that no carts pass till we are ready——” What were all these ridiculous details to him? The girl was not going to die; and how was he to face the Pimpernels?

“Miss Pimpernel? She is not much hurt. I sent her home in the dogcart; but, Arden, don’t go—look after the road,” Edgar managed to shout to him at last across the farmyard. Arthur took no further thought about keeping Jeanie quiet—except, indeed, that he gave Johnny Timms sixpence to stand and watch at the corner of the road. Edgar, however, was on the spot before he had gone quite away. He saw the work proceeding as he turned in at the gate of the Red House, and asked himself, with a half sneer at his cousin, a half wonder for himself, what made the difference? Edgar had nothing to do with the accident, and yet was taking all this trouble to repair it; whereas he, who was really involved in it, after the first moment, never dreamed of taking any trouble. What was the use, indeed, of thus troubling one’s self about others? He had been weakly, foolishly compunctious at the first moment. Why could he not have left Jeanie to Edgar? Why should he have concerned himself at all about her? Why for her sake, a girl who had never even given him a smile, should he have committed himself thus with the Pimpernels? Arthur Arden cursed his own folly, and the impulse which had made him snatch up Jeanie in his arms instead of Alice. Edgar was there, who would have done it, and taken all the responsibility; and such a piece of Quixotism would not harm Edgar. There was the difference—not in the nature, as that insolent Doctor insinuated, but in the fact that Edgar could afford to be helpful, and liberal, and generous—that it could do him no harm. Whereas he, Arthur, dependent upon circumstances—obliged to keep on good terms with this one, to curry favour with that, to consider how everything would affect his own interests—did not venture to be helpful and sympathetic. That was the true explanation of the whole. A man, when he is rich, can afford to be better, kinder, more self-forgetting than a man who is poor; and, above all, the man who lives by his wits, is the man least capable of sacrifices for others. Arthur Arden was very sorry for himself as he went reluctantly, yet quickly, through the shrubberies of the Red House. He knew he had a mauvais quart d’heure before him. However eager or anxious he might manage to look, he knew very well that the father and mother would never forgive him for having left their child to take her chance, while he cared for the little village girl. He cursed his unhappy impulsiveness as he approached the house of the Pimpernels. Taking trouble about other people was always a mistake, unless they were people who could repay that care. Could not he have left Jeanie alone to take her chance? Was not Jeanie somehow at the bottom of Clare’s caprice, which had thrown out all his calculations a week ago? And now again, no doubt, she had ruined him with the Pimpernels. Poor Arthur Arden!—if he had been the Squire he would have been above all these miserable calculations—all these apprehensions and regrets. The least sympathetic spectator could scarcely have refrained from a sentiment of pity for the unfortunate schemer as he crossed the threshold of the Red House.

END OF VOL. II.