“ARMITAGE is the most indolent man I know, Susan,” said Colonel Sutherland; “here is his letter, my love, saying he has written to his attorney to make inquiries. And yet, after all, they’re sharp these country lawyers—perhaps it was the best thing he could do; and here’s—eh?—why, a letter from Horace! Come now, that’s satisfactory—let us see what the boy says.”
“What does he say, uncle?” asked Susan, when, after a considerable pause, and two readings of the letter, Uncle Edward carefully refolded it, laid it down by his own plate, and went on with his breakfast without another word.
“Oh, hum—nothing particular, my dear child—nothing of any importance,” said Colonel Sutherland, with a troubled face, opening the letter again and glancing over it; as if he might perhaps find out somewhere a key to the moral cipher in which it was written. He was slow to take offence; but its tone affronted the old soldier. There was a shade of mockery, visible even to Uncle Edward’s earnest, unsuspicious eyes; and whether it was true, and Musgrave was to blame—or false, and a disgrace to Horace, there was equal pain in the alternative; in either case it was not for Susan’s eyes.
“Uncle, has Horace been doing something very wrong?” asked Susan, after a little interval, with the moisture rising to her eyes. Colonel Sutherland made a little use of his infirmity at that moment. He bent his deaf ear towards her, asking, “What, my love?” as if he had neither heard nor could guess what her question was; and before she could speak again, made an exclamation of surprise over another letter, the postmark of which he was regarding curiously. “London! why, Susan, Musgrave has come home!”
And before the Colonel could assure himself of this unexpected event by a glance over his letter, a commotion was heard outside; Patchey intent upon showing into the drawing-room somebody who was equally intent upon finding his way direct to the Colonel’s presence.
“Why, man, I have come all the way from the Cape to see him,” burst at last upon their hearing, in a manly voice, somewhat loud, and full of exhilaration, from the hall. “I tell you, he’ll give me some breakfast; the kindest friend I ever had in the world, do you think he’ll refuse to see me?”
“The Colonel’s a kind friend to many a person, but it’s agin his principle to be disturbed at his meals,” said Patchey, obstinately. “I’ll tell him whenever the bell rings, but in the meanwhile you’ll walk in here.”
And Patchey’s pertinacity would have gained the day but for the interference of Colonel Sutherland, who got up hastily from the breakfast-table, with an exclamation very rare on his gentle lips, and threw open as wide as it would go the door of the dining-room. There outside stood Roger Musgrave, brown and manful, in his dark Rifleman’s uniform, and restored to such a degree of self-confidence and social courage as became a man who had been living among his equals for a couple of years, who had earned his place, and made himself a modest degree of fame. He grasped the Colonel’s hands in his own with an exuberant satisfaction, which the poor Squire of Tillington’s penniless heir would not have ventured upon. He came in boldly, overflowing with honest gratitude and pleasure, secure of finding his place, and delighted to be “at home” once more. But Roger was suddenly interrupted, and struck dumb in his jubilant and rapid account of having been sent home with dispatches, and arriving suddenly without due time to warn his old friend of his approach. Susan rose from her place by the breakfast-table, and the young man lost his head and his tongue in an instant, scared by that formidable apparition. After a minute’s interval, turning very red, and stammering out, “Miss Scarsdale?” Roger shyly approached the unlooked-for mistress of the house; while Susan on her part, with an equal blush, and a faltering exclamation of “Mr. Musgrave!” made an imperceptible step of advance, and gave her hand to Uncle Edward’s “young friend.” Uncle Edward himself, much amazed and amused by this pantomime, looked on till it was over. Then he covered the embarrassment of the young people in his own fashion by innumerable questions, which Roger was only too glad to answer; but Susan, mortified and troubled, and finding herself sadly in the way, could not but perceive that her presence was an effectual damp upon the stranger’s high spirits, and had subdued him in the strangest fashion. How could it be? Susan took the earliest opportunity of leaving the room, dismayed at the influence she had unconsciously exercised, and more than half disposed to run upstairs to her own room and have a good cry over it. She had imagined to herself, perhaps, more than once, what might happen at this very arrival—but her thoughts had never pictured any such scene as this.
When Susan had left the room, however, Roger’s silence and diffidence, instead of lessening, rather increased; he followed her to the door with his eyes, and made a confused pause; and then he burst into the very middle of a little lecture upon strategy which the good Colonel was delivering to him, with the very inconsequent and illogical remark:—
“I was quite taken by surprise to see Miss Scarsdale here.”
“Why,” said Colonel Sutherland, swallowing the affront to his own eloquence, “you knew Susan was my niece, did you not?”
“I—I suppose I had forgotten,” said Roger, with another blush over this inexcusable fib. And as the young man seemed disposed to make another pause after this false statement, and to fall into a state of reverie, the Colonel bethought himself of applying the sharp spur of Horace’s letter to bring him to himself.
“I would have delayed for a little speaking to you so gravely,” said Uncle Edward; “but as we are talking of Miss Scarsdale, it is just as well to enter upon the subject at once. Now, remember, I don’t want to steal into your confidence, or urge you to tell anything you may wish to conceal; but let me know this much, Musgrave. When you left Tillington did you leave anything behind you; any foolish connexion, any boyish entanglement, anything you wished to conceal? My dear boy, I don’t want to make myself your judge—such things have been, and have been repented of—only tell me, ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”
“Foolish connexion!—boyish entanglement!” repeated Roger, in amazement; “I know you don’t mean to insult me, Colonel Sutherland—what do you mean?”
The old man looked into the young man’s face, bending towards him with that stoop of benign weakness—the touch of physical imperfection, which put a tender climax to his fatherly words and ways.
“I will tell you what I mean by-and-bye; but in the meantime say to me in so many words—‘It is not true.’”
“It is not true!” said Roger, with emphasis.
The young man was certainly roused now—he sat quite upright, carrying high his soldierly head, not defiant as he might have been at Tillington, perfectly grave, conscious of nothing which slander could build upon. The old soldier’s eyes glistened over him—he was proud of his volunteer.
“I knew it all along,” said Colonel Sutherland, joyfully; “but to know you perfectly right, as I always believed, is not so much pleasure to me as it might be, since it proves somebody else entirely wrong. I’ll tell you now how this came about. Susan on her way here overheard part of a conversation between her brother and an old man, in which your name was introduced, and mention made of a pension which the man thought you might be induced to give him, in consequence of some discovery. This Horace forbade his sister to repeat, but Susan told me, thinking there was something wrong at the bottom. You will forgive me, Musgrave, if the idea glanced into my mind for a moment that there might be something to conceal. With that idea, thinking to appeal to my nephew’s generosity, I wrote to him, and this is the answer; see—I am assured now that there is something of importance to your interests beneath this veil.”
Roger read the letter with a rising colour; he saw the trick of it, and had hard enough ado to restrain his impatience.
“He is brother—I mean he is your nephew, Colonel Sutherland,” he said, returning the letter with a somewhat proud gesture. He thought of nothing else in his sublime, youthful contempt for this effort to dishonour him; he was innocent, and his veins tingled with momentary rage, proudly subdued; but he gave no second thought to the discovery, or to the something important and secret which this impotent slander had concealed.
However, the Colonel proceeded to question him upon the condition of his relation’s estate, and the chances there might be of some discovery of consequence. Roger answered at random, being very ignorant, quite hopeless of any good, and otherwise occupied in his mind. The old soldier was at last compelled to break up the conference from manifest signs of impatience on the part of his guest, who was anxious to go to his room and refresh himself after his journey. When Roger had really got his release, however, and was on his way to the door, the young man came back again with another inconsequent question:—
“May I ask, Colonel Sutherland, if Miss Scarsdale was aware of this—of your suspicions?” he said, fumbling wrathfully with the handle of his travelling-bag.
“Certainly not—not a word,” said Uncle Edward, gravely; and while the young man went away relieved, the old one mused in his chair, with a little humour in his smile. “I wonder, now, what it mattered if she had?” he said to himself; “they never exchanged three words in their lives.” That was very true; but there are more things than words in the world when people are young.