“It could not be she who drove you from him,” he said, with all the composure he could collect. “Tell me how it came about that you are called Miss Lockwood, and have been here so long, if all you have told me is true?”
“I won’t say that it was not partly my fault,” she replied, with a complacent nod of her head. “After awhile we didn’t get on—I was suspicious of him from the first, as I’ve told you; I know he never meant honest and right; and he didn’t like being found out. Nobody as I know of does. We got to be sick of each other after awhile. He was as poor as Job; and he has the devil’s own temper. If you think I was a patient Grizel to stand that, you’re very much mistaken. Ill-usage and slavery, and nothing to live upon! I soon showed him as that wouldn’t do for me. The baby died,” she added indifferently—“poor little thing, it was a blessing that the Almighty took it! I fretted at first, but I felt it was a deal better off than it could ever have been with me; and then I took another situation. I had been in Grant and Robinson’s before I married, so as I didn’t want to make a show of myself with them that knew me, I took back my single name again. They are rather low folks there, and I didn’t stay long; and I found I liked my liberty a deal better than studying his temper, and being left to starve, as I was with him; so I kept on, now here, now there, till I came to Tottenham’s. And here I’ve never had nothing to complain of,” said Miss Lockwood, “till some of these prying women found out about the baby. I made up my mind to say nothing about who I was, seeing circumstances ain’t favourable. But I sha’n’t deny it; why should I deny it? it ain’t for my profit to deny it. Other folks may take harm, but I can’t; and when I saw you, then I felt that the right moment had come, and that I must speak.”
“Why did not you speak before he was married?—had you no feeling that, if you were safe, another woman was about to be ruined?” said Edgar, bitterly. “Why did you not speak then?”
“Am I bound to take care of other women?” said Miss Lockwood. “I had nobody to take care of me; and I took care of myself—why couldn’t she do the same? She was a lady, and had plenty of friends—I had nobody to take care of me.”
“But it would have been to your own advantage,” said Edgar. “How do you suppose anyone can believe that you neglected to declare yourself Arthur Arden’s wife at the time when it would have been such a great thing for you, and when he was coming into a good estate, and could make his wife a lady of importance? You are not indifferent to your own comfort—why did you not speak then?”
“I pleased myself, I suppose,” she said, tossing her head; then added, with matter-of-fact composure, “Besides, I was sick of him. He was never the least amusing, and the most fault-finding, ill-tempered—One’s spelling, and one’s looks, and one’s manners, and one’s dress—he was never satisfied. Then,” she went on, sinking her voice—“I don’t deny the truth—I knew he’d never take me home and let people know I was his real wife. All I could have got out of him would have been an allowance, to live in some hole and corner. I preferred my freedom to that, and the power of getting a little amusement. I don’t mind work, bless you—not work of this kind—it amuses me; and if I had been left in peace here when I was comfortable, I shouldn’t have interfered—I should have let things take their chance.”
“In all this,” said Edgar, feeling his throat dry and his utterance difficult, “you consider only yourself, no one else.”
“Who else should I consider?” said Miss Lockwood. “I should like to know who else considered me? Not a soul. I had to take care of myself, and I did. Why should not his other wife have her wits about her as well as me?”
Then there was a pause. Edgar was too much broken down by this disclosure, too miserable to speak; and she sat holding up the book between her face and the fire, with a flush upon her pale cheeks, sometimes fanning herself, her nose in the air, her finely-cut profile inspired by impertinence and worldly selfishness, till it looked ugly to the disquieted gazer. Few women could have been so handsome, and yet looked so unhandsome. As he looked at her, sickening with the sight, Edgar felt bitterly that this woman was indeed Arthur Arden’s true mate—they matched each other well. But Clare, his sister—Clare, whom there had been no one to guard—who, rich in friends as she was, had no brother, no guardian to watch over her interests—poor Clare! The only thing he seemed able to do for her now was to prove her shame, and extricate her, if he could extricate her, from the terrible falseness of her position. His heart ached so that it gave him a physical pain. He had kept up no correspondence with her whom he had looked upon during all the earlier part of his life as his sister, and whom he felt in his very heart to be doubly his sister the moment that evil came in her way. The thing for him to consider now was what he could do for her, to save her, if possible—though how she could be saved, he knew not, as the story was so circumstantial, and apparently true. But, at all events, it could not but be well for Clare that her enemy’s cause was in her brother’s hands. Good for Clare!—would it be good for the other woman, to whom he had promised to do justice? Edgar almost felt his heart stand still as he asked himself this question. Justice—justice must be done, in any case, there could be no doubt of that. If Clare’s position was untenable, she must not be allowed to go on in ignorance, for misery even is better than dishonour. This was some comfort to him in his profound and sudden wretchedness. Clare’s cause, and that of this other, were so far the same.
“I will undertake your commission,” he said gravely; “but understand me first. Instead of hating the Ardens, I would give my life to preserve my sister, Mrs. Arden, from the shame and grief you are trying to bring upon her. Of course, one way or another, I shall feel it my duty now to verify what you say; but it is right to tell you that her interest is the first thing I shall consider, not yours.”