“You hold your tongue, Scarsdale!” shouted little Edmund; “nobody shan’t bully mamma. And I should like to know why I’m not to be told—me! I’m my father’s heir, and I ought to know everything; and if you think me a child, it’s because you don’t know. Look here! I’m going to give half my money to Roger; but you shall marry Amelia, and have the half of my share, if you tell me honest what it is.”
Horace rose up with a laugh of ridicule at the child’s folly, but before he could reach the door Mrs. Stenhouse came before him. “There’s some sad mystery here,” she said, wringing her hands; “Edmund was not to know I heard him say; and then about seething the kid in his mother’s milk. It’s something that will harm my Roger! What is it, Mr. Scarsdale? I charge you, as you had a mother yourself, to tell me!”
“I never had a mother myself,” said Horace, with his cold smile; “and if Mr. Stenhouse was a good step-father to Roger Musgrave, and took care of his property that the poor boy might not waste it, what was that to me? I can’t tell you—how can you suppose that I know?”
While he was speaking he made his way steadily to the door. He was pleased to go out and close it after him, leaving that reflection with the mother and child; that to be sure the dead man, their nearest relative, had defrauded his wife’s son; what was that to Horace Scarsdale? He went crushing Mr. Pouncet’s letter in his hand; he had got possession of that, at all events, and he felt sure that poor trembling Mrs. Stenhouse could not make much of its hints, even though coupled with her husband’s death-bed adjuration, and that strange maundering of his weakness, at which Horace smiled—seething the kid in its mother’s milk. Unlikely words to enter the mind of that hard, unrepentant man of the world, who, even at his last moments, wished not to amend but to conceal.
But he had not seen Amelia; it was hard to reconcile the contrary accidents of his fate. He could not deceive them blandly, as Mr. Stenhouse could have done, and he had no resource but to go away with abruptness, losing all chance of future admittance to the feet of the beauty, who was now Mrs. Stenhouse’s daughter, dependent upon her, and not the caressed and flattered mistress of the house. The cholera and the fright had unmanned Amelia. She had not been able to strike in at the proper moment and assert her sway; so that in the stillness of the house of mourning her mother and Edmund had unconsciously and tacitly won the supremacy. Fortune, however, gave him the advantage he had forfeited by legitimate means. He met the lady of his heart that very same afternoon, as she took languidly a solemn walk with her sisters, all crape and propriety. Amelia was sadly tired of decorum by this time—decorum which lasts so much longer than grief, and is so exacting and punctilious. Though she put down her veil, her heart fluttered at the approach of Horace; and she was quite well pleased that he should turn with her, and accompany her back almost to the door of the house. He told her of his magnificent prospects, as he had never yet told any one; that when his father died he could make a very fine lady of her, and give her a house in town, and all the unhoped for delights of fashion; but that might be years hence—and in the meantime would she marry him? Amelia was too wise to say yes without due consideration; but she blushed through her veil, and was quite sure Mr. Scarsdale would give her a little time to think—would not be too urgent in the sad, sad position of the family. How could she think of such things, and dear papa only a week in his grave? and some bright tears fell, easily shed. Horace was abundantly satisfied. He had excited her fancy with his hopes of fortune; and he thought she liked him, as it is so easy for people to believe; though in reality it was only the amusement, the admiration that Amelia cared for; and he wanted no more at the present moment. He said farewell, like an accepted lover, and went away jubilant; his dark purposes swelling in him, and a whole world of pleasure, wealth, and exaltation lying before him. A whole world, and only one dark, melancholy, unlovely shadow of life—a ghost alien to the sunshine, an unenjoying, unloving, dismal human thread of existence—hanging black between him and his enchanted kingdom. Accidents are rife and many in this troublous world—who could tell what might cut that thread?
CHAPTER XII.
WITH Mr. Pouncet’s letter in his pocket—that self-betraying document, which he had estimated at once at its due value—Horace set out the next day for Kenlisle. Yet not for Kenlisle direct: the young man, with the oddest, uncharacteristic trifling, stopped half-way, to visit a remarkable cathedral town which lay in his road. What did Horace Scarsdale care for cathedrals? Yet he paused, in that most anxious and exciting moment, to inspect this one, and marched doggedly round and about it, as if to persuade himself that he was interested. In his progress he paused before an apothecary’s shop—but did not enter there, nor till hours after, when he rushed in on his way to the railway, and made certain purchases. In haste to get his train, he did not permit himself time to look at the things he had bought, but hurried them into his pocket, and rushed on again as though it had been only a sudden thought which moved him. Yet he had never looked so darkly pale and dangerous as when, seated in the railway-carriage, he felt in his pockets these little sealed packets. That day was a Mayday, warm and bright; but Horace shivered in his corner with a chill that went to his heart. For a moment the colour went out of his face, and the light out of his eye; he gave a stealthy glance round—a glance full of the intolerable terrors of guilt. Did any one guess what he had in his pocket? Could any one tell what he had in his heart?
The next morning he presented himself to the troubled eyes of Mr. Pouncet, an image of conscious power. That unfortunate man of character knew by this time of the death of Stenhouse, and had spent a day or two of agony wondering into whose hands his letter was likely to fall. The advent of Horace was a relief for the moment: here he had, at least, an assistant, who could do any further lying that might be necessary, without burdening Mr. Pouncet’s personal conscience. That was a great point gained. But the answer to his first eager question was far from satisfactory.
“Your letter was put into my hands by Mrs. Stenhouse,” said Horace; “and you know who she is—Roger Musgrave’s mother.”
Mr. Pouncet scratched his head in dismay. “She could not understand two words of it!” he exclaimed, at last, endeavouring to re-assure himself.