John recoiled a step in amazement and awe; then, emboldened by curiosity, kept his place, and made his bow to the master. Mr. Scarsdale stamped his foot on the floor in lack of words, and pointed to the door with a violent gesture; and before he knew what he was about, Peggy rushed against John, thrust him out before her, and closed and bolted the door after him. The amazed and sheepish look with which he rubbed his shoulders, and gazed at the inhospitable door from which he had been so summarily expelled, would have been worth a comic actor’s while to see. The honest fellow stood outside, looking first at the house and then at his mare, with a ludicrous astonishment. “The devil’s in the woman!” said John. That was a proposition not unfamiliar to him. Then in his blank bewilderment he marched gravely round the house, spying in at the vacant windows. Everything was empty except that kitchen, in which the pale spectre in the dressing-gown might be murdering the women for anything John knew. What should he do? After various pauses of troubled cogitations, John decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and chirruped to his mare. The two went off together, much discomfited, and the landlord of the “Tillington Arms” had full occupation for the rest of the road in amending the circumstances according to his fancy, and bringing himself into sufficient dignity and importance in the tale to make it meet for the ears of his wife.
When John Gilsland was disposed of, Mr. Scarsdale addressed himself to his daughter and his servant.
“I understand,” he said, without speaking directly to either, “from his absence at table, and from the articles which I have just now seen taken out of the house, that Mr. Horace Scarsdale has chosen to leave Marchmain; I say nothing against that—he is perfectly welcome to choose his own residence; but I desire you to understand, both of you, that on no pretence whatever must this young man return into my house—not even for a visit; he has placed himself among those strangers whom I decline to admit. I make no complaint,” added the recluse, coldly, “that my family conspire against me, and that messages are received, and my property sent away, without my knowledge.”
“Master,” said Peggy, while Susan stood trembling before her father, her work fallen from her hands, and her womanish fright and anguish falling into tears. “Master,” exclaimed his old servant, who was not afraid of him, “you’re no to leave that reproach on me. I’ve conspired against none of you, if it was my last word! Your son’s gone, as he should have gone a dozen years ago, if ye had been wise, or ta’en my advice. He’s gone, and God’s blessing and grit speed be with him! I never was more glad of nothing in my born days; and for his things in his box!—I knowed you a lad and a man, and a better man nor you are this day; but did I ever even it to you to keep back another man’s, if it was a servant’s claithes?”
“Be silent!” cried Mr. Scarsdale, putting his hand to his ears; “you conspire, you whisper, you hide in corners; there is not a soul in the world whom I can trust; but I beg you to understand, in respect to Horace Scarsdale, that I am master here, and that he shall not return to this house. He may say he wishes to see his sister—he does not care a straw for his sister! Do you comprehend me?—he is never again to enter here!”
Neither at first said a word, but Peggy advanced before her master and dropped him a grave curtsey. “You’re master here,” said Peggy; “never a word against your will, as has been proved for fifteen years, could wild horses get out of me. I’ve served you faithful, and I will. Bear your ain blame before heaven, and the Lord forgive you, master. It’s my hope he’ll never seek to enter these darksome doors again.”
Thus concluded the startling episode of Horace Scarsdale’s departure from his father’s house. Deeply wounded, in spite of herself, by her father’s plain and cold statement that Horace did not care a straw for his sister, Susan went back to her now unbroken solitude. Perhaps it was true, but it was not the less cruel to say it; and now that he was gone Susan’s heart clung to her brother. She tried to remember that he had been sometimes kind to her; it was hard to collect instances, and yet Horace, too, like other people, had been moved by caprice sometimes in his life, and had done things once or twice contrary to the tenor of his character. And her whole nature revolted against the unnatural prohibition which debarred his return. There she sat, poor child, in that dreary room, certain now that no voice but her father’s should ever break its silence—that nobody but he should ever sit opposite to her at table; and if her heart sank within her, as she tried in vain to occupy herself with her needlework, it was not wonderful. She thought of Horace, and Roger Musgrave, and Sam Gilsland, with a sigh—she wondered whether John was right; and with almost a pang of jealousy wondered still more that her uncle should take pains to liberate these three, while yet he did not try to do anything for her. She could not work—she tried her novels, but she had read them all, and in them all there was not one situation so forlorn and hopeless as her own. Poor Susan threw herself on her knees, with her face against the prickly hair-cloth of the elbow-chair—not to pray, but to bewail herself, utterly disheartened, angry and hopeless! Her temper was roused; she was cross and bitter, and full of unkindly thoughts; she felt as if she herself loved nobody, as nobody loved her. By-and-bye, when a sense of her attitude struck her, with its appearance of devotion, and the strangely contrary feelings of her mind, she sprang to her feet in a passion of sobs and tears, feeling more guilty and miserable than she could have explained. After a long time—for there were elements of stubbornness and obstinacy in Susan’s nature—she subdued herself, and went upon her knees in earnest. When she was there the second time, thoughts came upon her of Uncle Edward’s tender blessing, of his family in heaven, and of the confidence, so calm and certain, with which the old man looked thither. The poor child scarcely knew how to pray out of her wont; but her very yearning for some compassionate ear to pour her troubles into gave her heart expression—and in the act was both comfort and hope.
CHAPTER X.
WHILE Colonel Sutherland’s plans for everybody’s benefit were thus being rendered useless, the Colonel himself, unaware of these untoward circumstances, waited anxiously for answers to those letters which he had written at Tillington. Morning after morning the good man sighed over a post which brought him only his Times, and the letters of his boys. The dining-room at Milnehill, which was breakfast-room and library, and everything to the Colonel, was as unlike as possible to that of Marchmain. One side of it was lined with bookcases, full of the collections of the Colonel’s life. There were two large windows, commanding a wonderful view. A Turkey carpet, warm and soft, a low fireplace polished and shining, a great easy-chair, drawn close to the cosy round table, with its cosy crimson drapery falling down round it, just appearing beneath the folds of the snow-white tablecloth. Here the Colonel took his place in the morning, rubbing his chilled fingers, and pleased, in his solitude and the freshness of his heart, by the look of comfort around him. Here he took his solitary breakfast, and looked over his Times, and wondered why there were still no answers to his letters. It was not wonderful in the case of Sir John Armitage, who might be at the other end of the world for anything that was known of him; but why there should be ten days’ delay in having a letter from London, the Colonel did not know.
One morning, however, two epistles in unknown hands were brought him; he took the one which bore the London postmark. This is how it ran:—