by Ellen Wood
These consoling thoughts drowning the mind’s latent dread — or rather making pretence to do so, for that the dread was there still, Chattaway was miserably conscious — he went on increasing his speed. At last, in turning into another field, he nearly knocked down a man running in the same direction, who had come up at right angles with him: a labourer named Hatch, who worked on his farm.
It was a good opportunity to let off a little of his ill-humour, and he demanded where the man had been skulking, and why he was away from his work. Hatch answered that, hearing of the accident to Madam and the young Squire, he and his fellow-labourers had been induced to run to the spot in the hope of affording help.
“Help!” said Mr. Chattaway. “You went off to see what there was to be seen, and for nothing else, leaving the rick half made. I have a great mind to dock you of a half-day’s pay. Is there so much to look at in a broken dog-cart, that you and the rest of you must neglect my work?”
The man took off his hat and rubbed his head gently: his common resort in a quandary. They had hindered a great deal more time than was necessary; and had certainly not bargained for its coming to the knowledge of the Squire. Hatch, too simple or too honest to invent excuses, could only make the best of the facts as they stood.
“’Twasn’t the dog-cart kept us, Squire. ’Twas listening to a strange-looking gentleman; a man with a white beard and a red umberellar. He were talking about Trevlyn Hold, saying it belonged to Master Rupert, and he were going to help him to it.”
Chattaway turned away his face. Instinct taught him that even this stolid serf should not see the cold moisture that suddenly oozed from every pore. “What did he say?” he cried, in accents of scorn.
Hatch considered. And you must not too greatly blame the exaggerated reply. Hatch did not purposely deceive his master; but he did what a great many of us are apt to do — he answered according to the impression made on his imagination. He and the rest of the listeners had drawn their own conclusions, and in accordance with those conclusions he now spoke.
“He said for one thing, Squire, as he didn’t like you — —”
“How does he know me?” Mr. Chattaway interrupted.
“Nora Dickson asked him, but he wouldn’t answer. He’s a lawyer, and — —”
“How do you know he’s a lawyer?” again interrupted Mr. Chattaway.
“Because he said it,” was the prompt reply. And the man had no idea that it was an incorrect one. He as much believed the white-bearded stranger to be a lawyer as that he himself was a day-labourer. “He said he had come to help Master Rupert to his rights, and displace you from ‘em. Our hairs stood on end to hear him, Squire.”
“Who is he? — where does he come from?” And to save his very life Chattaway could not have helped the words issuing forth in gasps.
“He never said where he come from — save he hadn’t been in England for many a year. We was a wondering among ourselves where he come from, after he walked off with Nora Dickson.”
“Does she know?”
“No, she don’t, Squire. He come up while she were standing there, and she wondered who he were, as we did. ‘Twere through her asking him questions that he said so much.”
“But — what has he to do with my affairs? — what has he to do with Rupert Trevlyn?” passionately rejoined Mr. Chattaway.
It was a query Hatch was unable to answer. “He said he were a friend of the dead heir, Mr. Joe — I mind well he said that — and he had come to this here place partly to see Master Rupert. He didn’t seem to know afore as Master Rupert had not got the Hold, and Nora Dickson asked if he’d lived in a wood not to know that. So then he said he should help him to his rights, and Nora said, ‘What! displace Chattaway?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ We was took aback, Squire, and stopped a bit longer maybe than we ought. It was that kep’ us from the rick.”
Every pulse beating, every drop of blood coursing in fiery heat, the master of Trevlyn Hold reached his home. He went in, and left his hat in the hall, and entered the dining-room, as a man in some awful dream. A friend of Joe Trevlyn’s! — come to help Rupert to his rights! — to displace him! The words rang their changes on his brain.
They had not waited dinner. It had been Miss Diana’s pleasure that it should be commenced, and Mr. Chattaway took a seat mechanically. Mechanically he heard that his wife had declined partaking of it — had been ill when she reached home; that Rupert, after a hasty meal, had gone upstairs to lie down, at the recommendation of Miss Diana; that Cris had now gone off to the damaged dog-cart. He was as a man stunned, and felt utterly unnerved. He sat down, but found he could not swallow a mouthful.
The cloth was removed and dessert placed upon the table. After taking a little fruit, the younger ones dispersed; Maude went upstairs to see how Mrs. Chattaway was; the rest to the drawing-room. The master of Trevlyn Hold paced the carpet, lost in thought. The silence was broken by Miss Diana.
“Squire, I am not satisfied with the appearance of Rupert Trevlyn. I fear he may be falling into worse health than usual. It must be looked to, and more care taken of him. I intend to buy him a pony to ride to and fro between here and Blackstone.”
Had Miss Diana expressed her intention of purchasing ten ponies for Rupert, it would have made no impression then on Chattaway. In his terrible suspense and fear, a pony more or less was an insignificant thing, and he received the announcement in silence, to the intense surprise of Miss Diana, who had expected to see him turn round in a blaze of anger.
“Are you not well?” she asked.
“Well? Quite well. I — I over-heated myself riding, and — and feel quite chilly now. What should hinder my being well?” he continued, resentfully.
“I say I shall buy a pony for Rupert. Those walks to Blackstone are too much for him. I think it must be that which is making him feel so ill.”
“I wish you’d not bother me!” peevishly rejoined Chattaway. “Buy it, if you like. What do I care?”
“I’ll thank you to be civil to me, Mr. Chattaway,” said Miss Diana, with emphasis. “It is of no use your being put out about this business of Cris and the accident; and that’s what you are, I suppose. Fretting over it won’t mend it.”
Mr. Chattaway caught at the mistake. “It was such an idiotic trick, to put an untried horse into harness, and let it smash the dog-cart!” he cried. “Cris did it in direct disobedience, too. I had told him he should not buy that horse.”
“Cris does many things in disobedience,” calmly rejoined Miss Diana. “I hope it has not injured Edith.”
“She must have been foolish — —”
A ring at the hall-bell — a loud, long, imperative ring — and Mr. Chattaway’s voice abruptly stopped. He stopped: stopped and stood stock still in the middle of the room, eyes and ears open, his whole senses on the alert. A prevision rushed over him that the messenger of evil had come.
“Are you expecting any one?” inquired Miss Diana.
“Be still, can’t you?” almost shrieked Chattaway. Her voice hindered his listening.
They were opening the hall-door, and Chattaway’s face was turning livid. James came into the room.
“A gentleman, sir, is asking to see Mr. Rupert.”
“What gentleman?” interposed Miss Diana, before Chattaway could move or look.
“I don’t know him, ma’am. He seems strange to the place; has a white beard, and looks foreign.”
“He wants Mr. Rupert, did you say?”
“When I opened the door, first, ma’am, he asked if he could see young Squire Trevlyn; so I wanted to know who he meant, and said my master, Mr. Chattaway, was the Squire, and he replied that he meant Master Rupert, the son of Squire Trevlyn’s heir, Mr. Joe, who had died abroad. He is waiting, ma’am.”
Chattaway turned his white face upon the man. His trembling hands, his stealthy movements, showed his abject terror; even his very voice, which had dropped to a whisper.
“Mr. Rupert’s in bed, and can’t be seen, James. Go and say so.�
��
Miss Diana had stood in amazement — first, at James’s message; secondly, at Mr. Chattaway’s strange demeanour. “Why, who is it?” she cried to the servant.
“He didn’t give his name, ma’am.”
“Will you go, James?” hoarsely cried Mr. Chattaway. “Go and get rid of the man.”
“But he shall not get rid of him,” interrupted Miss Diana. “I shall see the man. It is the strangest message I ever heard in my life. What are you thinking of, Squire?”
“Stop where you are!” returned Mr. Chattaway, arresting Miss Diana’s progress. “Do you hear, James? Go and get rid of this man. Turn him out, at any cost.”
Did Mr. Chattaway fear the visitor had come to take possession of the house in Rupert’s name? Miss Diana could only look at him in astonishment. His face wore the hue of death; he was evidently almost beside himself with terror. For once in her life she did not assert her will, but suffered James to leave the room and “get rid” of the visitor in obedience to Mr. Chattaway.
He appeared to have no trouble in accomplishing it. A moment, and the hall-door was heard to close. Chattaway opened that of the dining-room.
“What did he say?”
“He said nothing, sir, except that he’d call again.”
“James, does he — does he look like a madman?” cried Mr. Chattaway, his tone changing to what might almost be called entreaty. “Is he insane, do you think? I could not let a madman enter the house, you know.”
“I don’t know, sir, I’m sure. His words were odd, but he didn’t seem mad.”
Mr. Chattaway closed the door and turned to his sister-in-law, who was more puzzled than she had ever been in her life.
“I think it is you who are mad, Chattaway.”
“Hush, Diana! I have heard of this man before. Sit down, and I will tell you about him.”
He had come to a rapid conclusion that it would be better to confide to her the terrible news come to light. Not his own fears, or the dread which had lain deep in his heart: only this that he had heard.
We have seen how the words of the stranger had been exaggerated by Hatch to Mr. Chattaway, and perhaps he now unconsciously exaggerated Hatch’s report. Miss Diana listened in consternation. A lawyer! — come down to depose them from Trevlyn Hold, and institute Rupert in it! “I never heard of such a thing!” she exclaimed. “He can’t do it, you know, Chattaway.”
Chattaway coughed ruefully. “Of course he can’t. At least I don’t see how he can, or how any one else can. My opinion is that the man must be mad.”
Miss Diana was falling into thought. “A friend of Joe’s?” she mused aloud. “Chattaway, could Joe have left a will?”
“Nonsense!” said Chattaway. “If Joe Trevlyn did leave a will, it would be null and void. He died in his father’s lifetime, and the property was not his to leave.”
“True. There can be no possibility of danger,” she added, after a pause. “We may dismiss all fear as the idle wind.”
“I wonder whether Rupert knows anything about this?”
“Rupert! What should he know about it?”
“I can’t say,” returned Mr. Chattaway, significantly. “I think I’ll go up and ask him,” he added, in a sort of feverish impulse.
Without a moment’s pause he hastened upstairs to Rupert’s room. But the room was empty!
Mr. Chattaway stood transfixed. He had fully believed Rupert to be in bed, and the silent bed, impressed, seemed to mock him. A wild fear came over him that Rupert’s pretence of going to bed had been a ruse — he had gone out to meet that dangerous stranger.
He flew down the stairs as one possessed; shouting “Rupert! Rupert!” The household stole forth to look at him, and the walls echoed the name. But from Rupert himself there came no answer. He was not in the Hold.
CHAPTER XXIV
A MEETING AT MARK CANHAM’S
Rupert’s leaving the Hold, however, had been a very innocent matter. The evening sun was setting gloriously, and he thought he would stroll out for a few minutes before going to his room. When he reached the lodge he went in and flung himself down on the settle, opposite old Canham and his pipe.
“How’s Madam?” asked the old man. “What an accident it might have been!”
“So it might,” assented Rupert, “Madam will be better after a night’s rest. Cris might have killed her. I wonder how he’d have felt then?”
When Rupert came to an anchor, no matter where, he was somewhat unwilling to move from it. The settle was not a comfortable seat; rather the contrary; but Rupert kept to it, talking and laughing with old Canham. Ann was at the window, catching what remained of the fading light for her sewing.
“Here’s that strange gentleman again, father!” she suddenly exclaimed in a whisper.
Old Canham turned his head, and Rupert turned his. The gentleman with the beard was going by in the direction of Trevlyn Hold as if about to make a call there.
“Ay, that’s him,” cried old Canham.
“What a queer-looking chap!” exclaimed Rupert. “Who is he?”
“I can’t make out,” was old Canham’s reply. “Me and Ann have been talking about him. He came strolling inside the gates this afternoon with a red umberellar, looking here and looking there, and at last he see us, and come up and asked what place this was; and when I told him it was Trevlyn Hold, he said Trevlyn Hold was what he had been seeking for, and he stood there talking a matter o’ twenty minutes, leaning his arms on the window-sill. He thought you was the Squire, Master Rupert. He had a red umberellar,” repeated old Canham, as if the fact were remarkable.
Rupert glanced up in surprise. “Thought I was the Squire?”
“He came into this neighbourhood, he said, believing nothing less but that you were the rightful Squire, and couldn’t make out why you were not: he had been away from England a many years, and had believed it all the while. He said you were the true Squire, and you should be helped to your right.”
“Why! who can he be?” exclaimed Rupert, in excitement.
“Ah, that’s it — who can he be?” returned old Canham. “Me and Ann have been marvelling. He said that he used to be a friend of the dead heir, Mr. Joe. Master Rupert, who knows but he may be somebody come to place you in the Hold?”
Rupert was leaning forward on the settle, his elbow on his knee, his eye fixed on old Canham.
“How could he do that?” he asked after a pause. “How could any one do it?”
“It’s not for us to say how, Master Rupert. If anybody in these parts could have said, maybe you’d have been in it long before this. That there stranger is a cute ‘un, I know. White beards always is a sign of wisdom.”
Rupert laughed. “Look here, Mark. It is no good going over that ground again. I have heard about my ‘rights’ until I am tired. The subject vexes me; it makes me cross from its very hopelessness. I wish I had been born without rights.”
“This stranger, when he called you the heir of Trevlyn Hold, and I told him you were not the heir, said I was right; you were not the heir, but the owner,” persisted old Canham.
“Then he knew nothing about it,” returned Rupert. “It’s impossible that Chattaway can be put out of Trevlyn Hold.”
“Master Rupert, there has always been a feeling upon me that he will be put out of it,” resumed old Canham. “He came to it by wrong, and wrong never lasts to the end without being righted. Who knows that the same feeling ain’t on Chattaway? He turned the colour o’ my Sunday smock when I told him of this stranger’s having been here and what he’d said.”
“Did you tell him?” quickly cried Rupert.
“I did, sir. I didn’t mean to, but it come out incautious-like. I called you the young heir to his face, and excused myself by saying the stranger had been calling you so, and I spoke out the same without thought. Then he wanted to know what stranger, and all about him. It was when Madam was resting here after the accident. Chattaway rode by and saw her, and got off his horse: it was the first he knew of t
he accident. If what I said didn’t frighten him, I never had a day’s rheumatiz in my life. His face went as white as Madam’s.”
“Chattaway go white!” scoffed Rupert. “What next? I tell you what it is, Mark; you fancy things. Aunt Edith may have been white; she often is; but not he. Chattaway knows that Trevlyn Hold is his, safe and sure. Nothing can take it from him — unless Squire Trevlyn came to life again, and made a fresh will. He’s not likely to do that, Mark.”
“No; he’s not likely to do that,” assented the old man. “Once we’re out of this world, Master Rupert, we don’t come back again. The injustice we have left behind us can’t be repaired that way.”
Rupert rose. He went to the window, opened it, and leaned out whistling. He was tired of the subject as touching himself; had long looked upon it as an unprofitable theme. As he stood there enjoying the calmness of the evening the tall man with the white beard came back again down the avenue.
Mr. Daw, for he it was, had the red umbrella in his hand. He turned his head to the window as he passed it, looked steadily at Rupert, paused, went close up, and put his hand on Rupert’s arm.
“You are Rupert Trevlyn?”
“Yes,” replied Rupert.
“I should have known you anywhere from your resemblance to your father; I should have known you had I met you in the crowded streets of London. You are wonderfully like him.”
“Where did you know my father?” inquired Rupert.
Instead of answering, the stranger opened the house-door and stepped into the room. Ann curtseyed; old Canham rose and stood with his hat in his hand — that white beard seemed to demand respect. He — the stranger — took Rupert’s hand in his.
“I have been up to the house to inquire for you: but they told me you were not well, and had gone to rest.”
“Did they?” said Rupert. “I had intended to lie down, but the evening was so pleasant that I came out instead. You spoke of my father: did you know him?”
“I knew him very well,” said the stranger, taking the seat Ann had been dusting before offering; a ceremony she apparently considered a mark of respect. “Though my acquaintance with him was short, it was close. Do you know who baptized you?”