The Lovels of Arden Part 71

"Take him away from you--nonsense! What are you dreaming of?"

"Death has been merciful; but you will be more cruel," she cried, looking at her husband. "You will take him away."

"Come, come, my dear lady, this is a delusion; you really must not give way to this kind of thing," murmured the doctor, rather complacently. He had a son-in-law who kept a private madhouse at Wimbledon, and began to think Mrs. Granger was drifting that way. It was sad, of course, a sweet young woman like that; but patients are patients, and Daniel Granger's wife would be peculiarly eligible.

He looked at Mr. Granger, and touched his forehead significantly. "The brain has been sorely taxed," he murmured, confidentially; "but we shall set all that right by-and-by." This with as confident an air as if the brain had been a clock.

Daniel Granger went over to his wife, and took her hand--it was the first time those two hands had met since the scene in Austin's painting-room--looking down at her gravely.

"Clarissa," he said, "on my word of honour, I will not attempt to separate you from your son."

She gave a great cry--a shriek, that rang through the room--and cast herself upon her husband's breast.

"O, G.o.d bless you for that!" she sobbed; "G.o.d bless--" and stopped, strangled by her sobs.

Mr. Granger put her gently back into her faithful hand-maiden's arms.

_That_ was different. He might respect her rights as a mother; he could never again accept her as his wife.

But a time came now in which all thought of the future was swept away by a very present danger. Before the next night, Clarissa was raving in brain-fever; and for more than a month life was a blank to her--or not a blank, an age of confused agony rather, to be looked back upon with horror by-and-by.

They dared not move her from the cheerless rooms in Soho. Lovel was sent down to Ventnor with Lady Geraldine and a new nurse. It could do no harm to take him away from his mother for a little while, since she was past the consciousness of his presence. Jane Target and Daniel Granger nursed her, with a nursing sister to relieve guard occasionally, and Dr. Ormond in constant attendance.

The first thing she saw, when sense came back to her, was her husband's figure, sitting a little way from the bed, his face turned towards her, gravely watchful. Her first reasonable words--faintly murmured in a wondering tone--moved him deeply; but he was strong enough to hide all emotion.

"When she has quite recovered, I shall go back to Arden," he said to himself; "and leave her to plan her future life with the help of Lady Geraldine's counsel. That woman is a n.o.ble creature, and the best friend my wife can have. And then we must make some fair arrangement about the boy--what time he is to spend with me, and what with his mother. I cannot altogether surrender my son. In any case he is sure to love her best."

When Clarissa was at last well enough to be moved, her husband took her down to Ventnor, where the sight of her boy, bright and blooming, and the sound of his first syllables--little broken sc.r.a.ps of language, that are so sweet to mothers' ears--had a better influence than all Dr. Ormond's medicines. Here, too, came her father, from Nice, where he had been wintering, having devoted his days to the pleasing duty of taking care of himself. He would have come sooner, immediately on hearing of Clarissa's illness, he informed Mr. Granger; but he was a poor frail creature, and to have exposed himself to the north-cast winds of this most uncertain climate early in April would have been to run into the teeth of danger. It was the middle of May now, and May this year had come without her accustomed inclemency.

"I knew that my daughter was in good hands," he said. Daniel Granger signed, and answered nothing.

Mr. Lovel's observant eyes soon perceived that there was something amiss; and one evening, when he and Mr. Granger were strolling on the sands between Ventnor and Shanklin, he plainly taxed his son-in-law with the fact.

"There is some quarrel between Clary and you," he said; "I can see that at a glance. Why, I used to consider you a model couple--perfectly Arcadian in your devotion--and now you scarcely speak to each other."

"There is a quarrel that must last our lives," Daniel Granger answered moodily, and then told his story, without reservation.

"Good heavens!" cried Mr. Lovel, at the end, "there is a curse upon that man and his race."

And then he told his own story, in a very few words, and testified to his undying hatred of all the house of Fairfax.

After this there came a long silence, during which Clarissa's father was meditative.

"You cannot, of course, for a moment suppose that I can doubt my daughter's innocence throughout this unfortunate business," he said at last. "I know the diabolical persistency of that race too well. It was like a Fairfax to entangle my poor girl in his net--to compromise her reputation, in the hope of profiting by his treachery. I do not attempt to deny, however, that Clarissa was imprudent. We have to consider her youth, and that natural love of admiration which tempts women to jeopardise their happiness and character even for the sake of an idle flirtation. I do not pretend that my daughter is faultless; but I would stake my life upon her purity. At the same time I quite agree with you, Granger, that under existing circ.u.mstances, a separation--a perfectly amicable separation, my daughter of course retaining the society of her child--would be the wiser course for both parties."

Mr. Granger had a sensation as of a volume of cold water dashed suddenly in his face. This friendly concurrence of his father-in-law's took him utterly by surprise. He had expected that Mr. Lovel would insist upon a reconciliation, would thrust his daughter upon her husband at the point of the sword, as it were. He bowed acquiescence, but for some moments could find no words to speak.

"There is no other course open to me," he said at last. "I cannot tell you how I have loved your daughter--G.o.d alone knows that--and how my every scheme of life has been built up from that one foundation. But that is all over now. I know, with a most bitter certainty, from her own lips, that I have never possessed her heart."

"I can scarcely imagine that to be the case," said Mr. Lovel, "even though Clarissa may have been betrayed into some pa.s.sionate admission to that effect. Women will say anything when they are angry."

"This was not said in anger."

"But at the worst, supposing her heart not to have been yours. .h.i.therto, it might not be too late to win it even now. Men have won their wives after marriage."

"I am too old to try my hand at that," replied Mr. Granger, with a bitter smile. He was mentally comparing himself with George Fairfax, the handsome soldier, with that indescribable charm of youth and brightness about him.

"If you were a younger man, I would hardly recommend such a separation,"

Mr. Lovel went on coolly; "but at your age--well, existence is quite tolerable without a wife; indeed there is a halcyon calm which descends upon a man when a woman's influence is taken out of his life, that is, perhaps, better than happiness. You have a son and heir, and that, I should imagine, for a man of your position, is the chief end and aim of marriage.

My daughter can come abroad with me, and we can lead a pleasant drowsy life together, dawdling about from one famous city or salubrious watering-place to another. I shall, as a matter of course, surrender the income you have been good enough to allow me; but, _en revanche_, you will no doubt make Clarissa an allowance suitable to her position as your wife."

Mr. Granger laughed aloud.

"Do you think there can ever be any question of money between us?" he asked. "Do you think that if, by the surrender of every s.h.i.+lling I possess, I could win back my faith in my wife, I should hold the loss a heavy one?"

Mr. Lovel smiled, a quiet, self-satisfied smile, in the gloaming.

"He will make her income a handsome one," he said to himself, "and I shall have my daughter--who is really an acquisition, for I was beginning to find life solitary--and plenty of ready money. Or he will come after her in three months' time. That is the result I antic.i.p.ate."

They walked till a late moon had risen from the deep blue waters, and when they went back to the house everything was settled. Mr. Lovel answered for his daughter as freely as if he had been answering for himself. He was to take her abroad, with his grandson and namesake Lovel, attended by Jane Target and the new nurse, vice Mrs. Brobson, dismissed for neglect of her charge immediately after Clarissa's flight. If the world asked any questions, the world must be told that Mr. and Mrs. Granger had parted by mutual consent, or that Mrs. Granger's doctor had ordered continental travel. Daniel Granger could settle that point according to his own pleasure; or could refuse to give the world any answer at all, if he pleased.

Mr. Lovel told his daughter the arrangement that he had made for her next morning.

"I am to have my son?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, don't I tell you so? You and Lovel are to come with me. 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 wors.h.i.+pped you. However, you have lost all that. I am not going to lecture you--the penalty you pay is heavy enough, without any sermonising on my part. You are a very lucky woman to retain custody of your child, and escape any public exposure; and I consider that your husband has shown himself most generous."

Daniel Granger and his wife parted soon after this; parted without any sign of compunction--there was a dead wall of pride between them. Clarissa felt the burden of her guilt, but could not bring herself to make any avowal of her repentance to the husband who had put her away from him,--so easily, as it seemed to her. _That_ touched her pride a little.

On that last morning, when the carriage was waiting to convey the travellers to Ryde, Mr. Granger's fort.i.tude did almost abandon him at parting with his boy. Clarissa was out of the room when he took the child up in his arms, and put the little arms about his neck. He had made arrangements that the boy was to spend so many weeks in every year with him--was to be brought to him at his bidding, in fact; he was not going to surrender his treasure entirely.

And yet that parting seemed almost as bitter as if it had been for ever. It was such an outrage upon nature; the child who should have been so strong a link to bind those two hearts, to be taken from him like this, and for no sin of his. Resentment against his wife was strong in his mind at all times, but strongest when he thought of this loss which she had brought upon him. And do what he would, the child would grow up with a divided allegiance, loving his mother best.

One great sob shook him as he held the boy in that last embrace, and then he set him down quietly, as the door opened, and Clarissa appeared in her travelling-dress, pale as death, but very calm.

Just at the last she gave her hand to her husband, and said gently,--"I am very grateful to you for letting me take Lovel. I shall hold him always at your disposal."

Mr. Granger took the thin cold hand, and pressed it gently.

"I am sorry there is any necessity for a divided household," he said gravely. "But fate has been stronger than I. Good-bye."

And so they parted; Mr. Granger leaving Ventnor later in the day, purposeless and uncertain, to moon away an evening at Ryde, trying to arrive at some decision as to what he should do with himself.

He could not go back to Arden yet awhile, that was out of the question.

Farming operations, building projects, everything else, must go on without him, or come to a standstill. Indeed, it seemed to him doubtful whether he should ever go back to the house he had beautified, and the estate he had expanded: to live there alone--as he had lived before his marriage, that is to say, in solitary state with his daughter--must surely be intolerable.