Up one of these side walks old Sarah trudged, with her white apron disturbing all the lights, and with many homely musings in her old head, which had scarcely a right to the dignified title of thoughts. She was thinking to herself—“Eh, my word, but here’s changes! Master o’ all, him that was never made no more of nor a stranger in his own father’s house; nor half so much as a stranger. Them as come on visits would get the best o’ all, ponies to ride, and servants to wait upon ’em, and whatever they had a mind for:—and Mr. Edgar put into that bit of a room by the nursery, and never a horse, nor a penny in his pocket. I’d just like to know how it was. Eh, my word, what a queer feel it must have! You mind me, he’ll think he hears oud Squire ahind him many and many a day. And an only son! And I never heard a word against Madam, and Miss Clare always the queen of all. Bless him! none on us could help that; but I was allays one as stood up for Mr. Edgar. And now he’s master o’ all! I wonder is she glad, the dear? Here’s folks a coming, a man and a maid; and I canno’ see who they are with my bad eyes. Eb, but I could once see as good as the best. I mind that time I was in Cheshire, afore I came home here—Lord bless us, it’s Miss Clare and the young Squire!”
The young pair were coming down under the trees on the same path, and Sarah stopped short in her thinkings with a flutter, as if they must have divined the subject of them:—Two young people all in black, not lighting up the landscape as they might have done had their dress been as bright as their faces. The first thing that struck the observer was that they were utterly unlike; they had not even the same little family tricks of gait or gesture, such as might have made it apparent that they were brother and sister. The young lady was tall and slight, with a great deal of soft dignity and grace; dignity which might, however, grow imperious on occasion. Her face was beautiful, and regular, and full of sweetness; but those fine lines could set and harden, and the light young figure could erect itself, if need were, into all the severity of a youthful Juno. Her hair was very dark, and her eyes blue—a kind of beauty which is often of the highest class as beauty, but often, also, indicates a character which should attract as much fear as love. She was soft now as the opening day, leaning on her brother’s arm with a certain clinging gesture which was not natural to her, lavishing upon him her smiles and pretty looks of affection. Old Sarah, looking on, divined her meaning in a moment. “Bless her!” the old woman said to herself, with a tear in the corner of her eye, which she dared not lift the apron to dry. Hard injustice and wrong had been Edgar’s part all his life. His sister was making it up to him, pouring upon him all the sunshine she could collect into her moist eyes, to make him amends for having thus lived so long in the dark.
Clare Arden might have stepped out of one of the picture frames in the hall, so entirely was her beauty the beauty of her family; but her brother was as different as it is possible to imagine. He was scarcely taller than she was, not more than an inch or two, instead of towering over her as her father had done. He had light brown, curly, abundant hair, frizzing all over his well-shaped, well-poised head; and brown eyes, which sparkled, and danced, and laughed, and spoke, and defied you not to like them. They had laughed and danced in his worst days, irrepressibly, and now, notwithstanding the black band on his hat, they sent rays about like dancing fauns, all life, and fire, and active energy. He looked like one whom nobody could wrong, who would disarm the sourest critic. A stranger would have instantly taken it for granted that he was the favourite child of the house, the one whose gay vagaries were always pardoned, and whose saucy ways no father or mother could well withstand. How such a being could have got into the serious old-world house of Arden nobody could make out. It was supposed that he was like his mother; but she had been in delicate health, poor lady, and had lived very little at Arden Hall. The village folks did not trouble their head with theories as to the cause of the old Squire’s dislike to his only son, but the parson and the doctor had each a very decided opinion on the subject, which the reader shall learn further on, and make his own conclusions from. For, in the meantime, I cannot go on describing Edgar Arden. It is his business to do that for himself.
“Who is coming?” he said. “Somebody whose face I know; a nice old woman with a great white apron. But we must go on to see the village, and all your improvements there.”
“There are no improvements,” said his sister. “Oh, Edgar, I do hope you hate that sort of thing as I do. Let us keep it as it was. Our own people are so pleasant, and will do what we want them. The only thing I was afraid of you for was lest you should turn radical, like the rest of the young men. But then you have not been in the way of it—like the Oxford men, you know.”
“I don’t know about the Oxford men,” said Edgar, “but I am not so sure I haven’t been in the way of it.” He had the least little touch of a foreign accent, which was very quaint from those most Saxon lips. He was just the kind of young man whom, anywhere abroad, the traveller would distinguish as an undeniable Briton; and yet his English had a touch of something alien in it—a flavour which was not British. He laughed as he spoke, and the sound startled all the solemn elms of Arden. The Ardens did not laugh much; they smiled very sweetly, and they liked to know that their smile was a distinction; but Edgar was not like the Ardens.
“How you laugh,” said Clare, clinging a little closer to his arm, “It is very odd, but somehow I like it. Don’t you know, Edgar, the Ardens were never people to laugh? We smile.”
“So you do,” said Edgar, “and I would rather have your smile than ever so much laughing. But then you know I am not half an Arden. I never had a chance. Here is our old woman close at hand with her white apron. Why, it is old Sarah! You kind old soul, how are you? How does it go?” And he took both her hands into his and shook them till old Sarah lost her breath. Then a twinkle like a tear came in to Edgar’s laughing eye. “You gave me half-a-crown when I left Arden last,” he said, still holding her hands, and then in his foreign way he kissed her first on one brown cheek and then on the other. “Oh, Master Edgar!” cried old Sarah, out of breath; while Clare looked on very sedately, not quite knowing what to say.
CHAPTER II
“It was kind of you to come and see my brother,” said Clare at length, with something of that high and lofty sweetness which half implies—“it was kind, but it was a piece of presumption.” She meant no harm to her old nurse, whom she was fond of in her heart, and who was besides a privileged person, free to be fond of the Ardens; but Edgar had been badly used all his life, and his sister was more proud on his behalf than if he had been the worshipped heir, always foremost. She drew herself up just a little, not knowing what to make of it. In one way it was right, and she approved; for even a king may be tender to his favoured dependents without derogation—but yet, certainly it was not the Arden way.
“Miss Clare, you don’t think that, and you oughtn’t for to say it,” said old Sarah, with some natural heat; “but I’ve been about the house ever since you were born: and staying still to-day in my little place with my plain-sewing was more nor I could do. If there had been e’er a little maid to look to—but I ain’t got none in hands now.”
“I beg your pardon, Sarah,” said Clare promptly; “and Mrs. Fillpot has something to say to you about that. If you will go up to the house and speak to her, now that you have seen Edgar, it will be very nice of you. We are going down to the village to see some of his old friends.”
“The young master don’t know the village, Miss Clare, as he ought to have done,” said old Sarah, shaking her head. She had said such words often before, but never with the same result as now; for Clare was divided between allegiance to the father whom she loved, who was dead, and whom she could not now admit to have ever done any wrong—and the brother whom she loved, who was there by her side, and of whose injuries she was so keenly sensible. The blood rushed to her cheek—her fine blue eyes grew like steel—the lines of her beautiful face hardened. Poor old Sarah shrank back instinctively, almost as if