"Yes, she is a tiring person, certainly; but I think I had the worst of her at dinner and in the evening."

"But there was all the time before dinner, papa. She showed us her cottages--O, how I pitied the poor people! though I daresay she is kind to them, in her way; but imagine any one coming in here and opening all our cupboards, and spying out cobwebs, and giving a little shriek at the discovery of a new loaf in our larder. She found out that one of her model cottagers had been eating new bread. She said it gave her quite a revulsion of feeling. And then when we went home she showed me her account-books and her medicine-chest. It was very tiring."

"Poor child! and this young woman will have Arden Court some day--unless her father should marry again."

Clarissa's pale face flamed with sudden crimson.

"Which he is pretty sure to do, sooner or later," continued Mr. Lovel, with an absent meditative air, as of a man who discusses the most indifferent subject possible. "I hope he may. It would be a pity for such a place to fall into such hands. She would make it a phalanstery, a nest for Dorcas societies and callow curates."

"But if she does good with her money, papa, what more could one wish?"

"I don't believe that she would do much good. There is a pinched hard look about the lower part of her face which makes me fancy she is mean. I believe she would h.o.a.rd her money, and make a great talk and fuss about nothing. Yes, I hope Granger will marry again. The house is very fine, isn't it, since its renovation?"

"It is superb, papa. Dearly as I love the place, I did not think it could be made so beautiful."

"Yes, and everything has been done in good taste, too," Mr. Lovel went on, in rather a querulous tone. "I did not expect to see that. But of course a man of that kind has only to put himself into the hands of a first-cla.s.s architect, and if he is lucky enough to select an architect with an artistic mind, the thing is done. All the rest is merely a question of money. Good heavens, what a shabby sordid hole this room looks, after the place we have come from!"

The room was not so bad as to merit that look of angry disgust with which Mr. Lovel surveyed it. Curtains and carpet were something the worse for wear, the old-fashioned furniture was a little sombre; but the rich binding of the books and a rare old bronze here and there redeemed it from commonness--poor jetsam and flotsam from the wreck of the great house, but enough to give some touch of elegance to meaner things.

"O, papa," Clarissa cried reproachfully, "the room is very nice, and we have been peaceful and happy in it. I don't suppose all the splendour of Arden would have made us much happier. Those external things make so little difference."

She thought of those evenings at Hale Castle, when George Fairfax had abandoned her to pay duty to his betrothed, and of the desolation of spirit that had come upon her in the midst of those brilliant surroundings.

Her father paced the little room as if it had been a den, and answered her philosophic remonstrance with an exclamation of contempt.

"That's rank nonsense, Clarissa--copybook morality, which n.o.body in his heart ever believes. External things make all the difference--except when a man is writhing in physical pain perhaps. External things make the difference between a king and a beggar. Do you suppose that man Granger is no happier for the possession of Arden Court--of those pictures of his?

Why, every time he looks at a Frith or Millais he feels a little thrill of triumph, as he says to himself, 'And that is mine.' There is a sensuous delight in beautiful surroundings which will remain to a man whose heart is dead to every other form of pleasure. I suppose that is why the Popes were such patrons of art in days gone by. It was the one legitimate delight left to them. Do you imagine it is no pleasure to dine every night as that man dines? no happiness to feel the sense of security about the future which he feels every morning? Great G.o.d, when I think of his position and of mine!"

Never before had he spoken so freely to his daughter; never had he so completely revealed the weakness of his mind.

She was sorry for him, and forbore to utter any of those pious commonplaces by which she might have attempted to bring him to a better frame of mind.

She had tact enough to divine that he was best left to himself--left to struggle out of this grovelling state by some effort of his own, rather than to be dragged from the slough of despond by moral violence of hers.

He dismissed her presently with a brief good-night; but lying awake nearly two hours afterwards, she heard him pa.s.s her door on the way to his room.

He too was wakeful, therefore, and full of care.

CHAPTER XXII.

TAKING THE PLEDGE.

Clarissa had a visitor next day. She was clipping and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the late roses in the bright autumnal afternoon, when Lady Laura Armstrong's close carriage drove up to the gate, with my lady inside it, in deep mourning.

The visit was unexpected, and startled Clarissa a little, with a sensation that was not all pleasure. She could scarcely be otherwise than glad to see so kind a friend; but there were reasons why the advent of any one from Hale Castle should be somewhat painful to her. That meeting with George Fairfax by the churchyard had never been quite out of her mind since it happened. His looks and his words had haunted her perpetually, and now she was inclined to ascribe Lady Laura's coming to some influence of his. She had a guilty feeling, as if she had indeed tried to steal Lady Geraldine's lover.

Lady Laura greeted her with all the old cordiality. There was a relief in that; and Clarissa's face, which had been very pale when she opened the gate to admit her visitor, brightened a little as my lady kissed her.

"My dear child, I am so glad to see you again!" exclaimed Lady Laura. "I am not supposed to stir outside the Castle in all this dreary week. Poor papa is to be buried to-morrow; but I wanted so much to see you on a most important business; so I ordered the brougham and drove here, with the blinds down all the way; and I'm sure, Clary, you won't think that I feel papa's loss any less because I come to see you just now. But I declare you are looking as pale and wan as any of us at Hale. You have not recovered that dreadful shock yet."

"It was indeed a dreadful shock, dear Lady Laura," said Clarissa; and then in a less steady tone she went on: "Lady Geraldine is better, I hope?"

"Geraldine is what she always is, Clary--a marvel of calmness. And yet I know she feels this affliction very deeply. She was papa's favourite, you know, and had a most extraordinary influence over him. He was so proud of her, poor dear!"

"Won't you come into the house, Lady Laura?"

"By and by, just to pay my respects to your papa. But we'll stay in the garden for the present, please, dear. I have something most particular to say to you."

Clarissa's heart beat a little quicker. This most particular something was about George Fairfax: she felt very sure of that.

"I am going to be quite candid with you, Clary," Lady Laura began presently, when they were in a narrow walk sheltered by hazel bushes, the most secluded bit of the garden. "I shall treat you just as if you were a younger sister of my own. I think I have almost a right to do that; for I'm sure I love you as much as if you were my sister."

And here Lady Laura's plump little black-gloved hand squeezed Clarissa's tenderly.

"You have been all goodness to me," the girl answered; "I can never be too grateful to you."

"Nonsense, Clary; I will not have that word grat.i.tude spoken between us. I only want you to understand that I am sincerely attached to you, and that I am the last person in the world to hold your happiness lightly. And now, dearest child, tell me the truth--have you seen George Fairfax since you left Hale?"

Clarissa flushed crimson. To be asked for the truth, as if, under any circ.u.mstances, she would have spoken anything less than truth about George Fairfax! And yet that unwonted guilty feeling clung to her, and she was not a little ashamed to confess that she had seen him.

"Yes, Lady Laura."

"I thought so. I was sure of it. He came here on the very day you left--the day which was to have been his wedding-day."

"It was on that evening that I saw him; but he did not come to this house.

I was sitting outside the churchyard sketching when I saw him."

"He did not come to the house--no; but he came to Arden on purpose to see you," Lady Laura answered eagerly. "I am sure of that."

Unhappily Clarissa could not deny the fact. He had told her only too plainly that he had come to Arden determined to see her.

"Now, Clary, let us be perfectly frank. Before my sister Geraldine came to Hale, I told you that the attachment between her and George Fairfax was one of long standing; that I was sure her happiness was involved in the matter, and how rejoiced I was at the turn things had taken. I told you all this, Clary; but I did not tell you that in the years we had known him Mr.

Fairfax had been wild and unsteady; that, while always more or less devoted to Geraldine, he had had attachments elsewhere--unacknowledged attachments of no very creditable nature; such affairs as one only hears of by a side wind, as it were. How much Geraldine may have known of this, I cannot tell.

I heard the scandals, naturally enough, through Fred; but she may have heard very little. I said nothing of this to you, Clarissa; it was not necessary that I should say anything to depreciate the character of my future brother-in-law, and of a man I really liked."

"Of course not," faltered Clarissa.

"Of course not. I was only too happy to find that George had become a reformed person, and that he had declared himself so soon after the change in his fortunes. I was convinced that Geraldine loved him, and that she could only be really happy as his wife. I am convinced of that still; but I know that nothing on earth could induce her to marry him if she had the least doubt of his devotion to herself."

"I hope that she may never have occasion to doubt that, Lady Laura,"

answered Clarissa. It was really all she could find to say under the circ.u.mstances.

"I hope not, and I think not, Clary. He has been attached to my sister so long--he proposed to her in such a deliberate manner--that I can scarcely imagine he would prove really inconstant. But I know that he is a slave to a pretty face, and fatally apt to be ruled by the impulse of the moment. It would be very hard now, Clary, if some transient fancy of that kind were to ruin the happiness of two lives--would it not, my dear?"

"It would be very hard."