IN this stupefied condition of mind, stunned by the change which seemed about to happen, yet moved now and then by a strange intolerance and passionate inclination to resist and protest, Peggy found her young mistress when she came to spread the table for that hateful dinner, the thought of which made Susan’s heart ache. The poor girl still sat listlessly by the table on which her letters, the treasures of her affectionate disposition, were still carelessly scattered, and where the pretty box stood open and empty, as Mr. Scarsdale had thrust it away from him. Susan was by no means above a fit of crying, and had her disappointments and vexations like another, little as there seemed to wish or hope for within her limited firmament; but this listless attitude of despair was new to Peggy, who was somehow frightened to see it. What had happened? Had she expected a letter, and falling into a fit of passion not to receive any, had she thrown out recklessly on the table that cherished correspondence, the comfort of her life? But fits of passion were very unlike Susan. Peggy had come upstairs early, that she might have some private, confidential talk, and inform her of her brother’s hurried visit; but she paused in anxiety and compassion before entering upon that subject. “Hinny, what ails you?” asked Peggy, with the kindly, local term of caressing, laying her hand softly on Susan’s shoulder. The girl started, gazed in her face, and then suddenly recollecting this one, long, faithful friend, whom she must lose, hid her face upon Peggy’s shoulder, and burst again into passionate tears.
“What is it then, hinny?—aye trouble, and nought but trouble. Bless us all, has the master been upon ye again? And what did ye know, poor innocent?” cried Peggy, caressing the young head that leaned upon her; “has he found it out, for all the watch I made? Hauld up your head, and let me hear—it was none of your blame.”
“Found out what?” cried Susan, grasping her suddenly by the hand.
“No great comfort if a person mun speak the truth—just that Mr. Horry was here when you were out. Yes, Miss Susan,” said Peggy, “I ought to have told ye sooner, but what good? He came for no end as I could see, and departed the same. Aye the owld man—a bitter thought in his heart, and an ill word in his mouth. Eh, the Lord forgive us! To think we should have the bringing up of childer!—that can make sure of nothing to give them but our own shortcomin’s! He said he was leaving Kenlisle, but no another word, and was out of the house before I could come down to ask him wherefore he was goin’, and where.”
“Horace!” cried Susan, who had followed this speech breathlessly, with an interest almost too eager for intelligence, and whose face had reddened with a painful insight, as it came to an end. “Horace! Has Horace been here?”
She clasped her hands together with such an anxious entreaty not to be answered, that Peggy paused involuntarily. “Peggy,” said Susan, under her breath, “don’t tell papa—for pity’s sake, don’t tell papa! He will do nothing worse to me than he has threatened. I am only a girl—he would not strike me nor fight me. But Horace! Peggy, for mercy’s sake, if you love me or any of us, let him believe that I did it. Let him never know that Horace has been here.”
“There’s something happened! Let me hear what it is,” said Peggy, almost as anxiously, “and then I’ll know what is behoving and needful. Eh, Miss Susan, you’re ignorant and innocent yoursel’, you moughtn’t understand him. Let me hear what he said.”
“He said nothing,” said Susan, shaking her head mournfully, with a sadness very unlike Peggy’s expectation, “but that I had stolen away a letter from his room while he was out. Oh, Peggy, I am so very, very thankful that I had not seen you, and did not know Horace had been here! And he said if I did not give it back to him to-morrow, he would turn me away. Turn me away, Peggy, out of doors upon the moor, to go anywhere, or do anything I pleased! I, who never was farther than Tillington except once with Uncle Edward! I, who know nobody, and have no money, and no friends! To send me away from Marchmain, and from—from you, who care for me. Oh, Peggy, what shall I do?”
Peggy stood irresolute for a moment, wringing her hands. “The Lord help us all! If the devil has a man bound hand and foot, what can I do?” cried the faithful servant. “God preserve us! That’s what it’s come to. Eh, mistress, mistress! Did I think what I would have to put up with when I gave you my word? Let me go, Miss Susan. I’ve know’d him thirty year, and he’s know’d me. I’ll speak to him mysel’.”
But Susan hung round her with a clasp which would not be loosed, entreating, with a voice scarcely audible, which, notwithstanding, went to poor Peggy’s heart. “He will think you know—you will tell him—he will find it out!” cried Susan; “and, Peggy, they will kill each other. Peggy, Peggy! think! father and son! Let him believe it was me; he will not kill me, and I am ready to go away.”
“Poor lamb!” said Peggy, smoothing down the pretty fair braids of hair on Susan’s young head, which had once more drooped forward on her own compassionate shoulder. “But it’s no’ her; I’m no thinking of her, bless her! It’s him. God forgive him! He had but one chance, as any mortal could see. He had his childer, his daughter—an innocent that had no share in’t, and was wronged as well as himsel’. And now the Lord help us! he’ll bereave himsel’, and send his one hope away. I’m no’ thinking of you, hinny,” said Peggy, tenderly, while a few slow tears began to fall, gleaming and large, on Susan’s hair—“nor of me—one heart-break, more or less, is little matter to an owld woman; and if I wasna like to sink with fret and trouble, I would see it was best for you; but, oh, weary on the man himsel’! What’s to become of him? There’s no more houp, as I can see, no more!”
Susan, sobbing upon Peggy’s breast, naturally felt, in the youthful petulance of that sudden calamity, that it was herself who ought to be sorrowed for, and not her father. She raised herself a little, wiping her eyes, with a flush of momentary independence and involuntary self-assertion. For once in her life the forlorn pride and excess of unappreciated suffering, so dear to very young people, came in a flood of desolate luxury to Susan’s heart. She thought of herself, lonely and friendless upon the moor, cast out from her home, and ignorant where to turn, with nobody in the world so much as thinking of her, or sparing a tear for her sorrow. Peggy mourning for Mr. Scarsdale—for her father, he who dwelt secure and supreme at home, and cast out his woman-child upon the world. Horace, for whose sin she was to suffer, gone away without caring to see her, without even saying where he had gone; and Susan in her youth and desolation all alone and friendless! The picture was sad enough in reality; and Susan lifted her head with momentary pride from Peggy’s breast, tears of self-lamentation flowing out of her eyes, and proud mortification and loneliness in her heart; not even Peggy felt for her.
“And I—what am I to do?” she said, half to herself, turning her wistful weeping eyes upon that moor which was the world to her at this moment, and no bad emblem of the world at any time to the friendless and solitary. It was true that Susan’s heart had palpitated with one sudden flush of joy at the thought, beyond that moor and yon horizon, of reaching Uncle Edward, and the home of her dreams; but Uncle Edward was far off, and she had no means of reaching him. What was she to do?—wander on day and night, like a lady of romance, seeking her love, with nothing on her lips but “Uncle Edward” and “Milnehill”?—or lose herself and die upon those wistful far extending roads, out of reach of love or human charity? Anything sad enough would have pleased Susan’s imagination at the present moment. She could see no brighter side to the picture. Nobody in the world cared for or sympathized with her strange dismal circumstances, and the only home she had ever known in the world was about to close its remorseless doors upon her. Darkness fell upon the moor, and the spring breezes blew chilly over it, but from that darkness and those breezes she might have no roof to shelter her after to-night.
From these fancies she was strangely enough interrupted. Peggy, absorbed in her own thoughts, and almost forgetting the young victim of this day’s misfortunes, had not disturbed her hitherto. Peggy’s own mind was wandering back through a painful blank of years and hopeless human perversity; but the sure touch of habit recalled her to herself more certainly than Susan’s silent tears, or the melancholy thought of losing Susan, which, though she said little about it, lay heavy at her heart. The growing darkness startled her suddenly—“Gude preserve me!—and he must have his dinner, whether or no,” said Peggy, darting forward to gather up the letters and restore them to their box. Not a moment too soon, for Mr. Scarsdale’s study-door creaked immediately afterwards, and his step was audible going upstairs to dress. Susan took the box out of Peggy’s hands with youthful petulance, and left the room, carrying it solemnly, and proudly restraining her tears. Nobody should be offended again with the sight of Uncle Edward’s present. Nobody should find herself in the way after this melancholy night; and the dinner, that dismal ceremonial—the dinner which Peggy could not forget, though Susan’s heart was breaking—she had that trial, too, to get through and overcome. To meet her father’s eye and sit in his presence all the miserable evening; to eat or pretend to eat for the last time at his table; and to do this all alone and unsupported, the poor desolate child feeling a certain guilt in her heart which she had not known when he spoke to her first—the secret consciousness, not to be revealed for her life, that if she had not taken the letter she knew who had done so; and that secretly, like a robber, Horace had been here.