Mr. Lovel gave a little start, the faintest perceptible movement, expressive of a gentle astonishment.
“I need hardly tell you that you have taken me entirely by surprise,” he said in his quietest tone.
“Of course not. People always are surprised when a man of my age presumes to fall in love with a beautiful girl of eighteen or twenty. If I were to marry some worn-out woman of fashion, some battered widow, steeped to the lips in worldly wisdom, every one would call the match the most suitable thing possible. But if a man of fifty ventures to dream a brighter dream, he is condemned at once for a fool.”
“Pardon me, my dear Granger; I have no idea of looking at things in that light. I only remark that you surprise me, as you no doubt surprised my daughter by any avowal you may have made this morning.”
“Yes; and, I fear, disgusted her still more. I daresay I did my cause all the harm that it was possible to do it.”
“I must own that you were precipitate,” Mr. Lovel answered, with his quiet smile. He felt as if he had been talking to a schoolboy. In his own words the man was so “very far gone.”
“I shall know how to be more careful in future, if not wiser; but I suffered myself to be carried away by impulse this morning. It was altogether unworthy of — of my time of life.” This was said rather bitterly. “Frankly, now, Mr. Lovel: if in the future I were able to gain some hold upon your daughter’s affection — without that I would do nothing, no, so help me heaven, however passionately I might love her; if I could — if, in spite of the difference of our ages, I could win her heart — would you be in any way antagonistic to such a marriage?”
“On the contrary, my dear Granger.” Mr. Lovel had already something of the tone of a father-in-law. “Slight as our actual acquaintance has been, I think I know the estimable qualities of your character well enough from other sources to be able to say that such a marriage would be eminently pleasing to me. Nor is this all. I mean to be perfectly candid with you, Granger. My daughter and myself have both an almost romantic attachment to this place, and I freely own that it would be very delightful to me to see her mistress of her old home. But, at the same time, I give you my honour that nothing would induce me to govern her choice by the smallest exercise of parental influence. If you can win her, win her, and my best wishes shall go with your wooing; but I will utter no word to persuade her to be your wife.”
“I respect you for that resolution; I think I should have asked you to be neutral, if you hadn’t said as much. I couldn’t stand the idea of a wife driven into my arms by fatherly coercion. I suppose such things are done in modern society. No, I must win my treasure myself, or not at all. I have everything against me, no doubt, except a rival. There is no fear of that, is there, Lovel?”
“Not the slightest. Clarissa is the merest school-girl. Her visit to Lady Laura Armstrong was her first glimpse of the world. No, Granger, you have the field all before you. And you strike me as a man not likely to be vanquished by small difficulties.”
“I never yet set myself to do a thing which I didn’t accomplish in the long run,” answered Mr. Granger; “but then I never set myself to win a woman’s heart. My wife and I came together easily enough — in the way of business, as I may say — and liked each other well enough, and I regretted her honestly when she was gone, poor soul! but that was all. I was never ‘in love’ till I knew your daughter; never understood the meaning of the phrase. Of all the accidents that might have happened to me, this is the most surprising to myself. I can never cease to wonder at my own folly.”
“I do not know why you should call it a folly. You are only in the very middle of a man’s life; you have a fortune that exempts you from all care and labour, and of course at the same time leaves you more or less without occupation. Your daughter will marry and leave you in a year or two, no doubt. Without some new tie your future existence must needs be very empty.”
“I have felt that; but only since I have loved your daughter.”
This was all. The men came in with coffee, and put an end to all confidential converse; after which Mr. Granger seemed very glad to go back to the drawing-room, where Clarissa was playing a mazurka; while Sophia sat before a great frame, upon which some splendid achievement in Berlin woolwork, that was to be the glory of an approaching charity bazaar, was rapidly advancing towards completion. The design was a group of dogs, after Landseer, and Miss Granger was putting in the pert black nose of a Skye-terrier as the gentlemen entered. The two ladies were as far apart as they well could be in the spacious room, and had altogether an inharmonious air, Mr. Granger thought; but then he was nervously anxious that these two should become friends.
He went straight to the piano, and seated himself near Clarissa, almost with the air of having a right to take that place.
“Pray go on playing,” he said; “that seems very pretty music. I am no judge, and I don’t pretend to care for that classical music which every one talks about nowadays, but I know what pleases me.”
The evening was not an especially gay one; but it seemed pleasant enough to Mr. Granger, and he found himself wondering at its brevity. He showed Clarissa some of his favourite pictures. His collection of modern art was a fine one — not large, but very perfect in its way, and he was delighted to see her appreciation of his treasures. Here at least was a point upon which they might sympathise. He had been a good deal worried by Sophia’s obtuseness upon all artistic matters.
Mr. Lovel was not very sorry when the fly from the Arden Inn was announced, and it was time to go home. The pictures were fine, no doubt, and the old house was beautiful in its restored splendour; but the whole business jarred upon Marmaduke Lovel’s sensitive nerves just a little, in spite of the sudden realization of that vague dream of his. This place might be his daughter’s home, and he return to it: but not as its master. The day of his glory was gone. He was doubtful if he should even care to inhabit that house as his daughter’s guest. He had to remind himself of the desperate condition of his own circumstances before he could feel duly grateful to Providence for his daughter’s subjugation of Daniel Granger.
He was careful to utter no word about her conquest on the way home, or during the quarter of an hour Clarissa spent with him before going to her room.
“You look pale and tired, my child,” he said, with a sympathetic air, turning over the leaves of a book as he spoke.
“The day was rather fatiguing, papa,” his daughter answered listlessly, “and Miss Granger is a tiring person. She is so strong-minded, that she makes one feel weak and helpless by the mere force of contrast.”
“Yes, she is a tiring person, certainly; but I think I had the worst of her at dinner and in the evening.”
“But there was all the time before dinner, papa. She showed us her cottages — O, how I pitied the poor people! though I daresay she is kind to them, in her way; but imagine any one coming in here and opening all our cupboards, and spying out cobwebs, and giving a little shriek at the discovery of a new loaf in our larder. She found out that one of her model cottagers had been eating new bread. She said it gave her quite a revulsion of feeling. And then when we went home she showed me her account-books and her medicine-chest. It was very tiring.”
“Poor child! and this young woman will have Arden Court some day — unless her father should marry again.”
Clarissa’s pale face flamed with sudden crimson.
“Which he is pretty sure to do, sooner or later,” continued Mr. Lovel, with an absent meditative air, as of a man who discusses the most indifferent subject possible. “I hope he may. It would be a pity for such a place to fall into such hands. She would make it a phalanstery, a nest for Dorcas societies and callow curates.”
“But if she does good with her money, papa, what more could one wish?”
“I don’t believe that she would do much good. There is a pinched hard look about the lower part of her face which makes me fancy she is mean. I believe she would hoard her money, and make a great talk and fuss abo
ut nothing. Yes, I hope Granger will marry again. The house is very fine, isn’t it, since its renovation?”
“It is superb, papa. Dearly as I love the place, I did not think it could be made so beautiful.”
“Yes, and everything has been done in good taste, too,” Mr. Lovel went on, in rather a querulous tone. “I did not expect to see that. But of course a man of that kind has only to put himself into the hands of a first-class architect, and if he is lucky enough to select an architect with an artistic mind, the thing is done. All the rest is merely a question of money. Good heavens, what a shabby sordid hole this room looks, after the place we have come from!”
The room was not so bad as to merit that look of angry disgust with which Mr. Lovel surveyed it. Curtains and carpet were something the worse for wear, the old-fashioned furniture was a little sombre; but the rich binding of the books and a rare old bronze here and there redeemed it from commonness — poor jetsam and flotsam from the wreck of the great house, but enough to give some touch of elegance to meaner things.
“O, papa,” Clarissa cried reproachfully, “the room is very nice, and we have been peaceful and happy in it. I don’t suppose all the splendour of Arden would have made us much happier. Those external things make so little difference.”
She thought of those evenings at Hale Castle, when George Fairfax had abandoned her to pay duty to his betrothed, and of the desolation of spirit that had come upon her in the midst of those brilliant surroundings.
Her father paced the little room as if it had been a den, and answered her philosophic remonstrance with an exclamation of contempt.
“That’s rank nonsense, Clarissa — copybook morality, which nobody in his heart ever believes. External things make all the difference — except when a man is writhing in physical pain perhaps. External things make the difference between a king and a beggar. Do you suppose that man Granger is no happier for the possession of Arden Court — of those pictures of his? Why, every time he looks at a Frith or Millais he feels a little thrill of triumph, as he says to himself, ‘And that is mine.’ There is a sensuous delight in beautiful surroundings which will remain to a man whose heart is dead to every other form of pleasure. I suppose that is why the Popes were such patrons of art in days gone by. It was the one legitimate delight left to them. Do you imagine it is no pleasure to dine every night as that man dines? no happiness to feel the sense of security about the future which he feels every morning? Great God, when I think of his position and of mine!”
Never before had he spoken so freely to his daughter; never had he so completely revealed the weakness of his mind.
She was sorry for him, and forbore to utter any of those pious commonplaces by which she might have attempted to bring him to a better frame of mind. She had tact enough to divine that he was best left to himself — left to struggle out of this grovelling state by some effort of his own, rather than to be dragged from the slough of despond by moral violence of hers.
He dismissed her presently with a brief good-night; but lying awake nearly two hours afterwards, she heard him pass her door on the way to his room. He too was wakeful, therefore, and full of care.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXII.
TAKING THE PLEDGE.
Clarissa had a visitor next day. She was clipping and trimming the late roses in the bright autumnal afternoon, when Lady Laura Armstrong’s close carriage drove up to the gate, with my lady inside it, in deep mourning. The visit was unexpected, and startled Clarissa a little, with a sensation that was not all pleasure. She could scarcely be otherwise than glad to see so kind a friend; but there were reasons why the advent of any one from Hale Castle should be somewhat painful to her. That meeting with George Fairfax by the churchyard had never been quite out of her mind since it happened. His looks and his words had haunted her perpetually, and now she was inclined to ascribe Lady Laura’s coming to some influence of his. She had a guilty feeling, as if she had indeed tried to steal Lady Geraldine’s lover.
Lady Laura greeted her with all the old cordiality. There was a relief in that; and Clarissa’s face, which had been very pale when she opened the gate to admit her visitor, brightened a little as my lady kissed her.
“My dear child, I am so glad to see you again!” exclaimed Lady Laura. “I am not supposed to stir outside the Castle in all this dreary week. Poor papa is to be buried to-morrow; but I wanted so much to see you on a most important business; so I ordered the brougham and drove here, with the blinds down all the way; and I’m sure, Clary, you won’t think that I feel papa’s loss any less because I come to see you just now. But I declare you are looking as pale and wan as any of us at Hale. You have not recovered that dreadful shock yet.”
“It was indeed a dreadful shock, dear Lady Laura,” said Clarissa; and then in a less steady tone she went on: “Lady Geraldine is better, I hope?”
“Geraldine is what she always is, Clary — a marvel of calmness. And yet I know she feels this affliction very deeply. She was papa’s favourite, you know, and had a most extraordinary influence over him. He was so proud of her, poor dear!”
“Won’t you come into the house, Lady Laura?”
“By and by, just to pay my respects to your papa. But we’ll stay in the garden for the present, please, dear. I have something most particular to say to you.”
Clarissa’s heart beat a little quicker. This most particular something was about George Fairfax: she felt very sure of that.
“I am going to be quite candid with you, Clary,” Lady Laura began presently, when they were in a narrow walk sheltered by hazel bushes, the most secluded bit of the garden. “I shall treat you just as if you were a younger sister of my own. I think I have almost a right to do that; for I’m sure I love you as much as if you were my sister.”
And here Lady Laura’s plump little black-gloved hand squeezed Clarissa’s tenderly.
“You have been all goodness to me,” the girl answered; “I can never be too grateful to you.”
“Nonsense, Clary; I will not have that word gratitude spoken between us. I only want you to understand that I am sincerely attached to you, and that I am the last person in the world to hold your happiness lightly. And now, dearest child, tell me the truth — have you seen George Fairfax since you left Hale?”
Clarissa flushed crimson. To be asked for the truth, as if, under any circumstances, she would have spoken anything less than truth about George Fairfax! And yet that unwonted guilty feeling clung to her, and she was not a little ashamed to confess that she had seen him.
“Yes, Lady Laura.”
“I thought so. I was sure of it. He came here on the very day you left — the day which was to have been his wedding-day.”
“It was on that evening that I saw him; but he did not come to this house.
I was sitting outside the churchyard sketching when I saw him.”
“He did not come to the house — no; but he came to Arden on purpose to see you,” Lady Laura answered eagerly. “I am sure of that.”
Unhappily Clarissa could not deny the fact. He had told her only too plainly that he had come to Arden determined to see her.
“Now, Clary, let us be perfectly frank. Before my sister Geraldine came to Hale, I told you that the attachment between her and George Fairfax was one of long standing; that I was sure her happiness was involved in the matter, and how rejoiced I was at the turn things had taken. I told you all this, Clary; but I did not tell you that in the years we had known him Mr. Fairfax had been wild and unsteady; that, while always more or less devoted to Geraldine, he had had attachments elsewhere — unacknowledged attachments of no very creditable nature; such affairs as one only hears of by a side wind, as it were. How much Geraldine may have known of this, I cannot tell. I heard the scandals, naturally enough, through Fred; but she may have heard very little. I said nothing of this to you, Clarissa; it was not necessary that I should say anything to depreciate the character of my future brother-in-law, and of a man I really liked.”
“Of course not,” faltered Clarissa.
“Of course not. I was only too happy to find that George had become a reformed person, and that he had declared himself so soon after the change in his fortunes. I was convinced that Geraldine loved him, and that she could only be really happy as his wife. I am convinced of that still; but I know that nothing on earth could induce her to marry him if she had the least doubt of his devotion to herself.”
“I hope that she may never have occasion to doubt that, Lady Laura,” answered Clarissa. It was really all she could find to say under the circumstances.
“I hope not, and I think not, Clary. He has been attached to my sister so long — he proposed to her in such a deliberate manner — that I can scarcely imagine he would prove really inconstant. But I know that he is a slave to a pretty face, and fatally apt to be ruled by the impulse of the moment. It would be very hard now, Clary, if some transient fancy of that kind were to ruin the happiness of two lives — would it not, my dear?”
“It would be very hard.”
“O, Clarissa, do pray be candid. You must understand what I mean. That wretched man has been making love to you?”
“You ought not to ask me such a question, Lady Laura,” answered Clarissa, sorely perplexed by this straight attack.
“You must know that I should respect Lady Geraldine’s position — that I should be incapable of forgetting her claims upon Mr. Fairfax. Whatever he may have said to me has been, the merest folly. He knows that I consider it in that light, and I have refused ever to see him again if I can possibly help it.”
“That’s right, dear!” cried Lady Laura, with a pleased look. “I knew that you would come out of the business well, in spite of everything. Of course you can care nothing for this foolish fellow; but I know Geraldine’s sensitive nature so well, and that if she had the faintest suspicion of George’s conduct, the whole thing would be off for ever — an attachment of many years’ standing, think of that, Clary! Now I want you to promise me that, come what may, you will give Mr. Fairfax no encouragement. Without encouragement this foolish fancy will die out very quickly. Of course, if it were possible you could care for him, I would not come here to ask you such a thing as this. You would have a right to consider your own happiness before my sister’s. But as that is out of the question, and the man is almost a stranger to you — —”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 550