“If I cannot get back this evening in time for you—” Edgar began.
“Never mind, never mind. Go to the Square. I’ll tell them to have a room ready for you. And take some money—nothing is to be done without money. And, Earnshaw,” lie added, calling after him some minutes later, when Edgar was at the door, “on second thoughts, you won’t say anything to Mary about my little troubles? After all, the best of us have got our tempers; perhaps I am injudicious, and expect too much. She has always had her doubts about my mode of treatment. Don’t, there’s a good fellow, betray to them at home that I lost my temper too!”
This little preliminary to the Entertainment was locked in Edgar’s bosom, and never betrayed to anyone. To tell the truth, his mind was much too full of more important matters to think upon any such inconsiderable circumstance; for he was not the Apostle of the Shop, and had no scheme to justify and uphold in the eyes of all men and women. Edgar, I fear, was not of the stuff of which social reformers are made. The concerns of the individual were more important to him at all times than those of the mass; and one human shadow crossing his way, interested his heart and mind far beyond a mere crowd, though the crowd, no doubt, as being multitudinous, must have been more important. Edgar turned his back upon the establishment with, I fear, very little Christian feeling towards Tottenham’s, and all concerned with it—hating the Entertainment, weary of Mr. Tottenham himself, and disgusted with the strange impersonation of cruelty and selfishness which had just been revealed to him in the form of a woman. He could not shut out from his eyes that thin white face, so full of self, so destitute of any generous feeling.
Such stories have been told before in almost every tone of sympathy and reprobation; women betrayed have been wept in every language under heaven, and their betrayer denounced, but what was there to lament about, to denounce here? A woman sharp and clever to make the best of her bargain; a man trying legal cheats upon her; two people drawn together by some semblance of what is called passion, yet each watching and scheming, how best, on either side, to outwit the other. Never was tale of misery and despair so pitiful; for this was all baseness, meanness, calculation on both hands. They were fitly matched, and it was little worth any man’s while to interfere between them—but, O heaven! to think of the other fate involved in theirs. This roused Edgar to an excitement which was almost maddening. To think that these two base beings had wound into their miserable tangle the feet of Clare—that her innocent life must pay the penalty for their evil lives, that she must bear the dishonour while spotless from the guilt!
Edgar posted along the great London thoroughfare, through the continually varying crowd of passers-by, absorbed in an agitation and disquiet which drove all his own affairs out of his head. His own affairs might involve much trouble and distress; but neither shame nor guilt was in them. Heaven above! to think that guilt or shame could have anything to do with Clare!
Now Clare had not been, at least at the last, a very good sister to Edgar—she was not his sister at all, so far as blood went; and when this had been discovered, and the homeliness of his real origin identified, Clare had shrunk from him, notwithstanding that for all her life, in childish fondness and womanly sympathy, she had loved him as her only brother. Edgar had mournfully consented to a complete severance between them. She had married his enemy; and he himself had sunk so much out of sight that he had felt no further intercourse to be possible, though his affectionate heart had felt it deeply. But as soon as he heard of her danger, all his old love for his sister had sprung up in Edgar’s heart. He took back her name, as it were, into the number of those sounds most familiar to him. “Clare,” he said to himself, feeling a thrill of renewed warmth go through him, mingled with poignant pain—“Clare, my sister, my only sister, the sole creature in the world that belongs to me!” Alas! she did not belong to Edgar any more than any inaccessible princess; but in his heart this was what he felt. He pushed his way through the full streets, with the air and the sentiment of a man bound upon the most urgent business, seeing little on his way, thinking of nothing but his object—the object in common which Miss Lockwood had supposed him to have with herself. But Edgar did not even remember that—he thought of nothing but Clare’s comfort and well-being which were concerned, and how it would be possible to confound her adversaries, and save her from ignoble persecution. If he could keep it from her knowledge altogether! But, alas! how could that be done? He went faster and faster, driven by his thoughts.
The address Miss Lockwood had given him was in a small street off the Hampstead Road. That strange long line of street, with here and there a handful of older houses, a broader pavement, a bit of dusty garden, to show the suburban air it once had possessed; its heterogeneous shops, furniture, birdcages, perambulators, all kinds of out-of-the-way wares fled past the wayfarer, taking wings to themselves, he thought. It is not an interesting quarter, and Edgar had no time to give to any picturesque or historical reminiscences. When he reached the little street in which the chapel he sought was situated, he walked up on one side and down on the other, expecting every moment to see the building of which he was in search. A chapel is not a thing apt to disappear, even in the changeful district of Camden Town. Rubbing his eyes, he went up and down again, inspecting the close lines of mean houses. The only break in the street was where two or three small houses, of a more bilious brick than usual, whose outlines had not yet been toned down by London soot and smoke, diversified the prospect. He went to a little shop opposite this yellow patch upon the old grimy garment to make inquiries.
“Chapel! there ain’t no chapel hereabouts,” said the baker, who was filling his basket with loaves.
“Hold your tongue, John,” said his wife, from the inner shop. “I’ll set you all right in a moment. There’s where the chapel was, sir, right opposite. There was a bit of a yard where they’ve built them houses. The chapel is behind; but it ain’t a chapel now. It’s been took for an infant school by our new Rector. Don’t you see a little bit of an entry at that open door? That’s where you go in. But since it’s been shut up there’s been a difference in the neighbourhood. Most of us is church folks now.”
“And does nothing remain of the chapel—nobody belonging to it, no books nor records?” cried Edgar, suddenly brought to a standstill. The woman looked at him surprised.