In his despair, however, he caught Mrs. Pimpernel’s eye, who was looking bland but disturbed, saying “There is no doubt of that,” and “Education is very necessary,” and “I am sure I am quite of Lord Newmarch’s opinion,” at intervals. She was amiable, but she was not happy with that wise young nobleman at her right hand, and such an appreciative audience as Mrs. Buxton beside him. Edgar glanced across at her, and caught her look of distress. “I do not care anything about education,” he said, firing a friendly gun, as it were, across her bows. “I hate it when I am at dinner.” And then Mrs. Pimpernel gave him a look which said more than words.
“Oh, fie,” she said, leaning across the corner, “you know you should not say that. Do you think we English are behind in light conversation, Mr. Arden? For more important matters I know we can defy anybody,” and she gave Lord Newmarch an eloquent look, which he returned with a little bow; “but I daresay,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, with that cloud of uneasiness on her brow, “we are behind in chitter-chatter and table-talk.”
“I like chitter-chatter,” said Edgar; “and besides, I want to know who the people are. Who is that pretty girl on Mr. Pimpernel’s left hand? You must recollect I know nobody, and am quite a stranger in my own place.”
“Oh, Mr. Arden, that is Miss Molyneaux, Mrs. Molyneaux’s eldest daughter,” said the gracious hostess, indicating the lady on her left hand, who smiled and coloured, and looked at Edgar with friendly eyes. “She is pretty—such a complexion and teeth! Did you notice her teeth, Mr. Arden? They are like pearls. My Alice has nice teeth, but I always say they are nothing to compare to Mary Molyneaux’s. And that’s Mr. Arden, your namesake, beside her. He is considered a very handsome man.”
“Do you approve of personal gossip, Mr. Arden?” said Mrs. Buxton, breaking in; but Edgar was too much interested to be stopped, even by motives of civility.
“Mr. Arden, my namesake! Then that explains it.” He said these last words, not aloud, but within himself, for now he could see that the face which this man’s face recalled to him was that of his own sister, Clare. It gave him the most curious sensation, moving him almost to anger. A stranger whom he knew nothing of, who was nothing to him, to resemble Clare! It looked like profanity, desecration. After all, there was something evidently in the Arden blood—something entirely wanting to himself—a secret influence—which he, the first of the name, did not share.
“Not only your namesake,” said Lord Newmarch, in his thin voice, much to Mrs. Buxton’s disgust. The young lord was very philosophical, and full to overflowing with questions of political importance, and the progress of the world, and all the knowledge of the nineteenth century; but still he was patrician born, and could not resist a genealogical question. “Not only your namesake. He is old Arthur Arden’s son, who was your father’s first cousin. He is the nearest relative you have except your sister; and, as long as you don’t have sons of your own, he is the next heir.”
“Ah!” said Edgar, as if he had sustained a blow. He could not explain how it was that he received the information thus. Why should he object to Arthur Arden, or be anything but pleased to see the next in the succession—the man who, of all the men in the world, should be most interesting to him? “The same blood runs in our veins,” he tried to say to himself, and gazed down curiously at the end of the table, raising thereby a little pleasurable excitement in the bosom of Mrs. Molyneaux, who sat opposite to him. “He is struck with my Mary,” the mother thought; and Edgar was so good a match that it was no wonder she was moved a little. Fortunately, Mary knew nothing about it, but sat by the other Arden, and chattered as much as Gussy Thornleigh had done, and could not help thinking what a pity it was so handsome a man, and one so like the family, should not be the true heir. “I have been over Arden Hall, and you are so like the portraits,” Mary Molyneaux was saying at that very moment, while Lord Newmarch explained who her companion was to Edgar. “The present Mr. Arden is not a bit like them. I can’t help feeling as if you must be the rightful Squire.”
“I have got only the complexion, and not the lands,” said Mr. Arthur Arden. “It is a poor exchange. And this is the first time I ever saw my cousin. He does not know me from Adam. We are not a very friendly race; but I know Clare.”
“Oh, Miss Arden? Don’t you think she is quite beautiful—but awfully proud?” said the girl. “She will not know the Pimpernels; though all the best people have called on them, she will never call. Don’t you think it is horrid for a girl to be so proud?”