Маргарет Олифант - Squire Arden; volume 3 of 3

“I am sorry to have to take my leave of you in such a way,” he said, in his most courteous tone. “I shall explain to Mr. Pimpernel how grieved I am to quit his house so abruptly; but after this unfortunate colloquy, of course there is no more to be said. It is a pity to speak when one is so excited—one says more always than one means. Many thanks to you for a pleasant visit, such as it has been. You have done your best to amuse me with croquet and that sort of thing. Society, of course, one cannot always command. My man will bring over my things to—Arden in the course of the day. I trust that if we meet in the county, as we may perhaps do, that we shall both be able to forget this little passage of arms. Good-bye, and many thanks, Mrs. Pimpernel.”

Mrs. Pimpernel gave a little stammering cry of passion and annoyance. She had never calculated upon her prey escaping so easily. She had not even meant to dismiss him entirely, but only to subdue him, and bring him under discipline. After all, he was an Arden, and going to Arden—as he said—and might procure invitations to Arden, probably, notwithstanding her affirmation about Clare. But Arthur left her no time for repentance. He withdrew at once when he had discharged this parting shot, closing the door after him, and leaving the panting, enraged woman shut up in that cool and silent place to come to herself as she best might. He was a little pleased with his victory, and satisfied to think that he had had the best of it. The maid was still standing outside, listening near the door, when he opened it suddenly. “Your mistress is a little put out, Mary,” he said to her, with a smile. “Perhaps it would be better to leave her to herself for a few minutes. I hope Miss Pimpernel is not really hurt. Tell her I am grieved to have to go away without saying good-bye.” And then he stopped to give John directions about his things, and distributed his few remaining sovereigns among them with fine liberality. The servants had grinned at his discomfiture before, but they grinned still more now at the thought of their mistress weeping with rage in the library, and her visitor escaped from her. “He was always quite the gentleman,” Mary said to John, as he left the house; and they laid their heads together over the discomfiture that would follow his departure. Thus Arthur Arden shook the dust of the Red House from his feet, and went out upon the world again, not knowing where he was to go.

And his thoughts were far from cheerful, as he made his way among the shrubberies, which sometimes had looked to him like prison walls. Poor Alice and her thirty thousand pounds had always been something to fall back upon. If Clare did not relent, and would not explain herself, a man must do something—and though it was letting himself go very cheap, still thirty thousand pounds was not contemptible. And now that was over—the hope which after all had been his surest hope—all (once more) from thinking of other people’s rather than of his own interests. What was Jeanie to him? She had never given him a kind word or smile. She was a child—a bloodless being—out of whom it was impossible to get even a little amusement. Yet for her sake here was thirty thousand pounds lost to him. And probably she would go and die, now that she had done him as much harm as possible, leaving it altogether out of his power to do her any harm, or compensate himself in the smallest degree. And in the meantime where was he to go? Arthur’s funds were at a very low ebb. All this time which he had been wasting in the country he had been out of the way of putting a penny in his pocket; and for the moment he did not know what he was to do? He had said he was going to Arden, partly to impose on Mrs. Pimpernel, partly with a sudden sense that to throw himself upon Edgar’s hospitality was about the best thing on the cards for him. Might he venture to go there at once, and risk welcome or rejection? At the very worst they could not refuse to take him in till Monday. But then it would be better to secure himself for longer than Monday—and Clare was very uncompromising, and Edgar firm, notwithstanding his good nature. Altogether the position was difficult. He had been making great way with the Pimpernels since Clare had shut her doors upon him. There had been nothing to disturb him, nothing to divide his allegiance, and therefore he had been utterly unprepared for this sudden derangement of plans. The Pimpernels, too, were utterly unprepared. His hostess had meant to “set him down,” as she said, “to show him his proper place,” to “bring him to his senses,” but she had never intended the matter to be concluded so promptly. The discomfiture on both sides was equally great. He took a little pleasure in the thought of this, but yet it did not enlighten him as to where he was to go.

The conclusion of the matter was that for that night he went to the Arden Arms. Edgar had disappeared when he returned to the village, and all was quiet and silent. Arthur met Dr. Somers going down to the cottage in which Jeanie still was. The Doctor shook his head, but would not say much. “She is young, and she may pull through, if the place is kept quiet,” was all the information he would give. But he asked Arthur to dinner, which was a momentary relief to him, and Arthur recounted to him, with many amusing details, the history of his dismissal by the Pimpernels. The Doctor chuckled, partly because it was a good story, and made the Pimpernels ridiculous, and partly because Arthur Arden, though he put the best possible face upon it, must have been himself discomfited. “Serve him right,” the Doctor said within himself; but he asked him to dinner, and saved him from the horrors of a chop at the Arden Arms and a solitary evening in its little sanded parlour, which was a work of true benevolence—for Dr. Somers’ dinner and his claret would have been worthy of notice anywhere—much more when contrasted with the greasy attractions of a chop at the Arden Arms.

While Arthur went to the Red House, Edgar had been exerting himself to still all the roads and deaden every sound about Sally Timms’ cottage. Sally’s boys considered the operation as a personal compliment. They tumbled in the straw, and threw it about, and buried each other with cries of delight which had to be suppressed in the most forcible and emphatic way—until at last Edgar, driven to interfere, had to order the removal of Johnny and Tommy. “They can go to the West Lodge for the night,” he said, with a hospitable liberality, at which the West Lodge keeper, who was helping in the work, groaned aloud. Sally herself, however, was very indignant at this exercise of despotic authority. She rushed to the front, and demanded to know why her cottage should be taken possession of, and the children carried off for the benefit of a stranger. “A lass as nobody knows, nor don’t care to know,” said Sally, “as has a deal too many gentlefolks alooking after her to be an honest lass.” “Take her away too,” said Edgar with benevolent tyranny. And Sally, with a scream of despair, snatched the old petticoat which stuffed her broken window, and fled from the bystanders, who did not attempt to carry out the Squire’s command. “I’ll go and I’ll see what Miss Clare says to it,” she cried. Edgar was a great deal too busy to pay any attention. He saw the work completed, and urged the necessity of care upon John Hesketh and his wife without considering that even they were but partial sympathisers. “I don’t hold with no such a fuss,” the women were saying among themselves. “If it had been the mother of a family she’d have had to take her chance; but a bit of a wench with a pretty face–” Thus he got no credit for his exertions, notwithstanding the injunctions of Dr. Somers. If Jeanie had been altogether unfriended, the village people would have shown her all manner of care and sympathy; but the Squire’s kindness put an end to theirs. They sympathised with Sally in her banishment. “You’ll see as Miss Clare won’t like it a bit,” cried one. “I don’t think nothing of Sally, but she has a right to her own place.” “She’ll be well paid for it all,” said another. Sally, and the fuss that was being made, and Miss Clare’s supposed sentiments bulked much more largely with the villagers than the thought that Jeanie lay between life and death, although many of them liked Jeanie, and had grown used to see her, so small and so fair, wandering about the street. Only old Sarah stood with her apron to her eyes. “I’m as fond of her as if she was my own. She’s the sweetest, patientest, good-temperedest lamb—none of you wenches can hold a candle to her,” sobbed the old woman. “She stitches beautiful, though I’m not one as holds with your pretty faces,” said Sally, the sexton’s daughter; but these were the only voices raised in poor Jeanie’s favour throughout the village crowd.