Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “No,” replied Rupert, rather astonished at the question.

  “I did. I christened your sister Maude; I baptized you. You were to be christened in England, your mother said, but she wished you baptized ere the journey commenced, and I did it when you were only a day old. Ah, poor thing! she hoped to make the journey with you when she should be strong enough; but another journey claimed her — that of death! Before you were two days old she died. It was I who wrote to announce your birth to Squire Trevlyn; it was I who, by the next post, announced your mother’s death. It was I — my young friend, it was I — who buried your father and your mother.”

  “You are a clergyman, then?” said Rupert, somewhat dubious about the beard, and the very unclerical cut of the stranger altogether.

  It may be that Mr. Daw noticed the doubtful glances, and entered upon an explanation. How, when a working curate, he had married a young lady of fortune, but of delicate health, and had gone abroad with her, throwing up for the time his clerical preferment. The doctors had said that a warm climate was essential to her; as they had said, if you remember, in the case of Joe Trevlyn. It happened that both parties sought the same place — the curate and his wife, Joe and Mrs. Trevlyn — and a close friendship sprang up between them. A short time and Joe Trevlyn died; a shorter time still, and his wife died. There was no English clergyman near the spot, and Mr. Daw gave his services. He baptized the children; he buried the parents. His own fate was a happier one, for his wife lived. She lived, but did not grow strong. It may be said — you have heard of such cases — that she only existed from day to day. She had so existed all through those long years; from that time until within a few months of this. “If you attempt to take her back to England, she will not live a month,” the local medical men had said; and perhaps they were right. He had gone to the place for a few months’ sojourn, and never left it for over twenty years. It reads like a romance. His wife’s fortune had enabled him to live comfortably, and in a pecuniary point of view there was no need to seek preferment or exercise his calling. He would never seek it now. Habit and use are second nature, and the Reverend William Daw had learnt to be an idle man; to love the country of his adoption, his home in the Pyrenees; to believe that its genial climate had become necessary to himself. His business in England concluded (it was connected with his late wife’s will), he was hastening back to it. Had preferment been offered him, he would have doubted his ability to fulfil its duties after so many years of leisure. The money that was his wife’s would be his for the remainder of his days; so on that score he was at rest. In short, the Reverend William Daw had degenerated into a useless man; one to whom all exertion had become a trouble. He honestly confessed to it now, as he sat before Rupert Trevlyn; told him he had been content to live wholly for the country of his adoption, almost completely ignoring his own; had kept up no correspondence with it. Of friends he could, as a young curate, boast but few, and he had been at no pains to keep them. At first he had believed that six or twelve months would be the limit of his absence from England, and he was content to let friendships await his return. But he did not return; and the lapsed correspondence was too pleasant to his indolent tastes to be reopened. He told all this quietly now to Rupert Trevlyn, and said that to it he owed his ignorance of the deposition of Rupert from Trevlyn Hold. Mr. Freeman was one of his few old college friends, and he might have heard all about it years ago had he only written to him.

  “I cannot understand how Mr. Chattaway should have succeeded,” he cried, bending his dark eyes upon Rupert. “I can scarcely believe the fact now; it has amazed me, as one may say. Had there been no direct male heir; had your father left only Maude, for instance, I could have understood its being left away from her, although it would have been unjust.”

  “The property is not entailed,” said Rupert.

  “I am aware of that. During the last few months of your father’s life, we were like brothers, and I knew all particulars as well as he did. He had married in disobedience to his father’s will, but he never for a moment glanced at the possibility of disinheritance. I cannot understand why Squire Trevlyn should have willed the estate from his son’s children.”

  “He only knew of Maude — as they say.”

  “Still less can I understand how Mr. Chattaway can keep it. Were an estate willed to me, away from those who had a greater right to it, I should never retain it. I could not reconcile it to my conscience to do so. How can Mr. Chattaway?”

  Rupert laughed — he believed that conscience and Mr. Chattaway had not a great deal to do with each other. “It is not much Mr. Chattaway would give up voluntarily,” he observed. “Were my grandfather alive, Chattaway would not resign Trevlyn Hold to him, unless forced to it.”

  Old Canham could contain himself no longer. The conversation did not appear to be coming to the point. “Be you going to help young Master Rupert to regain his rights, sir?” he eagerly asked.

  “I would — if I knew how to do it,” said Mr. Daw. “I shall certainly represent to Mr. Chattaway the injustice — the wicked injustice — of the present state of things. When I wrote to the Squire on the occasion of your birth and Mrs. Trevlyn’s death,” looking at Rupert, “the answers to me were signed ‘J. Chattaway,’ — the writer being no doubt this same Mr. Chattaway. He wrote again, after Squire Trevlyn’s death, requesting me to despatch the nurse and children to England.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Rupert carelessly, “it was safe enough for us to come then. Squire Trevlyn dead, and the estate willed to Chattaway, there was no longer danger from me. If my grandfather had got to know that I was in existence, there would have been good-bye to Chattaway’s ambition. At least people say so; I don’t know.”

  The indifferent tone forcibly struck Mr. Daw. “Don’t you feel the injustice?” he asked. “Don’t you care that Trevlyn Hold should be yours?”

  “I have grown up seeing the estate Chattaway’s, and I suppose I don’t feel it as I ought to. Of course, I should like it to be mine, but as it never can be mine, it is as well not to think about it. Have you heard of the Trevlyn temper?” he continued, a merry smile dancing in his eyes as he threw them on the stranger.

  “I have.”

  “They tell me I have inherited it, as I suppose a true Trevlyn ought to do. Were I to think too much of the injustice, it might rouse the temper; and it would answer no end, you know.”

  “Yes, I have heard of the Trevlyn temper,” repeated the stranger. “I have heard what it did for the first heir, Rupert Trevlyn.”

  “But it did not do it for him,” passionately returned Rupert. “I never heard until the other day — not so many hours ago — of the slur that was cast upon his name. It was not he who shot the man; he had no hand in it: it was proved so later. Ask old Canham.”

  “Well, well,” said the stranger, “it’s all past and done with. Poor Joe reposed every confidence in me; treating me as a brother. It was a singular coincidence that the Squire’s sons should both die abroad. I hope,” he added, looking kindly at Rupert, “that yours will be a long life. Are you — are you strong?”

  The question was put hesitatingly. He had heard from Nora that Rupert was not strong; and now that he saw him he was painfully struck with his delicate appearance. Rupert answered bravely.

  “I should be very well if it were not for that confounded Blackstone walk night and morning. It’s that knocks me up.”

  “Chattaway had no call to put him to it, sir,” interrupted Mark Canham again. “It’s not work for a Trevlyn.”

  “Not for the heir of Trevlyn Hold,” acquiesced the stranger. “But I must be going. I have not seen my friend Freeman yet, and should like to be at the railway station when he arrives. What time shall I see you in the morning?” he added, to Rupert. “And what time can I see Mr. Chattaway?”

  “You can see me at any time,” replied Rupert. “But I can’t answer for him. He breakfasts early, and generally goes out afterwards.”

  Had the Reverend William Daw been able
to glance through a few trunks of trees, he might have seen Mr. Chattaway then. For there, hidden amidst the trees of the avenue, only a few paces from the lodge, was he.

  Mr. Chattaway was pretty nearly beside himself that night. When he found that Rupert Trevlyn was not in the house, vague fears, to which he did not wait to give a more tangible name, rushed over his imagination. Had Rupert stolen from the house to meet this dangerous stranger clandestinely? He — Chattaway — scarcely knowing what he did, seized his hat and followed the stranger down the avenue, when he left the Hold after his fruitless visit.

  Not to follow him openly and say, “What is your business with Rupert Trevlyn?” Cords would not have dragged Mr. Chattaway into that dreaded presence until he was sure of his ground.

  He stole down with a fleet foot on the soft grass beside the avenue, and close upon the lodge he overtook the stranger. Mr. Chattaway glided into the trees.

  Peeping from his hiding-place, he saw the stranger pause before the lodge window: heard him accost Rupert Trevlyn; watched him enter. And there he had been since, — altogether in an agony both of mind and body.

  Do as he would, he could not hear their conversation. The sound of voices came upon him through the open window, but not the words spoken: and nearer he dared not go.

  Hark! they were coming out. Chattaway’s eyes glared and his teeth were set, as he cautiously looked round. The man’s ugly red umbrella was in one hand; the other was laid on Rupert’s shoulder. “Will you walk with me a little way?” he heard the stranger say.

  “No, not this evening,” was Rupert’s reply. “I must go back to the Hold.”

  But he, Rupert, turned to walk with him to the gate, and Mr. Chattaway took the opportunity to hasten back toward the Hold. When Rupert, after shaking hands with the stranger and calling out a good evening to the inmates of the lodge as he passed, went up the avenue, he met the master of Trevlyn Hold pacing leisurely down it, as if he had come out for a stroll.

  “Halloa!” he cried, with something of theatrical amazement. “I thought you were in bed!”

  “I came out instead,” replied Rupert. “The evening was so fine.”

  “Who was that queer-looking man just gone out at the gates?” asked Mr. Chattaway, with well-assumed indifference.

  Rupert answered readily. His disposition was naturally open to a fault, and he saw no reason for concealing what he knew of the stranger. He was not aware that Chattaway had ever seen him until this moment.

  “It is some one who has come on a visit to the parsonage: a clergyman. It’s a curious name, though — Daw.”

  “Daw? Daw?” repeated Mr. Chattaway, biting his lips to get some colour into them. “Where have I heard that name — in connection with a clergyman?”

  “He said he had some correspondence with you years ago: at the time my mother died, and I was born. He knew my father and mother well: has been telling me this at old Canham’s.”

  All that past time, its events, its correspondence, flashed over Mr. Chattaway’s memory — flashed over it with a strange dread. “What has he come here for?” he asked quickly.

  “I don’t know,” replied Rupert. “He said —— Whatever’s this?”

  A tremendous shouting from people who appeared, dragging something behind them. Both turned simultaneously — the master of Trevlyn Hold in awful fear. Could it be the stranger coming back with constables at his heels, to wrest the Hold from him? And if, my reader, you deem these fears exaggerated, you know very little of this kind of terror.

  It was nothing but a procession of those idlers you saw in the road, dragging home the unlucky dog-cart: Mr. Cris at their head.

  CHAPTER XXV

  NEWS FOR MISS DIANA

  In that pleasant room at the parsonage, with its sweet-scented mignonette boxes, and vases of freshly-cut flowers, sat the Reverend Mr. Freeman at breakfast, with his wife and visitor. It was a simple meal. All meals were simple at Barbrook Parsonage: as they generally are where means are limited. And you have not yet to learn, I dare say, that comfort and simplicity frequently go together: whilst comfort and grandeur are often separated. There was no lack of comfort and homely fare at Mr. Freeman’s. Coffee and rich milk: home-made bread and the freshest of butter, new-laid eggs and autumn watercress. It was by no means starvation.

  Mr. Daw, however, paid less attention to the meal than he might have done had his mind been less preoccupied. The previous evening, when he and Mr. Freeman had first met, after an absence of more than twenty years, their conversation had naturally run on their own personal interests: past events had to be related. But this morning they could go to other subjects, and Mr. Daw was not slow to do so. They were talking — you may have guessed it — of the Trevlyns.

  Mr. Daw grew warm upon the subject. As on the previous day, when Molly placed the meal before him, he almost forgot to eat. And yet Mr. Daw, in spite of his assurance that he was contented with a crust of bread and a cup of milk knew how to appreciate good things. In plainer words, he liked them. Men who have no occupation for their days and years sometimes grow into epicureans.

  “You are sparing the eggs,” said Mrs. Freeman, a good-natured woman with a large nose, thin cheeks, and prominent teeth. Mr. Daw replied by taking another egg from the stand and chopping off its top. But there it remained. He was enlarging on the injustice dealt out to Rupert Trevlyn.

  “It ought to be remedied, you know, Freeman. It must be remedied. It is a wrong in the sight of God and man.”

  The curate — Mr. Freeman was nothing more, for all his many years’ services — smiled good-humouredly. He never used hard words: preferring to let wrongs, which were no business of his, right themselves, or remain wrongs, and taking life as it came, easily and pleasantly.

  “We can’t alter it,” he said. “We have no power to interfere with Chattaway. He has enjoyed Trevlyn Hold these twenty years, and must enjoy it still.”

  “I don’t know about that,” returned Mr. Daw. “I don’t know that he must enjoy it still. At any rate, he ought not to do so. Had I lived in this neighbourhood as you have, Freeman, I should have tried to get him out of it before this.”

  The parson opened his eyes in surprise.

  “There’s such a thing as shaming people out of injustice,” continued Mr. Daw. “Has any one represented to Chattaway the fearful wrong he is guilty of in his conduct towards Rupert Trevlyn?”

  “I can’t say,” equably answered the parson. “I have not.”

  “Will you go with me and do it to-day?”

  “Well — no; I think I’d rather not, Daw. If any good could come of it, perhaps I might do so; but nothing could come of it. And I find it answers best not to meddle with the affairs of other folk.”

  “The wrongs dealt out to him are so great,” persisted Mr. Daw. “Not content with having wrested Trevlyn Hold from the boy, Chattaway converts him into a common labourer in some coal office of his, making him walk to and fro night and morning. You know him?”

  “Know him?” repeated Mr. Freeman. “I have known him since he first came here, a child in arms.” In truth, it was a superfluous question.

  “Did you know his father?”

  “No; I came to Barbrook after his father went abroad.”

  “I was going to ask, if you had known him, whether you did not remark the extraordinary resemblance the young man bears to his father. The likeness is great; and he has the same suspiciously delicate complexion. I should fear that the boy will go off as his father did, and — —”

  “I have long said he ought to take cod-liver oil,” interposed Mrs. Freeman, who was doctor in ordinary to her husband’s parish, and very decided in her opinions.

  “Well, ma’am, that boy must die — if he is to die — Squire of Trevlyn Hold. I shall use all my means while I am here to induce this Chattaway to resign his possessions to the rightful owner. The boy seems to have had no friend in the world to take up his cause. What this Miss Diana can have been about, to stand tamely by and not interfe
re, I cannot conceive. She is the sister of his father.”

  “Better let it alone, Daw,” said the parson. “Rely upon it, you will make no impression on Chattaway. You must excuse me for saying it, but it’s quite foolish to think that you will; quixotic and absurd. Chattaway possesses Trevlyn Hold — is not likely to resign it.”

  “I could not let it alone now,” impulsively answered Mr. Daw. “The boy seems to have no friend, I say; and I have a right to constitute myself his friend. I should not be worthy the name of man were I not to do it. I intended to stay with you only two nights; you’ll give me house-room a little longer, won’t you?”

  “We’ll give it you for two months, and gladly, if you can put up with our primitive mode of living,” was the hospitable answer.

  Mr. Daw shook his head. “Two months I could not remain; two weeks I might. I cannot go away leaving things in this unsatisfactory state. The first thing I shall do this morning will be to call at the Hold, and seek an interview with Chattaway.”

  But Mr. Daw did not succeed in obtaining the interview with Chattaway. When he arrived at Trevlyn Hold, he was told the Squire was out. It was correct; Chattaway had ridden out immediately after breakfast. The stranger next asked for Miss Diana, and was admitted.

  Chattaway had said to Miss Diana in private, before starting, “Don’t receive him should he come here; don’t let his foot pass over the door-sill.” Very unwise advice, as Miss Diana judged; and she did not take it. Miss Diana had the sense to remember that an unknown evil is more to be feared than an open one. No one can fight in the dark. The stranger was ushered into the drawing-room by order of Miss Diana, and she came to him.

  It was not a satisfactory interview, since nothing came of it; but it was a decently civil one. Miss Diana was cold, reserved, somewhat haughty, but courteous; Mr. Daw was pressing, urgent, but respectful and gentlemanly. Rupert Trevlyn was by right the owner of Trevlyn Hold, was the substance of the points urged by the one; Squire Trevlyn was his own master, made his own will, and it was not for his children and dependants to raise useless questions, still less for a stranger, was the answer of the other.