Маргарет Олифант - Squire Arden; volume 1 of 3

“I wonder if Mistress Arden, in a ruff and a farthingale, would have thought about the drainage,” he answered, laughing. “Fancy my blaming you, Clare! I tell you it is your village, and you shall do what you like with it. Is that Mr. Fielding at his gate? Let us cross over and shake hands with him before we go any further. He is not so old, surely, as he once was.”

“It is we who are old,” said Clare, with the first laugh that had yet come from her lips. “He is putting on his gloves to go and call on you, Edgar. The bell-ringers must have made it known everywhere. Mr. Fielding and Dr. Somers will come to-day, and the Thornleighs and Evertons to-morrow, and after that everybody; now see if it does not happen just as I say!”

“Let us stop the first of these visits,” said Edgar, and he went forward holding out his hand, while the parson at the gate, buttoning his grey gloves, peered at him through a pair of short-sighted eyes. “It will be very kind of you to name yourself, Sir, for I am very short-sighted,” the Rector said, looking at him with that semi-suspicion which is natural to a rustic of the highest as well as the lowest social position. The newcomer was a stranger, and therefore had little right and no assignable place in the village world. Mr. Fielding, who was short-sighted besides, peered at him very doubtfully from the puckered corners of his eyes.

“Don’t you know me?” said Edgar; and “Oh, Mr. Fielding, don’t you know Edgar?” came with still greater earnestness from the lips of Clare.

“It is not possible!” said Mr. Fielding, very decidedly; and then he let his slim umbrella drop out of his fingers, and held out both his hands. “Is it really you, my dear boy!” he said. “Excuse my blind eyes. If you had been my own son I would not have known you. I was on my way to call. But though this is not so solemn or so correct it will do as well. And Clare: Will you come in and have some breakfast? It cannot be much past your breakfast hour.”

“Nor yours either,” said Clare; “it is so naughty of you and so wrong of you to sit up like that, when you might just as well read in daylight, and go to bed when everybody else does. But we don’t follow such a bad example. We mean to have breakfast always by eight o’clock.”

Mr. Fielding gave a little sigh, and shook his venerable head. “That is all very pretty, my dear, and very nice when you can do it; but you know it never lasts. Anyhow, don’t let us stand here. Come in, my dear boy, come in, and welcome home again. And welcome to your own, Edgar,” he added, turning quickly round as he led them into his study, a large low room, looking out upon the trim parsonage garden. He put out both his hands as he said this, and grasped both those of Edgar, and looked not at all disinclined to throw himself upon his neck. “Welcome to your own,” he repeated fervently, and his eyes strayed beyond Edgar’s head, as if he were confronting and defying some one. And then he added more solemnly, “And God bless you, and enable you to fill your high position like a man. Amen. I wonder what the old Doctor will say now.”

“What should he say?” said Edgar, fun dancing in his bright brown eyes; “and how is he? I suppose he is unchangeable, like everything here.”

“Not unchangeable,” said Mr. Fielding, with a slight half-perceptible shake of his head at the levity, one of those momentary assumptions of the professional which most old clergymen indulge in now and then; “nothing is unchangeable in this transitory world. But old Somers is as steady as most things,” he added, with a responsive glance of amusement. “We go on quarrelling, he and I, but it would be hard upon us if we had to part. But tell me about yourself, Edgar, which is more interesting. When did you get home?”

“Late last night,” said Edgar. “I came straight through from Cologne. I began to get impatient as soon as I had settled which day I was to reach home, and came before my time. Clare was in bed, poor child; but she got up, fancy, when she heard it was me.”

“Of course she did; and she wants a cup of chocolate now,” said the old parson, “when her colour changes like that from red to white, you should give her some globules instantly, or else a cup of chocolate. I am not a homœopathist, so I always recommend the chocolate. Mrs. Solmes please, Miss Clare is here.”

“Shall I make two, sir?” said the housekeeper, who had heard the unusual commotion, and put her head in softly to see what was the matter. She did not quite understand it, even now. But she was too highly trained a woman, and too good a servant to take any notice. The chocolate was her affair, while the identity of the new comer was not.

“Don’t you know my brother, Mrs. Solmes?” cried Clare. “He has come home. Edgar, she takes such good care of dear Mr. Fielding. I don’t know how he managed without her before she came.”

Edgar was not failing in his duty on the occasion. He stepped forward and shook hands with the radiant and flattered woman, “as nat’ral as if I had known him all his life,” she said in the kitchen afterwards; for Mrs. Solmes was a stranger and foreigner, belonging to the next parish, who could not but disapprove of Arden and Arden ways, which were different from the habits of Thornleigh parish, to which she belonged. Edgar made her quite a little speech as he stood and held her hand—“Anybody who is good to Mr. Fielding is good to Clare and me. He has always been so kind to us all our lives.”

“He loves you like his own children, sir,” said Mrs. Solmes, quickly; and then she turned and went away to make the chocolate, not wishing to presume; while her master walked about the room, rubbing his hands softly, and peering at the young man from amid the puckers of his eyelids with pleased and approving satisfaction. “It is very nicely said,” cried Mr. Fielding, “very nice feeling, and well expressed. After that speech, I should have known him anywhere for an Arden, Clare.”

“But the Ardens don’t make pretty speeches,” said Clare, under her breath. She never could be suite sure of him. Everything he did had a spontaneous look about it that puzzled his sister. To be in Arden, and to know that a certain hereditary course of action is expected from you is a great advantage, no doubt, yet it sometimes gives a certain sobriety and stiffness to the external aspect. Edgar, on the contrary, was provokingly easy, with all the spontaneousness of a man who said and did exactly what he liked to do and to say. Clare’s loyalty to her race could not have permitted any such freedom of action, and it puzzled her at every turn.

“We must send for old Somers,” said Mr. Fielding. “Poor old fellow, he is very crotchety and fond of his own notions; but he’s a very good fellow. We are the two oldest friends you have in the world, you young people; and if we might not get a little satisfaction out of you I don’t know who should. Mrs. Solmes,” this was called from the study door in a louder voice, “send Jack over with my compliments to Dr. Somers, and ask him to step this way for a minute. No, Edgar, don’t go; I want to surprise him here.”

“But no one says anything about Miss Somers,” said Edgar; “how is she?”

“Ah, poor thing,” said Mr. Fielding, shaking his head, “she is confined to bed now. She is growing old, poor soul. For that matter, we are all growing old. And not a bad thing either,” he added, pausing and looking round at the two young figures so radiant in life and hope. “You children are sadly sorry for us—but fading away out of the world is easier than you think.”

Edgar grasped Mr. Fielding’s hand, not quite knowing why, with the compunction of youth for the departing existence to which its own beginning seems so harsh a contrast, and yet with a reverential sympathy that closed his lips. Clare, on the contrary, looked at him with something almost matter-of-fact in her blue eyes. “You are not so old,” she said quietly. “We thought you looked quite young as we came to the door. Please don’t be angry, but I used to think you were a hundred. You have grown ever so much younger these last three years.”