Mrs. Oliphant

WHILE Colonel Sutherland’s plans for everybody’s benefit were thus being rendered useless, the Colonel himself, unaware of these untoward circumstances, waited anxiously for answers to those letters which he had written at Tillington. Morning after morning the good man sighed over a post which brought him only his Times, and the letters of his boys. The dining-room at Milnehill, which was breakfast-room and library, and everything to the Colonel, was as unlike as possible to that of Marchmain. One side of it was lined with bookcases, full of the collections of the Colonel’s life. There were two large windows, commanding a wonderful view. A Turkey carpet, warm and soft, a low fireplace polished and shining, a great easy-chair, drawn close to the cosy round table, with its cosy crimson drapery falling down round it, just appearing beneath the folds of the snow-white tablecloth. Here the Colonel took his place in the morning, rubbing his chilled fingers, and pleased, in his solitude and the freshness of his heart, by the look of comfort around him. Here he took his solitary breakfast, and looked over his Times, and wondered why there were still no answers to his letters. It was not wonderful in the case of Sir John Armitage, who might be at the other end of the world for anything that was known of him; but why there should be ten days’ delay in having a letter from London, the Colonel did not know.

One morning, however, two epistles in unknown hands were brought him; he took the one which bore the London postmark. This is how it ran:—

“Dear Sir,—Your favour of the 15th came duly to hand, though I confess that I was startled by its contents. My connection with the Scarsdale estate is not what you imagine. I have no control over the money whatever, nor power to draw upon it until the proper period; therefore, of course, I must decline, as you will perceive it is entirely impossible for me to accede to your request. My position is sufficiently uncomfortable at present without further complications.

“You are, perhaps, aware that the trustees were chosen from among young men, for the express reason that they might be expected to survive until the time stipulated. As I have just said, I find my position sufficiently disagreeable already, and should be very sorry to embarrass it further with any unjustifiable proceedings. Your relation has the eye of a lynx, and keeps it constantly upon us. As for the young man, I cannot but think his father is quite right in keeping him ignorant. In such circumstances as his, with the least inclination towards gaiety, and knowing his own position, he would assuredly fall into the hands of the Jews. As for putting him in a profession, I am bound to say with Mr. Scarsdale, that I consider it unnecessary; but as I am unable to render any assistance, I refrain from advice which might not be so acceptable as I could wish.”

The Colonel read this over and over again, with concern and attention. After he had fully satisfied himself of its meaning, and discovered that there was not even an inference of help from one end to the other, he folded it up again, and threw it into the fire. “Better leave no chance of its ever coming into Horace’s hands,” he said, as he accomplished this discreet destruction. He was annoyed and vexed with a renewal of the feeling which had moved him on his interview with Mr. Scarsdale, though without the profound regret and compassion which he then experienced; but he was scarcely disappointed. He held his other letter in his hand, and entered into a little rapid mental calculation before he broke the seal, considering how it would be possible, out of his own means, to make the necessary provision for his nephew’s studies—“Unnecessary for him to have a profession? Is it necessary for the boy to be ruined body and soul?” cried the Colonel, unconsciously aloud—“because he has the luck to be descended from a diabolical old——.” Here Colonel Sutherland made a pause, restrained himself, shook his head, and said, with a sigh, thinking certainly of his brother-in-law, and perhaps a little of his nephew, “Ah! there’s mischief in the blood!”

His other letter was that one which poor Roger Musgrave had written amid all the echoes of his empty house. This agitated and excited the Colonel much more than the other had done. His spectacles grew dim while he was reading it—he gave utterance to various exclamations at the different points of the letter. He said, “Very true!” “Very natural!” “Poor fellow!” “Exactly as I should have felt myself!”—and showed other demonstrations of interest in his restless movements and neglect of his half-finished breakfast. The conclusion, however, threw him into evident distress; he got up and walked about the room, stopping unconsciously to take up a piece of useless paper on one of the tables and tear it into little pieces. Anxiety and doubt became the prevailing expression of his face. Here in a moment were all his plans for Roger deranged and broken to pieces; and yet it was so natural, so characteristic, on the whole so right and honest, that he could not say a word against it. But it did not grieve him the less on that account. Roger was going to London, that was the sole clue to him; and he had no reply from Sir John Armitage—no response to his own appeal from the influential personages whom he believed himself to have influence with.

“He’ll be a private soldier by this time; most likely a Guardsman,” said the Colonel, and his imagination conjured up the splendid figures under the arches at the Horse Guards with a positive pang, as he thought of Roger Musgrave’s ingenuous face turned, crimson and shame-faced, towards the crowd. What could the Colonel do?—nothing but fill his mind with anxious and uncomfortable reflections concerning the life and fortune, and, besides these, the manners and morals, of his young protegÉ—and wait.

The house of Milnehill stood upon the sunny brae of Inveresk, at no great distance from the square barn-church, ornamented by a pepperbox steeple, with which the taste of our grandfathers has crowned that lovely little eminence. The garden on one side was surrounded by an old wall, mossed and gray, above which you could see nothing but the towering branches of the chestnuts, which in the early summer built fair their milky pinnacles of blossom over this homely enclosure. The garden sloped under these guardian shadows open and bright towards the sea, though at the distance of at least two miles from the immediate coast—and the wall on the lower side was low enough to permit a full view from the windows of that beautiful panorama: the little town of Musselburgh, with its fishing suburb lying snug below; the quiet pier stretching its gray line of masonry into the sea; the solitary fishing-boat hovering by; the wide sweep of bay beyond, with the Bass in the distance lying like a turtle or tortoise upon the water, and all the low, far, withdrawing ranges of the hills of Fife. The house was of two stories, homely and rural, with one pretty bright room on either side of the little hall, which was filled with Indian ornaments, as was also Colonel Sutherland’s drawing-room, which the Colonel did not enter once in a month. Behind and on the upper story there was abundant room for a family—though the rooms upstairs were low, and shaded by the eaves. The house altogether was old-fashioned, and much behind its neighbours. Smooth polished stone, square-topped windows, palladian fronts, and Italian villas have strayed into Inveresk as to other quarters of the world. But Milnehill remained red-tiled and picturesque, with eaves in which the swallows built, and lattice windows which opened wide to the sweet air and sunshine, and smoke curling peacefully through the branches over the red ribs of the tiled roof. The Colonel had some family associations with the place—perhaps, in his heart, for he was no artist, the old soldier was a little ashamed of his tiles, and thought the smooth “elevation” next to him, turning its windows to the dusty road, and looking as if it had strayed out from the town for a walk and been somehow arrested there, was a much superior looking place to his nest among the trees. But Milnehill, the Colonel was fond of saying, was very comfortable, and he liked the view; and, indeed, not to consult the Colonel, the fact was, Milnehill was the cosiest, honestest little country house within a dozen miles.

If Susan could but see that paradise of comfort and kindness!—she who knew no interior but Marchmain. When the Colonel had read his paper he put up his glasses, put on his great-coat, took his hat and his cane, and went out through his garden, pausing to see the progress of the crocuses, and to calculate in his own mind when his earliest tulip would bloom—to take his daily walk. Though his mind was engaged, he had all that freshness and minuteness of external observation which some old men keep to the end of their days: he saw, with a real sensation of pleasure, the first big bud upon his favourite chestnut begin to shake out its folded leaves; he noted the earliest tender shoot of a green sheath starting through the sheltered soil, in that sweet nook where his lilies of the valley waited for the spring; and so opened his garden gate and went out into the sunshine of the high-road, to see the light shining upon Arthur’s seat, and the smoke floating over Edinburgh, and the country between quivering over with an indescribable sentiment of renewal and life. There was not very much variety in the Colonel’s walks—this day, without any particular intention, he turned his steps towards the sea.