MR. STENHOUSE, whatever his motive or purpose might be, received Horace, on his arrival at Harliflax, where the lawyer had preceded his new clerk by a few days, with great civility and kindness. Perhaps Mr. Stenhouse was not much more beloved in his present residence than he had been in Kenlisle; but he was now a man of some wealth and importance, and his house had other attractions, which kept “society” in Harliflax on very good terms with him. The lawyer’s household was a little out of the common order of such dwelling-places. It was divided by a singular separation, but not divided against itself. Two distinct and incompatible phases of life went on within its walls; but the one displayed no antagonism, and fought no battles with the other; and any Quixote who had chosen to take up arms for a wife neglected and a mother set aside, would have been as completely in the wrong as ever Quixote was. The family consisted of three daughters, aged from fifteen to nineteen, and of one boy, a child five years younger than his youngest sister, a hopeless little invalid, born to suffering. The girls were the daylight surface of the family, the pride of their father, and the supreme influence in the house. Two of them were pretty, the eldest as near beautiful as it could fall to the fate of an imperfectly educated provincial belle to be; and all three expensive and extravagant to the very verge of their means and opportunities. Over such a trio of young uncontrollable spirits—and the Misses Stenhouse were innocent of sentiment, and neither had nor pretended any devotion for their mother—the nervous and timid woman who was the nominal mistress of the lawyer’s house could exercise no sway. Years ago, when Amelia, the beauty, was but just beginning to be conscious of her own perfections, and to assert herself accordingly, Mrs. Stenhouse had retired from the contest. The lovely young termagant had scarcely put off her last pinafore, when she found herself triumphant mistress of the drawing-room, while her mother fell back upon that never-failing interest and occupation which the poor woman wept over and believed one of the sorest afflictions of her life, but which was in fact its great preservative—the illness and weakness of her boy. Little Edmund and she lived together in a touching and perfect unity in the comfortable parlour downstairs, while the young ladies entertained their own friends and enjoyed their own pleasures above. Perhaps Mrs. Stenhouse did not do her duty by consenting to this tacit arrangement; but, like most weak people, she was so perfectly convinced that she could not help herself, that she was quite unable for the task from which she shrank, and would have done her daughters more harm than good by keeping up an unavailing contest, that her conscience did not disturb her in the loving performance of her other duty, her unwearied care of little Edmund, from which nothing ever diverted or withdrew the entire heart of his mother. This invisible fireside in the back parlour, where Edmund, despotic and imperious as only a child-invalid can be, tyrannized over his constant companion, and shared every thought she had, seemed no very important influence in the family to a cursory observer; but the household itself was perfectly aware that any distinct desire proceeding thence from little Edmund’s sharp, high-pitched, childish voice, was law even to Edmund’s father; and that the decrepid child, who did not even particularly appreciate or return his affection, was the very apple of that father’s eye; his son, his heir, his representative; though nobody, save the two most deeply interested, the father and mother, believed or expected that the child could ever live to be a man.
This second domestic centre of Mr. Stenhouse’s affections and interests was, however, invisible and unknown to Horace Scarsdale, when the unusual distinction of an invitation to dinner opened his employer’s house to him a day or two after his arrival. He saw, it is true, the silent mother seated at the head of the table, nervously and quietly impatient of the time occupied there; and he observed that she disappeared from the drawing-room very early in the evening, and took little or no part in what was going on there. But Horace had neither eyes nor curiosity for Mrs. Stenhouse: he was more agreeably occupied. He who entered the lawyer’s house with all his usual disdainful indifference—except in so far as they might serve him—to the people whom he was about to meet, had encountered a new influence, which proved too much for him at that undreaded table. All unprepared and unarmed as he was, a sudden and alarming accident, altogether beyond his calculations and out of his reckoning, happened to Horace; the young man fell in love!
This extraordinary and unexpected event took Horace much by surprise. It was the first time in his life that he had not scorned womankind and all its influences; but Amelia Stenhouse was an entirely new development of feminity. She was very—extremely handsome, in the first place, and she was authoritative and imperious, and had a kind of wit which her beauty made brilliant and successful. Used to homage and admiration, accustomed to believe that it became her, and was her privilege to do unusual things and make unusual speeches, and audaciously confident in her own powers, she shone upon Horace like a new species unknown and undiscovered before; and the contrast offered by her exuberant beauty, “dash,” and presumption, was irresistibly piquant to the brother of Susan, on whom a tamer and sweeter beauty might have shone for years in vain. Horace neither knew the moment nor the means by which that amazing accident befell him; but it had happened long before the other people had eaten their dinner, transcending such common earthly occupations as much in speed as in importance. Neither did he know how the evening passed, in his sudden and strange intoxication. His new passion partook of the nature of all sublime and primitive emotions, so far, at least, as to blot out the little cross-bars of time from the young man’s consciousness, and blur these hours into one exciting moment. He was transported even out of himself—a more remarkable result—and turned his back upon Mr. Stenhouse, and forgot his own interest, in devouring with his eyes, and pursuing with his attentions, this new star called Amelia, whom already—arrogant even in his love—he determined upon appropriating, however she or any one else might choose to object.
Uncareful of either etiquette or propriety, Horace stayed as long as he could stay, and only took his leave at length in obedience to hints which there was no mistaking. He went downstairs hurriedly, wrapt in his dream, all the air before him filled with two objects, intensely visible, and eclipsing all the world besides; which two objects were, Amelia Stenhouse, and that unknown document in Doctors’ Commons which was to reveal to Horace his fate; when his course was suddenly and singularly interrupted. He had just reached the foot of the staircase, when a door was timidly opened, a glow of firelight came flushing into the hall, and the quiet little woman to whom he had been presented a few hours before, but whose voice he had not yet heard, stood doubtful and hesitating before him. Only for a moment, however, for, urged by an exclamation from within, Mrs. Stenhouse hastily addressed the stranger: “Mr. Scarsdale! Oh, come in here for a moment, please!” she cried nervously. Taken by surprise, and scarcely knowing what he did, Horace followed her. The room was very warm, carpeted and curtained into a sort of noiseless, airless luxury, which was half suffocating to the healthy and vigorous senses of the unwilling visitor; and near the fire, in an easy-chair, sat a small boy, pale-faced and sharp-featured, restlessly wide awake, as children are when kept up beyond their usual hour, and full of eagerness about something, with a whole volume of questions in his face. This was the little hermit of the luxurious seclusion into which Horace, who knew nothing about the boy, and had not even heard of his existence, was thus mysteriously introduced. The little fellow measured his visitor with those sharp inquisitive eyes, and addressed another adjuration to his mother. Edmund’s “Now, mamma!” exclaimed somewhat impatiently, acted like a spur upon the timid woman. She started, and tremulously began a string of confused yet eager questions.
“Oh, Mr. Scarsdale! I beg your pardon! They told me you came from Kenlisle,” cried Mrs. Stenhouse. “There is some one near there—Yes, Edmund, darling! wait an instant. Some one who—his name is Roger Musgrave. Did you ever hear of him? Do you know him? Could you give me any news of my—of—of—the young gentleman? Perhaps you may have heard of Tillington Grange, if you know the country. Do you think they have heard anything there of—of—. Oh, I beg your pardon! it is too much to expect that you should know.”
“I used to know Roger Musgrave very well,” said Horace. “I lived near Tillington when I was a boy.”
“I say, sir, we’ve got a right to know,” cried the sharp little voice out of the easy-chair. “He’s my brother, he is; don’t mind what mamma says. I am not afraid to ask for him. I’ve sat up on purpose. I want to hear all about Roger. How much is he bigger than you?”
“Oh, my darling child, the gentleman will be angry! He’s a sad invalid, Mr. Scarsdale; everybody indulges him,” cried poor Mrs. Stenhouse. “Pray, pray, don’t be displeased!”
“He’s a good deal bigger than me,” said Horace, half amused, and half spiteful, answering the question with an involuntary grudge, and increased impulse of dislike to poor Roger, whose additional inches—poor advantage though that was—it galled him for the moment to remember.
The child clapped his hands. “How much?” he cried, with a little childish shout of triumph. The sight would have been touching enough to any one who had the heart to be moved by it. But Horace saw nothing that was not ludicrous in the poor little dwarfish invalid’s eager and exultant curiosity about the size and strength of his unknown brother. He laughed in spite of himself.
“About two inches, perhaps,” he said; “I have not heard anything of Musgrave lately,” he continued, turning to the mother; “you know, perhaps, that he enlisted and went abroad; but I have an uncle—Colonel Sutherland, you may have heard of him—who took poor Roger up; he is very likely to know.”
The scant civility and supercilious tone of this reply lost all its effect upon Mrs. Stenhouse from the name contained in it—“Colonel Sutherland! Oh, Edmund, darling! the dear old Colonel who was so kind to Roger!” she said, with tears in her eyes; “and to think a relation of his should come here! Oh, Mr. Scarsdale, if there is anything we can do for you, I or my poor boy (and Mr. Stenhouse will do anything to please Edmund), you have only to say it—oh, thank you, thank you, a hundred times! My dearest child, it is very late, we must not keep Mr. Scarsdale longer to-night; another time perhaps he will come in and see us and tell us more. Good night, good night! Say good night, darling, to the gentleman; and thank you a hundred times, Mr. Scarsdale. I am so very, very glad you have come here!”
Saying which, Mrs. Stenhouse preceded her visitor to the street-door, and opened it for him with her own trembling hands.
He went away with a smile on his lip; but it was only a smile of momentary ridicule, and bore no kindly meaning. That sad little secret romance of domestic life had neither charm nor sentiment for Horace. Without discovering what was in it, he plunged back into his own novel passion and excitement, in which, as was sufficiently natural, the young man passed that night and the remainder of his week in Harliflax as in a rapid and exciting dream. Falling in love was no softening enchantment for Horace; it did not involve affection, or respect, or tenderness, those sentiments and principles which act upon a man’s whole nature. It made no difference on his opinion of other people, or his dealings with other people, that he had fallen in love with Amelia Stenhouse. No sweet imaginations of home or hearth clung round the object of his sudden passion; he neither endowed herself with imaginary perfections, nor thought better of his neighbours, for her sake; but still, according to his nature, he was “in love.” His thoughts burned and glowed about the lawyer’s beautiful daughter; he wanted her, without inquiring what, or what manner of spirit she was—a sturdy principle of love on the whole, and one which perhaps wears better than a more sentimental preference; but its immediate influence upon Horace was not particularly elevating. If it had been necessary, however, to fix and intensify his anxious curiosity concerning that unknown document in Doctors’ Commons, this sudden attachment was the sharpest spur which could have been applied; for here alone lay the means by which the beauty might be appropriated and taken possession of. And every circumstance concurred to convince Horace of the importance of the discovery he had made at Marchmain. He saw the position of affairs there without any mistake or self-deception; perceived, with perfect clearness, that the letter which he had taken had been missed from his father’s desk, and coolly contented himself with the knowledge that Susan had been banished from home for his fault. “So much the better for Susan,” he said to himself, with entire composure; and it did not trouble him in the least that both Susan and Peggy must be quite aware who was the real criminal. He hoped, indeed, to be able very shortly to make the consequences of that theft apparent enough; for in all Horace’s calculations the thought of some immediate issue followed without pause his investigation of the will. The impatience of youth and inexperience—mingling with all the calculations and designs of his unyouthful and ungenerous intelligence, the foresight and cold selfishness of age—made his very imaginations covetous and grasping; but the youth in his veins betrayed him into dreams of a conclusion as rapid as it was brilliant. He could form his schemes with all the coolness of an old man, but he could not wait for his fortune; like a young man, he was determined to have it now.
This point accordingly was one on which he concluded without doubt or hesitation. He did not know what fortune might have in store for him; he could not tell what mysterious inheritance lay waiting, till he should make his momentous discovery; but he felt convinced that to enter upon the immediate enjoyment of these unknown and concealed riches he had but to find this secret out. With all the cold blood of age, totally careless and indifferent to any results which did not affect himself, he leapt at the rapid conclusion of youth, and found wealth, love, and luxury in a sudden windfall of extraordinary fortune. So, happily unaware of his own inconsistency, Horace lived in a fever through the few tedious days which he was obliged to spend in Harliflax, in the monotonous occupations of Mr. Stenhouse’s office, with only one other glimpse of Amelia before he could start on his important journey. Steady though his selfish intelligence was, the hours danced and buzzed over him in a dizzy whirl. He stood on the threshold of a dazzling and splendid fortune, the future of a fairy tale. He stood like a knight of romance, with his lady’s name upon his lips, impatient to enter the charmed gateway, and read in the enchanted scroll the secret of his fate; but the talisman which should roll back these solemn gates of the future was no spell for the lips of a true knight; and romantic as his position might be, Horace Scarsdale occupied it in no romantic frame of mind. The romance of his attitude was all unwitting and unwilling, the work of circumstances. And it was not to conquer fortune, but to hunt for a cruel bit of paper, that, burning with suppressed eagerness, he set out for that London which to him meant only Doctors’ Commons, bent upon two ideas which occupied his whole being—Amelia Stenhouse and the Will.