“By no means,” he said; “what I have to say may be said quite well before you. I have to put a question or two about my cousins at the Hall. Here is a chair for you, Sarah; sit down, and don’t be frightened. Nothing is going to happen. I want you to tell me what you know about Mrs. Arden, that is all.”
“How could I know aught about Mrs. Arden, Mr. Arthur,” said Sarah, wonderingly, “when she died afore I come? I took Miss Clare from a baby, but her poor dear mamma was dead and gone. My brother Simon he knows, and so do the Rector, and poor Miss Letty, at the Doctor’s; but I don’t know no more than this good lady, as is a stranger to the place. There’s her name on the stone, top of t’oud Squire’s pew in t’church, and that’s all as I know.”
“Are there none of the old servants about that knew her?” asked Arthur.
At which point a very strange interruption ensued.
“I canna tell, sir, why you are asking, or if it is for good or evil,” said Mrs. Murray. “I dinna belong to the place, as Sarah says, nor I’m no one that ought to ken; but I have seen Mrs. Arden, if its about her ye want to ken----”
“You have seen Mrs. Arden!” said Arthur, in amazement; and old Sarah echoed his exclamation.
“Yes, I have seen her; no often, but more than once. If that is all, I can tell you what like she was, and all I ken about her; or, if not all---- She was ill in health and troubled in spirit, poor thing, when I saw her. I cannot think she was ever either strong or gay.”
“Was that after her--children were born?” asked Arthur, eagerly.
“It was before she had any bairn. It was thought she never would have one, and her husband was sore disturbed. But, ye see, the doctors turned out fools, as they do so often,” Mrs. Murray added hastily, turning and fixing her eyes upon him. She made a pause between the two sentences, and changed her tone completely. The first was mere reminiscence, the other had a certain defiance in it; and Arthur felt there was some meaning, though one he could not read, in the suddenly watchful expression of her eyes.
“Yes,” he said, thoughtfully, “so it appears.” And as he spoke the watchfulness went off Mrs. Murray’s face, and she evidently (though why he could not think) calmed herself down. “So it appears,” he repeated vaguely. “She was some time married, then, I suppose, before my cousin Edgar was born?”