Mr. Scarsdale was alone in the study, where he passed his recluse life.
The fire burned low in the grate, the red curtains hung half over the
window, the atmosphere was close and stifling. He sat in his usual seat,
with the invariable book before him. But though it was hardly possible
for him to be more pale, there was something in the colour of his face,
in the rigidity of his attitude, which betrayed a smothered passion and
excitement exceeding his wont. When Colonel Sutherland knocked at the
door, he got up with a kind of convulsive haste, stepped towards it at
one hasty stride, and opened it. He thought it might be Susan, returned
to make her submission. When he saw his brother-in-law, Mr. Scarsdale
gazed at him with undisguised amazement and a sullen rage. He stood
facing the Colonel, holding the door, but without inviting or even
permitting him to enter. "I have something important to say to you,"
said the old soldier--"permit me to come in. I shall not detain you."
Then the recluse stepped back suddenly, opening the door wide, but
without uttering a word. Colonel Sutherland went in, and the door was
closed upon him; they stood opposite each other, looking in each other's
faces. The Colonel, with a grieved surprise and appeal in his look, the
other with his head bent, and nothing but sullen, smothered passion in
_his_ face. Two men more unlike never stood together in this world. For
the first moment not a word passed between them, but their looks, full
of human motion and painful life, made the strangest contrast in the
silence, with the motionless, dreary quiet of this stifling room.
After this pause, natural wonder and impatience seized the Colonel; he
could not resist the impulse of trying to right himself--to right his
brother-in-law--to recover if possible a natural position. "Robert!" he
exclaimed, suddenly, with unpremeditated warmth and emotion, "why is
this?--what have I done to you?--is there any reason why you cannot
receive me as of old?"
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Scarsdale, with a formal inclination of
his head. "My life and all my habits differ very widely from yours. I
have long made a rule against admitting strangers into my house. My
circumstances are peculiar, as you are aware--perhaps my dispositions
are peculiar too."
"But, for heaven's sake!" cried the Colonel, who found this repulse not
so decisive as he had feared--"why shut out _me_?"
Once more the solitary man bowed, with a sarcastic respect. "Again, I
beg your pardon; but it does not follow," said Mr. Scarsdale, with a
smile, which would have been insulting, but that it trembled with
unreasonable passion, "that a man's own favourable opinion of himself is
shared by all the world."
The Colonel looked at him with a hasty, astonished glance, a look of
compassion and surprise, which wounded the pride of his companion to the
quick.
"Well, then," cried the master of Marchmain, "I decline to receive
you--your society is disagreeable to me. Is not that enough?"
"That is perfectly enough," said Colonel Sutherland; "now, I have only
my commission to discharge, and I am grieved I should have made so
unfavourable a beginning. I come to you on behalf of your son."
"Of my son!--oh! and of my daughter also, I presume! You would wish me
to bring her 'out,' and give parties for her--perhaps you would like her
to have a season in London?" said Scarsdale, with his trembling lip,
and the forced smile of his passion--"is there anything else I can do
for you?--for, as it happens, I choose to take Susan into my own hands."
"I say nothing of Susan," said the Colonel, gravely; "if you choose to
debar the poor child from all the pleasures of her youth, it is not for
me to interfere. She is in God's hands, who will guide her better than
either you or I. I come to you from your son. Horace is a man grown,
very nearly of an independent age, clever, ambitious, and at that time
of life when youths would fain see the world and act for themselves; do
you think it right to keep him here without occupation or training, in
the most precious years of his life? I come to you with a humble
entreaty from the young man, that you will give him your permission and
help to set forth upon the world for himself."
"That is admirable!" said Mr. Scarsdale--"my permission and help? This
is the first time I have heard of the faintest desire on his
part;--nay, I do not believe that he does desire it--you have made it up
among you; and no doubt you have settled the manner as well as the fact.
What profession, pray, does my clever son mean to devote himself to?"
"He wishes to study law," said the Colonel, laconically.
"Law?--to read for the bar, I presume?" said the father; "to have
chambers in the Temple, and the pleasures of _his_ youth. It is vastly
well, Colonel Sutherland--I admire your project greatly--he has my
_permission_ by all means; as for my _help_, I do not need to inform you
what kind of claim this young man has upon me. Is it likely I should
take my straitened means, from my own comfort and my daughter's, to
support _him_ in luxury and idleness?--is it probable, do you think,
that I will make a sacrifice for him? Can you look me honestly in the
face and ask it of me?"
"I trust so," said the Colonel, with a little sadness. "Scarsdale, we
are both fathers--we ought to be able to understand each other; is it
necessary to weigh the nature of claims, the probabilities of temper,
when one appeals to a father for the future life of his son?"
"My son's future life," said Mr. Scarsdale, vindictively, "is quite
independent of me. Had there been any nature left in our mutual position
things might have been different. No! my son has no need to betake
himself to a profession--he is quite above the necessity. Should I
accelerate the time when he shall come to his fortune? Should I beg your
prayers--for I remember you are pious--that he may enter speedily upon
his inheritance? I thank you. I do not profess to be quite so
disinterested. No, let him wait!--let him take his share of the evils of
mankind. Must _I_ deny myself to smooth his path for him, and give him
roses for my thorns? It would be the conduct of a fool. No, I repeat he
has no need for a profession--let him wait! I support him--is it not
enough?"
"Too much!" cried Colonel Sutherland; "you must perceive that it would
be ten times better for him to support himself, to labour for himself,
instead of embittering his life in this forced idleness here. Why should
he be a burden on you at all, at his years? Though he does not
ultimately require a profession, to have one would be his salvation now.
You are a hale and healthy man, in spite of all you do to yourself--you
have twenty years to live before you attain the limited age of man. Can
you think of this unfortunate boy living here as he lives now, in utter
ignorance of the fortune which waits him, till he is forty? Think of it,
I implore you! It has lasted long enough--too long, Scarsdale. Think, if
you have human bowels, human mercy in you, of the extraordinary fate to
which you destine your only son. Suppose him growing into maturity, into
full manhood, to years in which you had the world at your feet and
children at your knees; yet kept in darkness, kept in bitterness, idle,
solitary, able to think of nothing but of the injury that has been done
to him; until, all at once, you are struck down in extreme desolate old
age--and wealth, which is no longer anything to him, wealth which will
disgust him, falls into his hands. What! you turn away--you will not
have that event even mentioned? What are you thinking of? Is a miserable
heap of money of more importance to you than the welfare of your son?"
"Upon my word," said Mr. Scarsdale, turning away with a violent colour
on his face, and an exclamation of disgust, "I see no reason in the
world why I should study the welfare, as you call it, of my son."
"You do not--and you can say so?" cried the Colonel, in loud and stern
astonishment.
"I do not, and I can say so, and without raising my voice," said the
other, with a sneer. "My son, I beg to tell you once again, is provided
for. I give him food and clothing--he has nothing else to hope or to
expect from me."
"This is all then that you have to say?" said Colonel Sutherland; "you
will not assist him to make his life honourable and useful? Will you
explain to him why you decline doing so?--will you tell him that his
future is so secured, that a profession is unnecessary to him? Do the
boy some justice--let there be a natural explanation between you. You
cannot expect him to go on in this way for years. Could you wish it? I
beseech you, either tell him how matters stand, or help him to carry out
his most lawful and virtuous wish! Will you do one or the other? I
beseech you, tell me!"
"I tell you no!" said Mr. Scarsdale. "Let the dog wait! I will neither
put myself in his power, nor help him to the best means of spying out my
secret. No! Have I spoken distinctly?--he shall have neither confidence
nor assistance from me!"
"Is it possible?" cried the Colonel, driven to an extremity of mingled
wonder, indignation, and pity; "for the sake of your own exasperated
feelings, _can_ you make up your mind to revenge yourself, by ruining
this unhappy lad, your only son, for ever?"
"I beg your pardon--this unhappy lad is very well off," said his
extraordinary father; "so well off, that I certainly do not find myself
called upon to do any more for him--although," said Mr. Scarsdale, with
a glance of bitterness upon the kind, anxious face which bent towards
him, "I am aware that to help a man who does not require help is
understood to be the way of the world."
The Colonel's weather-beaten face flushed high with angry colour; he was
surprised and grieved and wounded to his heart, but he had still and
always this advantage over his adversary, that the unkindest insinuation
which Scarsdale could make made his brother-in-law only the more sorry
for him, and wrought more grief than passion in his mind. After the
first moment he looked wistfully into the face of his former friend,
with a compassionate and troubled amazement, which, little though the
Colonel intended it, roused his companion to fury. "How you must be
changed!" he said, sadly, "to be able to say such words to me;" and
Colonel Sutherland sighed as he spoke, with the hopeless patience of a
man who sees no means of bringing good out of evil. The sigh, the tone,
and the look wound up the recluse into the utmost rage; he made a wild
imperative gesture and exclamation--for his voice was choked with
fury--and opened the door violently. It was thus that Colonel
Sutherland's appeal and hopes for Horace concluded; he left the study
without another word.