“But about this poor lady,” he said. “She was a perfect creature, you say, and I don’t want to contradict you. Probably she was everything that was good and lovely; but I suppose a woman of no family, from the evidence of this record here?”
“I don’t know anything about her family,” said Mr. Fielding, shortly. “It never occurred to me to think what her family was.” This he said with some heat and energy, probably because it was--and alas! the good Rector knew it was--a considerable fib. Time was when he had asked a great deal about Mrs. Arden’s family--as, indeed, everybody in the county had done; but without gaining any information. The Rector was angry with himself for the fib; but still maintained it, with a certain irritation, as it was natural for a man to do.
“It is a pity there should be so much mystery,” said Arthur, quietly. Of course, he saw through the fiction with the utmost distinctness; but civility required that he should take no further notice. And then the two stood together for a minute or, perhaps, two, in the narrow aisle, pretending to look round them, and making a critical survey of the church. “That tomb is fine, if one could see it,” Arthur said, pointing to a recumbent figure of an old Arden; and Mr. Fielding assented with a little nod of his head. And all this time old Simon, in his clogs, with the smock that looked grey-green in the dimness, was clamping slowly about, stirring the slumbrous, silent echoes. How strange it was--so real and living and full of so many seeds of excitement; yet all the time like something in a dream.
The Rector, however, accompanied Arthur out with pertinacity, seeing him, as it were, “off the premises”--as if there could have been anything to find out in the little innocent church, which all the world was free to inspect. Was it to keep him from talking to old Simon?--who, however, knew nothing--or was it from mere wantonness of opposition? The latter was really the case, though it was difficult even to make out how Mr. Fielding was stimulated into opposition. He must have felt it in the air, by some curious magnetic antipathy, for Arthur had not said a word, so far as he was aware, to betray himself. They walked together as far as the Hall gates, talking of various indifferent matters. “Living at the Red House!” said Mr. Fielding, with a smile of strange satisfaction. “Does Miss Arden know?” The Rector was pleased with this bit of information. He was glad of anything which would set their kinsman wrong with the brother and sister. It was a highly unchristian sentiment, but so it was.