Mr. Fielding walked along by her side somewhat sadly. He was Clare’s godfather, and he was very proud of her. His own nature was far too mild and gentle to be able to understand her vehemence of feeling on these points; but he had been grieved by it often, and had given her soft reproofs, which as yet had produced little effect. His great hope, however, had been in the return of her brother. “Edgar must know the world a little; he will show her better than I can how wrong she is,” the gentle Rector had said to himself. But, alas, Edgar had come home, and the result had not been according to his hope. “He is young and impetuous, and he has hurried her convictions,” was the comment he made in his grieved mind as he accompanied her along the village street. Mr. Fielding blamed no one as long as he could help it; much less would he blame Clare, who was to him as his own child. He thought within himself that now the only chance for her was Life, that best yet hardest of all teachers. Life would show her how vain were her theories, how harsh her opinions; but then Life itself must be harsh and hard if it is to teach effectual lessons, and it was painful to anticipate any harshness for Clare. He went with her, somewhat drooping and despondent, though the air was sweet with honeysuckle and early roses. The summer was sweet, and so was life, at that blossoming time which the girl had reached; but there were still scorching suns, as well as the winds of autumn and the chills of winter, to come.
Old Sarah had more ways than one of gaining her homely livelihood. The upper floor of her cottage, on which there were two rooms, was furnished out of the remains of some old furniture which an ancient mistress had bequeathed to her; and there at distant intervals the old woman had a lodger, when such visitors came to Arden. They were homely little rooms, low-roofed, and furnished with the taste peculiar to a real cottage, and not in the least like the ideal one; but people in search of health, with small means at their disposal, were very glad to give her the ten or twelve shillings a week, which was all she asked. Down below, in the rooms where Sarah herself lived, she was in the habit of receiving one or two young girls, orphans, or the children of the poorest and least dependable parishioners, to train them to household work and plain sewing. It was Clare’s idea, and it had worked very well; but for some time past Clare had neglected her protégées. Edgar’s arrival and all the dawning struggles of the new life had occupied and confused her, and she had left her old nurse and her young pupils to themselves. She could scarcely remember as she went in who they were, though Sarah’s pupils were known in the parish as Miss Arden’s girls. There were two on hand at the present moment in the little kitchen which was Sarah’s abode. One stood before a large white-covered table ironing fine linen, while the old nurse sat by in her big chair, spectacles on nose, and a piece of coarse needlework in hand, superintending the process, with many comments, which, added to the heat of the day and the irons, had heightened Mary Smith’s complexion to a brilliant crimson. The other sat working in the shady background, the object of Mary’s intensest envy, unremarked and unreproved. It was the unfortunate clear-starcher who had to make her bob to the gentlefolks, and called forth Miss Arden’s questions. “I hope she is a good girl,” Clare said, looking at Mary, who stood curtseying and hot, with the iron in her hand. “She is none so good but she might be better, Miss Clare,” said old Sarah; “I don’t know none o’ them as is; but she do come on in her ironing. As for collars and cuffs and them plain things, I trust her by herself.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Clare, “and I hope Jane is as satisfactory; but we have not time to talk about them to-day. Mr. Fielding says you have a new lodger, whom he wishes me to go and see. Is she upstairs? Is she at home? Does she like the place? And tell me what sort of person she is, for I am going to see her now.”
Sarah got up from her chair with a bewildered look, and took off her spectacles, which she always did in emergencies. “I beg your pardon, Miss Clare,” she said with a curtsey, “but—— She ain’t not to say a poor person. I don’t know as she’d—be pleased—— Not as your visit, Miss, ain’t a compliment; but——”
“The Scotch are very proud,” said Mr. Fielding, in his most deprecating tone; “they are dreadfully independent, and like their own way. And, besides, she does not want anything of us. She is not, as Sarah says, a poor person. I think, perhaps, another day——”
“Then why did you bring me here to see her?” said Clare, with some reason. Was it to read her a practical lesson—to show her that she was no longer queen in Arden? A flush of hasty anger came to her pale cheek.
“I only meant——” Mr. Fielding began; “all that I intended was—— Why, here is Edgar! and Mr. Perfitt with him. About business, I suppose, as you two are going together. My dear boy, I am so glad you are taking to your work.”
“We have been half over the estate,” said Edgar, coming in, and putting down his hat on Mary Smith’s ironing table, while she stood and gaped at him, forgetting her curtsey in the awe of so close an approach to the young Squire; “but Perfitt has some one to visit here, and I have come to see Sarah, which is not work, but pleasure. I did not expect to find you all. Perfitt, go and see your friend; never mind me. Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Edgar, standing suddenly aside. They all looked up for the moment with a little start, and yet there was nothing to startle them. It was only Sarah’s Scotch lodger, Mr. Perfitt’s relative, who had come into the little room.
CHAPTER XIII.
She was a woman of about sixty, with very dark eyes and very white hair—a tall woman, quite unbent by the weight of her years, and unshaken by anything she could have met with in them; and yet she did not look as if she had encountered little, or found life an easy passage from the one unknown to the skirts of the other. She did not look younger than her age, and yet there was no sentiment of age about her. She was not the kind of woman of whom one says that they have been beautiful, or have been pretty. She had perhaps never been either one or the other; but all that she had ever been, or more, she was now. Her eyes were still perfectly clear and bright, and they had depths in them which could never have belonged to them in youth. The outline of her face was not the round and perfect outline which belongs to the young, but every wrinkle had its meaning. It was not mere years of which they spoke, but of many experiences, varied knowledge, deep acquaintance with that hardest of all sciences—life. Not a trace of its original colour belonged to the hair—slightly rippled, with an irregularity which gave a strange impression of life and vigour to it—which appeared under her cap. The cap was dead white too, tied under her chin with a solid bow of white ribbon; and this mass of whiteness brought out the pure tints of her face like a picture. These tints had deepened a little in tone from the red and white of youth, but were as clear as a child’s complexion of lilies and roses. The slight shades of brown did but mellow the countenance, as it does in so many painted faces. The eyes were full of energy and animation, not like the eyes of a spectator, but of one accustomed to do and to struggle—acting, not looking on. The whole party assembled in old Sarah’s living-room turned round and looked at her as she came in, and there was not one who did not feel abashed when they became conscious that for a moment this inspection was not quite respectful to the stranger. So far as real individuality and personal importance went, she was a more notable personage than any one of them. The Rector, who was the nearest to her in age, drew a little aside from before the clear eyes of this old woman. He had been a quiet man, harboured from all the storms, or almost all the storms of existence; but here was one who had gone through them all. As for Edgar, there was something in her looks which won his heart in a moment. He went up to her with his natural frankness, while the others stood looking on doubtfully. “I am sure it is you whom Perfitt has been talking to me about,” he said. “I hope you like Arden. I hope your granddaughter is better. And I trust you will tell Perfitt if there is anything than can be done to make you more comfortable; my sister and I will be too glad——”