The Lovels of Arden by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ebook offline reader txt) 📕

figures pacing backward and forward upon the terrace; for Mr. Granger contrived to occupy her attention till the dressing-bell rang, and afforded her the usual excuse for hurrying away.

She was one of the last to return to the drawing-room, and to her surprise found Mr. Granger by her side, offering his arm in his stately way when the procession began to file off to the dining-room, oblivious of the claims which my lady's matronly guests might have upon him.

Throughout that evening Mr. Granger was more or less by Clarissa's side. His daughter, perceiving this with a scarcely concealed astonishment, turned a deaf ear to the designing compliments of Captain Westleigh (who told himself that a fellow might just as well go in for a good thing as not when he had a chance), and came across the room to take part in her parent's conversation. She even tried to lure him away on some pretence or other; but this was vain. He seemed rooted to his chair by Clarissa's side--she listlessly turning over a folio volume of steel plates, he pointing out landscapes and scenes which had been familiar to him in his continental rambles, and remarking upon them in a somewhat disjointed fashion--"Marathon, yes--rather flat, isn't it? But the mountains make a fine background. We went there with guides one day, when I was a young man. The Acropolis--hum! ha!--very fine ruins, but a most inconvenient place to get at. Would you like to see Greece, Miss Lovel?"

Clarissa gave a little sigh--half pain, half rapture. What chance had she of ever treading that illustrious soil, of ever emerging from the bondage of her dull life? She glanced across the room to the distant spot where Lady Geraldine and George Fairfax sat playing chess. _He_ had been there. She remembered his pleasant talk of his wanderings, on the night of their railroad journey.

"Who would not like to see Greece?" she said.

"Yes, of course," Mr. Granger answered in his most prosaic way. "It's a country that ought to be remarkably interesting; but unless one is very well up in its history, one is apt to look at everything in a vague uncertain sort of manner. A mountain here, and a temple there--and then the guides and that kind of people contrive to vulgarise everything somehow; and then there is always an alarm about brigands, to say nothing of the badness of the inns. I really think you would be disappointed in Greece, Miss Lovel."

"Let me keep my dream," Clarissa answered rather sadly "I am never likely to see the reality."

"You cannot be sure of that; at your age all the world is before you."

"You have read Grote, of course, Miss Lovel?" said Miss Granger, who had read every book which a young lady ought to have read, and who rather prided herself upon the solid nature of her studies.

"Yes, I have read a good deal of Grote," Clarissa replied meekly.

Miss Granger looked at her as if she rather doubted this assertion, and would like to have come down upon her with some puzzling question about the Archons or the Areopagus, but thought better of it, and asked her father if he had been talking to Mr. Purdew.

Mr. Purdew was a landed gentleman of some standing, whose estate lay near Arden Court, and who had come with his wife and daughters to Lady Laura's ball.

"He in sitting over there, near the piano," added Sophia; "I expected to find you enjoying a chat with him."

"I had my chat with Purdew after luncheon," answered Mr. Granger; and then he went on turning the leaves for Clarissa with a solemn air, and occasionally pointing out to her some noted feature in a landscape or city. His daughter stared at him in supreme astonishment. She had seen him conventionally polite to young ladies before to-night, but this was something more than conventional politeness. He kept his place all the evening, and all that Sophia could do was to remain on guard.

When Clarissa was lighting her candle at a table in the corridor, Mr. Fairfax came up to her for the first time since the previous night.

"I congratulate you on your conquest, Miss Lovel," he said in a low voice.

She looked up at him with a pale startled face, for she had not known that he was near her till his voice sounded close in her ear. "I don't understand you," she stammered.

"O, of course not; young ladies never can understand that sort of thing. But I understand it very well, and it throws a pretty clear light upon our interview last night. I wasn't quite prepared for such wise counsel as you gave me then. I can see now whence came the strength of your wisdom. It is a victory worth achieving, Miss Lovel. It means Arden Court.--Yes, that's a very good portrait, isn't it?" he went on in a louder key, looking up at a somewhat dingy picture, as a little cluster of ladies came towards the table; "a genuine Sir Joshua, I believe."

And then came the usual good-nights, and Clarissa went away to her room with those words in her ears, "It means Arden Court."

Could he be cruel enough to think so despicably of her as this? Could he suppose that she wanted to attract the attention of a man old enough to be her father, only because he was rich and the master of the home she loved? The fact is that Mr. Fairfax--not too good or high-principled a man at the best of times, and yet accounting himself an honourable gentleman--was angry with himself and the whole world, most especially angry with Clarissa, because she had shown herself strong where he had thought to find her weak. Never before had his vanity been so deeply wounded. He had half resolved to sacrifice himself for this girl--and behold, she cared nothing for him!

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CHAPTER XV.


CHIEFLY PATERNAL.

The preparations for the wedding went on. Clarissa's headache did not develop into a fever, and she had no excuse for flying from Hale Castle. Her father, who had written Lady Laura Armstrong several courteous little notes expressing his gratitude for her goodness to his child, surprised Miss Lovel very much by appearing at the Castle one fine afternoon to make a personal acknowledgment of his thankfulness. He consented to remain to dinner, though protesting that he had not dined away from home--except at his brother-in-law's--for a space of years.

"I am a confirmed recluse, my dear Lady Laura, a worn-out old bookworm, with no better idea of enjoyment than a good fire and a favourite author," he said; "and I really feel myself quite unfitted for civilised society. But you have a knack at commanding, and to hear is to obey; so if you insist upon it, and will pardon my morning-dress, I remain."

Mr. Lovel's morning-dress was a suit of rather clerical-looking black from a fashionable West-end tailor--a costume that would scarcely outrage the proprieties of a patrician dinner-table.

"Clarissa shall show you the gardens between this and dinner-time," exclaimed Lady Laura. "It's an age since you've seen them, and I want to know your opinion of my improvements. Besides, you must have so much to say to her."

Clarissa blushed, remembering how very little her father ever had to say to her of a confidential nature, but declared that she would be very pleased to show him the gardens; so after a little more talk with my lady they set out together.

"Well, Clary," Mr. Lovel began, with his kindest air, "you are making a long stay of it."

"Too long, papa. I should be so glad to come home. Pray don't think me ungrateful to Lady Laura, she is all goodness; but I am so tired of this kind of life, and I do so long for the quiet of home."

"Tired of this kind of life! Did ever any one hear of such a girl! I really think there are some people who would be tired of Paradise. Why, child, it is the making of you to be here! If I were as rich as--as that fellow Granger, for instance; confound Croesus!--I couldn't give you a better chance. You must stay here as long as that good-natured Lady Laura likes to have you; and I hope you'll have booked a rich husband before you come home. I shall be very much disappointed if you haven't."

"I wish you would not talk in that way, papa; nothing would ever induce me to marry for money."

"_For_ money; no, I suppose not," replied Mr. Lovel testily; "but you might marry a man _with_ money. There's no reason that a rich man should be inferior to the rest of his species. I don't find anything so remarkably agreeable in poor men."

"I am not likely to marry foolishly, papa, or to offend you in that way," Clarissa answered with a kind of quiet firmness, which her father inwardly execrated as "infernal obstinacy;" "but no money in the world would be the faintest temptation to me."

"Humph! Wait till some Yorkshire squire offers you a thousand a year pin-money; you'll change your tone then, I should hope. Have you seen anything of that fellow Granger, by the way?"

"I have seen a good deal of Mr. and Miss Granger, papa. They have been staying here for a fortnight, and are here now."

"You don't say so! Then I shall be linked into an intimacy with the fellow. Well, it is best to be neighbourly, perhaps. And how do you like Mr. Granger?"

"He is not a particularly unpleasant person, papa; rather stiff and matter-of-fact, but not ungentlemanly; and he has been especially polite to me, as if he pitied me for having lost Arden."

In a general way Mr. Lovel would have been inclined to protest against being pitied, either in his own person or that of his belongings, by such a man as Daniel Granger. But in his present humour it was not displeasing to him to find that the owner of Arden Court had been especially polite to Clarissa.

"Then he is really a nice fellow, this Granger, eh, Clary?" he said airily.

"I did not say nice, papa."

"No, but civil and good-natured, and that kind of thing. Do you know, I hear nothing but praises of him about Arden; and he is really doing wonders for the place. Looking at his work with an unjaundiced mind, it is impossible to deny that. And then his wealth!--something enormous, they tell me. How do you like the daughter, by the way?"

This question Mr. Lovel asked with something of a wry face, as if the existence of Daniel Granger's daughter was not a pleasing circumstance in his mind.

"Not particularly, papa. She is very good, I daresay, and seems anxious to do good among the poor; and she is clever and accomplished, but she is not a winning person. I don't think I could ever get on with her very well."

"That's a pity, since you are such near neighbours."

"But you have always avoided any acquaintance with the Grangers, papa," 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