TWO days after, the same party met again in Mrs. Stenhouse’s drawing-room. Horace had eluded all attempts on the part of Roger and Sir John to see or have any conversation with him; but he could not keep away from that only place where he had a chance of forgetting himself, or, at least, of counterbalancing one passion with another. He could not explain to himself why he stayed in Harliflax. It was against all his interests; it was trifling with Mr. Pouncet; it was exposing himself to a hundred risks, and leaving the citadel of the business to which he had bound himself undefended. But Horace cared no longer for Mr. Pouncet’s credit, or for his own income. The young man was desperate: he was ready at any moment, in pure recklessness, to have flung that secret at anybody’s head whom it had a chance of harming, or rendering unhappy, though, with a characteristic sullen obstinacy, he kept it out of reach of those whom it might have served. Nor could he any longer discern, out of the fiery mists which blurred his future, any prospects of his own; he could not make any definite stand upon that visionary thousand pounds a-year which he had extorted from Mr. Pouncet; he could not think, in that lurid haze out of which everything around him rose indistinct, like a phantom, of such a certain and settled act as marriage, with a household and steady beginning of life in its train. No such thing was practicable to the unhappy young man. He might have found some wild solace in breaking through the bounds of decorous life, and persuading Amelia Stenhouse to elope with him; but, except that, nothing tempted his fascinated mind. He could only sit and wait for the explosion—the terrible intelligence which, sooner or later, must come to him from Marchmain.
But he was once more in Mrs. Stenhouse’s drawing-room, where there was no longer any newspaper to excite him out of his senses—calmly seated among people who were pursuing the common way of life, without any stronger stimulant than a flirtation or common project of marriage among them. Sir John, whose indolence was no match for the obstinacy of Horace, was carrying on, as well as he could, the talk with Amelia, which the entrance of “that cub” had interrupted; while Amelia herself did her best to subdue the tone of that exceedingly interesting consultation, in acknowledgment of the presence of her too ardent lover. Somehow, Horace’s entrance, and all the restrained passion, unintelligible to them, which he carried about him, made the whole party uneasy. Amelia remembered with terror that, if provoked, he knew of somebody who could turn them out of doors, and leave them penniless. Mrs. Stenhouse regarded him with a vague awe, as holding in his hands at once her husband’s good name and the well-being of her son; while Musgrave, with a good deal of natural exasperation, sat in the same room with the man who was in the secret of some conspiracy against himself, yet showed no compunction towards him, and who had tried to blacken his youthful character to his dearest friends. Nobody pretended that he was welcome in that house—not even timid Mrs. Stenhouse nor Amelia; yet he went—secure in his power;—went and set himself by Amelia’s elbow, turning his passionate looks upon her, while, from one cause and another, nobody dared venture to say to him how little welcome he was.
That day, however, destroyed the strange incubus to which his presence had grown. The post came in while Horace sat in Mrs. Stenhouse’s drawing-room. Roger had some letters, and opened them without waiting to be alone. When he had glanced over one he turned doubtfully, yet with some eagerness, towards the visitor. “Mr. Scarsdale,” he said, quietly, “Colonel Sutherland is at Marchmain.”
Horace did not fall down, or cry out, as he might have done; but, in the extremity of his startled horror, he rose bolt upright, and stood with his face blanched out of all natural colour. He could not speak, it was evident, for a minute; then he said, with a strange blank voice out of his throat, “My father is dead!”
“No, not dead—not so bad as that—but ill, I confess,” said Roger, kindly, quite melted by what seemed to him an overflowing of natural feeling; “only ill; don’t look so alarmed—not even seriously or alarmingly ill, so far as Colonel Sutherland says. Pray, read the letter yourself.”
Horace took the letter mechanically, and sat down again, holding it up before his face. He could not see the writing, which swam and floated in variable lines before him. He had enough to do to control himself, that nobody might see the wild tremor, exultation, horror, which possessed him. And yet what did it mean?—not dead, but ill! His potion, surely must have done better work. Not dead, only ill? The words came to his very lips unaware. What did it mean?
“Take some wine, Mr. Scarsdale; you look quite ill. Nay, nay, perhaps it isn’t anything to be anxious about,” said Mrs. Stenhouse, stealing round the table with the charitable cordial to Horace’s elbow. “How you did comfort me, to be sure, the other night about Edmund!—and that came true. Drink this to give you back your colour, and don’t take on so; I hope your father will be spared to so good a son!”
“What do you mean?” cried Horace, hoarsely; “do you mean to taunt me?—as good a son as he was a father! Thank you, thank you! I was startled. I’m going off for Marchmain; good-bye.”
He crushed up the letter in his hand, and went away hurriedly; but almost before they had begun to wonder and talk about him, came back and thrust his head in at the door.
“Musgrave,” said Horace, in a broken voice, “when I come back, if—if I come back—I’ll tell you something to your benefit. I say it freely, without any man asking me—I promise you I will.”
With this mysterious intimation he disappeared once more, going out from among them upon his dismal way, leaving a strange suggestion of evil in everybody’s mind. Great misery, it was clear enough, was in this sudden intimation. Was it the agonized apprehension of love fearing death?—what was it?—for of all the unlikely things in the world, that little company could have guessed at anything sooner than the truth.
“But I believe he expects to come into a great deal of money when his father dies,” said Amelia; “not a common fortune—such a deal! I daresay that was why he looked so strange when he went away.”
“And, oh, how do you know, Amelia?” asked her next sister.
“I wish you would not ask ridiculous questions,” said Amelia, casting down her eyes with a pretty look of embarrassment, and a blush and simper, intended for the benefit of the baronet. “I know, of course, because—because Mr. Scarsdale told me; how else could I know?”
And Sir John Armitage saw, as clearly as if she had described it, a presumptuous proposal on the part of “that cub,” backed up by promises of fortune, which the beautiful Amelia’s delicate mind had remained totally unmoved to hear of; and entirely subdued by her fascinations, the bewitched baronet made up his own mind summarily. He flattered himself there was not much fear of rejection; and how famously that beautiful figure, which bent so often, and with such winning grace, towards him, would brighten the great rooms of Armitage Park.
Thus the waters closed in placid circles, widening out into smiles of well-pleased fortune, around the spot where Horace Scarsdale disappeared; and one of the great stakes he had played his deadly play for, slid out of his reach into the polished hands of a quiet spectator, who staked nothing. But he did not know that; he thought of nothing—not even of Amelia—as he rushed along to the railway, and flew by that iron road, at the swiftest pace, to the nearest neighbouring town he could reach in the vicinity of Lanwoth Moor; he was beyond thinking in the extremity of his haste and desperation. The black wings were spread over the lonely house. Death, whom he had invoked, was coming—his fortune would soon be all his own; but there was never spectator at a tragedy who held his breath for its consummation as Horace Scarsdale did, rushing out of his own black, unrepentant remorse and misery to Marchmain.