Richard Arden

“ 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." ”

“ Longcluse stepped in, to secure a footing, and beckoning excitedly to Sir Richard, called, “Come in; all right. Don't mind the horse; it will take its chance.” He walked impatiently to the foot of the stairs, and turned again toward the street door.
At this moment, and before Sir Richard had time to come in, there come swarming out of David Arden's study, most unexpectedly, nearly a dozen men, more than half of whom are in the garb of gentlemen, and some three of them police. ”

“ The world is getting sick of it. There are strange rumours abroad. Our poor queen Ann is ill; and men much suspect she will not recover. Few indeed do under the treatment she is likely to have; and Richard, they say, is very anxious for heirs."
"So, so," cried Arden, "sets the wind there? Why, methought a Chartley would never draw his sword against the house of York." ”

“ Leger remains to be won, I have him sure. 'Tis well she hides herself; for were she at the court, or in her uncle's house, I might have to decide too soon. I doubt that moody discontented Fulmer; but of this light-spirited youth I am secure."
The month, during which Sir William Arden had agreed to hold his noble cousin in ward, passed away. Richard heard of them travelling here, travelling there, roaming from this village to that, hovering sometimes round Chidlow, sometimes round Atherston, lodging at Tamworth, at Leicester, at Hinckley ”

“ Many of the officers having outrun their men, who were retarded by the weight of their knapsacks, entered a French redoubt at the moment the defenders were quitting it, when a number of French soldiers turned round and fired with fatal effect: of the Sixty-first, Lieut.-Colonel Oke, Captain Charleton (who was calling to the enemy to surrender) , and Lieutenant Arden, were wounded,—the latter mortally. The regiment advanced along the height until it was ordered to halt under an earthen fence, which partially sheltered it from the enemy’s guns. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rambling, low-ceilinged rooms with ingle-nooks in the fireplaces form the interior. Some day, I suppose, when the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has ceased to expend much money in the collection of rare editions and in paying fat pensions to its super-annuated servants, it will seek to purchase the Arden home, and show to Shakespearean travellers the house in which Robert Arden, a sixteenth-century yeoman of some standing and some pretensions to gentility, yet sat at table with his farm-servants in the old way, just as in the remoter parts of the West of England is still done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nothing was worth achieving or describing, unless it were an invitation to dine with royalty or a treatise on sexual pathology.
The childlike preoccupation of grown men and women in the infinite littleness of social life was an irresistible mark for the satire of a man whose deliberate and effective pose was to exaggerate the fastidious artificiality of his generation. Valentine Arden had a courageous and altogether scornful soul. I have seen him enter the Ritz, thin and white as an Aubrey Beardsley pierrot, in a black coat lined with heliotrope silk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It’s always best to know exactly what one is about. I’ll put it in the plainest terms; but I think we might wait a day or two all the same. Arden’s a fine property, and Arthur Arden is a clever fellow. He knows what’s what as well as any man I know: and if he’s making a cat’s-paw of his cousin you can’t blame him. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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." ”

“ Life is meant to be hard work. You may have occasion to make use of your education some day, Clary."
"Yes," the girl answered with a sigh; "I know that we are poor."
"I suppose so; but perhaps you hardly know how poor."
"Whenever the time comes, I shall be quite ready to work for papa," said Clarissa; yet she could not help wondering how the master of Arden Court could ever bring himself to send out his daughter as a governess; and then she had a vague childish recollection that not tens of pounds, but hundreds, and even thousands, had been wanted to stop the gaps in her father's exchequer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He had the apartments in the Rue du Morny on his hands, too, until the beginning of March; and even a millionaire seldom cares to waste such a rental as Parisian proprietors exact for houseroom in a fashionable quarter. So he decided upon going to Arden at once—which was essential—and returning directly he had adjusted matters with his bailiff, and done a morning's work with his architect.
He told Clarissa of his intention one evening when they had returned from a dinner-party, and she was seated before her dressing-table, taking off her jewels in a slow, absent way. ”

“ But it was not from the Ardens that any difficulty arose. Before the death of Mrs. Agnes Arden, she was called to support her claim and that of all her stepdaughters, based on a supposition of entail, against [Pg 45] the descendants of the Mayowe who had sold his property to Thomas and Robert Arden in 1501. Being described as old and infirm, a Commission was directed to Bartholomew Hales, Lord of the Manor of Snitterfield, and Nicholas Knolles, Vicar of Alveston, to take her deposition concerning it, in July, 1580. ”

“ There was land to be reclaimed, fit to grow seed and bread; there were human creatures to be helped and delivered; a thousand and a thousand things came into his mind, some great and some small—trees to be planted even—and what Arthur Arden would do would be to cut down the trees; cottages to be built—and what would he care for the poor, either physically or morally? If Arden could speak, would not it cry to heaven to be kept under the good rule of the impostor, and saved from{119} the right heir? ”

“ There are no clocks in Arden; the sun bestows the day, and no impertinence of men destroys its charm by calculating its value and marking it with a price. The only computers of time are the great trees whose shadows register the unbroken march of light from east to west. Even the days and nights lost that painful distinctness which they had for us when they gave us a constant sense of loss, an incessant apprehension of change and age. Their shining procession leaves no such records in Arden ”

“ The most enlightened of them will turn short round upon you all at once, and join in some insane cry. We want young men, Arden—men of independent minds, who have been used to think for themselves. If you were a Tory of the old Arden type you would have been the last man I should have made overtures to. And what is odd about it is, that your sister is out-and-out of the old Arden type, and yet, for the best kind of reform I should trust her instincts. ”

“ There were both Ardens and Shakespeares in London, and many Warwickshire men, and they thought that some place might be [Pg 65] found even for him, the landless, unapprenticed, untrained son of a straitened father. But there were so many in a similar case. It is evident he succeeded in nothing that he hoped or wished for. His own works prove that. He was unable to act the gentleman, but was determined to play the man. He may have dwelt with, and certainly frequently visited, his old Stratford friend Richard Field, the apprentice, son-in-law, and successor of Vautrollier, the great printer. ”

“ He found himself more popular than ever since his marriage, as the husband of one of the prettiest women who had appeared that season. So, during the two months of their London life, there was an almost unbroken succession of gaieties, and Mr. Granger found himself yearning for the repose of Arden Court sometimes, as he waited in a crowded ball-room while his wife and daughter danced their last quadrille. It pleased him that Clarissa should taste this particular pleasure-cup—that she should have every delight she had a right to expect as his wife ”

“ The Ghost Mansion
Unable to understand what had caused the workmen to act as they had, and sensing the possibility of a further fright to the horses, Arden and her chums were about to wheel and ride away. But Dick called to them:
“Steady; I think it will be all right. These men don’t know what they’re doing. They are just frightened.”
“At what?” asked Arden.
“That’s what I’m going to try to discover,” said the young groom. Then, shouting to the running Negroes, he inquired:
“What’s the matter?” ”

“ Lord Newmarch could only spare three days to the Ardens, one of which was a Sunday. And he walked dutifully to church, carrying Clare’s prayer-book, and placing himself by her side. “This is what I like,” he said. “The only real remnant of anything worth preserving in the feudal system. Here are your brother and yourself, Miss Arden, at the head of your people, to take their part or plead their cause, or redress their wrongs; here they can see you, and pay their homage; they have the advantage of feeling that you too worship God in the same place; they have the benefit of your example. ”