The next day John Gilsland and his cart took their leisurely way across
the moor, carrying with them the note which Horace had addressed to
Peggy at Marchmain.
Horace had now been gone two days. The afternoon of the day on which he
left home Peggy confided her suspicions on this subject to Susan, who
was struck with alarm and terror, quite out of proportion to the event.
Where had he gone?--what would he do?--and what, oh! what would papa
say? Susan sat by herself in the dining-room, vainly trying to work; and
now that there was so little likelihood of hearing his footstep,
watching for it with the most breathless eagerness. Evening came, and
the dreaded hour of dinner; exactly at six o'clock Mr. Scarsdale took
his seat at the head of the table. Horace's chair was placed as usual,
and stood empty by the side. Mr. Scarsdale gave one glance at the empty
seat, as he took his own, but said nothing. Susan could not help
remembering the only former time when that place was vacant, the day so
happy and so miserable, when Uncle Edward first came to Marchmain. As on
that occasion, his father took no notice of the absence of Horace; the
dinner was eaten in silence, Susan swallowing a sob with every morsel
which she ate, and trembling as she had trembled before her father ever
since the interview in which he forbade her correspondence with her
uncle, and she refused to obey him. That scene had never departed from
her mind--her own guilty feeling had never subsided. Bearing on her
conscience her first real personal offence against her father, it was
impossible for Susan now to have any confidence even in their accustomed
stillness. She felt a continual insecurity when he was present--at any
moment he might address to her these commands and reproaches again.
But the evening passed as usual, without any interruption; once more Mr.
Scarsdale sat motionless at the table, as he had done every evening in
Susan's remembrance, with his book set up on the little reading-desk,
and the crystal jug with his claret, reflecting itself in the shining
table. And there sat Susan opposite him, somehow afraid to-night to
bring out her embroidery-frame, or to employ herself with any of the
pretty things which Uncle Edward had bought for her--taking once more,
with timidity, and half afraid that he would notice even that, her
neglected patchwork, out of her large, old work-bag. Susan had been
trimming up for her own use, with great enjoyment of the task, with
linings of blue silk, and scraps of ribbon found in one of Peggy's
miscellaneous hoards, an old, round work-basket, which she had found in
the upper room where the apples were kept. But she did not venture to
put that ornamental article, so simply significant as it was of the
rising tide of her young feminine life, upon the table. She bent over
her neglected patchwork, smoothing it out and laying the pieces
together, but somehow finding it entirely impossible to fix her
attention upon them. She could not help watching her father, shaking
with terror when, in putting down her scissors, or her cotton, she
disturbed the profound stillness; she could not help listening intently
for those sounds outside which betokened to her accustomed ear the
approach of Horace. She longed, and yet she feared to see her brother
come back again; she could not believe he had really gone away; she
wondered, till her head ached, where he could be; and could not bring
herself to realize anything more cheerful about him than an aimless
wandering through that dreary moor, or through the cold cheerless dark
streets described in some of her novels, which two things the poor child
connected together with an unreasonable ignorance. Then came the dismal
tea-making. The night went on--it grew late, but still Mr. Scarsdale
kept his seat. Midnight, dark, cold, solitary night, with the fire going
out, the candles burned to the sockets, and Peggy, as all was still,
supposed to be in bed. Then Mr. Scarsdale closed his book. "It is quite
time you should have gone to rest," he said. "Why do you start?--is
there anything astonishing in what I say? Good night!"
Susan got up instantly, stumbled towards the side-table, got her candle,
and lighted it with a trembling hand. She went out of the room so
quickly, and in such evident trepidation, that the sight of her terror
struck another arrow into her father's mind. He looked after her with a
pale, dreadful smile. "She is afraid of me!" said the forlorn man. He
said the words aloud, and Susan came back trembling to the door, to ask
if he called her. His "No!" drove her to her room with hurried steps,
and limbs which could scarcely carry her. Susan was so terrified that
she could not rest; she put her candle in her room, and came out to look
over the rail of the little gallery from which the bed-chambers opened.
There, standing in the dark, after a little interval, she saw her father
come out of the dining-room, with his candle in his hand, and go to the
door, which he barred and bolted, with a precaution Susan had never
known to be taken before. Then she heard him securing the shutters of
the windows. With an infallible instinct of alarm and terror, she knew
that it was against the return of Horace that all these precautions were
taken. She stole into her room, closed the door noiselessly, and looked
out. Black in its unbroken midnight of gloom lay the moor, a waste of
desolate darkness on every side, rain falling, masses of black clouds
sweeping over the sky, a shrill gleam of the windy horizon far away,
shining over the top of the distant hills. And Horace, if he should be
near, if he should still be coming home, remorselessly shut out! Susan
sat up half the night, listening with a nervous terror to all the
mysterious sounds which creep and creak in the absolute silence of the
dead hours of night. Horace was most comfortably asleep in a comfortable
room in the "George," at Kenlisle, while his poor sister sat wrapped in
a big shawl, trying to keep awake, thinking she heard his footsteps
approaching the house, and waiting only to be certain before she should
steal down-stairs in the dark to open the door. Poor Susan fell fast
asleep at last, and slept till long after her usual time; then she was
roused by Peggy to just such another day. Mr. Scarsdale still did not
say a word, though his glance at the empty chair was more sharp and
eager. And so things continued till the forenoon of the third day, when
John Gilsland stopped his cart at the door; and, calling for Peggy in
his loud, hearty voice, which could be heard over all the house,
informed the entire family of Marchmain that he had come for Mr. Horry's
box.
Susan was with Peggy in the kitchen, solacing her anxieties by a
discussion of where her brother could be, and what he was most likely to
be doing. This summons made her jump, as she stood listlessly by the
window. Peggy, without saying a word, made a stride to the side door,
and went round to the corner of the house to confront this incautious
messenger. Susan, trembling and afraid to join her, sprang up upon the
wooden chair, and peeped out of the window. There she saw Peggy in the
act of assaulting the unfortunate John, shaking him by the shoulder,
and demanding to know if _that_ was the way to deliver a message at a
gentleman's house. John scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders:
he was too much accustomed to ill-usage from women to feel much
resentment; he only looked sheepish, and, patting the mare on the
shoulder, came round with Peggy to the side door. There she introduced
him on tiptoe, taking elaborate precautions of quietness, which were all
intended to impose upon John, and silence his heavy feet and country
clogs to the greatest degree of silence possible.
"It's not so heavy but what a man like you can carry it down on your
shoulder," said Peggy; "and if ye make a bump on the road, Gude forgive
ye, for I'll no, nor the master, if he's disturbed in his study. I would
not advise you to rouse up _him_. Whisht then!--if you have any regard
for your own peace, hold your tongue! In the very stairs, and the study
no furder off nor yon door! If ye cannot be quiet, it's as much as your
ears are worth!"
Thus warned, John went creaking on his tiptoes upstairs, and was
introduced to Mr. Horace's room, where the furniture had been specially
arranged, and where the good order and trim array of everything made no
small impression on his simplicity. John got downstairs again in safety,
jealously watched by Peggy, who stamped her foot at him from the foot of
the stairs, and produced the "bump" which she had deprecated by her
super-caution. However, the business was performed in safety, the cart
was drawn up to the side door, and Horace's goods safely deposited in
it--Mr. Scarsdale, up to this moment, taking no notice of the
proceeding. Then John returned into the kitchen, to have a little chat
with Peggy, who was nothing loth. Peggy did all the marketing for the
family, and though perfectly impenetrable and deaf to all questions
about her master, was rather popular in the neighbouring villages, as a
housekeeper and purveyor, who was not sparing in her provisions for her
master's table, was like to be. John stood, with his hat in one hand and
a glass of beer of Peggy's own brewing in the other, describing to Mr.
Scarsdale's factotum the events of the previous days--Th' young squire
gone out of the Grange, no one knew where; his own son listed, and gone
for a soldier; and Mr. Horry--ah! Mr. Horry was deep, he never let on of
_his_ secrets: he supposed the family knew where the young gentleman
was.
Susan kept in the kitchen, hovering about the window, very anxious, but
afraid, to ask questions, and listening to this volunteer gossip with
all her ears. Peggy answered very brusquely to the inferred question of
Horace's messenger.
"You may depend the family doesn't need to ask you," said Peggy. "Mak'
haste, man, about your ain business--no wonder the wife has little
patience if this is how you put off your time. How will ye send on the
box?--that's all I'm wanting to hear."
"Oh, just by the carrier--to the 'George' at Kenlisle--it's none so far
away either," said John; "if the family wanted word sent particular, I
could goo a' the way mysel.'"
As he made this offer he threw an inquisitive glance at Susan, whose
restless attention he had skill enough to perceive. Peggy's answer was
a violent shake of her head, as she went on with her work. John resumed.
"Our wife, she thinks it's a very strange thing that these three should
be away at the same moment, as you may say. Not to compare our Sam to
the young gentlemen, but you see Sam had a word himself with the Cornel.
As for the young squire, he was coming and going the whole time, and Mr.
Horry, he's nevvy to th' ould gentleman, as far as I can hear. It's a
rael coorious thing--they all had speech o' the Cornel, and all started
off on the same day. Maybe you and the young lady you ken a deal better
nor that--but ye'll allow it's an awfu' coorious thing."
While John, pausing, looked for an answer, in calm security of having
said something which could not fail to make an impression; while Peggy,
with her back to him, vigorously washed her dishes, clattering one upon
another with emphasis, which, however, did not drown his voice, and was
not intended to do so; and while Susan stood timidly with her work in
her hand, startled with this new piece of intelligence, and looking
towards the stranger with a face full of wonder, a sudden sound startled
the vigilant ear of Peggy. But she had scarcely time to put down the
dinner-plate in her hand, and to wave her towel at John Gilsland,
commanding imperatively a hasty retreat, when the door of the kitchen
suddenly flew open, and Mr. Scarsdale himself, pale, erect, and
passionate, his dressing-gown flying wide around him with "the wind of
his going," his thin lips set together, and an expression of restrained
and silent fury in his face, came abruptly into the room.
John recoiled a step in amazement and awe; then, emboldened by
curiosity, kept his place, and made his bow to the master. Mr. Scarsdale
stamped his foot on the floor in lack of words, and pointed to the door
with a violent gesture; and before he knew what he was about, Peggy
rushed against John, thrust him out before her, and closed and bolted
the door after him. The amazed and sheepish look with which he rubbed
his shoulders, and gazed at the inhospitable door from which he had been
so summarily expelled, would have been worth a comic actor's while to
see. The honest fellow stood outside, looking first at the house and
then at his mare, with a ludicrous astonishment. "The devil's in the
woman!" said John. That was a proposition not unfamiliar to him. Then in
his blank bewilderment he marched gravely round the house, spying in at
the vacant windows. Everything was empty except that kitchen, in which
the pale spectre in the dressing-gown might be murdering the women for
anything John knew. What should he do? After various pauses of troubled
cogitations, John decided that discretion was the better part of valour,
and chirruped to his mare. The two went off together, much discomfited,
and the landlord of the "Tillington Arms" had full occupation for the
rest of the road in amending the circumstances according to his fancy,
and bringing himself into sufficient dignity and importance in the tale
to make it meet for the ears of his wife.
When John Gilsland was disposed of, Mr. Scarsdale addressed himself to
his daughter and his servant.
"I understand," he said, without speaking directly to either, "from his
absence at table, and from the articles which I have just now seen taken
out of the house, that Mr. Horace Scarsdale has chosen to leave
Marchmain; I say nothing against that--he is perfectly welcome to choose
his own residence; but I desire you to understand, both of you, that on
no pretence whatever must this young man return into my house--not even
for a visit; he has placed himself among those strangers whom I decline
to admit. I make no complaint," added the recluse, coldly, "that my
family conspire against me, and that messages are received, and my
property sent away, without my knowledge."
"Master," said Peggy, while Susan stood trembling before her father, her
work fallen from her hands, and her womanish fright and anguish falling
into tears. "Master," exclaimed his old servant, who was not afraid of
him, "you're no to leave that reproach on me. I've conspired against
none of you, if it was my last word! Your son's gone, as he should have
gone a dozen years ago, if ye had been wise, or ta'en my advice. He's
gone, and God's blessing and grit speed be with him! I never was more
glad of nothing in my born days; and for his things in his box!--I
knowed you a lad and a man, and a better man nor you are this day; but
did I ever even it to you to keep back another man's, if it was a
servant's claithes?"
"Be silent!" cried Mr. Scarsdale, putting his hand to his ears; "you
conspire, you whisper, you hide in corners; there is not a soul in the
world whom I can trust; but I beg you to understand, in respect to
Horace Scarsdale, that I am master here, and that he shall not return to
this house. He may say he wishes to see his sister--he does not care a
straw for his sister! Do you comprehend me?--he is never again to enter
here!"
Neither at first said a word, but Peggy advanced before her master and
dropped him a grave curtsey. "You're master here," said Peggy; "never a
word against your will, as has been proved for fifteen years, could wild
horses get out of me. I've served you faithful, and I will. Bear your
ain blame before heaven, and the Lord forgive you, master. It's my hope
he'll never seek to enter these darksome doors again."
Thus concluded the startling episode of Horace Scarsdale's departure
from his father's house. Deeply wounded, in spite of herself, by her
father's plain and cold statement that Horace did not care a straw for
his sister, Susan went back to her now unbroken solitude. Perhaps it was
true, but it was not the less cruel to say it; and now that he was gone
Susan's heart clung to her brother. She tried to remember that he had
been sometimes kind to her; it was hard to collect instances, and yet
Horace, too, like other people, had been moved by caprice sometimes in
his life, and _had_ done things once or twice contrary to the tenor of
his character. And her whole nature revolted against the unnatural
prohibition which debarred his return. There she sat, poor child, in
that dreary room, certain now that no voice but her father's should ever
break its silence--that nobody but he should ever sit opposite to her at
table; and if her heart sank within her, as she tried in vain to occupy
herself with her needlework, it was not wonderful. She thought of
Horace, and Roger Musgrave, and Sam Gilsland, with a sigh--she wondered
whether John was right; and with almost a pang of jealousy wondered
still more that her uncle should take pains to liberate these three,
while yet he did not try to do anything for _her_. She could not
work--she tried her novels, but she had read them all, and in them all
there was not one situation so forlorn and hopeless as her own. Poor
Susan threw herself on her knees, with her face against the prickly
hair-cloth of the elbow-chair--not to pray, but to bewail herself,
utterly disheartened, angry and hopeless! Her temper was roused; she was
cross and bitter, and full of unkindly thoughts; she felt as if she
herself loved nobody, as nobody loved her. By-and-bye, when a sense of
her attitude struck her, with its appearance of devotion, and the
strangely contrary feelings of her mind, she sprang to her feet in a
passion of sobs and tears, feeling more guilty and miserable than she
could have explained. After a long time--for there were elements of
stubbornness and obstinacy in Susan's nature--she subdued herself, and
went upon her knees in earnest. When she was there the second time,
thoughts came upon her of Uncle Edward's tender blessing, of his family
in heaven, and of the confidence, so calm and certain, with which the
old man looked thither. The poor child scarcely knew how to pray out of
her wont; but her very yearning for some compassionate ear to pour her
troubles into gave her heart expression--and in the act was both comfort
and hope.