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Squire Arden; volume 2 of 3
CHAPTER XIII
Two or three days elapsed after this commencement of operations, and the Pimpernels had begun to be seriously affronted. Day by day Arden deserted them after luncheon without even taking the trouble to apologise. Now and then it happened that the croquet came absolutely to a stand-still, and once Mrs. Pimpernel drove into Liverpool without any captive knight to exhibit, which was very hard upon her. She was a hospitable woman, ready to invite any well-born, well-mannered individual of the (fashionable) houseless and homeless class; but then, on the other hand, she expected something in return. “Proper respect,” she called it; but it meant a good deal of social work—attendance upon her daughter and herself, a sort of combination of the amateur footman and the amusing companion. At this rate she would have given Arthur Arden board and lodging for as long a period as he might desire. So long as she could have it in her power to explain to any of her friends whom she met that he was “one of the Ardens of Arden—indeed, the next heir to the property,” she was able to feel that she had something for her money. But to give him the green room, which was one of the nicest in the house, and to feed him with truffles and champagne and all the delicacies of the season, in order that he might spend half the day—the really useful part of the day—with his cousin, was a thing she had not bargained for. She showed her displeasure to the culprit himself in a manner which would have been much more plain to him had he cared more about it; and she complained to her husband, stating her grievance in the plainest terms. “That Arthur Arden is an utter nuisance,” she said. “I consider it most impudent of him, Mr. Pimpernel. He comes and stays here, making a convenience of our house, but never thinks of paying proper respect, such as any man who was a gentleman would. He sees Alice and me drive out by ourselves, and actually has the assurance to wave his hand to us, and wish us a pleasant drive. Yesterday I said to him—I really could not help it—‘You don’t do much to make our drive pleasant, Mr. Arden,’ and he simply stared at me. Fancy, having to drive into Liverpool shopping, Alice and I, without a soul!—when everybody knows I like to have a gentleman to do little things for us—and that Arden actually staying in the house!”
“It was cool of him,” said her husband. “He is what I call a cool hand, is Arden. I’ll speak to him, if you like. I am not one of the men that beat about the bush. Make yourself understood, that’s my motto. There is just one thing to be said for him, however, and that is, that it may be business. He told me he was hunting through the Arden papers; confounded silly of that girl to let him; but that is no business of mine.”
“Oh, business indeed!” said Mrs. Pimpernel. “Business that takes him to Clare Arden’s side every afternoon! I don’t much believe in that kind of business. What he can see in her I am sure I cannot divine. A stuck-up thing! looking down upon them that are as good as she is any day! Just fancy a man leaving our Alice hitting the balls about all day by herself, poor child, on the lawn!—a man staying in the house!—and going off to the Hall to Clare Arden! Do you call that proper respect? As for good taste, I don’t speak of that, for it is clear he has not got any. And you take my word for it, business is nothing but a pretence.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Mr Pimpernel. “You see, if he really is doing anything, it’s his policy to make himself agreeable to that girl. She gives him access to the papers, you know. The papers are the great thing. Don’t you be too exacting for a day or two. If Alice mopes let me know; by Jove! I won’t have my little girl crossed. It’s odd if I can’t buy her anything she takes a fancy to. But all the same he’s an old fellow is Arden, and he hasn’t a penny to bless himself with. I can’t see much reason why she should set her heart on him.”
“Upon my word and honour, Mr. Pimpernel!” said the lady, “if that is all the opinion you have of your own child– Set her heart on Arthur Arden, indeed! She would never have looked at him if it hadn’t been for that talk about the property. And if it turns out to be a mistake about the property, do you think I’d ever–? I hope I have more opinion of my girl than that. But when I ask a man to my house, I own I look for proper respect. I consider it’s his business to make himself agreeable to me, and not to strangers. My house ain’t an inn to be at the convenience of visitors to Arden. If he likes best being there, let him go and live there. I say Arden is Arden, and the Red House is the Red House, and the one don’t depend upon the other, nor has nothing to do with the other. If there’s one thing I hate it is pride and mean ways. Let her take him in and keep him if she wants him. But I won’t keep him, and feed him with the best of everything, and champagne like water, for Miss Clare Arden’s sake, or Miss anything that ever was born!”
Mrs. Pimpernel was tying on her nightcap as she spoke, and the act deafened her a little, for the nightcap strings were stiff and well starched—which was perhaps the reason why she delivered the concluding words in so loud a voice. Mr. Pimpernel was a courageous man enough, but when it came to this he was too prudent to do anything to increase the storm.
“I’ll speak to him if you like,” he said. “It’s always best to know exactly what one is about. I’ll put it in the plainest terms; but I think we might wait a day or two all the same. Arden’s a fine property, and Arthur Arden is a clever fellow. He knows what’s what as well as any man I know: and if he’s making a cat’s-paw of his cousin you can’t blame him. If I were you I’d give him a day or two’s grace.”
“I am sick of him and everything about him. He is no more use than that poker,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, seating herself in disgust in a chair which stood in her habitual corner, at the side of the vacant fireplace. The poker in question gleamed in brilliant steel incongruity from amid the papery convolutions of an ornamental structure which filled the grate. Nothing could well be more useless: it was a simile which went to her husband’s heart.
“To think that I was poking the fire with that identical poker not six weeks ago!” he said, “and now the heat’s enough to kill you. If you had felt it in the office at three o’clock to-day! I can tell you it was no joke.”
“Do you think I didn’t feel it?” said his wife; “driving into Liverpool under that broiling sun, without a soul to amuse you, or offer you his arm, or anything; and that Arden quite comfortable, enjoying himself in the big cool rooms at the Hall. Ah, fathers little know what one has to go through for one’s children. All this blessed afternoon was I choosing sleeves and collars and things for Alice, and summer frocks for the children. The way they grow, and the number of changes they want! And we had to allow half-an-inch more for Alice’s collars. She is certainly getting stout. I am stout myself, and of course at my age it don’t matter; but the more that child takes exercise the more she fills out. I don’t understand it. You might have drawn me through a good-sized ring when I was her age.”
“It must have been a very good-sized ring,” said Mr. Pimpernel. “And I don’t like your maypoles of girls. I like ’em nice and round and fat–”
“Good heavens, Mr. Pimpernel, you speak as if you were going to eat them!” said his wife.
“If they were all as nice, healthy, plump, red and white as my Alice,” said the indulgent father. And then there followed a few parental comments on both sides on the comparative growths of Jane, Eliza, and Maria-Anne. Thus the conversation dropped, and the danger which threatened Arthur Arden was for the moment over. But yet he felt next morning that something explosive was in the air. It was his interest to stay at the Red House as long as possible, to have his invitation renewed, if that was possible; and he felt instinctively that something must be done to mend matters. It was a great bore, for though he had discovered nothing as yet, he had been living in the closest intercourse with Clare, and had been making, he felt, satisfactory progress in that pursuit—indeed, he had made a great deal more progress than he himself was aware; for the fact was that his own feelings (such as they were) were too much engaged to make him quite so clear-sighted on the subject as he might have been. A bystander would probably have seen, which Arthur Arden did not, that everything was tending towards a very speedy crisis, and that it was perfectly apparent how that crisis would be decided. Had he himself been cool enough to note her looks—her tremulous withdrawals and sudden confidences—her mingled fear of him and dependence upon him, he would have spoken before now, and all would have been decided. But he was timid, as genuine feeling always is—afraid that after all he might be deceiving himself, and that all the evidences which he sometimes trusted in might mean nothing. Things were in this exciting state when his eyes were opened to see the cloudy countenance of Mrs. Pimpernel and the affronted looks of Alice. He was late at breakfast, as he always was—a thing which had been regarded as a very good joke when he first came to the Red House. “Papa has been gone for an hour,” Alice had been wont to say, looking at her watch; and Mrs. Pimpernel would shake her head at him. “Ah, Mr. Arden, it is just as well you have no house to keep in order,” she would say. “I can’t think whatever you do when you are married, you fashionable men.” But now the comments were of a very different character. “I am afraid the coffee is cold,” Mrs. Pimpernel said, looking hot enough herself to warm any amount of coffee. “It is so unfortunate that we cannot make our hours suit; and I must ask you to excuse me—I must give the housekeeper her orders before it is quite the middle of the day–”
“Am I so very late—I am dreadfully sorry,” said Arthur, appealing to Alice, who sat at the end of the table looking shyly spiteful, and who remained for a moment undecided whether to follow her mother or to put on an aspect of civility and stay.
“Oh no, Mr. Arden—I mean I can’t tell—mamma thinks we see so very little of you now–”
“Do you see little of me? Ah, yes, I remember, you were in Liverpool yesterday shopping, and I found the house all desolate when I came back. You can’t think how dreary it looks when you are away. This suggestion of your father’s gives me so much work in the afternoon–”
“Oh, Mr. Arden! a suggestion of papa’s?”
“Did you not know—did you think it was by my own inclination that I was at work all day long?” said Arthur. “How much higher an opinion you must have of me than I deserve! Does Mrs. Pimpernel think it is all my doing? No, I am not so good as that. I am going over the family papers on your papa’s suggestion—trying to find out something– Most likely I shall write a book–”
“Oh, Mr. Arden!” cried Alice Pimpernel.
“Yes; most likely I shall write a book. You can’t think how many interesting stories there are in the family. Should you like me to tell you one this morning before the children are ready for their croquet? I don’t know if I can do it well, but if you like–”
“Oh, Mr. Arden, I should like it so much!”
“Then, come out on the lawn,” said Arthur. “I know a spot where it will be delicious this warm morning to lie on the grass and tell you about our Spanish lady. Did you ever hear of our Spanish lady? It was she who gave us our olive complexions and our black hair.”
“Oh, Mr. Arden!” Alice cried, dazzled by the prospect; “only wait, please, till I fetch my work;” and she hurried away into the drawing-room, leaving him to finish his breakfast. Alice ran across her mother in the hall, as she crossed from one room to the other. Her pretty complexion was heightened, and her eyes shining with pleasure and interest. “Oh, mamma! I am going out to the lawn to hear Mr. Arden tell a story,” she cried, “about the Spanish lady—a family story; and, oh! he says he does not go away for his own pleasure, but because of something papa put into his head. Fancy—papa!”
“That is all very well,” said Mrs. Pimpernel. “Your papa, indeed!—but I happen to know better. Your papa only told him, if he could find a flaw in the title– Your papa is a great deal too liberal, Alice—offering to help people that have not a penny to bless themselves with—as if it could ever be anything to us!—or, as if there was such a thing as gratitude in the world.”
“Oh, mamma—hush!” whispered Alice, pointing to the open door of the dining-room, through which Arthur heard every word that was said; and then she added, plaintively, with ready tears gathering in her eyes, “Mayn’t I go?”
“I suppose he thinks we are all to be ready as soon as he holds up his little finger,” said the indignant mother. And then she paused, and calmed herself down. “I don’t want you to be uncivil, Alice,” she added, still much to Arthur’s edification, who heard every word. “As long as he is your father’s guest, of course you must be polite to him. Oh, yes, you can go. But mind you don’t stay too long, or expose yourself to the sun; and don’t forget that I expect my daughter to show a little proper pride.”
Poor Alice lingered for a long time in the hall before she had courage to rejoin the guest, who must have heard everything that was said. She made believe to return to the drawing-room to look for something else which she had forgotten. And it was not till Arthur himself—who was much more amused than angry—had leisurely ended his breakfast, and strolled out into the hall, that she ventured to join him. “Oh! Mr. Arden—I am so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she cried. “Never mind. I had nothing to do but wait,” he said, smiling, and took the basket with her work out of her hand. He took her to the very shadiest seat, brought her a footstool, arranged everything for her with an air of devotion which went to the heart of Alice, and then he threw himself on the grass at her feet, and prepared to tell his tale.
CHAPTER XIV
Mrs. Pimpernel considered that she did well to be angry. It was all very well for her husband to put off and give him time; but a man who did not show proper respect to herself and Alice was certainly not a man to be encouraged in the house. She was glad she had had the opportunity of throwing that arrow at him from the hall, and letting him see that she was not so short-sighted as other people. But, as the morning went on, she cast several glances from more than one window upon the scene on the lawn, which was a very pretty scene. Alice was seated quite in the shade, with her worsted work and her basket of wools, the wools so bright, and her dress so light and cool, against the shady green background. And on the grass at her feet lay Arthur Arden, so fine a contrast in his dark manhood to her fairness. He was a little too old, perhaps, to make the contrast perfect. But he was still very handsome, and had about him a certain air of youth such as often clings to an unmarried vagrant. He lay looking up at Alice, telling his story; and Alice, with her head dreamily bent over her work, sat rapt and listened. As the narrative went on, her interest became too great for her work. She dropped the many-coloured web on her knee and clasped her hands, and fixed her eyes upon the teller of the tale. “Oh, Mr. Arden!” she exclaimed by intervals, carried away by her excitement. Mrs. Pimpernel took views of this group from all the bedrooms on that side of the house, and then she went downstairs and seated herself at the drawing-room window, and studied it at her leisure. Her thoughts changed gradually as she gazed. Arden looking up at Alice, and Alice shyly gazing down at Arden, were arguments of the most convincing character. After all, probably he had been making a sacrifice of himself. That stuck-up cousin of his could not possibly be so charming as Alice, who was open to every new interest, and made such a flattering absorbed listener. “That is what the men like,” Mrs. Pimpernel said to herself. “She is not clever, poor love; but they never like women to be clever.” And then, after a long interval, she added, still within herself, “I shouldn’t wonder a bit if he was frightened for the stuck-up cousin.” Yes, no doubt that was it. He had to conciliate her, and pretend to be fond of her society. “After all, he is always here all the evening,” she went on, softening more and more; and the result was that at length she took down a broad hat which hung in the hall, and stepped out herself to join the garden party. “You look so comfortable, and there is evidently something so interesting going on, that I should like to have a share,” she said, in a voice so softened that Arthur instantly felt his device had succeeded. “Oh, go on, please. I can always imagine what has gone before. Don’t go over it again for me.”
“Oh, mamma, it is so exciting,” cried Alice; “it was one of the Ardens, you know, that was a sailor, and went abroad; and then he took a town out in South America; and then the Governor’s daughter, the most beautiful creature in the whole place– Oh, mamma! and that is why all the Ardens have black hair and blue eyes.”
“Mr. Arden of Arden has not black hair and blue eyes,” said Mrs. Pimpernel.
“No,” said Arthur, very distinctly and emphatically. He did not add another syllable. The very brevity of his reply was full of significance, and told its own story. And Mrs. Pimpernel looked upon him with more and more favourable eyes.
“Do you find out all this in the papers at Arden?” she resumed. “How nice it must be. I do respect an old family. My grandmother—though Mr. Pimpernel will never hear of it; he says he has enriched himself by his own exertions, and he is not ashamed of it, and won’t have any pretensions made—just like a man’s impetuosity—but my own grandmother was a Blundell, Mr. Arden. I often think I can trace a resemblance between my Alice and the Blundells. Does Miss Arden go over the papers with you, may I ask, when you are at the Hall?”
Arthur was so much taken by surprise that he was afraid he blushed; but his looks were less treacherous than he thought them to be, and it did not show. “Sometimes—No. I mean, the first day she gave the old bureau up to me,” he said, faltering a little, “she showed a little interest too; but my cousin Clare—I am sorry you do not know Clare a little better, Mrs. Pimpernel. It would do her good to come under your influence. She wants a little womanly trifling and that sort of thing, you know. She is always full of such high designs and plans for everybody. She is–”
“A little tiresome sometimes and high-flown. Oh, I see exactly,” Mrs. Pimpernel replied, nodding her head. Too clever for him evidently; men all hate clever women, she said inwardly, with a smile; while Arthur, with a savage desire to cut his own throat, or fly at hers, after his treachery to Clare, got hold of the basket of wools and scattered them wildly about the grass. He broke the basket, and he was glad. It would have been a satisfaction to his mind if he could have trampled upon all the flower-beds, and thrown stones at the windows of the peaceful house.
“Oh, Mr. Arden, never mind,” said Alice. “The basket does not matter; it was not a dear basket. Oh, please, never mind. Go on with the Spanish lady. I do want so much to hear.”
“It was a Spanish lady, and she loved an Englishman,” said Arthur, making an effort, and resuming his tale. He did not dislike Alice. There was no impulse upon him to fly upon her and shake her, or do anything but be very civil and gentle to the pretty inoffensive girl. In short, he was like all coarse-minded men. The young fresh creature exercised a certain influence over him by reason of her beauty; but the elder woman was simply an inferior being of his own species—a weaker man in disguise, whom he dared not treat as he would a man, and accordingly hated with a double hatred. Mrs. Pimpernel perhaps would scarcely have objected to the sentiment. She had as little refinement of the heart as he had, and was ready to use all the privileges of her sex as weapons of offence to goad and madden with them any man who was any way obnoxious to her. “He knows he cannot take me in. I am not a simpleton to be deceived by his fair talk; and I know he hates me,” she would have said, with real triumph. But in the meantime he was obliged to keep the peace. So he resumed his story. The hour of luncheon was approaching, and after that would come the welcome hour when for three or four days back he had been able to escape from all the Pimpernels. But he did not dare to make his escape that day; and while he told his romantic tale he was painfully contriving how he should manage to send word to Clare, and wondering if she would miss him! It would be a dreary business for himself, giving up the day to croquet and Pimpernels. Would Clare feel the disappointment too? Would the house be lonely to her without him? His heart gave a leap, and he felt for a moment as if he was certain it would be lonely. Curiously, this thought did not sadden but exhilarate his mind; and then he returned anxiously to the question—How could he, without exciting suspicion, have a note sent to Clare?
The ladies were so interested that they neglected the sound of the luncheon bell, and did not even perform that washing of hands which gives a man space to breathe. They did not budge, in short, until the butler came out, solemn in his black clothes, to intimate that their meal awaited them; and Arthur, in dismay, had nothing for it but to offer his arm to his hostess. It was a hot day, and the luncheon was hot too. How he loathed it!—and not a moment left him to write a word, explaining how it was, to Clare!
“Positively, Mr. Arden, you have been so interesting that one forgot how the time had gone,” cried Mrs. Pimpernel. “It is an idle sort of thing amusing one’s self in the morning; but when one has such a temptation—it was quite as good as any novel, I declare!”
“Oh, mamma! Mr. Arden said he was perhaps going to write a book,” said Alice, who had grown bolder after this whole long morning which had been given up to herself.
“That would be very nice,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, with affable patronage. “Mr. Pimpernel would take half-a-dozen copies at once, I am sure. How I envy talent, Mr. Arden. It is the only thing I covet. And to find all your materials in your own family–”
“Talking of that,” said Arthur, “I must make a run up to the Rectory, after luncheon, to see Mr. Fielding. I have a—question to ask–”
At this he could see Mrs. Pimpernel’s brow cloud over at once, and the look of suspicion and angry distrust come back to her face. Alice was better advised. She looked down on the table, and broke a piece of bread in little pieces, which answered nearly as well as a glove to button. “Oh, Mr. Arden,” she said; “I thought this day you were going to stay with us. I thought we were really to have had a game at croquet to-day?”
“Oh, my dear! don’t attempt to interfere with Mr. Arden’s engagements,” said Mrs. Pimpernel, with a forced laugh. “Gentlemen are always so much happier when they have their own way.”
“And do ladies dislike their own way?” said Arthur; but he was in the toils, and could not escape. “I am looking forward to my game of croquet,” he said; “and I have no engagements. I will do my business with Mr. Fielding while you are putting on your hat. It will not take me twenty minutes. He is a good old soul. He is as fond of the Ardens as if they were his own children; but not all the Ardens. I think he does, not approve of me.”
“Oh, Mr. Arden!—nonsense!” cried Alice, decidedly. Her mother did not say anything, but a rapid calculation ran through her mind. If the Rector did not like Arthur he could not be going to meet Clare at the Rectory; and Mr. Fielding had been quite civil—really very civil to herself. She did not see any reason to fear him.
“If you are in a hurry for your croquet, Alice,” she said, graciously, “the only thing is to send the carriage to take Mr. Arden there and back.”
“Oh! that would be so nice!” cried Alice, with transport. But Arthur was of a very different frame of mind. “Confound the carriage,” he said within himself; but his outward speech was more civil. He had not the least occasion for it. He would so much rather not give trouble. A walk would be good for him—he should like it. At last his earnestness prevailed; and it is impossible to describe his sense of relief when he walked out into the blazing afternoon, along the dusty, shadeless road that led to the village. He had got free from them for the moment; but he could not rush to Arden in the half-hour allotted to him. He could not secure for himself a peep at Clare. He did not even feel that he could trust the Rector to deliver his note for him; and where was he to write his note? And what would Clare think? Would she despise him for his subserviency to the Pimpernels? And why should he be subservient to them? Arthur knew very well why. He would have to abandon his researches altogether, and leave to chance the furtherance of his designs upon Clare, if he had to leave the Red House. “Everything is lawful in love and in war,” he said to himself. It was both love and war he was carrying on. Love to the sister, war to the brother; and, with such a double pursuit, surely a little finesse was permissible to him, if to any man in the world.
But he did not reach the Rectory nor run the risk of Mr. Fielding’s enmity that day. He had not gone half way up the village when he bethought himself of a much safer medium in the shape of old Sarah. Sarah’s cottage was very quiet when he reached the door. Neither Mary, the clear-starcher, nor Ellen, the sempstress, were visible in it, and Sarah herself was not to be seen. He gave a glance in at the door into the little living room, which looked cool and green—all shaded with the big geranium. The place was quite silent, too; but in the corner near the stair sat a little figure, with bright hair braided, and head bent over its work. “Jeanie, by Jove!” said Arthur Arden; and he forgot Clare’s note; he forgot Alice Pimpernel, who was waiting for him. He went in and sat down by her, in that safe and tempting solitude. “Are you all alone?” he said; “nobody to keep you company, and nothing but that stupid work to amuse you? I am better than that, don’t you think, Jeanie? Come and talk a little to me.”
“Sir!” said Jeanie, with a little start; and then she looked him steadily in the face. “I’m no feared for you now. I see you’re no that man; but I cannot believe you when you speak. Eh, that’s dreadful to say to one like you!”
“Very dreadful,” said Arthur, laughing, and drawing closer to her. “So dreadful, Jeanie, that you must be very kind to me to make up for having said it. You don’t believe me—not when I tell you are the loveliest little creature I ever saw, and I am very fond of you? You must believe that. I should like to take you away to a much prettier house than this, and give you all kinds of beautiful things.”
Jeanie looked at him with steadfast eyes. Not a blush touched her face—not the slightest gleam of consciousness came into her quiet, steady gaze. “It’s a dreadful thing to say of a man,” she said; “a man should be a shelter from the storm and a covert from the tempest. It’s in the Bible so; but you’re no shelter to anybody, poor man. You’re growing old, and yet ye never learn–”
“By Jove!” said Arthur, rising up. He had forgotten both Clare and Alice for the moment, and this little cottager was avenging them. But yet the reproof was so whimsical that it diverted him. “Do you know you are a very uncivil little girl,” he said. “Are you not afraid to speak to me so, and you quite alone?”
“I’m no feared for you now,” said Jeanie. “I was silly when I was feared. There is nothing you could do to me, even if ye wanted; and ye’re no so ill a man as to want to harm me.”
“Thank you for your good opinion,” said Arthur; “but there are a great many things I could do. I could give you pretty dresses and a carriage, and everything you can think of; and if you were very sweet and kind to me–”
“Mr. Arden,” said a voice over his shoulders, “if you have business with Jeanie, maybe it would be mair simple and straightforward if ye would settle it with me.”
Arthur turned round with a mixture of rage and dismay, and found himself confronting Mr. Perfitt, who stood stern and serious in the doorway. He had need of all his readiness of mind to meet such an emergency. He paused a moment, feeling himself at bay; but he was not the man to lose his head even in so disagreeable a crisis.
“My business is not with Jeanie,” he said, briskly. “My business is with old Sarah, who is not to be found; but you will do quite as well, Perfitt. I want to send a note to Miss Arden. If Jeanie will get me some paper? Do you understand me, little one? Could you give me some paper to write a little letter? Poor child; do you think she understands?”
Thus he got the better of both the protector and protected. Jeanie, who had been impervious to all else, blushed crimson at this doubt of her understanding; and so did Perfitt. “She’s no like an innocent or a natural. She’s been well brought up and well learned,” the Scotchman said, with natural and national indignation. “Indeed! I thought she was an unmistakable innocent,” said Arthur; and thus it came about that Clare’s note was written after all.
