“Yes, Susan, I am going away presently, and I fear I shall not see you again either,” said Colonel Sutherland, with a cheerfulness which he was far from feeling—“that is, not this time, my love; but there is plenty of time, if it be the Lord’s will, Susan. You are very young, and I am not very old. We are tough, we old Indians; we wear a long time, and we shall meet, my dear child, I don’t doubt, many happy days.”
Susan looked up to him with inquiring eyes—with eyes, indeed, so full of inquiry that he thought she must have spoken, and put his hand to his ear. “No, uncle, I did not say anything,” cried Susan, touched by that gesture almost out of her self-possession. The poor girl turned away her head and rubbed her eyes with her trembling fingers, to send back the tears. When might eyes so tender shine in that forlorn solitude again? It was impossible to look at the old man, with his solicitous kindness, his anxious look of attention, and even the infirmity which threw a tenderness and humility so individual and characteristic upon his whole bearing, in the thought of, perhaps, never seeing him again, without emotion. It was to Susan as if the sunshine was departing. He might go away, she might never see him again, but nothing could obliterate the effect of that three days visit; nothing in the world could make Susan what she was when this week began. She did not know how it was, but the fact was indisputable; her undisturbed and unsusceptible content was over for ever. Was it good for Susan? She did not ask the question, but rubbed back the tears, and stood close to her uncle, intent upon hearing the last words which he might have to say, and vowing to herself that she would not grieve him by crying—not if she should faint or die the moment he was gone.
Such resolutions are hard to keep. When the Colonel laid his kind hand upon her head, Susan trembled over her whole frame. Her unshed tears—the youthful guilty anger provoked by her father, which still palpitated in her heart—which the poor child could not overcome, yet felt to be wrong; and the unusual agitation of this crowd of diverse feelings, very nearly overcome her. Her cheeks grew crimson, her lips and her eyelids trembled, yet she controlled herself. And Uncle Edward was still making light of the injury to himself—still accepting his repulse as something natural and spontaneous; it moved her to an indignation wild, impetuous, and unlike her character; but there was no blame on the Colonel’s lips.
“Some time or other you will come to my little house, and see the country where your mother was born,” said Uncle Edward; “we shall not know what to make of you when we get you there—you will be queen and princess, and do what you please with us. Yes, I hope after a time your father will consent to it, my love. He is rather angry just now, but time will soften that down. And remember, Susan, you must make the best and not the worst of everything. Horace does that last, you know, and ‘one wise body’s enough in a house,’ as we say in Scotland; you must be the foolish one, my little Susan, and always hope; everything will turn out well, under the blessing of God.”
“I hope so, uncle,” said Susan, with an involuntary sob.
“Perhaps, my dear child, I ought to say you must obey your father, and not write to me,” said Uncle Edward—“but I am not quite virtuous enough for that; only always do it honestly, Susan—never conceal it from him—and stop if it should make you unhappy, or you find it out to be wrong in your own conscience. However, I shall write to you in any case. My boy Ned will want to come and see you, I fear, before he leaves the country. You must always remember that you are of great importance to us, Susan, though we have not the first claim on you. You are the only woman in the family; you represent all those who are gone, to me, my little girl. Hush! do not cry—you must be very strong and courageous, for all our sakes.”
“I am not crying!” cried Susan, with a gasp of fervent resolution, though she could scarcely articulate the words.
“That is right, my darling,” said the Colonel. “Now, don’t let us think any more about it, Susan. We shall hear from each other constantly, and some time or other I’ll show you Inveresk, and Edinburgh, and your mother’s country; and in the meantime, you will be cheerful and brave like yourself. Now tell Peggy to bring me some bread and cheese, my love—I am going to be grand to-day; my carriage is coming for me presently. Where is Horace? I must see him before I go—call him here, Susan, and order me my bread and cheese.”
Susan was very glad, as her uncle suspected, to run out of the room for a moment, and deliver herself of the sob with which she was choking. When she was gone, Colonel Sutherland looked sadly round him upon the dreary apartment, to which the agitation of this day had given a more than usually neglected and miserable appearance. He shook his head as he glanced round upon those meagre walls, and out to that bare moor, which was the only refuge for the eye. He thought it a terrible prison for a girl of seventeen, unsweetened by any love or society. He thought that even the departure of Horace, though he was not much of a companion to his sister, would aggravate her solitude; and involuntarily the old man thought of his own bright apartments at Inveresk, and wondered, with a natural sigh, over the strange problems of Providence. Had Susan been a child of his own, saved to him from among the many dead, what a different lot had been hers!—but here was this flower blossoming in the desert, where no one cared for its presence—and his hearth was solitary. He did not repine or complain—ingratitude had no place in his tender Christian soul, but he sighed and wondered at the bottom of his heart.
In a few minutes Horace joined him. Horace did not care to form the third of a party which included his uncle and his sister. Their friendship annoyed him, he could not tell how; it was an offence to Horace that they seemed to understand one another so entirely; far superior as he thought himself, he was conscious that neither the one nor the other was intelligible to him. He came, however, with a little excitement on hearing that the Colonel had been with his father, expecting little, yet curious, as he always was about everything, done and said, by his perennial and lifelong antagonist. When he entered the room Colonel Sutherland held out his hand to him with an affectionate sympathy, which he accepted with astonishment, and not without a passing sneer in his mind at the idea of being consoled, either for such a supposititious disappointment, or in such a manner. It was with a feeling very different from a young man’s anxiety to know his fate, or expectation of a decision which should influence his life, that he waited to hear what his uncle had to say.
“I am sorry to tell you, Horace, you have judged more correctly than I did,” said the Colonel, with hesitation; “I find, to my great disappointment, that your father is not disposed to assist you, my dear boy. I don’t know what to say about it—it appears that he has taken some erroneous idea into his mind about myself. I’m afraid the advocate hurt the cause, Horace. If some one else spoke to him, perhaps—; but however that might be, to my great concern and astonishment, he has quite refused me!”
“Don’t trouble yourself about it, uncle; I knew how it would be,” said Horace, his eyes lighting up with the unnatural contention which had pervaded his life. “It was not the advocate, but the cause which was hopeless. What did he say?”
“He said—some things which had much better remained unsaid. He was affronted with me,” said Colonel Sutherland; “but he gives his permission, Horace—not assistance, remember, but still permission—that is always something; he seems to have no objection that you should follow your own course, and do what you can for yourself.”
“That is very kind of him,” said Horace, with a smile; “but I rather think I never should have asked his leave, but for your hopes of help from him, which I never shared. I suppose he was amazed at the idea that I should expect anything from him. I daresay he appealed to you why he should take his own narrow means to support an idle vagabond like me. Ah! he did!—I could have sworn he would!”
“Nay, Horace,” said the Colonel, who had been struck unawares by the correctness of his nephew’s guess; “what is the use of imagining unkind words, which most likely were neither spoken nor intended? The fact is simple—your father does not think a profession is essential to you; he thinks that—that you will most probably have enough without. In short, he does not feel called upon to assist you; but at the same time, remember, Horace, he puts no obstacle in the way. All is not lost yet, my boy: I must try whether I can do anything. I am not rich, I have little to spare, but I have friends, and there are some people who might be interested in you. Wait a little, Horace—leave it to me, and we will see what can be done. I would not be discouraged; there are more ways than one of doing everything in this world.”
“You may trust to me, uncle, that I certainly will not give up my own intention because my father declines to assist it—everything is safe enough so far,” said Horace; “as for anything great, you know, study and that sort of thing, I give that up as impossible—I did so from the first. I will never be a great lawyer, uncle; but I daresay I’ll learn enough for my own ends.”
“Your own ends!—I don’t understand you, Horace,” cried the Colonel, somewhat alarmed at the expression of his nephew’s face, and for perhaps the first time in his life suspecting something of double meaning in the words he heard.
“Have I not to work for my own living?—to support myself, uncle?” cried Horace, turning round upon him with a bitter emphasis.
“Very well, my lad, what then?” said Colonel Sutherland, with dignity—“is there anything very terrible in that? The best men in the world have had to work for their living. I am sorry for you that you cannot get the freedom of using your powers, and proper advantages for their cultivation; but I assure you, Horace, I am not sorry for you on the ground that you must support yourself.”
“To be sure not,” said Horace, with a little secret mortification; “but it is therefore I say that I will learn law enough for my own ends.”
Once more the Colonel looked at him doubtfully, pondering the peculiar and unnecessary emphasis with which the young man pronounced these words. Colonel Sutherland perceived, in spite of his unsuspicious nature, that there was a gleam in the eye, and a sudden animation in the manner of Horace, which referred to something different from the calm means of sustenance, or the knowledge sufficient to secure it. Something vindictive and eager was in his look. The Colonel probably thought it better not to inquire too closely into it, for he turned away from Horace with a sigh.
Perhaps it was a relief to them all when the gig arrived at last, and Colonel Sutherland bade farewell to Marchmain. The old man was troubled because he trusted his niece, and knew that she would not deceive his expectations; and he was troubled because he could not trust his nephew, and did not feel at all warranted in undertaking for him. While Horace, for his part, brooded with renewed anger, though he professed to expect it, over his father’s refusal of assistance, and was tired of amusing Colonel Sutherland by a show of good humour, all the more when his uncle seemed unlikely to be of much service to him; and the difficulty with which Susan kept her composure, and the unusual tumult of personal feeling in which the poor child felt herself, made the continued effort almost too much for her. The gig arrived at last. The Colonel said his last good-bye, and drove away from the inhospitable door which he had seen for the first time three days ago, leaving Susan, Horace, and Peggy outside, watching his departure, and waving farewells to him; and leaving, besides that external demonstration, a revolution in the house, and, for good or for evil, the germs, to these two young people, of a new world.