Kitabı oku: «The House on the Moor. Volume 1», sayfa 5
“Positive claim! I wish you had dined with us one day, uncle, to see what these claims are!” cried Horace, with a laugh of bitterness; but the Colonel, who had been thinking of something else for the moment, inclined his ear towards him with a little start and a smile, before which bitterness fled. Horace could no more comprehend his uncle than his uncle could understand him. This smile discomforted him strangely – he could not stand against that kind prompt attention, the ear so solicitous to catch what he said, and the face so guileless and benign. The young man was of a crafty intelligence, and could have detected wiles – but this sunshiny simplicity put him out. It went deep into the primitive truth, sincerity, and honesty of nature – things which Horace Scarsdale had small acquaintance with in the secret spring and fountain of his life.
CHAPTER IX
THAT evening was an epoch in the life of Horace. The people in the little country inn to which he took his uncle were not unacquainted with the young man. For a year or two past, ever since the bitter independence of manhood had begun to possess him, he had spent much of his waste unoccupied time in this and the other humble houses of entertainment of the district. With a sensation of superiority, which he owed principally to his natural temper – for there was in reality very little distinction of breeding or character between himself and the society he frequented – he held a scornful dictatorial place among the humbler convives of the villages, and observed and amused himself with the peculiarities he saw, very much as if he had been a man of the world, trained to that odious criticism which is dignified by being called “the study of mankind.” The coarse enjoyments of the public-house company did not tempt him – he threw his violent decisions into the hum of drowsy talk when it suited him, and at other times looked on, noting, with contemptuous amusement, the dull jollity of the place. His father’s singular solitude imposed a certain respect upon the imagination of the district; and between Horace and the country lads around there remained always that inexplainable, undefinable difference which, independent of education, wealth, and every tangible advantage, separates those who are born in different classes of society, especially in rural places. He had accordingly a strange kind of popularity in the district – not the popularity of common love and esteem, but an attraction perhaps more remarkable; his careless rudeness, his bitter humour, the harsh philosophy which contrasted with his youth and inexperience, gave him a certain singular hold upon the imagination of his companions. The very certainty that he did not care a single straw for them attached the little crowd to his footsteps. Dominant and imperious self-regard, like all other regnant qualities, has a wonderful influence upon the common mind. No other person within the immediate knowledge of this rural community assumed the same tone, or showed the same spirit – and the vehement and forcible language, more refined than their own, the utterance of a gentleman, which Horace had acquired involuntarily, the arrogant sentiments he expressed, the unconcealed consciousness of superiority which belonged to him, united to impose a certain allegiance upon the inexperienced minds, which found him unique and singular, the sole development known to them of a kind of intelligence and a manner of man widely differing from their own.
But this night everything was changed. The landlady of the inn, amazed into a flutter of perturbation, appeared herself, at the astounding information that young Mr. Horry, as he was called, had arrived with a gentleman. The good woman supposed it must be his mysterious father, and hastened with all the speed of curiosity to receive them – but lost in amazement to find “the gentleman” a stranger, who required the best accommodation of her house for a few days, and desired to dine as soon as that was practicable – found it only possible to curtsey and retire, more curious than ever, without being able to show her previous acquaintance and familiarity with Mr. Horry, who turned his face with an arrogant blank of unrecognition full upon her, and added to his uncle’s orders a request that some one might be sent to Marchmain immediately for the carpet-bag.
“Something’s agoing to happen,” said the landlady, as she returned to her own domain. “A strange gentleman as wants the best o’ everything – an ould sodger lord with musstaches – egh, lad! – a lord I’ll warrant, at the very least o’ him – and I’ll lay you a sixpence he’s coom to set a’ things straight; for yonder’s Mr. Horry, he looks me in the face as broad as I look at you, and says, says he, ‘Send a man to Marchmain for a carpet-bag immediantly,’ as if he never set eyes on me in his born days afore. Like him! I would ne’er goo starving to his door in hopes o’ meat.”
Great preparations ensued for the hasty dinner, which was to be ready in an hour; but even the landlady’s conviction that her guest could not be less than a lord was not sufficient to work impossibilities. While it was getting ready, Colonel Sutherland and Horace sat together over the new kindled fire. The best room of the inn, which did not receive a guest twice in a year, was a dingy parlour hung with old portraits of famous horses, winners of the cups of antiquity, with a county map, and a print of George IV. to vary the embellishments, and two small windows looking out upon the village street. The Colonel placed himself as close as possible to the fire, not without dreadful apprehensions of the rheumatism, which already sent flying twinges into his spare limbs, and made him wince; and thought with a little natural indignation of his repelled kindness, and the cold reception which had forced him to seek this place, and substituted the accommodation of a poor little country inn for the hospitality he had expected. Silence and these recollections, and the startling twinges of his rheumatism, changed the expression of his face almost into sternness, and seemed to develop in him another phase of character. Horace watched him in the doubtful light, more and more puzzled. The indulgent, tender kindness and forbearance of the fatherly old man had disappeared with the animation of their talk and intercourse – the whole face had a loftier and more rigid expression. Horace, drawing back his chair out of the firelight, gazed and pondered with knitted brows. He began to think more elaborate approaches were necessary, and plans better laid. He had not found it possible hitherto to get much information from this kind old uncle touching the family secret, if there was one. Was Colonel Sutherland a kind old uncle merely? Horace began to suspect he must be something more, and that the task of persuading him and winning him over to his own interests might not be so very easy after all.
The Colonel sat long in meditation, as if he were in full consideration of the whole knotty subject; when he made a little stir in his chair as if about to speak, a sudden burst of anxiety ran over Horace. “I wonder,” said the Colonel, with the gravest face, “how long it is since a fire was lighted in this room before. Speak of England, Horace! I don’t believe there is anything so dismal from Berwick to John o’ Groats as that moor of yours, and no attempt at cultivation or improvement, so far as I can perceive. You should see our high farming in Lothian! I have not felt the cold so severe since I came home.”
Horace had almost laughed aloud in his sudden relief and contempt. These were the thoughts, so deeply ruminated, which had brought gravity to Colonel Sutherland’s face. The young man, who now less than ever comprehended the old man, went to stand at the window, not without a certain satisfaction in being seen there by the evening frequenters of the place, who were sure to hear of his companion, and of the different position he occupied for this night at least; and passed another half hour of waiting before the dinner appeared, in strange calculations, at once cunning and foolish – the wiles of a subtle mind, and the inexperience of a young one – thinking with himself how long his uncle’s simplicity could withstand his attacks – how soon he should be able to worm all the secrets of the family out of him, and how easily he could work the old man to do what he would. Then, if such a man as Colonel Sutherland had reached to a respectable position and command, what might not such a man as Horace Scarsdale do? The young man’s spirits rose – he imagined himself making a stepping-stone of his uncle, to push his way into the arena – and then – .
Considering the height and imaginative character of this ambition, which at the outset gave it a certain refinement, it was astonishing, notwithstanding, to perceive into what almost vulgar elation his spirits rose during that dinner. It was no great things of a dinner, being too ambitious by far for the occasion; but it was perhaps the very first meal in his life, at least since he came to years of self-knowledge, which Horace had eaten with freedom and pleasure. He thought of Marchmain, and the scene in the dining-room at that moment, where Peggy, in the ordinary course of events, would be about removing the cloth and setting on the table his father’s solitary glass and jug of claret, and smiled to think of Mr. Scarsdale’s silent rage at seeing his vacant place. He was pleased and flattered by the respectful manner of the landlord who waited on them, and could not refrain from talking rather big to his uncle, and assuming a confidence and frankness quite unusual to him, and foreign to his nature, for the advantage of that individual. He was too young to conceal this first gratification, and betrayed himself unawares. Simple and unsuspecting though the Colonel was, he perceived this. However, it was natural, and instead of a hard laugh at it, Uncle Edward smiled and grew kinder, and loved Horace better and trusted him the more for his weakness’ sake. They seemed growing friends gradually and surely – the old man believed they were, and rejoiced in it, and could not have believed, had anybody told him that the cold passion of self-regard, to the entire exclusion of warmer feelings, filled his nephew’s heart.
When they were left alone, Horace, a little stimulated by the wine he had taken, commenced his attack with boldness: —
“Uncle,” he said, “you must think of me – you must help me. I have never been able to speak my mind before to a single individual who could comprehend or assist me. I must know what are our circumstances. It is needless to say that my father’s past life does not affect me. It does affect me – everything affects me that I am kept in ignorance of. What are we? – what is he? – why are we here?”
Horace had hit by chance and unawares upon the means really most likely to attain his end. Colonel Sutherland could not return anything but a true answer to a plain and straightforward question; and evasion was so strange to him that he managed it in the clumsiest manner. He retired on his deafness in the first place – a defence from which Horace drove him out triumphantly by a repetition of the question in tones that could not be mistaken. Then he faltered over it a little, with common-places of hesitation too palpable to deceive anybody.
“Your true circumstances – your father’s past life? Your father’s past life has always been virtuous and honourable,” said the Colonel. “What is he? You ought surely to know better than I do, who have not seen him for fifteen years. He is, if you wish my opinion, a man of very peculiar temper. Horace, I do not wonder that you find him rather hard to get on with sometimes, but he is your father; and therefore, my dear boy, whatever others may do, impatience and a harsh judgment do not become you.”
Horace shook his head.
“This is not what I want to know. You know it is not,” he said, with a rising colour. “Say no, if you will, but don’t treat me like a child. Look here, uncle: I am assured there is a secret – I know it, no matter how – tell me what it is.”
Horace put the whole force of his voice and mind into the question. He made it not as one who asks, but as one who demands what he has a right to know, feeling convinced that his gentle relative could not now evade him, and had no strength to resist; and with this conviction strong upon him, the young man stared into the Colonel’s eyes, with the thought of overawing him and compelling his answer thus.
Colonel Sutherland looked at him steadily, withdrew his eyes a moment, looked again, and at last spoke.
“If you think,” said the Colonel, coldly, “that by this persistence and demand you can persuade any man of honour to betray to you a secret with which another has entrusted him, you show only your ignorance of gentlemen and want of belief in your fellow-creatures. If there is a secret in your family circumstances – though, mind you, I do not admit that there is – can you suppose that I will tell you anything which it is your father’s desire that you should not know?”
Horace shrunk for a moment in mingled rage and amazement from the tone. It was inconceivable to him that anybody could feel even an instant’s contempt for him; but the feeling was momentary.
“Then he does desire that I should not know it!” he exclaimed, with a certain triumph – and set his teeth over the admission, as if this at least was something gained.
“I did not say so,” said the Colonel, with some embarrassment. “I said if – No, Horace, if you wish to investigate into all the secrets of your family, go to your father, and ask him – he is the proper judge of what should or should not be told you. At least, if you don’t admit that, he is at least the most proper person to be asked; and till he has refused to satisfy you, you have no right to apply to any one else. Take my advice – be honest and straightforward – it is the shortest way and the clearest: ask himself.”
“Ask himself! Do you know the terms we are on, uncle?” said Horace, with a smile.
“So much the worse for you both – and long enough that has lasted, surely,” said the Colonel. “The past is no man’s, the future is every man’s: I say to you again, that has lasted long enough! Ask himself, and let the mystery and the strife end together. It is the only honest way to clear your difficulties up.”
Once more Horace smiled – a smile of disappointment and anger – baffled and furious; while the Colonel went on with his honest, simple advice, exhorting the young man to candour and openness – he might as well have exhorted him to be Prime Minister – while Horace, for his part, kept silent, perceiving, once for all, that whether it was from mere foolishness, or some principle of character unknown to him, his uncle was impracticable, and that the only way to find anything out from him was to lie in wait for the unguarded admissions which, in spite of himself, might fall from his lips.
“After all,” said Colonel Sutherland, when he had concluded his good, honest advice to his own satisfaction, “what has all this to do with it? You are tired of inactivity and quiet, as a young man ought to be; you want to set out upon the world. Of course, your father cannot object to this; and as for me, all that I can do to forward it I will, heartily. But, Horace, setting out on the world does not mean anything vague, my lad. It means doing, or aiming at, some special thing – some one special thing, my dear boy. We can’t go out to conquer the world now-a-days – it must be a profession, or business, or a place, or something; so I’ll tell you what to do. Think it well over – what you said to me about having no inclinations. Sit down by yourself, and find out if there is not a special turn one way or other in some corner of your heart, and let us hear what it is. After that the way will be clear; we must look for an opening for you, and,” added Colonel Sutherland, after a little pause, and speaking with hesitation, “if you should then – wish for – my services with your father, why then, Horace – though we are not the best friends in the world – I’ll try my best.”
“Thank you,” said Horace, with sullenness, which he tried vainly to repress – “thank you, uncle. I will do as you say.”
The conversation then came to an end, Horace fuming over it secretly as a failure – and the young man had so high an idea of his own powers, that the thought galled him deeply. Then, after an unsatisfactory interval of indefinite conversation, which Horace could not keep up, and which the Colonel – tired, disheartened, and perplexed – sustained but dully, the young man got up and bade him “good night.” Colonel Sutherland went down to the door of the inn, half with a simple precaution to see him safely out of the “temptation” of that “low company” which Horace had owned to seeking, and half by suggestion of that kindness which could not bear to see any one discouraged. “Think it well over,” urged the Colonel once more, “and expect me to-morrow; and be cheerful, and keep up your heart, Horace. There’s plenty of room for you in the world, and plenty of force in yourself. Good night, my dear boy – good night.”
CHAPTER X
WHEN Horace Scarsdale left the lights of the village behind him, and took his way through the black roads towards Marchmain, he carried with him a burden of thoughts rather different from those which accompanied him here. Though his was neither a noble nor a sweet development of youth, still youth was in him, as in others, heroical and absolute. It is impossible to reduce to description the kind of fortune he had planned for himself; for, indeed, he had planned nothing, except a general self-glorification and domination over the world.
His uncle’s advice to him, to ascertain how his likings inclined, and make choice of some profession or employment precise and definite, humiliated and offended him unawares. His fancies had not condescended to any such particularity. He had an impression on his mind, how acquired he could not tell, that his father wronged him, and that it was only necessary for him to be aware of their true circumstances to set him at once beyond the common necessities of life. This conviction, however, he had never betrayed to any one; and Colonel Sutherland’s recommendation, which implied the restraints of labour and something to do, was not over-palatable to the young man brought up in idleness.
He was too old to begin the study of a profession, and when he thought of the laborious days and confined existence of men who have their own way to make in the world, secret rage and mortification took possession of Horace. Was this all that remained for him? – was this the life which he must look forward to? – was there nothing better in the future than this? He had no desire to choose his means of living, his manner of work – his thoughts eluded the subject when it was presented to him – it was easier to brood over a mysterious wrong, and dream of sudden revelations which should change everything in a moment. At the same time, his intellect was sufficiently clear to show him that contempt was likely to follow any exhibition of these feelings of his – he himself, as he reflected on it, fumed at himself with silent disgust.
Then he had failed to influence Colonel Sutherland as he expected – everything had failed in the absolute fashion – he could no longer carry matters, even to himself, with the high hand of dominant youthful unreason and disregard of things and men: – even things that pleased him took a definite, particular, and limited form, and came under conditions which made them distasteful. Already he began to perceive that the language and manner, which did very well for his alehouse companions, was not practicable in such society as that of his uncle; and unaware as yet how to acquire a more successful tone, fell into deep and angry mortification on the subject. He had not impressed upon Colonel Sutherland a high idea of his spirit, his energy, and his intellect, as Horace had intended to do; but had only conveyed the idea of a presumptuous and ignorant youth to the mind of his uncle. He felt this with a humiliation out of which he drew no humility. It was not so easy as he supposed, to see through and dominate over even so simple a character as that of Colonel Sutherland.
But it did not occur to Horace that his uncle’s plain simplicity and truthfulness was, in fact, the only thing in the world which could not be dominated over by the most splendid superiority of intellect. He supposed it was only his own ignorance, and inexperience, and want of address – deficiencies mortifying enough to acknowledge certainly, but not so mortifying as the entire incapacity either to comprehend or to influence. He had time enough to think over all these things, as he made his way through the lonely, dreary country roads, and across the moor.
This day, and this meeting, and the opening of his close heart even so far, had flashed into life the smouldering fire in the mind of Horace. He strode on with long, rapid steps, thinking it scarcely possible that he could contain himself within the miserable hermitage of Marchmain, even for a night. He went along pondering schemes to surprise the secret from his uncle, in spite of this first failure; and, intoxicated by the first realization of freedom, to imagine himself altogether free, his own master, triumphing over the world. But among these fancies there mingled neither a desire nor any attempt to ascertain, as Colonel Sutherland said, “his own inclinations,” or to decide upon what he should do. He said quite truly, when he reported of himself, that he had no inclinations which concerned labour or a profession, and even in his own thoughts he evaded that question. He could think closely, when the matter was to find out, from his uncle’s unsuspicious temper, his father’s secret; but not when the thing to determine was the needful labour of his own life.
Meanwhile, Susan sat silent in her father’s presence, longing for the return of Horace, picturing him to herself seated opposite to her uncle, free to say what he would, opening his heart under those genial looks, bringing home kind thoughts and kind messages, sunned and mellowed by that unsuspected love which had developed all the wonderful possibilities of a new life to herself. Even Susan could not sit still to-night – her patchwork had lost its attraction for her – her thoughts rose too fast, and were too numerous, to make her ordinary quiet possible. In spite of herself, and even unawares to herself, she was no longer the noiseless girl who sat hushed for hours, opposite to that rigid figure with the little reading-desk and open book. To her own amazement, she caught herself once humming an incipient tune as she sat over her work; and after a while found it impossible to sit still, and moved about with an involuntary restlessness, finding little matters to arrange in all the corners of the room, chairs to place differently, the curtains to be drawn closer, the fire to be stirred, something to keep her in motion, and express, by that only means permitted to her, the unaccustomed stir and commotion in her own heart. And what was even more remarkable, Mr. Scarsdale himself seemed to have an instinctive perception of this, and to be somehow moved in his own calm. A close observer might have perceived that he no longer travelled by mechanical accuracy from beginning to end of his page – that the leaves were tamed less regularly, and that his eyes were fixed upon the upper margin of his book, sometimes for half an hour together, while he watched, without looking at her, his daughter’s movements, and heard the faint rustle of her hushed motion about the room. He divined the cause, and knew the emotion in her heart, with a strange and bitter certainty. He was aware by intuition that all the affection, and confidence, and filial warmth which he had never sought, had sprung up in an instant to meet the touch of another who had not the same natural claim as he; and the forlorn man grew more forlorn by the knowledge, and perhaps even once for an instant hesitated whether he should not, at this last moment, open his heart to his child, his wife’s daughter, the only woman of the family. Somehow these words returned to him unawares. Mr. Scarsdale was not of the kind of man who is much influenced by women. Sympathy was an offence rather than a pleasure to him – he had none to bestow and he sought none. Consolations of affection he scarcely distinguished from intrusions of impertinence, and there was no soil on which tenderness could grow in his rocky nature. But if he had little affection, he had a perennial envy in his heart. He could not bear that another man should obtain anything which seemed by right to belong to himself. The idea that his wife’s brother had already possessed himself of Susan’s heart, more than he, her father, had done during her whole life, galled him bitterly; so much, that in that moment of indecision, while he held his book in his hands as though he would have closed it, the impulse had actually come upon him to put confidence in Susan, and so win her over, once for all, to his side, and shut out the less legitimate claimant on her affection.
The only woman of the family! It was his daughter whom Edward Sutherland made this claim of affection on – it was a piece of his property which the new comer appropriated; and Mr. Scarsdale had almost been moved out of himself to secure the filial heart which he cared not for, yet which it galled him to see claimed by any other. But nature conquered the sudden thought; he set his book once more steadily open upon his little desk – he made his heart bitter and hard – a forced and painful smile came upon his lip; within himself he recalled, half unawares, some of those words of contemptuous sarcasm against women, by which some men revenge themselves for some woman’s misdeeds. But it made him colder, harder, more forlorn and solitary, in spite of himself. His son, whom he had always treated as an enemy, was with his brother-in-law; his daughter, though here in bodily presence, was with that intruder also in her heart. He was alone, alone – always alone; a jealous, envious, morbid rage deepened the shade upon his face; the love was nothing to him – but he gnashed his teeth to see it enjoyed by another.
When Horace returned – and they could hear his summons at the door, and Peggy’s tardy opening – he did not come into the dining-room, but went upstairs at once; sending a message to Susan, to her great disappointment, that he was tired with his walk from Tillington, and was going to rest. Mr. Scarsdale did not retire till a much later hour than usual that night; and when he did, made Susan precede him by a few minutes, that he might see her shut up in her own room, and prevent all communication with her brother. He persuaded himself that they were in a conspiracy against him, and roused his temper with the thought; he spoke more harshly to Susan than he had ever done before in her recollection, and sent her to her own room in tears. Tears! – miserable woman’s play of pretended suffering! – at least he was beyond the weakness of being deceived by it; and he smiled bitterly to himself, as he went to his own comfortless rest, thinking on the smiles which would greet her uncle. Unjust fate! unnatural nature! – for these smiles were his, and belonged to him – yet he could not prevent the kind looks of a stranger from stealing this property away.
And Susan cried herself to sleep, with hopes and happy anticipations taking the bitterness out of the tears; and Horace sat in his room, where he had hastily extinguished his candle on hearing approaching footsteps – as little inclined to see Susan as his father was that he should; pondering his wiles for overcoming his uncle. Only last night the house had been undisturbed in its unchanging life; now everything was commotion, disturbance, new efforts and hopes, a changed aspect of existence: and all from the advent of that guileless old soldier, who, waking in the night with his twinges of rheumatism, his fears that his bed had not been aired, and his deeper perplexity and pain about his sister’s children, mixed these different troubles altogether, with a hazy mist of oppression and distress in his mind as he turned his head towards the wall, and sank into a heavy sleep.
