CHAPTER XXV
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.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE dinner passed as these formal lonely dinners had passed for years at Marchmain. There was no perceptible shade of difference in the manner of Mr. Scarsdale, who addressed to his daughter polite questions about the dishes she preferred, as he had been used to do to Horace, driving his son wild; and himself sat upright and stiff at the head of the table, dining, as usual, without any symptoms of the passion which he had exhibited to Susan. He was deeply angry, it is true, still, but he was entirely without alarm, believing, as a matter of course, that Susan must have taken his letter, and contemptuously receiving that instance of dishonourable conduct merely as a visible specimen of the womanish meanness and cunning which belonged to such creatures, and which, perhaps, was scarcely to be considered guilt. He believed she would return it to him that evening. He did not believe she had boldness enough to retain any copy for Horace, and he knew that to herself it would disclose nothing; therefore, he showed no more passion, was no more repulsive than he always was, and scarcely deigned to turn his eyes more than usual upon his unfortunate child.
She sat there at table, with the light shining on her, answering him in humble monosyllables when he spoke – for Susan’s heroics had failed long ere now – receiving humbly what he sent to her, but unable to eat a morsel, her heart almost choking her as it beat against her breast. It was not now the desolate moor, nor the forlorn idea of being thrust out homeless upon it to wander where she would, that oppressed Susan. It was the terror of being put to further question, of her father once more addressing her, as he was sure to do, about the theft, of which she no longer felt herself quite innocent. She could scarcely restrain her start and thrill of terror when he turned his head towards her; her frame trembled throughout with desperate apprehensions; she feared herself, and her own ignorance of all the arts of concealment; she feared to say something or do something which would betray Horace; and she feared her father – that bitter tone of passion, that terrible incredulity of truth. The poor girl sat still, rigidly, upon her chair, with a feeling that this was her only safeguard, and that she must infallibly drop down upon the floor if she tried to move. When Peggy removed the cloth, and placed Mr. Scarsdale’s little reading-desk, his glass and decanter, upon the table, Susan still sat there in spite of many a secret touch and pull from her humble and anxious friend. Peggy was alarmed, but durst not say anything to call the attention of her master; and at last brought Susan’s work to her, and thrust it into the poor child’s trembling fingers, with a look and movement of anxious appeal. Susan took the work mechanically, and applied herself to it without knowing what she did; and thus the evening went on with a thrilling, audible silence, of which, dreary and long though she had felt these nights many a time before, she had never been sensible till now. The long, gleaming, polished table, with the two candles reflecting themselves in its surface in two lines of light; the solemn figure of Mr. Scarsdale in his formal evening dress, seated upright at the head, turning with mechanical, automaton regularity the leaves of his book; the dead blank of the surrounding walls, no longer diversified even by a flicker of firelight; and Susan, almost as rigid and motionless as her father, afraid to breathe, lest it should call his attention to her; her ears tingling to the dreadful silence, and her heart fainting at thought of the words which some time this evening were sure to break it. Looking upon this evening scene, it was strange to believe that Susan Scarsdale could tremble at the idea of being thrust out of this cold and gloomy refuge, or find no comfort in the thought of trying rather the strange world and the solitary moor, which, unknown as they were, were still crossed by paths which led to human homes.
But she thought neither of the world nor the moor at the present moment. She would have been glad if she had been sufficiently courageous to fly out into the darkness and lose herself for ever rather than meet this impending interview; but it was not in her to escape or run away. Susan’s mind was the womanly development of that steady British temper which cannot deliver itself by violence, but must wait orderly and dutiful for the natural accomplishment of its destinies. She sat trembling but still, afraid of what she had to bear, doubtless, but incapable of running away.
The long night passed in this pause and silence, without a word said on either side. The tea came in, and was made and swallowed without any interruption of the blank. And still Susan’s fingers moved at the work which she could scarcely see, and her father turned over the pages of his book. He perceived beyond doubt, as he sat mechanically reading to the bottom of every page, with that dull, steady attention which had neither life nor interest in it, the state of extreme emotion, excitement, and desperate self-restraint in which his young daughter sat before him; but pity found no entrance into his heart. He permitted her to remain so, sitting late and beyond the usual hour of retiring, with a kind of diabolical patience on his own part, which checked the words a dozen times on his lips. He was satisfied to see the entire power he had over her, and at the present moment had no thought of his threat, or of carrying it out. Perhaps even to him the room would have been more desolate, the dismal evening longer, had there been no young figure there, humbly ministering to him when occasion was, keeping respectful silence, bearing, without a complaint or effort to enliven them, these tedious, miserable hours; but he had no objection to see her suffer. At length, when the chill of almost midnight began to creep into that room where they had ceased to have any fire, Mr. Scarsdale’s own physical sensations moved him. He closed his book, and as he closed it, saw Susan shiver in the climax of her agonies of anticipation. She should not be balked this time, and at last he spoke.
“I presume, Susan,” he said, with a little solemnity, “that you have made up your mind.”
“Papa?” said Susan, with a gasp of inquiry. Made up her mind to what? He so seldom addressed her by her name that some forlorn hope of his heart relenting towards her entered her head. Perhaps some lingering touch of compunction had taken him at the thought of sending her away.
“Must I speak plainer?” he said. “I presume you have decided what you are going to do. Are you ready to restore my letter, or to leave my house? Which? You understand the alternative well enough, and you know that I am not to be trifled with – have you the letter here?”
“Oh, papa!” cried Susan, clasping her hands, “I have not the letter here nor anywhere! I never had it! I never saw it! Oh, papa, did I ever tell you a lie, that you will not believe me now? And how can I give it back when I never took it? – when I do not know what it is? Will you not believe me? I am speaking the truth.”
“Where is my letter?” cried Mr. Scarsdale once more, growing white with passion.
Susan sat looking at him, trembling, unable to speak; her lips moved, but he could not hear what she said. She could hardly hear herself say under her breath, “I cannot tell! I do not know!” Her terror had taken breath and voice away from her. How could she answer such a question? – she did not know – and yet she did know. Oh, Horace! She could have been so much bolder, so much stronger, if she had never known of his coming there.
“You are obdurate, then, and determined!” cried the father. “You think, perhaps, your brother will take up your cause and protect you. Fool! do you suppose he cares for you more than for an instrument; or your meddling uncle, who has made perpetual mischief since his prying visit here. Think! I give you one opportunity more: will you restore me that letter – once for all, yes or no?”
Susan staggered up to her feet, hysterical and overwhelmed.
“You may turn me away out of the house!” she cried; “you may do it, for you have the power – you may kill me, if you please; but you cannot make me give back what I never saw and never touched in my life!”
Mr. Scarsdale looked at her intently, as if thinking that his eyes, fiery and burning, could overcome her if nothing else would. “In that case,” he said, with cold passion, “this is our last meeting – the last occasion on which I shall have anything to say to you. I am now alone, and shall remain so while I live. Be good enough to give Peggy directions where your wardrobe is to be sent. In consideration of your youth, I give you the shelter of my roof to-night; but I trust I shall not need to encounter another such interview. Good-bye – I wish you better fortune in your future life than you have had here.”
Susan held up her hands, overpowered, in spite of herself, by the position in which she stood.
“Father, where can I go?” she cried, with a wild appeal. He looked at her once more, fixedly and firmly.
“You know that much better than I can tell you. Good-bye,” he said; and so left the room, with those long, silent, passionate steps, the light he carried gleaming upon his passionate face. Susan sank down where he had left her, alone and desolate. It was all over now!
CHAPTER XXVII
SUSAN could not tell how long the interval was till Peggy came softly stealing into the room, in her big night-cap, and with a shawl over her shoulders. Peggy had waited till she heard Mr. Scarsdale sweep upstairs; she could see him out of her kitchen, where she sat in the dark, silent and watchful as her own great cat, with her eyes turned towards the closed door of the dining-room; and as soon as she supposed it safe, she made haste to the succour of his poor daughter. Susan was sitting in despair, where she had sat all the evening, pale, stupefied, and silent – not sufficiently alive to outward circumstances to notice Peggy’s entrance; overpowered by her own personal misfortune scarcely more than she was shocked in her sense of right, and ashamed to be obliged to expose her father’s cruelty and injustice. A new horror on this point had seized her; she was not of that disposition which is pleased to appear in the character of victim or sacrifice; she would have suffered anything sooner than disclose the grim ghost of her own house to the public eye; notwithstanding this was what she must do, in spite of herself. When Horace left his home it was not an unnatural proceeding, nor was his father to be supposed greatly in the wrong; but she, a girl, what would any one think of a man who expelled her from his unfatherly doors? Her heart ached as this new thought fell with afflicting and sudden distinctness upon it, and she had now no more time to weep or bemoan herself. This night only was all the interval of thought or preparation to be permitted her. Already, indeed, in the chill of that deep darkness the day had begun which was to see her cast forth and banished; and already her mind sickened and grew feeble to think that she could not take a step upon the road without revealing to some one how hardly she had been treated; and that her own very solitude, helplessness, and necessity were all so many mute accusations against the father who had no pity on her womanhood or her youth.
Notwithstanding, Susan was recovering command of herself, and felt that she had no time for trifling; and when she felt Peggy’s hand on her shoulder, and heard the whisper of kindness in her ear, she did not “give way,” as Peggy expected. She looked up with her exhausted face, almost worn out, yet at the same time reviving, full of what it was necessary to do.
“I am to go away,” she said, slowly, with a quiver of her lip – “to-morrow – early – that he may never see me again. I am to tell you where to send my things, and to go away, Peggy, to-morrow.”
“Weel, hinny, and it’s well for you!” cried Peggy, herself bursting out into a fit of tears and sobbing. “Oh, Miss Susan, what am I that I should complain and grumble? – but it’s all that heartbreaking face, my darling lamb! What should I lament for? Nothing in this world but selfishness, and because I’m an old fool. The Lord forgive us! – it’s a deal better for you!”
“Oh! hush, Peggy – don’t speak!” said Susan – “and don’t cry – I can’t bear it! There is very, very little time now to think of anything; and you must tell me – there is nobody else in the world to tell me – what I am to do.”
“Nobody else in the world? Oh, hinny-sweet!” cried poor Peggy. “There’s a whole worldfull of love and kindness for you and the likes of you. There’s your uncle – bless him! – that would keep the very wind off your cheek; and many a wan ye never saw nor heard tell o’, will be striving which to be kindest. Say no such words to me – I know a deal better than that. I’m no’ afraid for you,” cried Peggy, with a fresh burst of sobbing – “no’ a morsel, and I’ll no pretend. I’m real even down heartbroken for the master and mysel’!”
Susan could not answer, and did not try; she was but little disposed to lament for her father at the present moment, or to think him capable of feeling her loss. She put her hand on Peggy’s, and pressed it, half in fondness, half with an entreaty to be silent, which the faithful servant did not disregard. Peggy took Susan’s round soft hand between her own hard ones, and held it close, and looked at her with sorrowful, fond eyes. She saw the young life and resolution, the sweet serious sense and judgment, coming back to Susan’s face, and Peggy was heroic enough to forget herself, for the forlorn young creature’s sake.
“Ay, it’s just so,” said Peggy – “I knowed it from her birth. She’ll never make a work if she can help it, but she’ll never break down and fail. Miss Susan, there’s one thing first and foremost you mun do, and you munna say no to me, for I know best. You must go this moment to your bed – ”
“To bed! Do you think I could sleep, Peggy?” cried Susan, with involuntary youthful contempt.
“Ay, hinny – ye’ll sleep, and ye’ll wake fresh, and start early. You wouldn’t think it, maybe, but I know better,” said Peggy. “You munna say no to me, the last night. Eyeh, my lamb! you’re young, and your eyes are heavy with the sleep and the tears. I’ll wake ye brave and early, but you mun take first your nat’ral rest.”
“It is impossible. I do not know what to do – I have everything to ask you about. Oh, Peggy, don’t bid me!” said Susan, crying; “and I have no money, and nobody to direct me, and I don’t know how to get there!”
“Whisht! Youth can sleep at all seasons; but it’s given to the aged to watch, and it doesna injure them,” said Peggy, solemnly. “Go to your bed, my lamb, and say your prayers, and the Lord’ll send sleep to his beloved; and as for me, I’ll turn all things over in my mind, and do up your bundle: you mun carry your own bundle, hinny, a bit of the road – there’s no help; and rouse you with the break of day, and hev your cup of tea ready. Eh! the Lord bless you, darling! you’re a-going forth to love and kindness, and a life fit for the likes of you. Am I sorry? No, no, no, if ye ask me a hunderd times – save and excepting for mysel’.”
“Oh, Peggy, you’ll miss me!” cried Susan, throwing herself into the arms of her faithful friend.
“Ay; maybe I will,” said Peggy, slowly; “I wouldn’t say – it’s moor nor likely. Miss Susan, go to your bed this moment; ye’ll maybe never have the chance of doing Peggy’s bidding again.”
Moved by this adjuration, Susan obeyed, though very unwillingly; and smiling sadly at the very idea of sleep, laid herself down for the last time on her own bed, “to please Peggy.” But Peggy knew better than her young mistress. Through those deep, chill hours of night, while Peggy, in the same room, looked over all the different articles of her wardrobe, selecting the dress in which she should travel, carefully packing the others, and putting up the light necessary articles which must be carried with her, Susan slept soft and deep, with the sleep of youth and profound exhaustion. She had been tried beyond her strength, and nature would not be defrauded. When Peggy’s task was over she sat down by the bedside, a strange figure in her great muslin nightcap, and with her big shawl wrapping her close against the cold of the night. Peggy was too old to sleep in such circumstances; she sat wiping her eyes silently, though not weeping, as far as any sound went, thinking of more things than Susan wist of; of Susan’s mother, who had succumbed so many years ago under the hard pressure of life; of the unhappy man in the next room, who was consuming himself, as he had consumed everything lovely and pleasant in his existence, by the vehemence and bitterness of his passions; and of yet another man who was dead, an elder Scarsdale, whose malevolent will worked mischief and misery, after he had ceased to have any individual action of his own. Susan would have thought it strange and hard if she had known that she herself, the darling of Peggy’s heart, came in only at the end of this long musing upon others; and that even her brother, with his hard and ungenerous spirit, had a larger share in the sorrowful cogitations of the old family servant than she herself had. Susan was only a sufferer – she was young, she had friends who would love her. Peggy would “miss” her sorely and heavily, but it was well for Susan. She had nothing to do with that long line of perversity, and cruelty, and guilt which ran in the Scarsdale blood.
The dawn was breaking gray and faint when Peggy woke her young mistress. Susan sprang up instantly, unable to believe that the night was really over. Peggy had made everything ready for her, even to the unnecessary breakfast and comforting cup of tea down-stairs, set before a cosy fire, and the girl dressed herself with a silent rapidity of excitement, listening to the directions which Peggy, not very learned herself, gave to her inexperience. Peggy, out of the heart of some secret treasure of her own, which she kept ready in case of necessity, and had done for many a year, with a prevision of some such want as the present, had taken an old five-pound note, which, stuffed into an old fashioned purse, she put into Susan’s hands, as soon as her rapid toilette was completed.
“They’ll no ask more nor that, Miss Susan,” said Peggy; “they tell me they’re no as dear as postchays, them railroads. Now, hinny, I’ll tell you what you’ll do – you’ll take across the moor to Tillington, to John Gilsland’s, at the public; it’s a long walk, but it cannot be helped, and it’s early morning, and no a person will say an uncivil word to you. You’ll tell him to get out his gig and take you immediate to the railroad, and you’ll no pay him. Maybe he might impose upon you, though he’s a decent man, if it wasna his wife; and maybe they might ask moor nor we think for at the railroad, and put ye about. Ye can tell him to come to us for his payment, and so I’ll hear how ye got that far. Then, Miss Susan, ye’ll make him take out a ticket for you – that’s the manner of the thing – as near till the Cornel’s as possible – you knaw the names of the places better nor me; and then, my darling lamb, you’ll buy some biscuits and things, and take grit care of yoursel’; and you’ll come to Edinburgh, so far as I can mind, first; and then you’ll ask after the road to your uncle’s. I canna believe, not me, that there’s a man on the whole road as is fit to be oncivil to you. And you’ll tell John Gilsland to take your ticket for the best place; and look about you, hinny, till you see some decent woman-person a-goin’ the same road, and keep beside her. Miss Susan, my dear lamb, you’ll have to think for yoursel’, and no be frightened. Eh, if I could but go and take care of ye! but the Lord bless us, hinny, we munna leave him, poor forlorn gentleman, all by himself.”