Маргарет Олифант
Squire Arden; volume 2 of 3
CHAPTER XXIV
It was a quiet hour when Edgar made his appearance in the drawing-room at Berkeley Square. Why this afternoon should have been so still and domestic and the last so noisy and full of visitors, it is difficult to say. The girls had been riding in the Park in the morning, “their last ride,” as the younger ones informed him, with voluble regret. The horses were going off that evening; the whole house was, as it were, breaking to pieces. Already half the pretty things—the stands of books and of flowers—had disappeared from the tables. The girls looked somehow as if their very dresses were plainer, which was not actually the case. The cloud upon them was only a moral cloud, consequent upon the knowledge that on Monday they were all going home.
“And fancy, the opera will go on all the same, and Patti will sing, though we are away,” said Mary, who was musical.
“There will be just as many dances every night, and all night long, and we at Thorne!” cried Beatrice. Gussy, who looked down upon them both from the altitude of two and twenty, shook her head with a certain grandeur of superior experience.
“Oh, you silly girls! if you had seen as much of it as I have! The opera is all very well, and so are the dances; but you don’t know how tiresome they get when you go on and on. Yes; it is my fourth season, Mr. Arden, and I think I have a right to be tired.”
Lady Augusta gave her daughter a warning look. “The more seasons you can count the less disposed you will be to speak so very frankly of them,” she said; “but Mr. Arden has been too much with us not to know what a chatterbox you are.”
“Yes,” said Edgar; “how good it has been of you to let me be so much with you. It has made town so much more pleasant to me than it could have been otherwise; and now I have come to bid you good-bye, though I am glad to think it will not be for long.”
“To bid us good-bye!” they all cried, with surprise. And Lady Augusta cast another significant glance over the heads of Mary and Beatrice, who were too heedless to take any notice, at the daughter whose interests were more specially concerned.
“Yes,” said Edgar; “Clare has written begging me to go to her directly. I am going on Saturday. I had no idea of it when I saw you yesterday; and after all I shall be in Lancashire before you are. I don’t even know why it is I am sent for by my sovereign Clare.”
Once more a look passed between Lady Augusta and her elder girls. They did not believe one word of this story. They took it quite simply for granted that he was doing this to be near them, to be within reach of Gussy. Gussy herself even was convinced. She had doubted and shaken her head when the entire household had been persuaded of the fact. But now a little flush of gratification lighted up her cheeks. She could no longer resist the conviction that his coming and going depended somehow, as she said modestly to herself, on “us.”
“It is strange of Clare to send you such a summons,” said Lady Augusta; “but I daresay she is very lonely, poor child. I do hope we shall see a great deal more of her at Thorne when we get home. To tell the truth, I am very glad you are going. I do not like to think of her, still in mourning as she is, and left in that house all alone.”
“Yes; I have been a little forgetful of Clare, I fear,” Edgar said, without thought; and the girls, who were now very attentive, made another rapid comment within themselves all in a breath. He has been thinking so much of Gussy! How funny it was! How nice to be Gussy, for whose sake a man “forgot all about” his duties! A little thrill of interest ran through the assembled family; and even kind Lady Augusta, who had become, as she herself said, “quite attached” to Edgar, was a little moved by the thought of what might be coming.
“You are never forgetful of anybody, I am sure,” she said, “unless with a very strong motive. I don’t like to praise people to their faces; but I never saw any one less apt to think of himself than you.”
Edgar made no reply to this praise. There was a little pause of expectation, an occasional hush in the room, which one and another attempted to break by snatches of conversation, perpetually interrupted. They can’t expect me to make the plunge before them all, Edgar mused to himself, with a sense of fun which was very inappropriate to the gravity of the position. And after all, when he came to think of it, it would be very difficult to make this plunge. What could he say? Gussy and he had been upon the easiest, the friendliest terms. He did not see how he could alter that ground all at once, and assume a vein of high sentiment. There was in reality so little sentiment in his mind. He was not impassioned; and it occurred to him all at once that to ask a girl to marry him in this perfectly calm and humdrum way would not be flattering to the girl. Gussy, no doubt, would expect something very different. She would expect a lover’s fervour, the excitement of a man whose happiness for life depended on her Yea or Nay; and Edgar felt that his happiness did not depend upon it. Altogether, it was an embarrassing position. Conversation languished in the Thornleigh drawing-room, and the family gave furtive glances at him, and tried to look indifferent, and betrayed itself. As for Gussy, she never looked at him at all. She had given up her tea-making, though she still sat at the table, with the tray before her, which was a fortunate shield; but her eyes were bent upon her work, and she was as silent as a mouse in her corner, conscious to her finger-points, and expectant too.
It was a relief when old Lady Vere came in, and her daughters, who were much of the same age as Mary and Beatrice, and instantly drew off the attention of those two sharp-eyed young women. Lady Vere, too, kept Lady Augusta in occupation, and had something to say to Helena. So that when Edgar brought her cup back to the tea-table, it was quite natural that he should glide into the vacant chair, and keep Gussy company. “Are you sorry to leave town?” he said; and Gussy gave a shy, blushing, trustful glance into his face, which made him draw his chair a little closer. He was fond of her! not impassioned, but yet—what a dear little girl she was!
“Sorry for some things,” Gussy said, “but not so sorry as Mary and Beatrice are. One’s first season is always delightful; one feels as if it would all last for ever.”
“Do you? I think I have that feeling too, but only because it is so dreary, so flat, so banal, always the same thing over again,” said Edgar. “I think life must be waiting for us—real life, not this dull routine—at home.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Gussy faintly—for every word he said seemed to be more and more weighted with meaning. He did not say absolutely, “the real life I speak of is our life together, the existence in which we two shall be one,” but could anything be more clear than that he meant it so? Her voice sank in spite of herself. Gussy was not in the least impassioned either, but what she thought was—“How dearly he must love me, to be able to give up town and everything for my sake! Poor dear boy, that is all he is thinking of; and oh, I am not so good as he is. I am thinking of a great many other things besides him.”
Thus, with the very best motives in the world, they went on deceiving each other. Not much was said over the tea-table except such broken scraps of talk as this—talk which meant next to nothing, and yet was supposed by the listeners on both sides to mean a great deal. “Ada is anxious to get back to her schools and her poor people,” Gussy said. “She is so good! She has done nothing but work for the children even here. People ought to be happy, don’t you think, that give themselves up like that, and think only of others? They must get to be happy because they are so good.”
“I hope so,” said Edgar, with a certain doubtfulness; “but, above all, those who are more happy should be good to her. One like her seems a sacrifice for others, securing their happiness. I mean–”
“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Gussy, clasping her hands; “and indeed it is no trouble to be good to Ada; we all love her so. Sometimes I feel as if it would be wicked to be very happy while she sits there–”
And they both turned to look at the sister who sat cheerful in the corner making little frocks. She was laughing at the moment, showing one of the Miss Veres how to shape a little sleeve. Gussy, who believed herself to stand on the very threshold of so different a world, felt her heart overflow with love and compassion. “Dear Ada,” she said to herself; only schools and poor children’s frocks for Ada, while she herself was to have every delight. Edgar’s feelings were different. If circumstances were so to arrange themselves as that he should be Ada’s brother, he would be very good to her. She would find in him a friend who would never alter, who would stand by her steadily, doing all that brother could do to make her lonely path more easy. Involuntarily there rose before Edgar the vision of an after-life, with new interests in it and new duties; a new race of Ardens curiously different from the old, a warm household place for Ada and for everybody, a centre of domestic kindness. That was what the house of a country gentleman, the natural head of a community, ought to be. He smiled over the imagination, and yet it came naturally and pleasantly to his mind. Gussy, who was not more than a pretty girl now, would be the sweetest, kindest, most charming matron—like her own mother, but younger, and prettier, and more sweet; and the house would be full of pleasant tumult and society. He did not quite clearly identify himself, but that was, perhaps, because of the laugh that gradually broadened in his eyes at the thought. And to think that this arose simply out of Ada’s face in the corner, and the impulse of making life brighter for her! Then he roused up, and saw that Gussy was looking the same way, and that her pretty eyes were full of tears. How sweet, and good, and tender-hearted she was! They were women whom a man could trust his honour and happiness to without a doubt or fear. Never surely was there a stranger wooing. When their eyes met, Gussy blushed, and so did Edgar. Had they both been seeing in a vision the house that was not yet, the unborn faces, the unlighted fire? But then more visitors came in, and more tea was wanted, and nothing decisive could be said then and there. “I suppose you are going to the Lowestofts’ to-night,” Lady Augusta said, as he took leave of her; for she, too, saw clearly that nothing could possibly be settled in the drawing-room, under the eyes of all the family. “So it need not be good-bye yet. Of course we shall see you there.”
And thus everything drew on towards the evident termination. If Edgar had been consulted on the subject before hand, he would have said that to enact his love drama, or at least its decisive scene, at a ball, would have been the very last thing in the world he was likely to do—just as it would have seemed absolutely impossible to him, had he foreseen it, to forestall love in the way which he was doing, and put affection in its place. But he did not seem to have any will of his own at all in the matter. He was pleasantly drawn on by a tide which carried him towards Gussy, which made her inevitable, and his position unmistakeable. Not only was it expected of him, but he expected himself to take this step. The only thing he was doubtful of was how to do it. He could not possibly say to a girl so charming and worthy of all homage that he was very fond of her, and yet did not love her in the least as a lover should. If he did, it would be an insult, not such a lovesuit as could be accepted. Therefore, he would be obliged to put aside his true feeling, and produce an utterly false one, out of compliment to her; and how was he to do it? All the rest he could do willingly, pleasantly, with perfect consent of his mind and affections; but how was he to be false to her, to pretend to feelings which were not his? This occupied his mind all the rest of the afternoon, and gave him the greatest possible trouble. And at the same time it was evident that the crisis had come, and that he must speak. He sent her a bouquet as the first step, which was very easy and pleasant. If it had been diamonds and rubies instead of flowers, he would have done it with still greater goodwill. He would give her anything, everything—Arden itself, and his liberty and his life; but how was he to get himself up to a lover’s pitch of excitement, and offer her his heart?
CHAPTER XXV
The Lowestofts’ ball was a very nice ball, everybody said. There were a great many people there. Indeed, everybody was there: the stairs were crowded and all the passages, and the dancers had scarcely room to move. To make your way up or down was almost as bad as going to Court. The way in which trains were damaged and trimmings torn off would have tried the temper of a saint. Nevertheless, the ladies bore it like heroines, smiling blandly, and protesting that it did not matter, even at the moment when their most cherished lace was being rent under their eyes. The mistress of the house stood at the top of the stairs, ready to drop with exhaustion, but grinning horribly a ghastly smile at everybody who approached her. A Royal Duke had come in for half-an-hour, and a German Prince, whom all the Lowestofts and all their friends treated with supreme contempt when they spoke of him; but yet, vis-a-vis of the Morning Post, were too proud and happy to see at their ball. Edgar Arden was one of those who traversed the crowd with the least ennui; but he could not refrain from making those remarks upon it which he was in the habit of making concerning the natural history and habits of the world of fashion. Edgar remarked that only a very few people looked really happy; and these were either the men and women who had some special love affair, innocent or otherwise, on hand, and had been able to appropriate the individual who interested them with that safety which belongs to a crowd; or else those upward climbers seeking advancement, to whom every new invitation into “the best society” was an object of as much elation as a successful battle. These two classes of persons rejoiced with a troubled joy; but the rest of the guests were either indifferent, or bored, or discontented. They had come because everybody was coming; they had come because they were invited; and it was part of the routine of life to go. Rage was boiling in their souls over their torn lace; or, with a sigh from the bottom of their hearts, they were dreaming of their favourite chair at the club, and all its delights. They said the same things over and over to the same people, whom, probably in the morning in the Row, or in the afternoon at half-a-dozen places, they had met and said the same things to before. Edgar stood for a long time half-way down the stair, and helped the ladies who were pushing their way up. He was waiting for Lady Augusta and her party, who were very late. He was waiting without any excitement, but with a little alarm, wondering if he could say anything to Gussy in the midst of such a crowd, or if still a breathing-time would be given to him. He did not want to elude that moment, but only it was so difficult to do it, so hard to know what to say. “That young Mr. Arden is very nice. I don’t think I should ever have got upstairs without him,” said more than one substantial chaperon. “He is waiting for the Thornleighs,” the daughters would say. Everybody had decided Edgar’s fate for him. Some people said it had been all settled before they came up from the country. And there could not be the least doubt that, if Edgar had let the season pass without saying anything to Gussy, he would have been concluded by everybody to have used her very ill.
And a great many speculations passed through Edgar’s mind as he stood there and waited. Sometimes he witnessed such a meeting as ought to have been in store for himself. He saw the youth and maiden meet who were to get to the real climax in their romance by means of the Lowestofts’ ball, and wondered within himself whether the outside world could see the same glow in his eyes which he could see in those of the other lover, or whether the same delightful atmosphere of consciousness enveloped Gussy as that which seemed to enclose the other girl in a rosy cloud. And he saw other pairs meet, not of youths and maidens; he saw gleams of strange fire which did not warm but burn; he saw the vacant looks of the mass, the factitious flutter of delight with which the dull crowd recognised its acquaintances. Lord Newmarch came up to him when he had occupied this perch for some time. “What are you doing here, of all places in the world? Are you going or coming? Oh, I see; you are waiting for the Thornleighs,” he said; “they are generally in good time for a ball–”
“I am waiting because it is amusing here,” said Edgar, careful even now that Gussy at least should not be discussed.
“Amusing!—the amusement must be in you, so I will stay by you,” said Lord Newmarch; “probably some of it may come my way. What an odd fellow you are, to expect to be amused wherever you go, like a bumpkin at a fair! By the way, that reminds me, Arden, the people have a faculty for being amused which is wonderful; they are ready for it at all times and seasons, you know, not like us. It is a faculty which ought to be made use of for their improvement. I don’t see why they shouldn’t be educated in spite of themselves. The drama, for instance; now the drama has lost its hold on us—to us the play is a bore. We go to the opera to see each other, not to hear anything. But the people are all agog for anything in the shape of a play. What do you think? If the stage has any vigour left in it, instead of getting up sensation dramas for cads and shopkeepers–”
“But cads and shopkeepers are part of the people,” said Edgar.
“No; that is not what I mean; I mean the real lower classes—the working men—our masters that are to be. How could they learn patriotism, not to say good sense, better than by means of Shakespeare? Poetry of the highest class is adapted to every capacity. What is secondary may have to be explained and broken down, but the highest–”
“I think I must ask you to let me pass,” said Edgar, seeing the shadow of Lady Augusta’s nose (which was prominent) on the wall close to the door. She was bringing in her daughters against a stream which was flowing out, and the struggle was very difficult, and demanded the greatest care.
“Oh, I suppose I am not wanted any longer,” said Newmarch; “but, Arden, look here, I hope you mean to let me go to you for a day or two in September—eh? not for the partridges. Wait one moment. I should be glad of a quiet opportunity to speak to you by yourself–”
“Another time,” said Edgar, extricating himself as best he could from the crowd.
“Wait one moment! I am free from the 20th of August. I will go to you as soon as you like—you know why I ask. Arden, remember I count upon your good offices—and then if my influence can be of any use to you–”
“Yes, precisely,” said Edgar, swinging himself free. Lord Newmarch looked after him with a little metaphorical lifting up of hands and eyes. How simple the boy must be!—falling a hopeless victim to Gussy Thornleigh, his next door neighbour, when he had, so to speak, all England to choose from; for the suit of Arden of Arden was not one which was likely to fail, unless he fixed his fancy very high indeed. Lord Newmarch could not but reflect that in some things Arden had very greatly the advantage even of himself—there were so many people still who had a prejudice in favour of grandfathers, and his own grandfather, though the first Earl, could not, he was aware, bear discussing. Gussy Thornleigh, he reflected, was a very fortunate woman. She would have nothing, or next to nothing. Her sister Helena was one who, under more favourable circumstances, would have attracted Lord Newmarch himself; but he could not afford to throw himself away upon a girl who had nothing, and whose connections even were not of a kind to bring advancement. Nothing could be better than her family, no doubt; but then she had a quantity of brothers who would have to be pushed on in the world, and no doubt the sisters’ husbands would be called upon for aid and influence. Arden was the very sort of man to suffer himself to be so called on. He would be ready to help them and to get them out of all their scrapes. It was he who would be looked to when anything was the matter. In short, he was just the kind of man to marry a girl who was one of a large family. Lord Newmarch reflected that he himself was not so. He wanted all his influence, all his money, everything his position gave him, for himself or, at least, for his brothers. He even paused to ask himself whether, in case he should marry Clare Arden, he might not be appealed to as a connexion of the family for appointments, &c., for some of those Thornleigh boys. But Clare, he reflected, was not a good-natured fool like Edgar. She was one who knew what was due to a man’s position, and that there were few who had anything to spare. Accordingly, he felt easy in his mind respecting that very far off danger. It was Clare who was the proper match for himself; and with a little shrug of his shoulders Lord Newmarch watched Edgar make his way through the crowd to where Lady Augusta, caught in an eddy, with all her train of girls, was struggling to get in, against the almost irresistible force of the torrent going out. Certainly, to come up to town for the purpose of making love to your next neighbour in the country was a waste of means indeed.
Meanwhile, Lady Augusta had seized on Edgar’s arm with a sense of relief which made her heart glow with grateful warmth. It was another evidence of what a good son he would be, what a help in need. “I am so thankful to see you,” she cried. “We are a little late, I know; but I never dreamt that people would be going so soon. There is a great ball in Eaton Square, I believe, to-night, given by some of those odious nouveaux riches; that is where everybody is flocking to.” This was said loud enough to catch the ear of the crowd which was going out, and which had whirled Lady Augusta with it, and disordered the sweep of her train. She held Edgar fast while she made her way upstairs. She could not have done it without him, she said, and mourned audibly over her unfriended condition in the ear of her future son-in-law. “Harry promised to be looking out for us,” she said; “but I suppose he is dancing, or something else that amuses him; and Mr. Thornleigh is never any use to us socially. He is always at the House.”
“Does he go down to Thorne with you?” asked Edgar, meaning nothing in particular; but at present every word he spoke was marked and noted. No doubt, he wanted to make sure of being able to communicate with Gussy’s father at once.
“No, he stays in town,” said Lady Augusta, “for a few weeks longer;” and then she added, with an attempt at carelessness, “I am the family business-man, Mr. Arden. We have always one mind about the children and their concerns. He says it saves him so much trouble, and that without my help he could never do anything. It is pleasant when one’s husband thinks so, who, of course, knows one’s weaknesses best of all. Oh, what a business it is getting upstairs! Gussy, keep close to me, darling. Ada, I hope you are not feeling faint. Dear, dear, surely there must be bad management somewhere! I think I never saw such a crush in a private house.”
Lady Lowestoft was nearer the top of the stair than usual, and took this criticism, which she had overheard, for a compliment. “A great number of our friends have been so good as to come to us,” she said. “Dear Lady Augusta, how late you are! I fear the dear girls will scarcely get any dancing before supper. Did you meet the Duke as you came in? He is looking so well. It was very kind of him to come so early. I really must scold you for being a little late.”
“What a fool that woman is,” Lady Augusta whispered in Edgar’s ear. “She very nearly compromised herself last season with your cousin Arthur Arden. He was never out of the house. A man without a penny, and whose character is so thoroughly well known! And then for one of those silly women who are really silly, a hundred other women get the blame of it, which is very hard, I think. Helena is always talking of such things, and it makes one think.”
Thus Edgar was appropriated for a long time, until he had found a seat for Lady Augusta, and had placed Ada (who did not dance) by her side. When he had time to disengage himself, he saw both Gussy and Helena whirling about among the dancers; for they were popular girls, and always had partners. Thus the whole evening went past, and he found no opportunity for any explanation. Had he been able to monopolise Gussy’s attention, and lead her away to a moderately-quiet corner, no doubt he would have delivered himself of what he had to say. But then it was not so very urgent. Had it been very urgent, of course he could have found the ways and means. He had one dance with her, but nothing could be said then; and though he proposed a walk into the conservatory, fate, in the shape of another partner, who carried her off triumphantly, interposed. And what could a man do more? He had been perfectly willing to make the full plunge, and in the meantime he watched over the whole family as if he had been their brother, and put Lady Augusta into her carriage afterwards, never really leaving them all the evening. If this was not to affichér himself, it would be hard to tell what more he could do. He held Gussy’s hand after he put her in, and said something about calling next day. “Don’t, please,” Gussy had whispered hurriedly; “come when we are at Thorne. I know we shall all be at sixes and sevens to-morrow, and no time to talk.” She, too, understood now quite calmly and frankly that this next visit must be more important than an afternoon call, and he pressed her hand as he whispered good-bye, feeling disposed to say to her, “What a dear, kind, reasonable girl you are; how well we shall understand each other, even though–” But he did not say this, more especially the “even though–” And he stood on the pavement and watched them drive away with a sensation of relief. He had quite made up his mind by this time, and did not intend to defer the crisis a moment longer than was necessary; but still, on the whole, he was pleased to feel that, whatever might happen afterwards, he was going back to Arden a free man.
