Happy herself! does a woman ever inquire whether she is personally happy or not when she has come to Lady Augusta’s age, and has a large family to care for? She took the arm which Edgar could not but offer with an impatient sigh.
“Mr. Earnshaw does not require to be told that I wish him everything that is good,” she said, and allowed him to lead her out, wondering how she should manage to warn Beatrice, her youngest daughter, who had come with her, and who was looking at something in one of the many departments. The young Thornleighs were all fond of Edgar, and Lady Augusta dared not trust a young firebrand of nineteen to go and spread the news all over the family, without due warning, that he had appeared upon the scene again. Edgar’s short-lived anger had before this floated away, though his heart ached at the withdrawal from him of the friendship which had been sweet to his friendly soul. His heart melted more and more every step he walked by her side.
“Lady Augusta,” he said at last hurriedly, “you were once as kind as an angel to me, when I wanted it much. Don’t be afraid of me; I shall never put myself in your way.”
“Oh, Mr. Earnshaw!” she cried, struck by compunction; “I ought to ask your pardon, Edgar; I ought to know you better; don’t judge me harshly. If you only knew—”
“I don’t ask to know anything,” he said, though his heart beat high, “my sphere henceforth is very different from yours; you need have no fear of me.”
“God bless you, whatever is your sphere! you are good, and I am sure you will be happy!” she cried with tears in her eyes, giving him her hand as he put her into her carriage; but then she added, “will you send some one to call Beatrice, little Beatrice, who came with me? No, don’t go yourself, pray don’t go—I would not give you so much trouble for the world!”
Edgar did not feel sure whether he was most inclined to burst into rude laughter, or to go aside to the nearest corner and dry his glistening eyes.
CHAPTER XIX.
Schemes and Speculations.
Edgar went home in the evening, feeling a degree of agitation which he had scarcely given himself credit for being capable of. He had been on so low a level of feeling all these years, that he believed himself to have grown duller and less capable of emotion, though he could not explain to himself how it should be so. But now the stormwinds had begun to blow, and the tide to rise. The mere sight of Lady Augusta was enough to have brought back a crowd of sensations and recollections, and there had lately been so many other touches upon the past to heighten the effect of this broad gleam of light. Even the curious recognition of him, and the apparently foolish enmity against the Ardens, which the young lady at Tottenham’s had shown, had something to do with the ferment of contending feelings in which he found himself. Hate them! no, why should he hate them? But to be thus called back to the recollection of them, and of all that he had been, had a strangely disturbing influence upon his mind. In his aimless wanderings alone over Europe, and in his sudden plunge into a family life quite new to him in Scotland, he had believed himself utterly set free from all the traditions and associations of the former existence, which was indeed more like a chapter out of a romance than a real episode in life. Taking it at the most, it was nothing but an episode. After years of neglected youth, a brief breathless moment of power, independence, and a kind of greatness, and then a sharp disruption from them all, and plunge into obscurity again. Why should that short interval affect him more than all the long tracts of less highly coloured life, from which it stood out like a bit of brilliant embroidery on a sombre web? Edgar could not tell; he felt that it did so, but he could not answer to himself why. Mr. Tottenham talked all the way back about one thing and another, about Miss Lockwood, and the scandal which had suddenly shocked the establishment, about little Mary Thornleigh and her brilliant marriage, about the evening entertainment to be given in the shop, which was quite as important to him. Fortunately for Edgar, his companion was capable of monologue, and went on quite pleasantly during their drive without need of anything more than a judicious question or monosyllable of assent.
“I’ll tell you one thing, Earnshaw,” he said, “in such undertakings as mine the great thing is never to be discouraged; never allow yourself to be discouraged; that is my maxim; though I am not always able to carry it out. I hope I never shall give in to say that because things go wrong under my management, or because one meets with disappointments—therefore things must always go wrong, and nothing good ever come of it. Of course, look at it from a serious point of view, concerts and penny readings, and so forth are of no importance. That is what Gussy always tells me. She thinks religion is the only thing; she would like to train my young ladies to find their chief pleasure in the chapel and the daily service, like her Sisters in their convent. I am not against Sisterhoods, Earnshaw; I should not like to see Gussy go into one, it is true—”