The House on the Moor. Mrs. Oliphant
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We used to look at each other, and then we nodded, and then, at last, one day we spoke; and now, sometimes, we meet when we are out walking, uncle—and once I have been in their house—only once. I did not mean it—I was there before I knew what I was about.”
“But you have not told me yet who this mysterious person is,” said the Colonel, a little disappointed and troubled, if the truth must be told, at the thought of some young and no doubt perfectly unsuitable lover who met his little girl in clandestine walks, and whose house even, the inexperience of Susan had been persuaded into visiting. He said the words rather coldly, in spite of himself—he was mortified to find the virginal quiet of her mind already thus disturbed.
“Uncle, are you displeased?” said Susan, with a little fright and surprise. “Oh, I never thought you would be angry; for even Peggy said that to be friends with Letty would be for my good. She is the minister’s daughter at the meeting, and the only child; and she has learned so much, and knows a hundred things that I know nothing of; and, uncle, sometimes I want somebody to speak to—oh, so much!”
“My dear child, forgive me! I wish you knew a dozen Letties,” cried the repentant Colonel; “that you should have to blush over an innocent friendship, my poor dear little girl; but your confusion, Susan, made me think it something very different. Why should you be ashamed of knowing Letty? I am very glad to hear it, for my part.”
Susan did not answer just immediately. She said to herself, with a little quickening of her breath:—
“I wonder what was the something very different that Uncle Edward thought of,” and a little inclination to laughter seized the little girl. Who could tell why? She did not know herself, but felt it all the same.
“Does Horace spend much of his time with you, Susan?” said Uncle Edward; “does he tell you what he is thinking about? Do you know that your brother is tired of an idle life, and wants to be employed, and to make his own way in the world?”
With that question Susan was brought back to her home, and separated as if by magic in a moment from all her individual involuntary girlish happinesses; she shrank a little into herself and felt chilled and contracted, without knowing how. She could not even be so frank as she would have been a little while ago—Uncle Edward’s love had opened the eyes of the neglected girl, and developed all at once in her heart the natural instincts of “the only woman in the family.” She could not bear to convey an unfavourable impression of Horace to her uncle; but, unskilled in her new craft, she betrayed herself even by her reticences and reserves.
“I know he wants to go away,” she said, faltering a little; “and I am sure you would not be surprised, if you lived with us only for a day;—for,” added Susan, blushing and correcting herself, “it is very dull at Marchmain, and boys cannot put up with that as we can. Horace has always felt it a great deal more than I have.”
“I am not surprised,” said Colonel Sutherland; “if Marchmain was the happiest home in the world, still the young man must go away—it is in his nature. He must make his own way in the world.”
“Must he, uncle?” said Susan, looking up with a little surprise into his face.
“I was only sixteen, my love, when I first went to India,” said the Colonel; “the boys, as you call them, must not stay at home all their lives—they must do something. My Ned will be on his way to India, if all is well, in a year or two. The sooner a young man gets into his work the better—and now Horace would set about it too.”
“But he cannot do anything, uncle,” said Susan, seriously; “what is he going to do?”
“Has he never told you?” asked Uncle Edward.
The question seemed to imply blame, and Susan was troubled.
“Horace is not like you, uncle,” she said, recovering a little boldness; “he does not tell me things; he knows a great deal more than I do—he has almost learned German—and he thinks a great deal more. I am afraid I do not always understand him when he does speak to me. It is my fault; so he thinks over everything all the more, and I am afraid sometimes gets angry in his heart, because no one can understand him at Marchmain!”
Colonel Sutherland shook his head, but did not say anything. He began to tell Susan what he did when he was a lad.
“There were a great many of us at home, to be sure,” said the Colonel; “but we were all scattered before the youngest was fifteen—the sisters married, and the brothers making their own career. They are all dead, Susan, every one—but you have quantities of cousins, my dear, in India and elsewhere, whom you never heard of, I daresay. Your Uncle William was puisne Judge of the Saraflat, John was Resident at Cangalore, both of them very much respected. I was the youngest but one. I could not bear the thought that all my brothers were independent but myself. I gave them no peace at home till I got my cadetship. Unless one has the good fortune to get an appointment, it is quite as hard work getting on in India as at home, my dear; and all our influence had been used up for my elder brothers, and exhausted before it came to my turn. I was but a subaltern when I married, Susan. Your aunt was—ah, I can’t describe her, my love. I am very happy on the whole and contented, but sometimes I think on what might have been, and make myself wretched, which is very sinful, considering how much I have to thank God for. Yes, Susan, I was a rich man once. I had wife and daughters, and my house full. We had not very much money, but we were very happy; and now, my dear child, you are the only woman of the family—that is, here.”
Susan could not have spoken a word to save her life—she sobbed silently under her heap of warm wrappings, looking with a wistful, youthful sympathy into the grave face beside her. The Colonel shed no tears;—he guided his horse with the same quiet caution as before, turning the animal aside from a sudden obstacle in the way, with a steady promptitude, which showed his perfect attention to what he was about, even in the midst of these recollections; yet he was not looking at the road, nor at her, nor at anything; but had his eyes fixed on the far-away horizon, which yet he did not see. Susan sat beside him in silence, wondering with youthful awe and reverence over the indescribable yearning, with which some instinct told her this brave old heart longed for the heaven which held his departed; but she could not say anything—she would have felt it sacrilege.
However, they shortly approached the town, which recalled Colonel Sutherland from his graver thoughts. It was a comfortable country town, pleasantly placed at the opening of a valley, with the gray fells ranging themselves on either side, and the great gray tower of the old Abbey church reigning over the little crowd of houses. The market-place was still busy and bright, though the more serious merchandize of the morning was over; cosy country-women, in cloth pelisses, made promenades round the open square, where the best shops in the town displayed their riches, to see “how things were wore,” and make stray purchase of a kerchief or ribbon; and still the notable housewives of the town bought vegetables, and rabbits, and country eggs, and chickens, from the remaining stalls in the market-place. And still heaps of dark-green vegetables—winter greens and savoys, purple flowers of broccoli, and tiny red lines of carrots, illustrated some boards, close to the white eggs and yellow butter, the hapless decapitated poultry, and butter-milk pails of the others. Susan and her uncle walked through the throng, attracting no small degree of observation; for there were not many such cavaliers as Colonel Sutherland in Kenlisle, and very few such shawls as that one which, relieved of all her other wraps, Susan displayed upon her shoulders with no small degree of pride. The scene was quite extraordinary in its animation to her eyes. She looked at the ruddy winter apples and crisp greens with the most perfect interest. She longed, with a natural housewifely instinct, to make purchases herself, to the confusion and amazement of Peggy. She could scarcely conceal her unbecoming curiosity about the booths of toys and sweetmeats, the cases of coarse ornaments, brooches, and rings, and ear-rings, which Susan could not believe to be paltry and worthless. The glamour of her ignorance brightened everything; and when her eyes, as she looked up unconsciously, fell upon the gray mass of the Abbey tower withdrawn into a street which led off from this busy space, Susan felt awed and ashamed to think of her own vanity and extreme regard for “the things of this world.” But she could not school herself into righteous indifference; above all, when Uncle