“I was only sixteen, my love, when I first went to India,” said the Colonel; “the boys, as you call them, must not stay at home all their lives—they must do something. My Ned will be on his way to India, if all is well, in a year or two. The sooner a young man gets into his work the better—and now Horace would set about it too.”
“But he cannot do anything, uncle,” said Susan, seriously; “what is he going to do?”
“Has he never told you?” asked Uncle Edward.
The question seemed to imply blame, and Susan was troubled.
“Horace is not like you, uncle,” she said, recovering a little boldness; “he does not tell me things; he knows a great deal more than I do—he has almost learned German—and he thinks a great deal more. I am afraid I do not always understand him when he does speak to me. It is my fault; so he thinks over everything all the more, and I am afraid sometimes gets angry in his heart, because no one can understand him at Marchmain!”
Colonel Sutherland shook his head, but did not say anything. He began to tell Susan what he did when he was a lad.
“There were a great many of us at home, to be sure,” said the Colonel; “but we were all scattered before the youngest was fifteen—the sisters married, and the brothers making their own career. They are all dead, Susan, every one—but you have quantities of cousins, my dear, in India and elsewhere, whom you never heard of, I daresay. Your Uncle William was puisne Judge of the Saraflat, John was Resident at Cangalore, both of them very much respected. I was the youngest but one. I could not bear the thought that all my brothers were independent but myself. I gave them no peace at home till I got my cadetship. Unless one has the good fortune to get an appointment, it is quite as hard work getting on in India as at home, my dear; and all our influence had been used up for my elder brothers, and exhausted before it came to my turn. I was but a subaltern when I married, Susan. Your aunt was—ah, I can’t describe her, my love. I am very happy on the whole and contented, but sometimes I think on what might have been, and make myself wretched, which is very sinful, considering how much I have to thank God for. Yes, Susan, I was a rich man once. I had wife and daughters, and my house full. We had not very much money, but we were very happy; and now, my dear child, you are the only woman of the family—that is, here.”
Susan could not have spoken a word to save her life—she sobbed silently under her heap of warm wrappings, looking with a wistful, youthful sympathy into the grave face beside her. The Colonel shed no tears;—he guided his horse with the same quiet caution as before, turning the animal aside from a sudden obstacle in the way, with a steady promptitude, which showed his perfect attention to what he was about, even in the midst of these recollections; yet he was not looking at the road, nor at her, nor at anything; but had his eyes fixed on the far-away horizon, which yet he did not see. Susan sat beside him in silence, wondering with youthful awe and reverence over the indescribable yearning, with which some instinct told her this brave old heart longed for the heaven which held his departed; but she could not say anything—she would have felt it sacrilege.
However, they shortly approached the town, which recalled Colonel Sutherland from his graver thoughts. It was a comfortable country town, pleasantly placed at the opening of a valley, with the gray fells ranging themselves on either side, and the great gray tower of the old Abbey church reigning over the little crowd of houses. The market-place was still busy and bright, though the more serious merchandize of the morning was over; cosy country-women, in cloth pelisses, made promenades round the open square, where the best shops in the town displayed their riches, to see “how things were wore,” and make stray purchase of a kerchief or ribbon; and still the notable housewives of the town bought vegetables, and rabbits, and country eggs, and chickens, from the remaining stalls in the market-place. And still heaps of dark-green vegetables—winter greens and savoys, purple flowers of broccoli, and tiny red lines of carrots, illustrated some boards, close to the white eggs and yellow butter, the hapless decapitated poultry, and butter-milk pails of the others. Susan and her uncle walked through the throng, attracting no small degree of observation; for there were not many such cavaliers as Colonel Sutherland in Kenlisle, and very few such shawls as that one which, relieved of all her other wraps, Susan displayed upon her shoulders with no small degree of pride. The scene was quite extraordinary in its animation to her eyes. She looked at the ruddy winter apples and crisp greens with the most perfect interest. She longed, with a natural housewifely instinct, to make purchases herself, to the confusion and amazement of Peggy. She could scarcely conceal her unbecoming curiosity about the booths of toys and sweetmeats, the cases of coarse ornaments, brooches, and rings, and ear-rings, which Susan could not believe to be paltry and worthless. The glamour of her ignorance brightened everything; and when her eyes, as she looked up unconsciously, fell upon the gray mass of the Abbey tower withdrawn into a street which led off from this busy space, Susan felt awed and ashamed to think of her own vanity and extreme regard for “the things of this world.” But she could not school herself into righteous indifference; above all, when Uncle Edward, indifferent to her morals, took her into shop after shop, buying a little parcel of books in one place, some pretty ribbons in another, a cap for Peggy, which captivated the old man in a window; and, last of all, patterns and materials for work of various kinds, canvas and Berlin wool, and an embroidery-frame. This last purchase raised Susan into a paradisiacal condition, for which it is to be hoped nobody will despise her. She was not very intellectual, it is true—it might very well happen that she preferred her needlework to her book sometimes. She saw herself rendered completely independent, as she supposed, of ennui and domestic weariness by that ecstatic parcel. She longed to take it in her arms, and run all the way home with it, that Peggy might see, and half regretted for a moment the luncheon at Tillington, which, however, would give her still another hour or two of her uncle’s company. Then Susan looked at that uncle with a great compunction, thinking of what he had told her; but Colonel Sutherland was happy in her happiness, delighted to see her so delighted, and entered with fresh, natural pleasure into the scene for his own part. It was quite a work of art to pack the gig with all the parcels, and wrap Susan up again into all her cloaks. Then they went off at a great pace to Tillington. So far it had been a most successful day.