uncle! he told me not to tell you,” said Susan, with a mixture of fright and boldness. “It must have been something wrong.”
“Then perhaps you had better not tell me,” said Uncle Edward, rather gravely. “I should be sorry to have a suspicion of either Roger or Horace. Never tell anything that seems to be wrong until you are sure of it, Susan. It may be safe enough to praise upon slight grounds, but never, my dear, to blame.”
“That is how you treat me, Uncle Edward,” said Susan, looking up brightly with recovered courage – “but this is different. What could anybody have to tell Mr. Musgrave, uncle, which would be worth paying a pension or an annuity for? – ten shillings a-week the old man said; and he was going to Armitage Park, but Horace would not let him. Horace seemed to be managing it all, as if it was for the young Squire: he said so even in words. Uncle, I wonder what it could be?”
“A pension of ten shillings a-week!” exclaimed Colonel Sutherland. The old man reddened with a painful colour. Unsuspicious of evil as he was, he had lived long in the world, and knew its darker side. The first idea which occurred to him was that of some youthful vice which this payment was to hide; and he was grieved to his heart.
“It sounded like – ” said Susan, who was perfectly ignorant of her auditor’s thoughts, and innocently went on pursuing her own – “it sounded like as if something had been found out about Mr. Musgrave’s property or something, and that it would do him good, and that he would be so thankful to hear it that he would give the money directly; and Horace must have thought so, too, for he promised to get it for the old man. I wonder what could have been found out; for all the land was sold – was it not, uncle? – and Mr. Musgrave was poor.”
“I doubt if he has ten shillings a-week for himself of his own,” said the Colonel, hastily.
“Then, uncle, something must have been found out!” cried Susan – “I am sure of it, from the way the old man spoke; and Horace promised to get him the pension, and would not let him go to Armitage. That was a little strange, wasn’t it? – because Sir John, you told me, uncle, was Mr. Musgrave’s great friend, and I never believed that Horace even knew him until that day.”
“Odd enough, to be sure. I did not know it either, Susan. They don’t look much like a pair of friends,” said the puzzled Colonel; “and your brother – hum – Horace is very clever, my dear,” said Uncle Edward, with a grieved look, and a slight sigh. He did not want to think any harm of his nephew, but the old man could not make the young schemer out.
“I hope, uncle, it is not anything very wrong,” said Susan, faltering a little.
“I hope not, my dear,” said the Colonel; but they concluded their breakfast much more silently than usual, neither of them looking very comfortable; and, for the first time, Susan was rather glad when the meal was over, and herself at liberty. She went out into the garden among the flowers, as was her wont, but even that sweet exhilarating spring atmosphere, the rustle of leaves and ripple of sound that gladdened the morning, did not withdraw her thoughts from that perplexing subject. The more she hoped that it was nothing wrong, the more settled became her conviction that it was, and that deceit, or treachery of some kind, was involved in the transaction. And then a battle ensued in her private heart. Roger Musgrave was nothing to Susan, and Horace was her only brother; was it her part to search into the secrets of her nearest relatives, in order to befriend a stranger? With an uneasy consciousness of undue interest in one so little known to her, Susan blushed, and shrank from this idea; yet her honest thoughts, once roused, were not to be put to rest even by a scruple of girlish delicacy. To see harm done, and stand by passive, was as impossible to this girl as to the strongest champion in existence. It was against her nature. She could not do it, were the wrong-doer her nearest and dearest friend.
An hour or two later Colonel Sutherland came into the drawing-room, where Susan sat at work, with her thoughts busy about this matter. The old soldier loitered about, poking his gray moustache into the pretty bookshelves, as though he had suddenly grown short-sighted, and impending with the stoop habitual to his deafness over Susan’s chair. He had something to say, but was reluctant to say it, lest he should wound, even by implication, the feelings of his young guest.
“Susan,” said the Colonel, at last, abruptly – he thought he spoke as if the subject had suddenly occurred to him, while, in reality, it was most distinctly visible that he had been pondering nothing else since he entered the room; “thinking over what you told me this morning, I rather think it might be as well to write to Armitage – eh? Very likely it is nothing, you know; but still, if any one in that district does know anything that might be of service to young Musgrave – why, my love, it seems as well that we should know.”
He looked at her doubtfully from under his gray eyebrows, laying a caressing hand upon her hair. He was afraid she would not like this proposal, and still more afraid that, alarmed in the quick and tender pride of family affection, she would guess and resent his suspicion of her brother. But Susan looked up quickly, without any shade of offence upon her face, which, however, had become very grave.
“I am afraid of Horace, uncle,” she said, simply and sadly; “he is my own brother, and it is dreadful to say so; but I am not sure of him, as you are of my cousins. Since I think of it, I am afraid it is something wrong.”
“Then you do not object, and I may write to Armitage?” said Uncle Edward. “Thank you, my dear child; perhaps we shall find it all a mistake, and Horace the most upright of us all. I trust so; he is very clever, Susan, and clever boys are sometimes tempted into scheming – eh? And besides, poor fellow, he has had little justice in his own life. I will write, then, my love, and I hope everything will come perfectly clear.”
So saying, the Colonel went away, to confide Susan’s story to Sir John Armitage, and beg his attention to it. To seek out “an old man,” who knew something to Roger’s advantage, without either name or place to trace him by, was rather a hard task to impose upon the indolent baronet; and so Susan thought as her uncle left her. But still, it was a satisfaction to have the letter written. It is always satisfactory to transfer a portion of one’s own personal uneasiness to somebody else. They hoped a little and wondered a great deal each in private, with very little communication on the subject, while they waited for Sir John’s reply; and if Roger had wanted anything before of the requisites necessary for a hero in Susan’s imagination, he had fully acquired it now. He was young, brave, handsome, generous, and perhaps he was injured – could any knight of romance require more?
CHAPTER V
FORGETTING totally for the time all lesser projects, and suffering Mr. Pouncet and old Adam, Roger Musgrave and his lost property, to fall behind him into complete oblivion, though it was the Kenlisle lawyer’s sovereigns which paid his fare to London, Horace set out to seek his fortune. He had never been so confident in his expectations; and if any one had informed him during that journey of the suspicions which his uncle and Susan discussed slightly and pondered deeply, the doubts of his own honour and uprightness which both entertained, and the inquiries which were likely to be set on foot to satisfy them, he would have laughed his laugh of supreme disdain, spurning that past transaction as too insignificant to help or harm him. Adam Brodie, and the “power” over Mr. Pouncet and Mr. Stenhouse which his story gave, had been sufficiently important to Horace a short time before; but the young man was in an elevated and dizzy state of mind. He was going to find out an unknown fairy fortune; the crock of gold was almost visible; he did not feel sure that he should return to Harliflax in less than a coach-and-six, with an old-fashioned braggadocio of triumph; and what were all the previous schemes and expedients of his humble fortune to the exultant heir who was coming to his kingdom? By dint of constant thought on the subject and intense desire, he had succeeded in convincing himself that this kingdom only awaited discovery, and was just about to fall into his full possession. A hundred Adam Brodies could
