Susan got up instantly, stumbled towards the side-table, got her candle, and lighted it with a trembling hand. She went out of the room so quickly, and in such evident trepidation, that the sight of her terror struck another arrow into her father’s mind. He looked after her with a pale, dreadful smile. “She is afraid of me!” said the forlorn man. He said the words aloud, and Susan came back trembling to the door, to ask if he called her. His “No!” drove her to her room with hurried steps, and limbs which could scarcely carry her. Susan was so terrified that she could not rest; she put her candle in her room, and came out to look over the rail of the little gallery from which the bed-chambers opened. There, standing in the dark, after a little interval, she saw her father come out of the dining-room, with his candle in his hand, and go to the door, which he barred and bolted, with a precaution Susan had never known to be taken before. Then she heard him securing the shutters of the windows. With an infallible instinct of alarm and terror, she knew that it was against the return of Horace that all these precautions were taken. She stole into her room, closed the door noiselessly, and looked out. Black in its unbroken midnight of gloom lay the moor, a waste of desolate darkness on every side, rain falling, masses of black clouds sweeping over the sky, a shrill gleam of the windy horizon far away, shining over the top of the distant hills. And Horace, if he should be near, if he should still be coming home, remorselessly shut out! Susan sat up half the night, listening with a nervous terror to all the mysterious sounds which creep and creak in the absolute silence of the dead hours of night. Horace was most comfortably asleep in a comfortable room in the “George,” at Kenlisle, while his poor sister sat wrapped in a big shawl, trying to keep awake, thinking she heard his footsteps approaching the house, and waiting only to be certain before she should steal down-stairs in the dark to open the door. Poor Susan fell fast asleep at last, and slept till long after her usual time; then she was roused by Peggy to just such another day. Mr. Scarsdale still did not say a word, though his glance at the empty chair was more sharp and eager. And so things continued till the forenoon of the third day, when John Gilsland stopped his cart at the door; and, calling for Peggy in his loud, hearty voice, which could be heard over all the house, informed the entire family of Marchmain that he had come for Mr. Horry’s box.
Susan was with Peggy in the kitchen, solacing her anxieties by a discussion of where her brother could be, and what he was most likely to be doing. This summons made her jump, as she stood listlessly by the window. Peggy, without saying a word, made a stride to the side door, and went round to the corner of the house to confront this incautious messenger. Susan, trembling and afraid to join her, sprang up upon the wooden chair, and peeped out of the window. There she saw Peggy in the act of assaulting the unfortunate John, shaking him by the shoulder, and demanding to know if that was the way to deliver a message at a gentleman’s house. John scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders: he was too much accustomed to ill-usage from women to feel much resentment; he only looked sheepish, and, patting the mare on the shoulder, came round with Peggy to the side door. There she introduced him on tiptoe, taking elaborate precautions of quietness, which were all intended to impose upon John, and silence his heavy feet and country clogs to the greatest degree of silence possible.
“It’s not so heavy but what a man like you can carry it down on your shoulder,” said Peggy; “and if ye make a bump on the road, Gude forgive ye, for I’ll no, nor the master, if he’s disturbed in his study. I would not advise you to rouse up him. Whisht then!—if you have any regard for your own peace, hold your tongue! In the very stairs, and the study no furder off nor yon door! If ye cannot be quiet, it’s as much as your ears are worth!”
Thus warned, John went creaking on his tiptoes upstairs, and was introduced to Mr. Horace’s room, where the furniture had been specially arranged, and where the good order and trim array of everything made no small impression on his simplicity. John got downstairs again in safety, jealously watched by Peggy, who stamped her foot at him from the foot of the stairs, and produced the “bump” which she had deprecated by her super-caution. However, the business was performed in safety, the cart was drawn up to the side door, and Horace’s goods safely deposited in it—Mr. Scarsdale, up to this moment, taking no notice of the proceeding. Then John returned into the kitchen, to have a little chat with Peggy, who was nothing loth. Peggy did all the marketing for the family, and though perfectly impenetrable and deaf to all questions about her master, was rather popular in the neighbouring villages, as a housekeeper and purveyor, who was not sparing in her provisions for her master’s table, was like to be. John stood, with his hat in one hand and a glass of beer of Peggy’s own brewing in the other, describing to Mr. Scarsdale’s factotum the events of the previous days—Th’ young squire gone out of the Grange, no one knew where; his own son listed, and gone for a soldier; and Mr. Horry—ah! Mr. Horry was deep, he never let on of his secrets: he supposed the family knew where the young gentleman was.
Susan kept in the kitchen, hovering about the window, very anxious, but afraid, to ask questions, and listening to this volunteer gossip with all her ears. Peggy answered very brusquely to the inferred question of Horace’s messenger.
“You may depend the family doesn’t need to ask you,” said Peggy. “Mak’ haste, man, about your ain business—no wonder the wife has little patience if this is how you put off your time. How will ye send on the box?—that’s all I’m wanting to hear.”
“Oh, just by the carrier—to the ‘George’ at Kenlisle—it’s none so far away either,” said John; “if the family wanted word sent particular, I could goo a’ the way mysel.’”
As he made this offer he threw an inquisitive glance at Susan, whose restless attention he had skill enough to perceive. Peggy’s answer was a violent shake of her head, as she went on with her work. John resumed.
“Our wife, she thinks it’s a very strange thing that these three should be away at the same moment, as you may say. Not to compare our Sam to the young gentlemen, but you see Sam had a word himself with the Cornel. As for the young squire, he was coming and going the whole time, and Mr. Horry, he’s nevvy to th’ ould gentleman, as far as I can hear. It’s a rael coorious thing—they all had speech o’ the Cornel, and all started off on the same day. Maybe you and the young lady you ken a deal better nor that—but ye’ll allow it’s an awfu’ coorious thing.”
While John, pausing, looked for an answer, in calm security of having said something which could not fail to make an impression; while Peggy, with her back to him, vigorously washed her dishes, clattering one upon another with emphasis, which, however, did not drown his voice, and was not intended to do so; and while Susan stood timidly with her work in her hand, startled with this new piece of intelligence, and looking towards the stranger with a face full of wonder, a sudden sound startled the vigilant ear of Peggy. But she had scarcely time to put down the dinner-plate in her hand, and to wave her towel at John Gilsland, commanding imperatively a hasty retreat, when the door of the kitchen suddenly flew open, and Mr. Scarsdale himself, pale, erect, and passionate, his dressing-gown flying wide around him with “the wind of his going,” his thin lips set together, and an expression of restrained and silent fury in his face, came abruptly into the room.