“Perhaps,” he said at last slowly, not so much in pique as might have been supposed, but slightly inclining that way, with visions of unknown rivals crowding darkly before his eyes, “perhaps—I never wrote to ask if I should be welcome—perhaps while Miss Scarsdale is here—”
“Miss Scarsdale has nothing whatever to do with the subject. Why, Musgrave, man!” cried the Colonel, “what is the use of bringing Susan in? Susan is as my own child in my own house; think of your own interests, my dear young fellow, and leave Susan alone, though she is a very good girl.”
“A very good girl!” repeated Roger; “then you don’t mind us being together sometimes, Colonel, if she pleases,” added, with a blushing burst of frankness, the self-convicted lover.
The Colonel shook his head. “Oh, young fools, young fools!” groaned, not from the depths, but only from the surface of his heart, that bewildered veteran; “what’s to come of your being sometimes together? Not much increase to your purse, Musgrave, nor advantage to either of you. If you have begun to entertain such fantastic thoughts, your best plan is to think over what I am saying. There must be something, depend upon it, worth hearing, before my clever nephew, Horace, could make up his mind to offer an old countryman such a stipend as six-and-twenty pounds a-year.”
“Ah!” cried Roger; the young man was struck with momentary conviction, partly by the fact and partly by the argument. He made a hasty memorandum in his own mind, that he would certainly look into it; but his thoughts at the present moment did not very well bear such an interruption. “It looks as if there must be something in it; but, Colonel, won’t you postpone it till later?” he said, in a deprecatory tone; “I think, by this time, we ought to join the ladies. They’ll blame me already for detaining you. I know you never sit long over your wine.”
Once more the Colonel shook his head, but this time he smiled. He found the young man’s behaviour altogether so natural, that he could not criticize it severely; and perhaps, having once been young himself, was all the better pleased with Roger, that the youth had heart enough to be shaken entirely off his balance by this deepest of disturbing influences. They went across the hall together into the drawing-room, where Susan sat by the side of Mrs. Melrose, hearing the old lady’s stories. She had many a story in her mind that cheerful mother—a mother in everything, though she had but one child—many an exciting drama of life and sad domestic tragedy, brought out under yonder burning Eastern skies, lay within her memory; but it was not one of these to which Susan listened. It was to an account of Mrs. Melrose’s Indian establishment, when she lived at Outerabad, “where my poor General got his first step,” and where her son Charlie was now going. That practical and homely tale pleased Susan. She liked to hear of the economics of the young subaltern’s wife; how she managed to do without superfluous servants, and strenuously laboured at the mending of that strange little hole in the purse through which their money seemed always running. Her contrivances about dress, when she and her lieutenant had an invitation to the Colonel’s bungalow to dinner; the thrift with which this capable woman had managed that strange, half-savage, yet highly artificial and civilized household, with all its Anglo-Indian wants and luxuries. Susan was never tired of that long prolonged story, which always unfolded some new episode: “Did I ever tell you about so-and-so?” said the old lady, and forthwith ran into a variation which enlivened and animated the original strain. Susan was a capable woman, too, though she had not yet much tried her powers. She enjoyed hearing of these wonderful thrifts, and labours, and victories, as boys love stories of shipwrecks and hairbreadth escapes. “What I should have done myself!” ran through the whole like a golden thread. It roused Susan’s spirits and her heart—it was to her like the reading of a possible future, instead of a certain past. She did not think of the things dolorous and heavy which cheerful Mrs. Melrose dwelt on little. She did not pause to remember that the heroine of all that active existence was now an infirm old lady, dwelling alone. Susan only thought of the life, and the love, and the labour; the capable hands, the cheerful heart, the years and hours so well filled and liberal. The fashion of that existence charmed her congenial thoughts.
“For you see,” said Mrs. Melrose, after a long chapter of that history, which she meant to make an end of as soon as the gentlemen entered the room, “you see, Susan, we were poor then, the General and me.”
“But you were happy all the same, happier than if you had waited till you were rich,” cried Roger Musgrave, suddenly, in her ear.
“Happy!” cried the old lady, turning round upon him with an echo not to be described by words in her voice. Then she paused, with a humorous smile on her face; “I’m an old woman, and should be a good adviser; but I never was a good adviser, as your Uncle Edward will tell you. Now everybody knows that when two young fools marry upon nothing, it’s not only one of the greatest follies the world is acquainted with, but exceedingly wrong.”
Mrs. Melrose pronounced these words with great unction and emphasis. Could anybody doubt that she believed them thoroughly? But there was meanwhile a suspicious twinkle in her bright old eyes.