While the two young men responded thus to Colonel Sutherland's
communications, Susan took her letter to her heart, and found unbounded
comfort in it. All had not disappeared with Uncle Edward. Here was a
perennial expectation, a constant thread of hope henceforward to run
through her life. Never before had Susan known the altogether modern and
nineteenth-century excitement of looking for the postman. It gave quite
a new interest to the day--any day that unknown functionary might come
again to refresh her soul with this novel delight. She could see him
come across the moor, that celestial messenger! Not a Cupid, honest
fellow; but bearing with him all the love that brightened Susan's
firmament. She thought it would be quite impossible to be dull or
listless now: even to be disappointed was something which would give a
point and character to the day; and all was very different from the dead
blank of her former life, in which she had no expectation, no
disappointment, nothing to look for, and for entertainment to her youth
only her patchwork and Peggy's talk, enjoyed by intervals. Her whole
existence was changed. Uncle Edward's bundle of books, which had not
captivated Susan at first sight, she found, after looking into them, to
be more attractive even than her new embroidery frame. They were all
novels--a kind of composition totally unknown to Susan. She had been
very little attracted by literature hitherto; in the first place,
because to obtain a book was a serious matter, necessitating a visit to
her father's study, and a formal request for the undesirable volume,
which had no charm for a young imagination when it came. But now Susan
read with devotion, and amazement, and delight, each more vivid than the
other. She entered into the fortunes of her heroes and heroines with a
perfect interest, which would have won any story-teller's heart. She sat
up almost all night, in breathless engrossment, with one which ended
unhappily, and cried herself to sleep, almost frozen, with great
indignation and grief at the last, to find that things would not mend.
There, too, she found enlightenment upon many things. She learned, after
its modern fashion, the perennial fable of the knight who delivers his
lady-love. She found out how it is possible for a heroine to come
through every trouble under heaven, to a paradise of love, and wealth,
and happiness; and Susan's spirits rose, in spite of herself, into that
heaven of imagination. Sometime or other nature and youth must come even
to Marchmain; sometime it would be Susan's turn; sooner or later there
would be some one in the world to whom she too would be the first and
dearest. This inalienable privilege of womankind came to every Laura and
Lucy in her novels, happily or unhappily; and the novels were not so far
wrong either--so it does, to be sure, in life; but Susan did not take
into her consideration the sad chance that liberation might be offered
to the bewitched princess only by the wrong knight. The wrong knight
only came in as a rival to make some complications in the story, as
Susan read it; and somehow the girl adopted the tale by intuition, and
fell into a vague delight of innocent dreams. Pursuing these at her
needlework, after all her novels were exhausted, was almost as good as
another romance; and this tale spun itself on inexhaustibly, a story
without an end.
This spring in Susan's fresh heart developed itself unawares in her
actions and life. She went about the house with a more sprightly step;
she caught up Peggy's snatches of song, and kept humming and murmuring
them, without knowing it. Sometimes her hands fell idle on her lap, as
her new thoughts rose. Often she went out upon solitary rambles, with
this pleasant companionship in her heart. It would not be right to say
she was bolder, for the contrary was the case--she was shyer, more ready
to shrink from any person whom she met; but somehow found a vague,
delightful expectation, which gave a charm to everything diffused over
her life.
A few days after she received Uncle Edward's letter, Susan had the good
fortune to meet her friend Letty, her sole acquaintance--her secret
intercourse with whom she had tremblingly revealed to the Colonel. Letty
was delicate, and had not been permitted to be out of doors during the
bad weather. She was a tall, meagre girl, who had outgrown her strength,
and whose sallow cheeks, and prominent light gray eyes, made the
greatest contrast possible to Susan's blooming health and simple beauty.
Letty was supposed to have received a wonderful education: she could
play on the piano, and draw, and speak French--achievements which, in
Peggy's opinion, made her a most desirable companion for poor Susan, who
was ignorant of all these fine things. Besides her accomplishments,
Letty was very sentimental, and wrote verses, and took rather a pathetic
view of things in general. Her great misfortune was that in her own
person she had nothing to complain of. She was the only child of her
parents, who petted and humoured her, as old people are apt to do to
the child of their old age, and who were correspondingly proud of her
acquirements. Consequently, to her own great disgust, she did very much
as she liked, and was contradicted by nobody. She threw herself, with
all the greater fervour of sympathy, into the circumstances of her
friend, not without a little envy of Susan's trials, and splendid
imaginations, had she been in the same position, of what she should have
done. After this long separation she flew upon Susan, throwing her long
arms round her friend's neck with enthusiasm. Then the two, with arms
interlaced, strayed along by the side of the high hedgerow in the
winterly sunshine--the young buds opening out on the branches against
which they brushed in passing, and the young grass rustling under their
feet. There was not a single passenger on the road as far as they could
see. They were free to exchange their friendly confidence, without the
least fear of interruption.
"Oh! Susan, I have wanted so to see you! I have been so melancholy shut
up at home," cried Letty; "and when I wanted to come out, mamma would
not let me. I do not mind being ill. Why should not I die young like my
cousin Mary? I think it must be very sweet to die young, when everybody
will be sorry for you--oh, Susan, don't you?"
"I--don't--know," said poor Susan, who thought this was a great sign of
Letty's superiority, and scarcely liked to confess her own
worldlymindedness. "No; I should think it rather hard to die if I had a
great many people who loved me like you."
"Ah, people may love one--but then, perhaps, they don't understand one,"
said Letty. "Mamma would not let me go to the Sabbath school, because
she thought I might take cold! Ah, Susan, do you think that is an excuse
that will do at the Judgment?--perhaps I might have said something to
one of the children which she never would have forgotten all her
life--and to think of the opportunity being lost, for fear I might take
cold! I am sometimes afraid," said Letty, with a deep mysterious sigh,
"that God will think it necessary, for poor papa and mamma's sake, that
I should die very early; for I am so frightened that they are making an
idol of me. We ought not to love anyone so very much, you know."
"I think I would not mind how much anyone loved me," said Susan, with a
little boldness; "the more the better, I think; for indeed I am sure,
Letty, that the Bible never says anywhere that it is sinful to be very,
_very_ fond of one's friends."
"We must never make idols of them," said Letty; "and when I see how
mamma takes care of me, I tremble for her. I should not mind it at all
myself, but she would be so lonely if I were to die."
"Oh, Letty, for pity's sake, do not speak of it!" cried Susan.
"Why shouldn't I speak of it? I feel quite sure that people who feel
like me never live long," said Letty. "I am going to write my will in
poetry, Susan--I did one verse the other night. I think it is rather a
nice idea--it is about putting flowers on my grave."
"Oh, Letty, do be quiet!--for your mamma's sake!" cried Susan, in terror
and dismay, holding fast by her friend's arm, as if afraid to see her
vanish into the impalpable air.
Letty was not at all inclined, having made so great an impression, to
give up the subject, and was about to resume it in a still more pathetic
tone, when Susan, stimulated by her own livelier meditations, made an
animated diversion.
"My Uncle Edward has been here!" said Susan; "he is the very kindest,
dearest old man you ever saw. I did not think there was anybody like him
in the world. He took me to Kenlisle one day in a gig, and bought me
books, and I don't know how many things. Oh, Letty, such delightful
books!--one is the 'Heiress;' I have just finished it; about a young
lady that had a great deal of money left her, and did not know of it,
and was brought up quite poor, and a gentleman fell in love with her,
and they went through _such_ troubles; and at last they were--but oh, I
forgot, I ought not to tell you the end. You don't know how nice it is
to get frightened over and over again, and think something dreadful must
happen, and yet everything comes all right in the end. I wish, I am
sure--oh, Letty, do you think you could come, just come once, to
Marchmain?"
"Yes, if you wish me, Susan," said Letty, with a little demureness.
"Wish you! Oh, if I could only have my own will! Would your mamma be
pleased?" cried Susan; "and would you promise not to be frightened if
you saw papa?"
"Frightened!" exclaimed Letty, repeating the word in her turn. "But if I
saw him, it would perhaps be my duty to speak to him, Susan--for very
likely if some one spoke to him _properly_, about being good to you, and
about what people say, he would be kinder, I should like very much to
see him--perhaps I might be the means of doing him good."
Susan was lost in unspeakable dismay. "Oh, Letty, what _are_ you
thinking of?--you don't know papa!" she said with a smothered voice; her
desire to show Letty all her treasures fading before her terror at the
thought of anybody attempting to "do good" to her terrible father.
Unconsciously she quickened her pace, and hurried her companion farther
from Marchmain. The idea terrified her out of her discretion. She forgot
everything else in that dreadful thought. Lost in her apprehensions,
she hurried her companion on towards Letty's own house, where she
resolved to deposit her safely out of harm's way, telling meanwhile in
elaborate detail the plot of another of her novels. Letty, who had no
intention of making an immediate onslaught upon Mr. Scarsdale, turned
the matter over in her mind, and thought it was "quite a duty," if she
should see him, to remonstrate with her friend's unnatural father. The
thought captivated Letty. As for the consequences, instead of being
frightened, she would be pleased to be denounced and upbraided. That
would be the persecution which she could not possibly find out in any
other form in her life, and for which she longed as the seal of her
Christianity. Notwithstanding, she inclined her ear to hear of the
novel, and was not unmoved by Susan's promise to send it to her. They
parted at a little distance from the little manse, which was Letty's
home. "And remember, Susan," said Letty, kissing her affectionately,
"that whenever you choose to send for me, I shall come."
Susan turned home again alone, with the sensation of having escaped
from a great danger. She was quite sick with apprehensions. No wonder
her father debarred her from society, when the issue was that a girl of
her own age should take it upon her, without warrant from any one, to
argue the question of his conduct with papa. She made haste to reach
Marchmain, with an odd fear that Letty might possibly take another fancy
and get there before her; and what with the fright and the ridiculous
thought, Susan, half laughing and half crying, began to run to the
defence of her home and her father. Who could the poor child trust if
Letty failed her? When she came in sight of Marchmain, Susan stayed her
steps; she did not want to betray her panic to any one there, though
indeed nobody but herself ever looked out of these gloomy windows. There
was some one, a rare event in that road, passing before the house. He
went slowly along in front of Marchmain, looking at it. Susan looked at
it too, with curiosity, wondering what could interest any stranger in
her cheerless home. The sun shone once more on the gable as Colonel
Sutherland had seen it, besetting the bare walls round and round, and
printing off its naked outline against the moor, which stretched round
it on every side. Familiar as she was with the house, Susan's heart sank
as her attention fell involuntarily upon the strange nakedness and
neglect which its unenclosed condition seemed to show. A bit of cottage
paling, a yard of grassplot, the merest attempt at flowers, even a
little paved yard, would have made a difference. No such thing was
there; the doorstep descended upon the wayside herbage; around, the
black whins and withered heather came close up to the walls. Here was no
gracious life, active and affectionate, to beguile into verdure the
stubborn yet persuadable soil. Nobody cared--that was the sentiment of
the place: its unloveliness was of the merest unimportance to those who
found a shelter within its walls. Who was this looking at it? When he
had once passed the house, he turned back again, made a little pause,
and then sauntered along the front of it once more, advancing to meet
Susan, who felt a little alarmed at so unusual an exhibition of
interest. One of the little clumps of seedling trees in the moss
interposed between them before they met. Coming out of its shadow at the
same instant, they encountered each other suddenly, and without
preparation. Susan half stopped, started, made a suppressed exclamation,
for which she could have killed herself, and blushed over all her face.
The young man was no less startled; he too grew crimson with a guilty
and conscious colour; and as Susan hastened past him, stepped aside out
of her way, and took off his hat, without attempting to say a word. Both
not only recognized each other, but perceived, with a wondering
sensation, something akin to pleasure, that they _were_ mutually
recognized. Both hurried off the scene precipitately, without looking
behind them, and both somehow discovered that this sudden meeting had
given a different direction to their several thoughts. Strange,
unexplainable consequence of a natural accident!--why should not these
two have met on a public road as well as any other two in the district?
Yet somehow this sudden encounter had a certain extraordinary
supernatural aspect to them both.
This person whom Susan was so unaccountably startled to see, was, of
course, Roger Musgrave, walking here, as he walked everywhere within ten
miles, because the poor fellow could not endure himself, and did not
venture to battle with his own thoughts, and kept himself out-of-doors
and in motion as a kind of safeguard. The only wonderful thing of the
whole was that while Susan, without running, reached Marchmain with an
incredible silent speed, and got in with her pulse high and her eyes
shining, and the most profound amazement in her mind, Roger scarcely
ever drew breath, on his part, till he had reached his own deserted
house, though that was five miles off. Why they should have used such
prodigious pains to get as far distant as possible from each other, in
the shortest conceivable time, remains until this hour the mystery of
that day.