“You mistake,” he said, “the spirit of the Ardens; they were not a romantic race, as people suppose—they had their eyes very well open to their interests. I don’t know what made your father so obstinate; but I am sure his father, or his grandfather, as far back as you like to go, would never have neglected such an opportunity of enriching themselves. Why, look at the money it would put into your purse at the first moment. I should do it without hesitation; but then, of course, people would say of me—He is a needy wretch; he is always in want of money. And, of course, it would be quite true. Has old Fazakerly’s coming anything to do with that?”
“It may have to do with a great many things,” said Edgar, with a certain irritable impatience, rising from his chair. “Pardon me, Arden, I am going down to the village. I must see how poor little Jeanie is. I have got some business with Mr. Fielding. Perhaps you would like to make some inquiries too.”
“Not if you are going,” said Arthur, calmly. “The girl was going on well yesterday. If you were likely to see her, I should send my love; but I suppose you won’t see her. No, thanks; I can amuse myself here.”
“As you please,” said Edgar, turning abruptly away. He could not have borne any more. With an inexpressible relief he left the room, and freed himself from his companion. How strange it was that, of all people in the world, Arthur Arden should be his companion now!
As for Arthur, he went to the window and watched his cousin’s progress down the avenue with mingled feelings. He did not know what to make of it. Sometimes he returned to his original idea, that Edgar, in compassion of his poverty, was about to make a post for him on the estate—to give him something to do, probably with some fantastic idea that to be paid for his work would be more agreeable to Arthur than to receive an allowance. “He need not trouble,” Arthur said to himself. “I have no objection to an allowance. He owes it me, by Jove.” And then he strolled into the library, which was in painful good order, bearing no trace of the vigils of the previous night. He sat down, and wrote his letters on the old Squire’s paper, in the old Squire’s seat. The paper suited him exactly, the place suited him exactly. He raised his eyes and looked over the park, and felt that, too, to be everything he could desire. And yet a fickle fortune, an ill-judging destiny, had given it to Edgar instead.
CHAPTER X.
Edgar was thankful for the morning air, the freshness of the breeze, the quietness of the world outside, where there was nobody to look curiously at him—nobody to speak to him. It was the first moment of calm he had felt since the discovery of last night, although he had been alone in his room for three or four hours, trying to sleep. Now there was no effort at all required of him—neither to sleep, nor to talk, nor to render a reason. He was out in the air, which caressed him with impartial sweetness, never asking who he was; and the mere fact that he was out of doors made it impossible for him to write anything or read anything, as he might have otherwise thought it his duty to do. He went on slowly, taking the soft air, the fluttering leaves, the gleams of golden sunshine, all the freshness of the morning, into his very heart. Oh, how good nature was, how kind, caressing a man and refreshing him, however unhappy he might be! But the curious thing in all this was, that Edgar was not unhappy. He did not himself make any classification of his feelings, nor was he aware of this fact. But he was not unhappy: he was in pain: he felt like a man upon whom a great operation has been performed, whose palpitating flesh has been shorn away or his bones sawed asunder by the surgeon’s skilful torture. The great shock tingles through his whole system, affects his nerves, occupies his thoughts, is indeed the one subject to which he finds himself ever and ever recurring; and yet does not go so deep as to affect the happiness of his life or the tranquillity of his mind. Perhaps Edgar did not fully realise what it was which had fallen upon him. He was tingling, suffering, torn asunder with pain; and yet he was quite calm. Any trifle would have pleased him. He was so wounded, so sore, so bleeding, that he had not time to look any further and be unhappy. The question what he should do had not yet entered his mind. In the meantime he was gladly silent, taking rest after the operation he had gone through.
He went down to the village vaguely, like a man in a dream. When he got to the great gate he asked himself, with a sort of curious wonder and interest, Should he go and tell Mr. Fielding—resolve all the Doctor’s doubts for ever? But decided no, because he was too tired. Besides, he had not made up his mind what was to be done. He had not fully realised it—he had only felt the blow, and the rending, tearing pain—and now the hush after the operation, his veins still tingling, his flesh palpitating, but some soft opiate giving him a momentary, sweet forgetfulness of his suffering. Sufferers who have taken a very strong opiate often feel as Edgar did, especially if it does not bring sleep, but only a strange insensibility, an unexplainable trance of relief. He walked on and on, and he did not think. The thing had happened, the knife had come down; but the shearing and rending were past, and he was quiet. He was able to say nothing, think nothing—only to wait. At the present moment this was all.
And then he went down in his dream to the cottage where Jeanie was. As the women curtseyed to him at their doors, and the school-children made their little bobs, he asked himself, why? Would they do it if they knew? What would the village think? How would the information be received? Those Pimpernels, for instance, who had turned Arthur Arden out, how would they take it? Somehow, Edgar felt as if he himself had changed with Arthur Arden. It was he, he thought, who had become the poor cousin—he who was the one disinherited. We say he thought, but he did not really think; it was but the upper line of fancy in his mind—the floating surface to his thoughts. Though he had not made up his mind to any course of action, and was not even capable of thinking, yet at the same time he felt disposed to stop and speak to everybody, and say certain words of explanation. What could he say? You are making a mistake. This is not me; or, rather, I am not the person you take me for. Was that what he ought to say? And he smiled once more that curious smile, in which a certain pathetic humour mingled. “Who am I?” he said to himself. “What am I?—a man without a name.” It gave him a strange, wild, melancholy amusement. It was part of the effect of the laudanum; and yet he had not taken any laudanum. His opiate was only the great pain, the sleepless night—the sudden softening, calming influence of the fresh day.
“She’s opened her eyes once,” said Mrs. Hesketh, at the cottage door. “You don’t think much of that, sir; but it’s a deal. She opened her eyes, and put out her hand, and said, ‘Granny!’ Oh, it’s a deal, sir, is that! The Doctor is as pleased as Punch; and as for t’oud dame——”