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

old family mansion to get a site for his dainty little dwelling. There was a good stretch of river-frontage, from which the crowd could watch the boats flash by; now the striped shirts shooting far ahead to the cry of "Bravo, Brazenose!" anon the glitter of a line of light-blue caps, as the Etonian crew answered to the call of their coxswain, and made a gallant attempt to catch their powerful opponents; while Radley, overmatched and outweighted, though by no means a bad crew, plodded hopelessly but pluckily in the rear. Here Clarissa strolled for some time, leaning on her husband's arm, and taking a very faint interest in the boats. It was a pretty sight, of course; but she had seen so many pretty sights lately, and the brightness of them had lost all power to charm her. She looked on, like a person in a picture-gallery, whose eyes and brain are dazed by looking at too many pictures. Mr. Granger noticed her listlessness, and was quick to take alarm. She was paler than usual, he thought.

"I'm afraid you've been overdoing it with so many parties, Clary," he said; "you are looking quite tired to-day."

"I am rather tired. I shall be glad to go back to Arden."

"And I too, my dear. The fact is, there's nothing in the world I care less for than this sort of thing: but I wanted you to have all the enjoyment to be got out of a London season. It is only right that you should have any pleasure I can give you."

"You are too good to me," Clarissa answered with a faint sigh.

Her husband did not notice the sigh; but he did remark the phrase, which was one she had used very often--one that wounded him a little whenever he heard it.

"It is not a question of goodness, my dear," he said. "I love you, and I want to make you happy."

Later in the afternoon, when the racing was at its height, and almost all Mr. Wooster's visitors had crowded to the terrace by the river, Clarissa strolled into one of the shrubbery walks, quite alone. It was after luncheon; and the rattle of plates and glasses, and the confusion of tongues that had obtained during the banquet, had increased the nervous headache with which she had begun the day. This grove of shining laurel and arbutus was remote from the river, and as solitary just now as if Mr. Wooster's hundred or so of guests had been miles away. There were rustic benches here and there: and Clarissa seated herself upon one of them, which was agreeably placed in a recess amongst the greenery. She was more than usually depressed to-day, and no longer able to maintain that artificial vivacity by which she had contrived to conceal her depression. Her sin had found her out. The loveless union, entered upon so lightly, was beginning to weigh her down, as if the impalpable tie that bound her to her husband had been the iron chain that links a galley-slave to his companion.

"I have been very wicked," she said to herself; "and he is so good to me! If I could only teach myself to love him."

She knew now that the weakness which had made her so plastic a creature in her father's hands had been an injustice to her husband; that it was not herself only she had been bound to consider in this matter. It was one thing to fling away her own chances of happiness; but it was another thing to jeopardise the peace of the man she married.

She was meditating on these things with a hopeless sense of confusion--a sense that her married life was like some dreadful labyrinth, into which she had strayed unawares, and from which there was no hope of escape--when she was startled by an approaching footstep, and, looking up suddenly, saw George Fairfax coming slowly towards her, just as she had seen him in Marley Wood that summer day. How far away from her that day seemed now!

They had not met since that night in the orchard, nearly two years ago. She felt her face changing from pale to burning red, and then growing pale again. But by a great effort she was able to answer him in a steady voice presently when he spoke to her.

"What a happiness to see you again, my dear Mrs. Granger!" he said in his lightest tone, dropping quietly down into the seat by her side. "I was told you were to be here to-day, or I should not have come; I am so heartily sick of all this kind of thing. But I really wanted to see you."

"You were not at the luncheon, were you?" asked Clarissa, feeling that she must say something, and not knowing what to say.

"No; I have only been here half-an-hour or so. I hunted for you amongst that gaping crowd by the river, and then began a circuit of the grounds. I have been lucky enough to find you without going very far. I have some news for you, Mrs. Granger."

"News for me?"

"Yes; about your brother--about Mr. Austin Lovel."

That name banished every other thought. She turned to the speaker eagerly.

"News of him--of my dear Austin? O, thank you a thousand times, Mr. Fairfax! Have you heard where he is, and what he is doing? Pray, pray tell me quickly!" she said, tremulous with excitement.

"I have done more than that: I have seen him."

"In England--in London?" cried Clarissa, making a little movement as if she would have gone that moment to find him.

"No, not in England. Pray take things quietly, my dear Mrs. Granger. I have a good deal to tell you, if you will only listen calmly."

"Tell me first that my brother is well--and happy, and then I will listen patiently to everything."

"I think I may venture to say that he is tolerably well; but his happiness is a fact I cannot vouch for. If he does find himself in a condition so unusual to mankind, he is a very lucky fellow. I never met a man yet who owned to being happy; and my own experience of life has afforded me only some few brief hours of perfect happiness."

He looked at her with a smile that said as plainly as the plainest words, "And those were when I was with you, Clarissa."

She noticed neither the look nor the words that went before it. She was thinking of her brother, and of him only.

"But you have seen him," she said. "If he is not in England, he must be very near--in Paris perhaps. I heard you were in Paris."

"Yes; it was in Paris that I saw him."

"So near! O, thank God, I shall see my brother again! Tell me everything about him, Mr. Fairfax--everything."

"I will. It is best you should have a plain unvarnished account. You remember the promise I made you at Hale? Well, I tried my utmost to keep that promise. I hunted up the man I spoke of--a man who had been an associate of your brother's; but unluckily, there had been no correspondence between them after Mr. Lovel went abroad; in short, he could tell me nothing--not even where your brother went. He had only a vague idea that it was somewhere in Australia. So, you see, I was quite at a standstill here. I made several attempts in other directions, but all with the same result; and at last I gave up all hope of ever being of any use to you in this business."

"You were very kind to take so much trouble."

"I felt quite ashamed of my failure; I feel almost as much ashamed of my success; for it was perfectly accidental. I was looking at some water-coloured sketches in a friend's rooms in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré--sketches of military life, caricatures full of dash and humour, in a style that was quite out of the common way, and which yet seemed in some manner familiar to me. My friend saw that I admired the things. 'They are my latest acquisitions in the way of art,' he said; they are done by a poor fellow who lives in a shabby third-floor near the Luxembourg--an Englishman called Austin. If you admire them so much, you might as well order a set of them. It would be almost an act of charity.' The name struck me at once--your brother's Christian name; and then I remembered that I had been shown some caricature portraits which he had done of his brother-officers--things exactly in the style of the sketches I had been looking at. I asked for this Mr. Austin's address, and drove off at once to find him, with a few lines of introduction from my friend. 'The man is proud,' he said, 'though he carries his poverty lightly enough.'"

"Poor Austin!" sighed Clarissa.

"I need not weary you with minute details. I found this Mr. Austin, and at once recognized your brother; though he is much altered--very much altered. He did not know me until afterwards, when I told him my name, and recalled our acquaintance. There was every sign of poverty: he looked worn and haggard; his clothes were shabby; his painting-room was the common sitting-room; his wife was seated by the open window patching a child's frock; his two children were playing about the room."

"He is married, then? I did net even know that."

"Yes, he is married; and I could see at a glance that an unequal marriage has been one among the causes of his ruin. The woman is well enough--pretty, with a kind of vulgar prettiness, and evidently fond of him. But such a marriage is moral death to any man. I contrived to get a little talk with him alone--told him of my acquaintance with you and of the promise that I had made to you. His manner had been all gaiety and lightness until then; but at the mention of your name he fairly broke down. 'Tell her that I have never ceased to love her,' he said; 'tell her there are times when I dare not think of her.'"

"He has not forgotten me, then. But pray go on; tell me everything."

"There is not much more to tell. He gave me a brief sketch of his adventures since he sold out. Fortune had gone against him. He went to Melbourne, soon after his marriage, which he confessed was the chief cause of his quarrel with his father; but in Melbourne, as in every other Australian city to which he pushed his way, he found art at a discount. It was the old story: the employers of labour wanted skilled mechanics or stalwart navigators; there was no field for a gentleman or a genius. Your brother and his wife just escaped starvation in the new world, and just contrived to pay their way back to the old world. There were reasons why he should not show himself in England, so he shipped himself and his family in a French vessel bound for Havre, and came straight on to Paris, where he told me he found it tolerably easy to get employment for his pencil. 'I give a few lessons,' he said, 'and work for a dealer; and by that means we just contrive to live. We dine every day, and I have a decent coat, though you don't happen to find me in it. I can only afford to wear it when I go to my pupils. It is from-hand-to-mouth work; and if any illness should strike me down,