Miss Arden

“ Lovel shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating air.
"C'est son métier," he said. "I suppose she does find it rather dismal at times; but there are the children, you see—it is a woman's duty to find all-sufficient society in her children. And now, Clary, tell me about yourself. You have made a brilliant match, and are mistress of Arden Court. A strange stroke of fortune that. And you are happy, I hope, my dear?" ”

“ If I do not find happiness within the next five years, I am never likely to find it at all. At three-and-thirty a man has done with a heart, in a moral and poetic sense, and begins to entertain vague alarms on the subject of fatty degeneration."
Clarissa smiled faintly, as if the stranger's idle talk scarcely beguiled her from her own thoughts.
"You said you had been at Arden," she began rather abruptly; "then you must know papa."
"No, I have not the honour to know Mr. Lovel," with the same embarrassed air which he had exhibited before in speaking of Arden Court. ”

“ The young ladies began the employment of teaching with alacrity. They endeavoured to ground Catherine in those things that would be useful in a village school. But geography her mind was bent upon, so Miss Arden presented to her a book; likewise several little works, which she thought would be useful.
One morning, however, they were surprised in the midst of their lessons. “Begin that line again,” said Miss Arden. Elizabeth had walked gently into the room, and now stood by the table where the two young ladies were seated, and Catherine standing. ”

“ Some, too, are cooks and kitchen men."
"We are ten," said Arden, musing. "That is quite enough; but yet we must have recourse to stratagem, in order to make sure that no rash opposition brings on violence. Leave it to me, dear Constance, leave it to me. You go to your own little chamber, say your prayers, and, when your hour is expired, go to your pretty cousin, and tell her, old William Arden says that they shall not marry her to any one against her will. So let her keep a good heart, be firm, and fear not." ”

“ We had a good deal to learn when we first went to Arden; in fact, we still have a great deal to learn about this wonderful country, in which so many of the ideals and standards with which we were once familiar are reversed. It is one of the blessed results of living in the Forest that one is more and more conscious that he does not know and more and more eager to learn. There are no shams of any sort in Arden, and all pride in concealing one's ignorance disappears; one's chief concern is to be known precisely as he is. ”

“ One may ride through a world of weariness in a barouche-and-pair. Clarissa had not found her husband's wealth by any means a perennial source of happiness, nor even the possession of Arden an unfailing consolation.
It was strange how this untidy painting-room of Austin's, with its tawdry dilapidated furniture—all of which had struck her with a sense of shabbiness and dreariness at first—had grown to possess a charm for her. In the winter gloaming, when the low wood fire glowed redly on the hearth, and made a flickering light upon the walls, the room had a certain picturesque aspect. ”

“ Arden, what are you doing here? Give me a chair, please. Miss Arden, I declare! How nice it is to meet like this, when one is trying to do the little good one can among the poor! It is so charming of you to take such trouble with your people, Miss Arden. There is really next to nothing left for any one else to do. Might I ask you for a glass of water, my good woman? and wipe the glass first, please. Everything looks very clean, but one never can get quite rid of dust in a cottage. Wipe it well, please.”
Clare stood looking on with consternation while these ejaculations were uttered. ”

“ You can live anywhere you please; you will have a fair income, a liberal one, I daresay. You are very well off, upon my word, Clarissa, taking into consideration the fact of your supreme imprudence—only you have lost your husband."
"And I have lost Arden Court. Does not there seem a kind of retribution in that? I made a false vow for the love of Arden Court—and—and for your sake, papa."
"False fiddlestick!" exclaimed Mr. Lovel, impatiently; "any reasonable woman might have been happy in your position, and with such a man as Granger; a man who positively worshipped you. ”

“ So, on a brilliant June morning, the Grangers left the Great Western station by special train, and sped through the summer landscape to Henley. This garden-party at Mr. Wooster's villa was almost their last engagement. They were to return to Arden in two days; and Clarissa was very glad that it was so. That weariness of spirit which had seemed to her so strange in some of the young ladies at Hale Castle had come upon herself. She longed for Arden Court and perfect rest ”

“ Lovel. "My poor Granger, you are farther gone than you suppose!"
"You can give me your solemn assurance upon one point, eh, Lovel?" said the master of Arden Court anxiously; "there is no one else in the case? Your daughter's heart is quite free? It is only a question as to whether I can win it?"
"Her heart is entirely free, and as pure as a child's. She is full of affection, poor girl, only yearning to find an outlet for it. She ought to make you a good wife, Daniel Granger. There is nothing against her doing so." ”

“ Granger might come in at some awkward moment. At half-past five Jane Target went to the nursery and fetched the year-old heir of Arden Court.
He was always glad to go to his mother; and he came to-night crowing and laughing, and kicking his little blue shoes in boisterous rapture. Jane kept guard at the door while Clarissa put on her bonnet and jacket, and wrapped up the baby—first in a warm fur-lined opera-jacket, and then in a thick tartan shawl. They had no hat for him, but tied up his pretty flaxen head in a large silk handkerchief, and put the shawl over that. ”

“ If ye are going to marry me ’tis your business to find me.” She freed her hands and started off without a backward glance at him.
“Patsy, Patsy!” he called after her, “wouldn’t you like to know the name of the man you’re going to marry?”
She turned and faced him. Framed in the soft, green fringe of the trees, she seemed to him the very embodiment of young summer—the free, untrammeled spirit of Arden. Ever since the first he had been growing more and more conscious of what she was: a nature vital, beautiful, tender, untouched by the searing things of life—trusting and worthy of trust ”

“ Had he come back to Arden in love or in hatred; for herself or for Edgar? Arthur Arden had powers and faculties which were the growth of experience, and which are rarely possessed by very young men. He could look so that nobody could see him looking except the person at whom he gazed. He could express devotion, almost adoration, without the bystanders being a bit the wiser. He could flatter and persuade, and make use of a thousand weapons, without even addressing the object of his thoughts. And Clare, how she could not tell, had come to understand that strange language. ”

“ Edward Arden, of Park Hall, was brought up in his care, and married Mary, his son Robert’s daughter.
That a man of the same name, living at the same time, in the same county, retaining the same family friends, under circumstances suitable in every way to the second son of Walter Arden’s will, should be accepted as that son, seems perfectly natural and just, when no other claimant has ever been brought forward. But we know that this Thomas and this Robert were Mary Arden’s grandfather and father; we know that this property was that afterwards left in trust by this Robert Arden for his daughters ”

“ Come back—Clare! For the moment she had taken Edgar’s part; but this at least it was in his power to alter. As much as he had ever loved any one, he loved Clare; but he was come to his kingdom, and the intoxication of the triumph bewildered his faculties. He might marry any one—not any longer a mere heiress, great or small, but anybody—a duke’s daughter, a lady of the highest pretensions. Arden of Arden was the equal of the best nobleman in Christendom. ”

“ A thousand good wishes, dear, both for yourself and your papa. We hope to spend the autumn at Hale, and I suppose I shall then have the pleasure of seeing you begin your reign as mistress of Arden Court. You must give a great many parties, and make yourself popular in the neighbourhood at once. Entre nous, I think our friend Miss Granger is rather fond of power. It will be wise on your part to take your stand in the beginning of things, and then affairs are pretty sure to go pleasantly. Ever your affectionate
"LAURA ARMSTRONG." Not a word about George Fairfax. Clarissa wondered where he was ”

“ She is too frivolous for me to get on very well with her. She takes no real interest in my poor, in spite of her connection with Arden, or in church music. I think she hardly knows one Te Deum from another."
"She is rather a nice girl, though," said the Captain, who would fain be loyal to Clarissa, yet for whom the good opinion of such an heiress as Miss Granger could not be a matter of indifference—there was always the chance that she might take a fancy to him, as he put it to his brother-officers, and what a lucky hit that would be! "She's a nice girl," he repeated, "and uncommonly pretty." ”

“ If I could work my fingers to the bone in the pursuit of art or literature, or any of the professions by which women win money, I should never earn the price of Arden; nor would that hateful Mr. Granger be disposed to sell a place which gives him his position in the county. And I suppose he is fond of it, after a fashion. He has spent a fortune upon improvements. Improvements!" repeated Clarissa contemptuously; "I daresay he has improved away the very spirit of the place."
"You cherish a strong dislike for this gentleman, it seems, Miss Lovel." ”

“ Arden was constantly about the house. There was no doubt that he would soon be preferred to a Chapter living in Buckinghamshire, and he had thus been emboldened to speak out his wishes. It would have been quite beneath the dignity of a young lady of Miss Harriet’s sensibility to have consented, and she was in the full swing of her game at coyness and reluctance, daily vowing that nothing should induce her to resign her liberty, and that she should be frightened out of her life by Mr. Arden’s experiments ”

“ And now I must go back to papa, if you please, or he will be sending some one to look for me."
"And I shall be discovered in Mr. Capulet's orchard. Ten minutes more, Clarissa, and I vanish amidst the woods of Arden, through which I came like a poacher in order to steal upon you unawares by that little gate. And now, my darling, since we have wasted almost all our time in fencing with words, let us be reasonable. Promises such as you speak of are pledges given to the winds. They cannot hold an hour against true love. Listen, Clary, listen." ”

“ Almost daily Mrs. Arden called to take her for an airing in her carriage, and she had become, with her father, a frequent guest at her table. Thus in the habit of associating with her niece, Mrs. Arden sometimes spoke of her to Sir Aubrey and Lady De Brooke, in terms that could not fail to excite interest, and weaken insensibly that disinclination the former had felt ever to behold an offspring of that alliance his son had formed, inflicting upon him so heavy a vexation. ”

“ Clarissa said wonderingly.
"Yes, yes, naturally. I have shrunk from knowing people who have turned me out of house and home, as it were. But that sort of thing must come to an end sooner or later. I don't want to appear prejudiced or churlish; and in short, though I may never care to cross that threshold, there is no reason Miss Granger and you should not be friendly. You have no one at Arden of your own age to associate with, and a companion of that kind might be useful. Has the girl much influence with her father, do you think?"
"She is not a girl, papa, she is a young woman. ”

“ That the relationship is imaginary and impossible, and those who assert it in error. (2) That the Ardens were connected with nobility, while Robert Arden was styled “husbandman.” (3) That the heralds knew the claim was unfounded when they scratched out the arms of Arden of Park Hall, and inserted the arms of Arden of Alvanley, in Cheshire. Though this was equally unjustifiable, the family being further off, there was less likelihood of complaint. ”

“ Therefore before the diffident Arden could turn away, she bowed and smiled to him in a genial, conciliatory manner. His face brightened into instant sunshine, and to her surprise he lifted his old weather-stained felt hat like a gentleman. Though he had received no lessons in etiquette, he was inclined to be a little courtly and stately in manner, when he noticed a lady at all, from unconscious imitation of the high-bred characters in the romances he read. He said to himself in glad exultation:
"She is different from the rest. ”

“ Had she not secured for herself all the things that women most value? could she not run riot in the pleasures for which women will imperil their souls? He remembered his own wife's extravagance, and he argued with himself, that if she could have had a perennial supply of fine dresses, and a perpetual round of amusement, she would speedily have forgotten Colonel Fairfax. It was the dulness of her life, and the dismal atmosphere of poverty, that had made her false.
So he went back to Spa, secure in the thought that he could make his home at Arden whenever he pleased. ”