“When you please, Sir John,” said Horace, with a giddiness about him scarcely bearable. Sir John was playing with a newspaper on the table—the Kenlisle paper, which always came there. Perhaps the notice, the intimation, the seal of all his breathless terrors and ghastly expectations lay there; but it was as unattainable as though strong walls had surrounded it, guarded by the trifling fingers of that stranger’s hand. This newspaper, however—the common vulgar broadsheet—kept thus in his sight, yet beyond his reach, rapt the mind of Horace out of all excitement as to any other question. He knew well enough, with the dull certainty which other matters had in his mind, that Musgrave and his friend must have heard from Mrs. Stenhouse of his own connection with Mr. Pouncet, and call to the deathbed of her husband; but he felt no apprehension about their questions, cared nothing about the matter—in short, cared for nothing in the world at this moment but that paper rustling under the baronet’s careless hand.
“Mr. Scarsdale is Edmund’s man of business,” cried Amelia. “Oh, poor dear little Edmund! I never shall forget that scene! Fancy, Sir John, Edmund taking it into his head that he was going to die, frightening poor mamma out of her wits, and sending for the doctor and Mr. Scarsdale long past midnight, when everybody was asleep. I peeped in at the door just after the doctor went, and there was poor Mr. Scarsdale at the table writing Edmund’s will. I had such a laugh after I knew all was safe, and my little brother no worse than usual; for, only think of Mr. Scarsdale humouring Edmund, when he knew it was no good, and writing his will!”
“It was very kind of Mr. Scarsdale, Amelia,” said Mrs. Stenhouse.
“Oh, it might be, mamma; but wasn’t it an odd scene?” cried the beauty, appealing to Sir John, and laughing at her own penetration. That was Amelia’s kind of wit—a wit which, being always played against one suitor for the amusement of another, was wonderfully successful. The baronet was extremely tickled with “the scene;” the fair artist went over it again for his behalf, with a ludicrous sketch of Horace, “though he knew it was no good” making little Edmund’s will. While this went on, Horace gradually wakened up into a grim surprise at this ridicule, and began to perceive that the object of his love really meant to hold him up to derision, and had changed her tone. The discovery roused him into something of his former self. What had he not done to gain possession of this girl? But to her he was only a common one of her many admirers, to be laughed at and cast aside in his turn. Dead to all better emotions, Horace had yet a little of common life left in him through his intense arrogance and self regard, and this pin-prick found it out.
“When Edmund called upon me to help him, it was not the first time I had been honoured by the confidence of the head of the house,” said Horace, with a sinister impulse of revenge—“the other scene might not have struck Miss Stenhouse as amusing, but, as it happened, it was more interesting to me.”
As he spoke, everybody looked at Horace. And perhaps then everybody noticed, for the first time, the change which had fallen upon the young man—putting their various interpretations upon it, as was natural. Amelia saw nothing but a desperate struggle of passion, love, and jealousy, most flatteringly tragic, in the white fever which consumed him. Sir John regarded him with his head a little on one side, and made a moral remark upon the effects of dissipation, in his own mind; while Mrs. Stenhouse, leaping at the first troublesome idea which occurred to her, thought instantly, as he had meant them all to think, upon her husband’s death-bed disclosure, and how it might affect her son.
“Oh, Mr. Scarsdale!” she cried, pleadingly, “you will tell Roger—you will tell Sir John, his kind friend, what it was that my dear Mr. Stenhouse had to say? It could be nothing against my son,” she continued, nervously taking Roger’s hand. Sir John roused himself up a little. It was much more agreeable flirting with Amelia; but, of course, as he had come to Harliflax about this matter, it was important to hear what the young man might have to say.
“If your late husband put his reputation into my hands, do you suppose I am going to betray him?” said Horace to Mrs. Stenhouse; but it was quite loud enough for everybody to hear.
“Mrs. Stenhouse will forgive you that—for her son’s sake; we are all frail, and nobody can blame the defunct,” said the baronet, with a hasty bow to the widow. “Come, my boy, out with it; or at least let’s have a little private conversation, Scarsdale—there’s a good fellow; a secret is the greatest humbug in the world—never does anybody any good to keep it. Should have been able to bring the late Mr. Stenhouse to reason, I have no doubt, if I could have seen him. My good fellow, with Mrs. Stenhouse’s permission, step downstairs with me.”
“Oh, do please, if it’s a secret, tell it here. I love a secret of all things,” cried Amelia.