It was not till weeks after the mortal remains of his father had been
laid to their final rest that Horace, out of his fever and frenzy, came
to himself. Long before that time the popular opinion had changed
concerning Marchmain and its inhabitants. The straggling country
neighbourhood, with its little knots of villages, and solitary great
houses, had eschewed for years that gaunt house on the moor; but, from
the day on which the old soldier and the weeping girl stood alone
together beside that grave--Susan, overpowered with a natural grief,
which sprang more from her position as a daughter and a woman than from
direct personal anguish, which could not exist in her case, weeping her
tender natural tears, full of filial compunction and pity, on that quiet
bed, where the unquiet man had at last found rest; while Colonel
Sutherland stood by gravely mournful, his noble old face clouded with
compassion and sorrow, not for the death, but for the life that found
its conclusion there--the mind of the countryside had changed. The group
was one which those who saw it could not forget; and it began to be
remembered, in the great houses near, that Mr. Scarsdale, on his
arrival, had been thought worthy of a visit, and that the name of the
gallant old Colonel was not unknown to fame. Then, when already the
matrons near began to take pity upon Susan's lonely orphanage, and the
dangerous illness of her brother, rumours, of which nobody could trace
the origin, began to spread of the family history, and the great,
unbelievable fortune which Mr. Scarsdale's death had put into the hands
of his son. The story was tragical enough, and had shades sufficiently
dark to bear dilution and variation. Then Roger Musgrave appeared in
haste upon the scene, bringing his mother with him to his desolate old
Grange--his mother, and little Edmund, and, of necessity, a train of
servants. After a little they were followed--some hasty furnishing
having in the meantime been done at Roger's ancient house--by the
beautiful Amelia and her sisters. Amelia proclaimed herself most anxious
to see and comfort Susan, her brother Roger's bride--but perhaps had a
little curiosity besides to see with her own eyes what were the
substantial attractions of Armitage Park. Edmund was not going to die,
and Amelia had but little chance of being an heiress; so the beauty
thought it might probably be as well, before Horace Scarsdale got better
of his fever, to arrange matters with Sir John.
All these changes came about while Horace lay senseless in the wild
turmoil of his fever, or, struggling with delirium and incipient
madness, fought for his life. Susan had already received various
matronly visits of condolence and sympathy; various young ladies unknown
to her before had declared themselves ready to swear eternal friendship
with the solitary girl; and many a flattering report of the wealth and
importance of Horace, such as would have been balm to his soul a few
months ago, had been spread through the county; while Horace lay all
unconscious of the fortune which had after all come to his hands
unstained by actual bloodshed. When he did come to himself at last it
was a warm midsummer day, the blazing sun of which made vain efforts to
penetrate into his darkened room; and that room was full of the luxuries
of sickness--those luxuries which only the most close and affectionate
care provides. In the wonder and weakness of his sudden awaking, he lay
motionless for a time looking round him, unable to connect what he saw
with any portion of his former life. Long experience and close
observation of his nephew had convinced Colonel Sutherland that some
great mental shock was the occasion of his sudden illness, and the
tender-hearted old man, forgetting when he watched by Horace's bedside
everything save that he was his sister's son, had caused every piece of
furniture which could be changed in the room to be taken away, and
replaced the familiar objects with safe unknown articles, which could
recall no painful associations to his patient's mind. He was seated
there himself grave and anxious, for this awakening was the crisis of
the fever, and Uncle Edward had persuaded even Susan to leave him alone
by his nephew's side. The Colonel's heart was heavy as he sat gravely
pondering over the young man's face; it was no "feeling" which had
driven Horace desperate when his father died; and the grieved watcher,
himself so nobly innocent and unsuspicious, could not but fear some
miserable connection between the young man's agony and that vindictive
inscription in the medicine chest. He was afraid that Horace might say
something to betray himself, or to convey some similar doubt to the mind
of his sister, to vex Susan in her quietness; so he would have no one
there with him to watch that awaking, but sat by the bedside grieved,
anxious, and alone.
When Horace's wandering, feeble glance fell upon his uncle, a great
cloud and shadow came over him even in the calm of his weakness.
Everything came back to him in that first glimpse of Uncle Edward's
face. He shut his eyes tightly again, with a longing to return to his
insensibility, and gave a groan out of the depths of his miserable
heart. He was cured--his fever was over: he had come back to life, with
its agonies worse than fever. The very sound of that groan gave signal
of recovery to the watcher by his side.
"You must keep quiet, Horace; you are better: you will soon be well, if
you take care. And here is something you are to take," said the Colonel.
"Hush! compose yourself, you live; and God is in heaven, and all will be
well!"
But Horace did not answer; he kept his eyes shut for another bitter
moment, gathering up the threads of his scattered recollections. Then
the last incident of all returned to him--he was innocent!--so he said
to himself, with a natural human casuistry; innocent! though it was in
spite of himself. Innocent! at least, not guilty by the actual event.
Then he opened his eyes and took the medicine, which his uncle had
poured out for him. He was the same Horace as of old--subdued, but not
changed; and in the sudden recollection that he was not a parricide, a
rush of his old self-assertion returned to his awakening mind, and of
his old sullen look to his face. But he did not say anything for the
moment--he sunk back again upon his pillows, weak to extremity; almost
the only sign of life in him being that uneasy guiltiness in his heart,
which even the discovery, which had released him from the weight of
murder, could only salve, and could not cure.
But he was uneasy, too, with the Colonel's grave, grieved, conscious
face beside him--he could not help saying something. He remembered so
distinctly now the study and all its familiar objects, the
medicine-chest standing on the table; somebody must have brought him
from that place where he lost consciousness, to this where he regained
it. "Uncle, who found me?" he said, shutting his eyes once more, unable
to bear that grieved look of knowledge which was in the Colonel's eyes.
"_I_ found you, Horace," said Colonel Sutherland, quietly; "let your
mind be quite at rest, no one else came near us. I put away the little
medicine-chest," he continued, with hesitation, "and the paper which
dropped out of it. They are locked up in one of your drawers; no one has
either seen or touched them but myself."
Then there was a long, conscious pause; neither the sick man nor the
watcher spoke--the one contending with his natural sullen pride, which
would confess no sin, and the horror within him of knowing that so far
as intention and purpose went he was as guilty as any actual murderer;
the other grieved, silent, afraid, anxious _not_ to hear that some
diabolical purpose had been nursed in that young head, yet sadly fearing
that, whether confessed or not, the wickedness had been there.
"Uncle," said Horace, at last, the words bursting from his lips in an
eager paroxysm of defence against himself, and vindication to his own
conscience--"Uncle, _I_ did him no harm."
"I am very thankful to hear it, Horace," said the Colonel, very gravely;
then he made another pause--"unless it will relieve your mind tell me no
more," he said, quickly--"only, Horace, remember, you have been very
near the grave; perhaps you know yourself that you have been near
something more terrible than the grave; you should pause and think now
while you can; for every evil intention, as well as for every act of
sin, there is pardon with God, for Jesus' sake."
He said it simply, but with a solemn, almost judicial gravity. He could
not help guessing what had been going on in the troubled spirit beside
him, of which he knew so little; he could not help shuddering at the
thought of the horrible guilt from which, by accident, as it appeared,
and interposition of God, the young man had been unwittingly preserved.
God help him!--so young, so wretched, to drag the hideous burden of that
remembrance through all his days of life! The deepest pity, even amid
his horror, struck the old soldier's noble, innocent heart. He could not
comprehend the guilt--but he felt the remorse, with a compassion that
was half divine.
Horace made no reply--he shrank, in spite of himself, as though he would
have crept away morally out of his uncle's presence; for the instant the
young man realized, with a desperate force of conviction, the "gulf
fixed" between heaven and hell which none can pass over; he felt it in
his guilt a thousand times more deeply than the pure heart beside him
did, in its tender depths of pity. He lay still in his weakness, with a
mortified consciousness of humiliation and inferiority, insufferable to
his arrogant spirit. Then it occurred to him that there was still one
thing, by which he might drag himself up fictitiously to that higher
elevation, which he recognized vaguely in his downfall, and envied,
though he knew it not. He turned once more towards the watcher by his
bed with a sudden movement, which was so quick as to give him pain.
"You think very badly of me," he said, hastily; "but I have got
something to tell you--something to tell Roger Musgrave, which will
remedy one evil at least, and change, more than you can suppose, his
position in the world."
The Colonel waved his hand, with the action of a man who knows what
another is about to say. "My dear boy," he said, compassionately, "I am
grieved that you cannot have the satisfaction of doing, at least, this
piece of justice--but you are too late. The Kenlisle attorney, hearing
of your connection with Musgrave, and of some promise you had made him
when you heard of your father's illness, sent to beg an interview with
Roger and Sir John, and confessed the whole transaction. That matter has
been arranged while you have been ill."
"Do you mean Pouncet?--Pouncet has consented to his own ruin?" cried
Horace, with a pang of disappointment. He had still been reckoning on
this as a moral compensation which it would always be in his power to
make, to balance more or less his personal guilt.
"Not to his ruin--they have made terms," said the Colonel. "He restores
the property, and pays something to Roger besides, and there will be no
prosecution or exposure. He loses Armitage's confidence, of course, and
is no longer his man of business; but he preserves his character, and
eases his conscience. All that is arranged. My dear Horace, you are
extremely weak: try to compose yourself, and forget these troublesome
affairs. If you can, for your health's sake, endeavour to sleep."
Horace turned his face sullenly towards the wall, and said no more.
Perhaps this sharp pang of unexpected mortification and disappointment
eased him of his heavier load. He set his teeth as he turned away and
relieved himself from the sight of Uncle Edward's compassionate and kind
face: everything humiliated him in that self-importance which was so
strong a power within him. He once had it in his power to be at least
Roger Musgrave's magnanimous deliverer, and to expose the fraud which
had left the youth penniless; but he had lost his opportunity, and even
that moral make-up for his other grievous guilt had slid away from him.
He lay here powerless, known to one man, at least, in all the blackness
of his evil intention, and to more than one man, stood revealed and
visible, a willing accomplice in a fraud, left in the lurch by the
principal sinner. His disappointment--his failure--the humiliation of
his guilt--sickened him to the heart; he closed his eyes upon the light,
disgusted and miserable. He had his reward!