When Horace Scarsdale left the lights of the village behind him, and
took his way through the black roads towards Marchmain, he carried with
him a burden of thoughts rather different from those which accompanied
him here. Though his was neither a noble nor a sweet development of
youth, still youth was in him, as in others, heroical and absolute. It
is impossible to reduce to description the kind of fortune he had
planned for himself; for, indeed, he had planned nothing, except a
general self-glorification and domination over the world.
His uncle's advice to him, to ascertain how his likings inclined, and
make choice of some profession or employment precise and definite,
humiliated and offended him unawares. His fancies had not condescended
to any such particularity. He had an impression on his mind, how
acquired he could not tell, that his father wronged him, and that it was
only necessary for him to be aware of their true circumstances to set
him at once beyond the common necessities of life. This conviction,
however, he had never betrayed to any one; and Colonel Sutherland's
recommendation, which implied the restraints of labour and something to
do, was not over-palatable to the young man brought up in idleness.
He was too old to begin the study of a profession, and when he thought
of the laborious days and confined existence of men who have their own
way to make in the world, secret rage and mortification took possession
of Horace. Was this all that remained for him?--was this the life which
he must look forward to?--was there nothing better in the future than
this? He had no desire to choose his means of living, his manner of
work--his thoughts eluded the subject when it was presented to him--it
was easier to brood over a mysterious wrong, and dream of sudden
revelations which should change everything in a moment. At the same
time, his intellect was sufficiently clear to show him that contempt was
likely to follow any exhibition of these feelings of his--he himself, as
he reflected on it, fumed at himself with silent disgust.
Then he had failed to influence Colonel Sutherland as he
expected--everything had failed in the absolute fashion--he could no
longer carry matters, even to himself, with the high hand of dominant
youthful unreason and disregard of things and men:--even things that
pleased him took a definite, particular, and limited form, and came
under conditions which made them distasteful. Already he began to
perceive that the language and manner, which did very well for his
alehouse companions, was not practicable in such society as that of his
uncle; and unaware as yet how to acquire a more successful tone, fell
into deep and angry mortification on the subject. He had not impressed
upon Colonel Sutherland a high idea of his spirit, his energy, and his
intellect, as Horace had intended to do; but had only conveyed the idea
of a presumptuous and ignorant youth to the mind of his uncle. He felt
this with a humiliation out of which he drew no humility. It was not so
easy as he supposed, to see through and dominate over even so simple a
character as that of Colonel Sutherland.
But it did not occur to Horace that his uncle's plain simplicity and
truthfulness was, in fact, the only thing in the world which could not
be dominated over by the most splendid superiority of intellect. He
supposed it was only his own ignorance, and inexperience, and want of
address--deficiencies mortifying enough to acknowledge certainly, but
not so mortifying as the entire incapacity either to comprehend or to
influence. He had time enough to think over all these things, as he made
his way through the lonely, dreary country roads, and across the moor.
This day, and this meeting, and the opening of his close heart even so
far, had flashed into life the smouldering fire in the mind of Horace.
He strode on with long, rapid steps, thinking it scarcely possible that
he could contain himself within the miserable hermitage of Marchmain,
even for a night. He went along pondering schemes to surprise the secret
from his uncle, in spite of this first failure; and, intoxicated by the
first realization of freedom, to imagine himself altogether free, his
own master, triumphing over the world. But among these fancies there
mingled neither a desire nor any attempt to ascertain, as Colonel
Sutherland said, "his own inclinations," or to decide upon what he
should do. He said quite truly, when he reported of himself, that he had
no inclinations which concerned labour or a profession, and even in his
own thoughts he evaded that question. He could think closely, when the
matter was to find out, from his uncle's unsuspicious temper, his
father's secret; but not when the thing to determine was the needful
labour of his own life.
Meanwhile, Susan sat silent in her father's presence, longing for the
return of Horace, picturing him to herself seated opposite to her uncle,
free to say what he would, opening his heart under those genial looks,
bringing home kind thoughts and kind messages, sunned and mellowed by
that unsuspected love which had developed all the wonderful
possibilities of a new life to herself. Even Susan could not sit still
to-night--her patchwork had lost its attraction for her--her thoughts
rose too fast, and were too numerous, to make her ordinary quiet
possible. In spite of herself, and even unawares to herself, she was no
longer the noiseless girl who sat hushed for hours, opposite to that
rigid figure with the little reading-desk and open book. To her own
amazement, she caught herself once humming an incipient tune as she sat
over her work; and after a while found it impossible to sit still, and
moved about with an involuntary restlessness, finding little matters to
arrange in all the corners of the room, chairs to place differently, the
curtains to be drawn closer, the fire to be stirred, something to keep
her in motion, and express, by that only means permitted to her, the
unaccustomed stir and commotion in her own heart. And what was even more
remarkable, Mr. Scarsdale himself seemed to have an instinctive
perception of this, and to be somehow moved in his own calm. A close
observer might have perceived that he no longer travelled by mechanical
accuracy from beginning to end of his page--that the leaves were tamed
less regularly, and that his eyes were fixed upon the upper margin of
his book, sometimes for half an hour together, while he watched, without
looking at her, his daughter's movements, and heard the faint rustle of
her hushed motion about the room. He divined the cause, and knew the
emotion in her heart, with a strange and bitter certainty. He was aware
by intuition that all the affection, and confidence, and filial warmth
which he had never sought, had sprung up in an instant to meet the touch
of another who had not the same natural claim as he; and the forlorn man
grew more forlorn by the knowledge, and perhaps even once for an instant
hesitated whether he should not, at this last moment, open his heart to
his child, his wife's daughter, the only woman of the family. Somehow
these words returned to him unawares. Mr. Scarsdale was not of the kind
of man who is much influenced by women. Sympathy was an offence rather
than a pleasure to him--he had none to bestow and he sought none.
Consolations of affection he scarcely distinguished from intrusions of
impertinence, and there was no soil on which tenderness could grow in
his rocky nature. But if he had little affection, he had a perennial
envy in his heart. He could not bear that another man should obtain
anything which seemed by right to belong to himself. The idea that his
wife's brother had already possessed himself of Susan's heart, more than
he, her father, had done during her whole life, galled him bitterly; so
much, that in that moment of indecision, while he held his book in his
hands as though he would have closed it, the impulse had actually come
upon him to put confidence in Susan, and so win her over, once for all,
to his side, and shut out the less legitimate claimant on her
affection.
The only woman of the family! It was _his_ daughter whom Edward
Sutherland made this claim of affection on--it was a piece of _his_
property which the new comer appropriated; and Mr. Scarsdale had almost
been moved out of himself to secure the filial heart which he cared not
for, yet which it galled him to see claimed by any other. But nature
conquered the sudden thought; he set his book once more steadily open
upon his little desk--he made his heart bitter and hard--a forced and
painful smile came upon his lip; within himself he recalled, half
unawares, some of those words of contemptuous sarcasm against women, by
which some men revenge themselves for some woman's misdeeds. But it made
him colder, harder, more forlorn and solitary, in spite of himself. His
son, whom he had always treated as an enemy, was with his
brother-in-law; his daughter, though here in bodily presence, was with
that intruder also in her heart. _He_ was alone, alone--always alone; a
jealous, envious, morbid rage deepened the shade upon his face; the love
was nothing to him--but he gnashed his teeth to see it enjoyed by
another.
When Horace returned--and they could hear his summons at the door, and
Peggy's tardy opening--he did not come into the dining-room, but went
upstairs at once; sending a message to Susan, to her great
disappointment, that he was tired with his walk from Tillington, and was
going to rest. Mr. Scarsdale did not retire till a much later hour than
usual that night; and when he did, made Susan precede him by a few
minutes, that he might see her shut up in her own room, and prevent all
communication with her brother. He persuaded himself that they were in a
conspiracy against him, and roused his temper with the thought; he spoke
more harshly to Susan than he had ever done before in her recollection,
and sent her to her own room in tears. Tears!--miserable woman's play
of pretended suffering!--at least he was beyond the weakness of being
deceived by it; and he smiled bitterly to himself, as he went to his own
comfortless rest, thinking on the smiles which would greet her uncle.
Unjust fate! unnatural nature!--for these smiles were his, and belonged
to him--yet he could not prevent the kind looks of a stranger from
stealing this property away.
And Susan cried herself to sleep, with hopes and happy anticipations
taking the bitterness out of the tears; and Horace sat in his room,
where he had hastily extinguished his candle on hearing approaching
footsteps--as little inclined to see Susan as his father was that he
should; pondering his wiles for overcoming his uncle. Only last night
the house had been undisturbed in its unchanging life; now everything
was commotion, disturbance, new efforts and hopes, a changed aspect of
existence: and all from the advent of that guileless old soldier, who,
waking in the night with his twinges of rheumatism, his fears that his
bed had not been aired, and his deeper perplexity and pain about his
sister's children, mixed these different troubles altogether, with a
hazy mist of oppression and distress in his mind as he turned his head
towards the wall, and sank into a heavy sleep.