Meanwhile Miss Susan sat half-stupefied where he had left her, in a draught, which was a thing she took precautions against on ordinary occasions – the great window open behind her, the door open in front of her, and the current blowing about even the sedate and heavy folds of the great crimson curtains, and waking, though she did not feel it, the demon Neuralgia to twist her nerves, and set her frame on an edge. She did not seem able to move or even think, so great was the amazement in her mind. Could he be right – could he have found the Austin she had sought for over all the world; and was it possible that the unrighteous bargain he had told her of had really been completed? Unrighteous! for was it not cheating her in the way she felt the most, deceiving her in her expectations? An actual misfortune could scarcely have given Miss Susan so great a shock. She sat quite motionless, her very thoughts arrested in their course, not knowing what to think, what to do – how to take this curious new event. Must she accept it as a thing beyond her power of altering, or ought she to ignore it as something incredible, impossible? One thing or other she must decide upon at once; but in the meantime, so great was the effect this intimation had upon her mind, she felt herself past all power of thinking. Everard coming back found her still seated there in the draught in the old hall. He shut the door softly behind him and went in, looking at her with questioning eyes. But she did not notice his look; she was too much and too deeply occupied in her own mind. Besides, his friendship with her visitors made Everard a kind of suspected person, not to be fully trusted. Miss Susan was too deeply absorbed to think this, but she felt it. He sat down opposite, where Mr. Farrel-Austin had been sitting, and looked at her; but this mute questioning produced no response.
“What has old Farrel been saying to you, Aunt Susan?” he asked at last.
“Why do you call him old Farrel, Everard? he is not nearly so old as I am,” said Miss Susan with a sigh, waking up from her thoughts. “Growing old has its advantages, no doubt, when one can realize the idea of getting rid of all one’s worries, and having the jangled bells put in tune again; but otherwise – to think of others who will set everything wrong coming after us, who have tried hard to keep them right! Perhaps, when it comes to the very end, one does not mind; I hope so; I feel sore now to think that this man should be younger than I am, and likely to live ever so much longer, and enjoy my father’s house.”
Everard sat still, saying nothing. He was unprepared for this sort of reply. He was slightly shocked too, as young people so often are, by the expression of any sentiments, except the orthodox ones, on the subject of dying. It seemed to him, at twenty-five, that to Miss Susan at sixty, it must be a matter of comparatively little consequence how much longer she lived. He would have felt the sentiments of the Nunc Dimittis to be much more appropriate and correct in the circumstances; he could not understand the peculiar mortification of having less time to live than Farrel-Austin. He looked grave with the fine disapproval and lofty superiority of youth. But he was a very gentle-souled and tender-hearted young man, and he did not like to express the disapproval that was in his face.
“We had better not talk of them,” said Miss Susan, after a pause; “we don’t agree about them, and it is not likely we should; and I don’t want to quarrel with you, Everard, on their account. Farrel thinks he is quite sure of the estate now. He has found out some one whom he calls our missing cousin, and has got him to give up in his own favor.”
“Got him to give up in his own favor!” repeated Everard amazed. “Why, this is wonderful news. Who is it, and where is he, and how has it come about? You take away one’s breath.”
“I cannot go into the story,” said Miss Susan. “Ask himself. I am sick of the subject. He thinks he has settled it, and that it is all right; and waits for nothing but my poor boy’s end to take possession. They had not even the grace to ask for him!” she cried, rising hastily. “Don’t ask me anything about it; it is more than I can bear.”
“But, Aunt Susan – ”
“I tell you we shall quarrel, Everard, if we talk more on this subject,” she cried. “You are their friend, and I am their – no; it is they who are my enemies,” she added, stopping herself. “I don’t dictate to you how you are to feel, or what friends you are to make. I have no right; but I have a right to talk of what I please, and to be silent when I please. I shall say no more about it. As for you,” she said, after another pause, with a forced smile, “the young ladies will consult with you what changes they are to make in the house. I heard them commenting on the roses, and how everything could be improved. You will be of the greatest use to them in their new arrangements, when all obstacles are removed.”
“I don’t think it is kind to speak to me so,” said Everard, in his surprise. “It is not generous, Aunt Susan. It is like kicking a fellow when he is down; for you know I can’t defend myself.”
“Yes, I suppose it is unjust,” said Miss Susan, drying her eyes, which were full of hot tears, with no gratefulness of relief in them. “The worst of this world is that one is driven to be unjust, and can’t help it, even to those one loves.”
CHAPTER IV
EVERARD AUSTIN remained at Whiteladies for the rest of the afternoon – he was like one of the children of the house. The old servants took him aside and asked him to mention things to Miss Susan with which they did not like to worry her in her trouble, though indeed most of these delicacies were very much after date, and concerned matters on which Miss Susan had already been sufficiently worried. The gardener came and told him of trees that wanted cutting, and the bailiff on the farm consulted him about the laborers for the approaching harvest. “Miss Susan don’t like tramps, and I don’t want to go against her, just when things is at its worst. I shouldn’t wonder, sir,” said the man, looking curiously in Everard’s face, “if things was in other hands this time next year?” Everard answered him with something of the bitterness which he himself had condemned so much a little while before. That Farrel-Austin should succeed was natural; but thus to look forward to the changing of masters gave him, too, a pang. He went indoors somewhat disturbed, and fell into the hands of Martha and Jane fresh from the almshouse. Martha, who was Miss Susan’s maid and half-housekeeper, had taken charge of him often enough in his boyish days, and called him Master Everard still, so that she was entitled to speak; while the younger maid looked on, and concurred – “It will break my lady’s heart,” said Martha, “leaving this old house; not but what we might be a deal more comfortable in a nice handy place, in good repair like yours is, Master Everard; where the floors is straight and the roofs likewise, and you don’t catch a rheumatism round every corner; but my lady ain’t of my way of thinking. I tell her as it would have been just as bad if Mr. Herbert had got well, poor dear young gentleman, and got married; but she won’t listen to me. Miss Augustine, she don’t take on about the house; but she’s got plenty to bother her, poor soul; and the way she do carry on about them almshouses! It’s like born natural, that’s what it is, and nothing else. Oh me! I know as I didn’t ought to say it; but what can you do, I ask you, Master Everard, when you have got the like of that under your very nose? She’ll soon have nothing but paupers in the parish if she has her way.”
“She’s very feeling-hearted,” said Jane, who stood behind her elder companion and put in a word now and then over Martha’s shoulder. She had been enjoying the delights of patronage, the happiness of recommending her friends in the village to Miss Augustine’s consideration; and this was too pleasant a privilege to be consistent with criticism. The profusion of her mistress’s alms made Jane feel herself to be “feeling-hearted” too.
“And great thanks she gets for it all,” said Martha. “They call her the crazy one down in the village. Miss Susan, she’s the hard one; and Miss Augustine’s the crazy one. That’s gratitude! trailing about in her gray gown for all the world like a Papist nun. But, poor soul, I didn’t ought to grudge her gray, Master Everard. We’ll soon be black and black enough in our mourning, from all that I hear.”
Again Everard was conscious of a shiver. He made a hasty answer and withdrew from the women who had come up to him in one of the airy corridors upstairs, half glass, like the passages below, and full of corners. Everard was on his way from a pilgrimage to the room, in which, when Herbert and he were children, they had been allowed