WHEN Colonel Sutherland had been established for nearly half-an-hour in
the angular arm-chair, which was the most luxurious seat this room
afforded, where he sat holding Susan's hand and keeping her by his side,
it suddenly occurred to him that he had forgotten the other members of
the family in his satisfaction with his new-found niece. "But, my dear
child, your father?" he said, hastily; "he expected me, did he not?--he
is surely at home."
And instantly Susan's countenance fell.
The old Colonel had begun to recover his spirits about his
brother-in-law's house. He saw Susan in blooming health, affectionate,
frank, and cheerful, and he began, with natural hopefulness, to impute
the dismal house and solitary life to some caprice, and to imagine to
himself a loving, united family, who were society enough to themselves.
But it was impossible to mistake the cloud which fell instantly upon
Susan's face. "Oh!--I ought to have told papa," she said, with a
hesitation and reluctance in her voice which went to her uncle's heart.
He drew her still closer to him, and looked in her face anxiously. But
Susan knew nothing of that domestic martyrdom which conceals and smiles
on the family skeleton. She was not aware how great a skeleton it
was--it was simply a thing of course, to her inexperienced spirit.
"I should think he must have heard--I should think Peggy must have told
him," said Susan. "He is not so angry when Peggy goes into the study as
when I go; but if you like, I will go and tell him, uncle, now."
"Never mind, Susan. I daresay your father will come when he chooses. A
deaf man would have heard Peggy's shout," said Colonel Sutherland; "and
Horace--was there nobody but my little girl who came to see the old
uncle--is your brother in the study too?"
"In the study!--he would as soon go down the well or up the chimney,"
said Susan, with a very short and half-frightened laugh. "No,
uncle--Horace is in Faneleigh Woods, or on the Moor. He never minds the
weather. I do think at this time of the year he gets wet through three
times a-week; but I am sure Horace will be very glad to see you--as glad
as I was--oh, I am quite sure!"
This expression of conviction, made with some heat and anxiety, had a
very different effect from that which Susan intended--it revealed to the
Colonel very plainly that Susan was anything but _quite_ sure of
Horace's sentiment; and, perhaps, Colonel Sutherland's first sensation
thereupon was offence and indignation; and his personal dignity suffered
a momentary mortification, from the idea that he had volunteered a visit
which was welcome to nobody but this little girl. This personal feeling,
however, was but momentary. A deeper pain returned to his heart; he
looked anxiously into Susan's blue eyes to find out, if possible, how
and why this unnatural state of things existed; or, failing that, what
effect upon her the loneliness and the hardness of her life had made.
But there were no mysteries in those eyes of Susan's--her girlish,
undisturbed heart, clouded by a little terror of her father, which took
no deeper form than that of discomfort and uneasiness, gleamed in them
with otherwise unmingled joy and satisfaction. All the natural filial
love hitherto denied her had sprung to life in a moment in Susan's
heart. She looked at her uncle with an affectionate pride, which made
her breast swell and astonished herself. To stand by his side, to feel
her hand held in his kind hand, to know by intuition that there was
interest for all her little affairs, and sympathy for all her unregarded
troubles in this new friend, was a new life to Susan. She felt
encouraged and emboldened without knowing how, as she appropriated,
involuntarily, his affection, his aid, his succour. She kept naming him
over and over within herself, with a secret inexplainable swell of pride
and comfort. Susan had never been disposed before to use the possessive
pronoun in regard to anything more important than pin-cushions and
scissors; and now to say, "My uncle!" was something as new as pleasant.
But notwithstanding that reference to her father curbed her tongue and
brought a shade of restraint over her thoughts in spite of herself; and
Uncle Edward's affectionate questions flagged--he too had something else
to think of--the change was apparent to both; and Susan, for the first
time in her life, moved to exert herself to seek a less unfortunate
subject, immediately remembered that her uncle must want refreshment,
and proposed to call Peggy to bring in his luncheon.
"Suppose we ring," said Colonel Sutherland, putting out his hand with a
smile to the unused bell-rope.
Susan started with terror to prevent him.
"Oh, uncle, we never ring!" she cried, in an alarmed tone.
The sound of that bell tinkling through the house might produce Susan
could not tell what tragedy in the study. She put out her trembling
hand and caught at her uncle's to stop his intended action. When she did
so, to Susan's great surprise the Colonel, dropping the bell, turned
round upon her suddenly, and put his arm round her.
"My poor child!" he exclaimed, with some sudden access of feeling,
scarcely intelligible to Susan, and with tears in his eyes.
She did not know what it meant, and yet she was very much inclined to
cry too.
At this moment fortunately Peggy came in unsummoned, bringing the tray,
but not the dainty dish which her care had prepared for Mr. Edward. When
she set it down upon the table, she addressed the visitor with the tone
and manner of one who has something disagreeable to say.
"The master's in his study, Mr. Edward: he never comes out on't at this
hour of the day. Will you please to step athwart the hall, and see him
there?"
"Certainly," said Colonel Sutherland, and rose at once, releasing Susan,
who could not help feeling a little tremor for the consequences of his
visit to her father. The old Colonel himself stepped solemnly, with a
certain melancholy in his whole figure and bearing, as he went out of
the room. It went to his heart to see the clouded face with which Susan
responded to his mention of her father, and he went to meet him
forgetting even the discourtesy which did not come to meet
him--oppressed, and grieved, and wondering. When he had closed the door
behind him he laid his arm on Peggy's arm, detaining her.
"What does it all mean?" he asked, with a troubled face, and stooped his
deaf ear to Peggy's voice.
"What does't mean? Mischief and the devil!--and good reason he has to be
proud of his handiwork," cried Peggy, vehemently, though in a whisper;
"and oh, Mr. Edward! before the two unfortunate things are killed and
murdered, save him from himself!"
Perhaps Colonel Sutherland did not perfectly hear this strange
communication; he nodded and went on after her, looking puzzled and
distressed--he was not of an intrusive or interfering nature. He had no
idea of thrusting into any man's secrets, with the view of doing him
good. And then, what influence had he, whom after twenty years absence
his host would not come to meet. So he went across the hall, stooping
his lofty grizzled head, and with a great confusion of grieved thoughts
in his mind--while Susan, left behind, went to the window to look for
Horace, and stirred the fire into a flame, and placed the tray and the
arm-chair in the most comfortable position possible, and trembled a
little, in a vague idea that Uncle Edward might somehow dissolve in that
awful study, or come out a different man.
In the study, just risen up from his chair, Mr. Scarsdale received his
visitor; he scarcely made a step forward to meet him, but he shook him
coldly by the hand. They stood there together, two strangely different
men--the recluse standing bolt upright, with his wide dressing gown
falling off from his spare figure, and his book open on the table--cold,
self-absorbed, in a passion of unnatural stillness; the soldier, with
his tall stooping figure, his deaf ear bending with that benign and kind
humility which made the infirmity a grace, and his anxious countenance
afraid to lose a word of anything that might be said to him. Mr.
Scarsdale's greetings were few and hurried; he asked when he returned,
and how he had travelled, and then, reaching a chair which happened to
be within arm's length, begged that Colonel Sutherland would sit down,
in a tone which plainly signified that the request itself was a favour.
Colonel Sutherland did so, looking at him with a strange
wistfulness--and then, reseating himself, his host spoke.
"Since you have come to Marchmain, I have something to say to you at the
commencement of what I suppose you will call our renewed intercourse. I
will deal with you frankly. I should not have ventured to invite, if you
had left it to me, a man of your tastes and feelings here."
"I can guess as much," said Colonel Sutherland, with a passing, angry
blush.
"I should not," said Mr. Scarsdale, coldly; "because my establishment is
very limited. I live in great seclusion, and I remember that you are a
lover of society, and what is called cheerfulness. But you _have_ come,
and yours is the responsibility if our life oppresses you. And one thing
I would say; I do not fear your discretion, having warned you. You are
aware of the very peculiar circumstances under which I stand--you know,
in short, the blight of my life. Pshaw! why speak of it, or give it a
name?--you know, of course, thanks to your sister's frankness, exactly
what I mean. Now this, I beg you to observe, is totally unknown to my
children: my son is not aware of his advantage over his father. I do not
mean that he shall be, until," added Mr. Scarsdale, with a ghastly
smile, "until the time of his triumph approaches; but, in the meantime,
I have to request that you will not think of extending to these young
people a confidence which I do not wish them to possess."
A flood of painful feelings rose during this speech over the Colonel's
face, of which kindness misconstrued and personal dignity wounded were
the least and lightest. He looked with an amazed, grieved,
uncomprehending wonder in the face of his brother-in-law, and was silent
for a few minutes, while the first pangs of indignant pain were
subsiding, though he involuntarily rose to his feet, an action which Mr.
Scarsdale followed. Perhaps this last rudeness might have roused the
warlike blood of the old soldier, had not his eye at the moment lighted
upon that portrait in the shadow of the curtain. That touch of old love
and sorrow moved him in the midst of his resentment almost to tears. He
had to pause before he could speak as calmly as he wished to speak. "I
have never thought it my duty," said Colonel Sutherland, "to interfere
in any man's house: I will not begin in yours--nor would I remain in it
even for a night, but for recollections which neither you nor I can
efface by any measure of hard words. But, for heaven's sake, Robert
Scarsdale, why is all this?--why do you meet me after this extraordinary
fashion?--why do you shut yourself out from human sympathy?--why refuse
yourself the comfort of your own children? As for myself, I am neither
an enemy nor a stranger. Old ties and kindness have never died out of my
recollection through all the sorrows and labours of my life, which have
not been few. Why have they passed out of yours? We are relations--not
antagonists."
"We _were_ relatives," said Mr. Scarsdale, stiffly.
"_Were!_ And my dear sister--your good wife--do you count her, then,
only among the things that _were_?"
"I beg your pardon: a man is generally the best judge of the goodness of
his wife; but there is no question at present of the virtues of the late
Mrs. Scarsdale," said the recluse. "I can see no benefit to result from
discussing past circumstances. You are welcome to my house, such as it
is; but, knowing my position as you do, I think myself quite justified
in requesting your silence on this matter. It was not my will,
certainly, which made you aware of it at first."
Colonel Sutherland stood before his brother-in-law in a flush of unusual
and inexpressible passion. He could not give utterance to the indignant,
mortified, impatient surprise with which he heard these words. But what
can any one say? It is hard for the voice of kindred to praise a poor
woman--even when she is dead--while her husband looks on blankly, and is
the best judge whether his wife has been a good wife or not. So he is,
of course: therefore, be silent, brother of the dead--say nothing about
her--she is judged elsewhere, and beyond human criticism now. But the
old soldier stood listening, with the pang of wonder, almost stronger
than that of anger and indignation, at his heart. He was so much
surprised, that he was speechless. This unexpected sentiment shook him
suddenly in his supposed position, and turned all his previous ideas
into folly. He was not the brother of a wife beloved, the uncle of
children who cherished their mother's memory, but an intruder, presuming
upon a past relationship. A flush of deep mortification came upon his
face: he made a stately, ceremonious bow to his ungracious host--
"In that case--as things are," stammered the Colonel, "I will make no
encroachments upon your hospitality. Pray, don't say anything--it is
unnecessary. I--I shall take care to pay due respect to your desires so
far as your children are concerned. In short, I beg you to understand
that your secret is, and has always been, with me as though I knew it
not; but," said Colonel Sutherland, pausing in his haste, and steadying
his voice, "it was, as you are well enough aware, known to half, at
least, of your former friends, and that by no--no indiscretion on the
part of--my sister--and it is open at this day, or any day, to the most
indifferent stranger who chooses to pay a fee at Doctors' Commons. What
you can mean, in these circumstances, by a precaution so--by such
precautions, I cannot tell. Is it not better your son should learn this
from his father, than from any ill-disposed companion whom the young man
may pick up? But that is certainly not my business. I presume that I
may, without objection on your part, see my niece and nephew sometimes
during the few days I remain in the nearest village? The children must
acknowledge a certain relationship with their mother's brother."
"Oh!" said Mr. Scarsdale, with a slight blush of shame on his cheek, "I
shall be glad to have you remain here."
Glad! the word was out of keeping entirely with his aspect and that of
the scene; it looked like a piece of mockery. Colonel Sutherland bowed
again with still more ceremony.
"It is too late," he said, quietly.
"Your room is prepared--you have been expected," said Scarsdale,
awaking, not only to the reproach of sending a stranger away, which,
distant as he was from the opinions of the world, touched him still, but
to the vexation of being resisted. "My daughter, so far as looks can
express it, has been expecting you eagerly. I beg you to reconsider your
decision--nay, I entreat, I insist that you should remain."
"Too late for that," said the Colonel, with a smile and a bow; "but I
will not detain you from your studies. Susan, I believe, has some
refreshment ready for her old uncle. I will not carry a punctilio of
welcome so far as not to break bread in your house; but I will bid you
now, and finally, good-bye."
So saying, the old soldier made a superb bow, and, without lifting his
eyes again to his churlish host to see how he took it, turned round on
his heel and left the room.
In the hall he encountered Peggy waiting for him, who, familiar in her
anxiety, laid her hand upon his sleeve, and stretched up on tiptoe to
whisper her anxious interrogation into the Colonel's deaf ear. He waved
his hand to her with an assumed carelessness, which he was far from
feeling.
"We should not 'gree, Peggy, if I stayed a day," he said, familiarly,
and with a smile. "You must direct me to the next village, where I can
get a bed and a dinner--for I will not leave the quarter till I know my
sister's bairns."
"But ye'll not forsake them; say you'll never go away till he promises
their rights," cried Peggy, in a whispered shriek.
The Colonel shook his head, and put her aside with his hand.
"If I can do anything for them, I will," he said briefly; and so went
into the dining-room, where Susan waited, trembling for the issue of
this scene: while Peggy, retiring to her kitchen in fierce
disappointment and mortification, threw her apron over her head and wept
a sudden torrent of hot tears; then comforting herself, repeated over
his words, wiped her tears, and carried in the luncheon. She would not
lose faith in her favourite with so short a trial. Daylight, good sense,
common affection did but need to breathe into this morbid house, and all
might yet be right.