For Clare did not let herself go easily down that dangerous slope. She stopped herself now and then, and became utterly repellant to Arthur; now and then she relapsed into softness. Sometimes she would ask, wonderingly, when he meant to go? “Is he to stay on at Arden for ever? Did you ask him to stay as long as he liked?” she would say with a frown on her brow, expending upon her innocent brother the excitement and restless agitation of her own mind. “Should you like him to stay as long as he wished?” Edgar asked on one of these occasions, with a look which he tried hard not to make too anxious. “I think we were far happier before anybody came,” Clare answered, with curious heat, and a tone almost of resentment. What did it mean? Did she want really to get rid of the visitor? Did she really hate him, as she had once said she did? When Edgar recollected that his sister had said so, and that Arthur Arden had confirmed it, he was quite staggered. And thus June ran on amid difficulties, which much confused the relations between the brother and sister. Lord Newmarch too left traces of himself in the field. He had started a correspondence with both, according to his opportunities—that is, he wrote long letters to Edgar upon the state of the political world, and sent messages and brochures to Miss Arden, who sent him messages in return. If she was to marry either of them, surely Lord Newmarch was the more appropriate of the two. He was younger as well as richer, and, though he was a prig, had the reputation of being a good man. He was galantuomo, as well as my lord; and, alas! it was quite uncertain whether Arthur Arden was galantuomo. Poor Edgar felt like an anxious mother, and laughed at himself, but could not mend it, until at last it occurred to him that the best way was to ask advice. Accordingly, he set out very solemnly one day about the end of June to consult his chief authorities. He meant to conceal his personal trouble under the guise of a fable. He would ask Mr. Fielding what a brother (in the abstract) ought to do in such a position, and he would ask Miss Somers. Miss Somers was not a very wise counsellor; but no doubt her brother must have interfered in her affairs one time at least, and she would have some practical knowledge. He went to lay his case before them with a little trepidation, wondering whether they would find him out at all, and what they would say. Dr. Somers probably would have been the best counsellor of all, but Edgar had no confidence nor pleasure in the Doctor since their last interview. So he chose Mr. Fielding in his study, and Miss Somers on her sofa, two people whose lives had not come to much; but surely they were old enough to know.
Mr. Fielding was in his study writing his sermon. It was the day after one of his grand discussions with the Doctor, and the good man was excited. He was engaged in the manufacture of a polemical sermon, culling little bits out of the polemical sermons which had gone before, but combining them so with links of the new that his adversary might not perceive the antiquity of some of his arguments. It was a relief to him to lay down his pen and clear his mind from the fumes of controversy. “I am very glad to see you, Edgar,” he said. “You find me in the midst of my troubles. Young Denbigh, you know, ought to take the preaching more than he does, but I have no confidence in him in a doctrinal point of view. He would be bringing up some of the new notions, and setting our good folks by the ears—though it is rather hard upon me to preach so often myself.”
“But you are the best able to instruct us, Sir,” said Edgar, who to tell the truth did not often derive a great deal of instruction from Mr. Fielding’s good little sermons. And then the excellent Rector coughed modestly, and blushed a little, and put his paper away from him with a gently deprecating air.
“I suppose, when one lives to be seventy, one must have learned a little—if one has made a right start,” he said, “at least I hope so, Edgar, I hope so; though some of us unfortunately—— The thing that startles me is that Somers should take the Calvinist view. I would not judge him—I would be, indeed, the very last to judge any one; but how a man who has lived, on the whole, rather a careless sort of life—not culpable, I don’t say that—but careless, as, indeed, the best of us are—should stand up for hell and torture, and all that, is more than I can guess. If he had taken another view—more lax instead of more strict——”
“Do you think he cares at all?” said Edgar, still under the prejudice of his last interview.
“God bless us, yes; surely he must care; don’t you think he cares, Edgar? Why, then, he must be sniggering in his sleeve at me. No, no, my dear boy, of course he must be in earnest; no man could be such a humbug as that. But if it was Mrs. Murray, who is Scotch, it would seem more natural. I hear she was in Church on Sunday, looking very serious. But, bless me, Edgar, you are very serious too. Is there anything wrong—with Clare?”
“There is nothing wrong—with anybody,” said Edgar. “The fact is, I want your advice. At least, it is not I that want it, but—a very intimate friend of mine. He has got a sister, just like me, very pretty, and all that; but he does not know what to do——”
“About his sister?” asked Mr. Fielding, with a smile. “What does he want to do?”
“Did I tell you there was some one who—wanted to marry her?” said Edgar. “Yes, to be sure, that was it; somebody I—he don’t approve of—not a proper match. And he doesn’t know what to do, whether to speak to her, or to wait till she speaks, or whether he has any right to interfere. He is not her father, of course, only her brother, and he is in an utter muddle what to do. And of all the people in the world,” said Edgar, with a little hysterical laugh which sounded like a giggle, “he has asked me.”
“Well, that was a very curious choice, though the circumstances so much resemble your own,” said the Rector, with a smile; “what do you think you would do if it were Clare?”