Squire Arden; volume 1 of 3

by Mrs. Oliphant

Edgar consented with a sigh, which he also suppressed. It was not that he disliked the initiation into his real work in life, or objected to throw off the idleness in which he had spent all these years. On the contrary, he had chafed again and again over the inaction—the wretched aimlessness of his existence. But there was something in this sudden plunge into all its new responsibilities and trials, and, more than all, in this posthumous conflict with the will and inclinations of the father who had hated him, which sent a thrill through his mind, and moved his whole being. And in this life which was about to begin there was a mystery concealed somewhere—the secret of his own existence, which some time or other would have to be found out. Nobody seemed to feel this, not even those who were the most fully conscious that an explanation was wanted of the old Squire’s ceaseless enmity to his son. They all took it for granted that it was over; that the Squire’s death had ended everything; and that the heir who had succeeded so tranquilly would reign in peace in his unkind father’s stead. But Edgar’s mind was not so easily satisfied. It seemed to him that on this road which he was entering there stood a great signpost, with a shadowy hand pointing to the secret, and he shrank, knowing that secret would bring him trouble. However, to oppose this visionary sense of risk and danger to Mr. Fazakerley and his papers or to Perfitt and his map would have been folly indeed. So Perfitt, who was the Scotch steward, came, and the young Squire was drawn unconsciously within the charmed circle of property, and began to feel his heart beating and his head throbbing with a certain exhilarated sense of importance and responsibility. When he heard of all that was his, he, who never up to this moment had possessed anything but his personalities, a curious feeling of power came over him. He was young, and his mind was fresh, and the emotions of nature were still strong in him. He had seen a great deal of the world, but it had not been that phase of the world which makes a young man blasé. He sat and listened to the discussion of rents and boundaries, of what ought to be done with one farm and another, of the wood that ought to be cut, and the moor that ought to be reclaimed, with a puzzled yet pleasant consciousness that, discuss as they liked, they could not decide without him. He knew so little about it that he had to content himself with listening; but the talk was as a pleasant song to him, pleasing his newborn sense of importance. “You’ll understand fine, Sir, when once you’ve been over the estate with me,” said Perfitt, with a certain condescension which amused Edgar mightily. They seemed to him to be playing at government, suggesting so many things which they had no power to carry out, which must wait for his approval. All his graver anticipations floated away from him in his sense of the humour of the situation. He made mental notes in his mind as they settled this and that, saying to himself, “Wait a little; I will not have it so” with a boyish delight in the feeling that he could put all their calculations out by any sudden exercise of his will. If this was very childish in Edgar, I don’t know what excuse to make for him. It was so amusing to him to feel himself a great man, with supreme power in his hands—he who had never been master of anything all his life.

CHAPTER VIII.

That day was a long day. Just before luncheon the Thornleighs called, as Clare had expected. The Thornleighs were next neighbours to the Ardens in the county; and in the general estimation they were more fashionable than the Ardens, in so much that Mr. Thornleigh had married Lady Augusta Highton, a daughter of the Duke of Grandmaison; whereas the late Mr. Arden had married a wife whose antecedents were very little known, and who had been dead for years. So that while the Thornleighs had a house in town, and went a great deal into society, the Ardens had not budged for years from Arden Hall, and were very little known in the great world. This, however, was counterbalanced by the fact that while Clare was quite fresh and unworn, the five Thornleigh girls were rather too well known, and were talked about with just that shade of ennui which so speedily creeps over a fashionable reputation. “One sees them everywhere,” said the fastidious rulers of that capricious world; and as there were five of them, it was not easy to invite them to those choicest little gatherings in which Fashion is worshipped with the most perfect rites, and distinctions are granted or withdrawn. None of the Thornleigh girls were yet married, and many people were disposed to censure Lady Augusta for bringing out little Beatrice, who was just seventeen, while she had still Ada, and Gussy, and Helena, and Mary on her hands. How could she ever expect to be able to take them all out—people said?—which was very true.

But, however, the thing was done, and could not be mended. Lady Augusta was not a matchmaker, in the usual sense of the word; neither were her daughters trained to the pursuit of elder sons or other eligible members of society, as it is common to suppose such young women to be. But it cannot be denied that as a reasonable woman, much concerned about the wellbeing of her children, Lady Augusta now and then allowed, with a sigh, that if Gussy and Ada were comfortably married it would be a very good thing, and a great relief to her mind. “Not to say that they could take their sisters out,” she would sometimes say to herself, with a sigh reflecting upon all the cotillions to which little Beatrice, in the fervour of seventeen, would no doubt subject her mother. And it would be vain to attempt to deny that a little thrill of curiosity was in Lady Augusta’s mind as she drove up the avenue to Arden. Edgar was their nearest neighbour, he was young and “nice,” so far as anybody knew—for, of course, he had been met abroad from time to time by wandering sons and cousins, and reports of him had been brought home—and just a suitable age for Gussy, or, indeed, for any of the girls, should the young people by any chance take a fancy to each other. I cannot see why Lady Augusta should be condemned for having this speculation in her mind. If she had been quite indifferent to the future fate of her daughters she would have been an unnatural woman. It was her chief business in the world to procure a happy life for them, and provide them with everything that was best; and why—a good husband being placed, by common consent, foremost in the list of those good things—a mother’s efforts towards the securing of him should not be thought the very highest and best of her occupations, it is very hard to say. As a matter of fact, everywhere but in England it is her first and most clearly recognised duty. And I for one do not feel in the least disposed to sneer at Lady Augusta. She went with her husband to look at this young man with a sense that one day he might be very important to her. It is possible that Edgar might not have liked it had the idea occurred to him that he was thus already a subject of speculation, and that his tenderest affections—the things which belong most exclusively to a man’s personal being—were already being directed, whether potentially or not, by the imagination of another, into channels as yet totally unknown to him. I believe such a thought is not pleasant to a young man. But still it was quite natural—and, indeed, laudable—on the part of Lady Augusta, and demands neither scorn nor condemnation. She had made Mr. Thornleigh give up a morning’s consultation with the keeper on some interesting young moorland families and the general prospects of the game, in order that no time might be lost in making this call. Of course, she said nothing to him as he sat rather sulkily by her side, thinking all the time of the young pheasants; but on the whole, perhaps, the mother’s were not the least elevated thoughts.

“I am so very glad to be the first to welcome you home, Mr. Arden,” she said. “We don’t know each other yet—at least we two individuals don’t know each other; but the Ardens and the Thornleighs have been friends these hundreds of years. How many hundreds, Clare? You girls are so dreadfully well-informed now-a-days, I never dare open my lips. And I hope now your sister will go out a little more, and come to us a little more. She has been such a little hermit all her life.”

“She shall not be a hermit now, if I can help it,” said Edgar. And he was pleased with the kindness of the elder woman, who was still a handsome woman, and gracious in her manner, as became a great lady. He sat down by her, as was his duty, but without thinking it was his duty—another sign of the spontaneousness which puzzled Clare, and gave Edgar’s simple ways their greatest charm.

And the fact was that Lady Augusta, without in the least meaning it, was captivated by the young man. “He is not the least like an Arden,” she said to her husband, as they drove away; “he has not their stiffness, any more than their black hair. I think he is charming. There is something very nice in a foreign education, you know. One would not choose it for one’s own boys; but it does give a certain character when you meet with it by accident. Young men in general are so frightfully like each other,” she added, with a sigh. Mr. Thornleigh gave a half articulate grunt, being full of calculations about the partridges; besides, the young men did not trouble him much. He was not called upon to remember which was which, and to hear them say exactly the same things to his girls ball after ball. Lady Augusta’s sigh turned into a half yawn as she glanced back upon all her experiences. He was just about the age and about the height for Gussy. Gussy was a small, little thing, and Edgar was not tall. He would not answer at all for the stately Helena, who was five feet ten. And then, if the mother had a weakness, it was for little Gussy of all her children. And it would be so nice to have her settled so near. “But just because it is so nice, and would be so desirable, of course it will never come to pass,” she said to herself, with another sigh. She had left an invitation behind her, and had made up her mind it should not be her fault if it came to nothing. Thus Edgar was assailed by altogether unexpected dangers the very day after his return.

And then there was the dinner in the evening, which was not so pleasant to think of as the dinner to which the brother and sister had been invited at Thorne. There were only three gentlemen—the Rector, and the Doctor, and Mr. Fazakerley—all twice as old as Edgar, and all patronising and explanatory. They knew his affairs so much better than he did, that it was not wonderful if they alarmed him. So long as Clare sat at the other end of the table her brother did not mind, for she was used to them, and used to having her own way with them; but Edgar felt it would be hard upon him when he was left to their tender mercies. He was very anxious to detain Clare, so as to shorten the awful hour after dinner. “Why should you go away?” he said, “wait till we are all ready. Are we such bears in England that ladies can’t stay with us for an hour? We don’t mean to smoke; that is the only thing that need send you away.”

“Smoke!” said Mr. Fielding, with horror. “Edgar, I hope you don’t mean to introduce these new-fangled foreign ways. I shall have to retire with the ladies if you do. I detest smoke, except in the open air.”

“That is one of his old-fashioned notions,” said Dr. Somers, “but you must have a smoking-room fitted up: then the ladies can’t object. The old Squire resisted such an innovation. He was of the antique school, like Fielding here, and hated everything that was new.”