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