“Yes—you have so often said you felt me like a child of your own; I will be your child, dear Mr. Fielding. Don’t make me feel I have lost everything—everything, all in a day.”
“My dear! my dear!” cried Mr. Fielding, taking her into his old arms, “don’t cry so, Clare; oh, my poor child, don’t cry. Of course, you shall come here—I shall be too happy, too pleased to have you. Of that you may be quite sure. Clare, my darling, it is not like you—oh, don’t cry!”
“It is a relief,” she said. “Think—I have left Arden, where I was born, and where I have lived all my life; and you are the only creature I can come to now.”
“My poor child!” said the kind Rector. Yes, she who had been so proud of Arden, so devoted to the home of her race, it was not wonderful that she should feel the parting. He soothed her, and laid his kind hand on her head, and blessed her. “My dear, you have quantities of friends. There is not a man or woman in the county, far or near, but is your friend, Clare,” he said; “and Edgar will always be a brother to you; and you are young enough to form other ties. You are very young—you have your whole life before you. Clare, my dearest child, you would have left Arden some time in the course of nature. It is hard, but it will soon be over—and you are welcome to me as the flowers in May.”
She had known he would be kind to her—it had required no wizard to foresee that; and the old man’s tenderness made less impression upon her than if it had been unlooked for. She composed herself and dried her tears, pride coming to her aid. Yes, everybody in the county would be her friend. She was still an Arden of Arden, though Edgar was an alien. No one could take from her that natural distinction. Her retirement was a proud one—not forced. She could not be mistaken in any way. If it had been but Arden she was leaving, she would have got over it very soon, and taken refuge in her pride. But there was more than Arden in question—more than Edgar—something which she could confide to no mortal ears.
Then she was conducted by the Rector through all the house, that she might choose her room. “There are none of them half pretty enough,” he said. “If we had known we had a princess coming, we would have done our best to prepare her a bower. This one is very bright and sunny, and looks out on the garden; and this is the best room—the one Mrs. Solmes thinks most of. You must take your choice, and it shall be made pretty for you, Clare. I know, I once knew, how a lady should be lodged. Yes, my dear, you have but to choose.”
“It does not matter,” Clare said, almost coldly. She did not share the good man’s pleasant flutter. It was gain to him, and only loss to her. She threw off her cloak and her hat in the nearest room, without any interest in the matter—an indifference which checked the Rector in the midst of his eager hospitalities. “Don’t mind me,” she said, “dear Mr. Fielding; go on with your work—don’t take any notice of me. I shall go into the drawing-room, and sit there till you have finished. Never mind me——”
“I have to go out,” the Rector said, with a distressed face. “There are some sick people who expect me. But Clare, you know, you are mistress here—entirely mistress. The servants will be too proud to do anything you want; and the house is yours—absolutely yours——”
“The house is mine!” Clare said to herself, when he was gone, with a despite which was partly the result of her mortification and grief. As if she cared for that—as if it was anything to her being mistress there, she who had been mistress of Arden! She sat down by herself in the old-fashioned, dingy drawing-room—the room which Mr. Fielding had furnished for his Milly nearly fifty years before, and where, though everything was familiar, nothing was interesting. She could not read, even though there had been anything to read. She had nothing to work at, even had she cared to work. She sat all alone, idle, unoccupied—a prey to her own thoughts. There is nothing in the world more painful than the sudden blank which falls upon an agitated spirit when thus turned out of confusion and excitement into the arbitrary quiet of a strange house—a new scene. Clare walked about the room from window to window, trying vainly to see something where there was nothing to see—the gardener rolling the grass, old Simon clamping past the Rectory gate in his clogs, upon some weird mission to the churchyard. Impatience took possession of her soul. When she had borne it as long as she could, she ran upstairs for her hat, and went across the road to the Doctor’s house, which irritated her, twinkling with all its windows in the slanting sunshine. Miss Somers could not be much consolation, but at least she would maunder and talk, and give Clare’s irritation vent in another way. The silence, the quiet, the peace, were more than she could bear.