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

new to him. Before the Arden Court days he had occupied a handsome modern country house southward, near Doncaster. He had only expanded his style of living after the purchase of the Court, that was all. He had good taste too, and a keen sense of the incongruous. He did not affect the orchids and frivolous floral decorations, the fragile fairy-like glass, with which Lady Laura Armstrong brightened her dinner-table; but, on the other hand, his plate, of which he exhibited no vulgar profusion, was in the highest art, the old Indian china dinner-service scarcely less costly than solid silver, and the heavy diamond-cut glass, with gold emblazonment of crest and monogram, worthy to be exhibited behind the glazed doors of a cabinet. There was no such abomination as gas in the state chambers of Arden Court. Innumerable candles, in antique silver candelabra, gave a subdued brightness to the dining-room. More candles, in sconces against the walls, and two pairs of noble moderator-lamps, on bronze and ormolu pedestals six feet high, lighted the drawing-room. In the halls and corridors there was the same soft glow of lamplight. Only in kitchens and out-offices and stables was the gas permitted to blaze merrily for the illumination of cooks and scullions, grooms and helpers.

Miss Granger only lingered long enough to trifle with a cluster of purple grapes before giving the signal for withdrawal Her father started up to open the dining-room door, with a little sudden sigh. He had had Clarissa all to himself throughout the dinner, and had been very happy, talking about things that were commonplace enough in themselves, but finding a perfect contentment in the fact that he was talking to her, that she listened to him and smiled upon him graciously, with a sweet self-possession which put him quite at his ease. She had recovered from that awkward scene of the morning, and had settled in her own mind that the business was rather absurd than serious. She had only to take care that Mr. Granger never had any second opportunity for indulging in such folly.

He held the door open as Clarissa and his daughter went out of the room--held it till that slim girlish figure had vanished at the end of the corridor, and then came back to his seat with another sigh.

"Very far gone," Mr. Lovel thought, smiling ever so little, as he bent over his claret-glass, pretending to admire the colour of the wine.

It was really wonderful. That vague dream which had grown out of Lady Laura's womanly hints, that pleasant phantom which she had conjured up in Mr. Lovel's mental vision a month or two ago, in the midsummer afternoon, had made itself into a reality so quickly as to astound a man too Horatian in his philosophy to be easily surprised. The fish was such a big one to be caught so easily--without any exercise of those subtle manoeuvres and Machiavellian artifices in which the skilful angler delights--nay, to pounce open-eyed upon the hook, and swallow it bodily!

Mr. Granger filled his glass with such a nervous hand, that half the claret he poured out ran upon the shining oak table. He wiped up the spilt wine clumsily enough, with a muttered denunciation of his own folly, and then made a feeble effort to talk about indifferent things.

It was of no use; with every appearance of courtesy and interest Mr. Lovel contrived _not_ to help him. One subject after another fell flat: the state of the Conservative party, the probability of a war--there is always a probability of war somewhere, according to after-dinner politicians--the aspect of the country politically and agriculturally, and so on. No, it was no use; Daniel Granger broke down altogether at last, and thought it best to unbosom himself.

"There is something that I think you have a right to know, Mr. Lovel," he said, in an awkward hesitating way; "something which I should scarcely like you to learn from your daughter's lips, should she think it worth her while to mention it, before you have heard it from mine. The fact is, in plain English"--he was playing with his dessert-knife as he spoke, and seemed to be debating within himself whereabouts upon the dinning-table he should begin to carve his name--"the fact is, I made an abject fool of myself this morning. I love your daughter--and told her so."

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