by Ellen Wood
“I mean Mr. Flood of Barmester,” irritably rejoined the master of Trevlyn Hold. “Perhaps you don’t know him personally. He came up an hour or two ago.”
The waiter, a fresh one, was not acquainted with Mr. Flood. He went to another waiter, and the latter came forward. But the man’s information was correct; Mr. Flood of Barmester had not arrived.
“He travelled by the eight-o’clock train,” persisted Mr. Chattaway, as if he found the denial difficult to reconcile with that fact. “He must be in London.”
“All I can say, sir, is that he has not come here,” returned the head-waiter.
Mr. Chattaway was considerably put out. In his impatience, the delay seemed most irritating. He left the hotel, and bent his steps towards Essex Street, where Mr. Flood’s agents had their offices. Chattaway went in hoping that the first object his eyes rested upon would be his confidential adviser.
His eyes did not receive that satisfaction. Some clerks were in the room, also one or two persons who seemed to be clients; but there was no Mr. Flood, and the clerks could give no information concerning him. One of the firm, a Mr. Newby, appeared and shook hands with Mr. Chattaway, whom he had once or twice seen.
“Flood? Yes. We had a note from Flood yesterday morning, telling us to get some accounts prepared, as he should be in town in the course of a day or two. He has not come yet; up to-morrow perhaps.”
“But he has come,” reiterated Chattaway. “I have followed him up to town, and want to see him upon a matter of importance.”
“Oh, has he?” carelessly replied Mr. Newby, the indifferent manner appearing almost like an insult to Chattaway’s impatient frame of mind. “He’ll be in later, then.”
“He is sure to come here?” inquired Mr. Chattaway.
“Quite sure. We shall have a good bit of business to transact with him this time.”
“Then, if you’ll allow me, I’ll wait here. I must see him, and I want to get back to Barbrook as soon as possible.”
Mr. Chattaway was told that he was welcome to wait, if it pleased him to do so. A chair was handed him in the entrance room, where the clerks were writing, and he took his seat in it: sat there until he was nearly driven wild. The room was in a continual bustle; persons constantly coming in and going out. For the first hour or so, to watch the swaying door afforded Chattaway a sort of relief, for in every fresh visitor he expected to see Mr. Flood. But this grew tedious at last, and the ever-recurring disappointment told upon his temper.
Evening came, the hour for closing the office, and the country lawyer had not made his appearance. “It is most extraordinary,” remarked Chattaway to Mr. Newby.
“He has been about some other business, and couldn’t get to us to-day, I suppose,” rejoined Mr. Newby, in the most provokingly matter-of-fact tone. “If he has come up for a week, as you say, he must have some important affair on hand; in which case it may be a day or two before he finds his way here.”
A most unsatisfactory conclusion for Mr. Chattaway; but that gentleman was obliged to put up with it, in the absence of any more tangible hope. He went back to the hotel, and there found that Mr. Flood was still amongst the non-arrivals.
It was bad enough, that day and night’s disappointment and suspense; but when it came to be extended over more days and nights, you may judge how it was increased. Mr. Flood did not make his appearance. Chattaway, in a state of fume, divided his time between the hotel, Essex Street, and Euston Square station, in the wild hope of coming upon the lawyer. All to no purpose. He telegraphed to Barmester, and received for reply that Mr. Flood was in London, and so he redoubled his hauntings, and worked himself into a fever.
It appeared absolutely necessary that he should consult Flood before venturing back to home quarters, where he should inevitably meet that dangerous enemy. But how see Flood? — where look for him? Barmester telegraphed up that Mr. Flood was in London; the agents persisted in asserting that they expected him hourly, at their office, and yet Chattaway could not come upon him. He visited all the courts open in the long vacation; prowled about the Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and other places where lawyers congregated, in the delusive hope that he might by good luck meet with him. All in vain; and Chattaway had been very nearly a week from home, when his hopes were at length realised. There were other lawyers whom he might have consulted — Mr. Newby himself, for instance — but he shrank from laying bare his dread to a stranger.
He was walking slowly up Ludgate Hill, his hands in his pockets, his brow knit, altogether in a disconsolate manner, some vague intention in his mind of taking a peep inside Doctors’ Commons, when, by the merest accident, he happened to turn his eyes on the string of vehicles passing up and down. In that same moment a cab, extricating itself from the long line, whirled past him in the direction of Fleet Street; and its occupant was Flood the lawyer.
All his listlessness was gone. Chattaway threw himself into the midst of the traffic, and tore after the cab. Sober pedestrians thought he had gone mad: but bent on their own business, had only time for a wondering glance. Chattaway bore on his way, and succeeded in keeping the cab in view. It soon stopped at an hotel, and by the time the lawyer had alighted, a portmanteau in hand, and was paying the driver, Chattaway was up with him, breathless, excited, grasping his arm as one demented.
“What on earth’s the matter?” exclaimed Mr. Flood, in astonishment. “You here, Chattaway? Do you want me?”
“I followed you to town by the next train a week ago; I have been looking for you ever since,” gasped Chattaway, unable to regain his breath between racing and excitement. “Where have you been hiding yourself? Your agents have been expecting you all this time.”
“I dare say they have. I wrote to say I should be with them in a day or two. I thought I should be, then.”
“But where have you been?”
“Over in France. A client wrote to me from Paris — —”
“France!” interrupted Mr. Chattaway in his anger, feeling the announcement as a special and personal grievance. What right had his legal adviser to be cooling his heels in France, when he was searching for him in London?
“I meant to return without delay,” continued Mr. Flood; “but when I reached my client, I found the affair on which he wanted me was complicated, and I had to wait the dilatoriness of French lawyers.”
“You have been lingering over the seductions of Paris; nothing else,” growled Chattaway.
The lawyer laughed pleasantly. “No, on my honour. I did go about to some of the sights whilst waiting for my business; but they did not detain me by one unnecessary hour. What is it that you want with me?”
They entered the hotel, and Chattaway took him into a private room, unwashed and unrefreshed as the traveller was, and laid the case before him: the sudden appearance of the mysterious stranger at Barbrook, his open avowal that he had come to depose Chattaway from the Hold in favour of Rupert Trevlyn.
“But who is he?” inquired Mr. Flood.
“A lawyer,” was the reply — for you must remember that Chattaway could only speak in accordance with the supposed facts; facts that had been exaggerated to him. “I know nothing more about the man, except that he avows he has come to Barbrook to deprive me of my property, and take up the cause of Rupert Trevlyn. But he can’t do it, you know, Flood. The Hold is mine, and must remain mine.”
“Of course he can’t,” acquiesced the lawyer. “Why need you put yourself out about it?”
Mr. Chattaway was wiping the moisture from his face. He sat looking at the lawyer.
“I can’t deny that it has troubled me,” he said: “that it is troubling me still. What would my family do — my children — if we lost the Hold?”
It was the lawyer’s turn to look. He could not make out Chattaway. No power on earth, so far as his belief and knowledge went, could wrest Trevlyn Hold from its present master. Why, then, these fears? Were they born of nervousness? But Chattaway was not a nervous man.
“Trevlyn Hold is as much yours as t
his hat” — touching the one at his elbow— “is mine,” he resumed. “It came to you by legal bequest; you have enjoyed it these twenty years, and to deprive you of it is beyond human power. Unless,” he added, after a pause, “unless indeed — —”
“Unless what?” eagerly interrupted Chattaway, his heart thumping against his side.
“Unless — it was only an idea that crossed me — there should prove to be a flaw in Squire Trevlyn’s will. But that’s not probable.”
“It’s impossible,” gasped Chattaway, his fears taking a new and startling turn. “It’s impossible that there could have been anything defective in the will, Flood.”
“It’s next to impossible,” acquiesced the lawyer; “though such mistakes have been known. Who drew it up?”
“The Squire’s solicitors, Peterby and Jones.”
“Then it’s all right, you may be sure. Peterby and Jones are not men likely to insert errors in their deeds. I should not trouble myself about the matter.”
Mr. Chattaway sat in silence, revolving many things. How he wished he could take the advice and not “trouble himself” about the matter! “What made you think there might be a flaw in the will?” he presently asked.
“Nay, I did not think there was: only that it was just possible there might be. When a case is offered to me for consideration, it is my habit to glance at it in all its bearings. You tell me a stranger has made his appearance at Barbrook, avowing an intention of displacing you from Trevlyn Hold.”
“Well?”
“Well, then, whilst you were speaking, I began to grasp that case, turn it about in my mind; and I see that there is no possible way by which you can be displaced, so far as I know and believe. You enjoy it in accordance with Squire Trevlyn’s will, and so long as that will remains in force, you are safe — provided the will has no flaw in it.”
Mr. Chattaway sat biting his lips. Never for a moment in the wildest flight of fear had he glanced at the possibility of a flaw in the will. The idea now suggested by Mr. Flood was perhaps the most alarming that could have been presented to him.
“If there were any flaw in the will,” he began — and the very mention of the cruel words almost rent his heart in two— “could you detect it, by reading the will over?”
“Yes,” replied Flood.
“Then let us go at once, and set this awful uncertainty at rest.”
He had risen from his seat so eagerly and hastily that Mr. Flood scarcely understood.
“Go where?” he asked.
“To Doctors’ Commons. We can see it there by paying a shilling.”
“Oh — ay, I’ll go if you like. But I must have a wash first, and some refreshment. I have had neither since leaving Paris, and the crossing — ugh! I don’t want to think of it.”
Mr. Chattaway controlled his impatience in the best manner he was able. At length they were fairly on their way — to the very spot for which Chattaway had been making once before that morning.
Difficulties surmounted, Flood was soon deep in the perusal of Squire Trevlyn’s will. He read it over slowly and thoughtfully, eyes and head bent, all his attention absorbed in the task. At its conclusion, he turned and looked full at Mr. Chattaway.
“You are perfectly safe,” he said. “The will is right and legal in every point.”
The relief brought a glow into Chattaway’s dusky face. “I thought it strange if it could be wrong,” he cried, drawing a deep breath.
“It is only the codicil, you see, which affects you,” continued Mr. Flood, pointing to the deed before them. “The will appears to have been made years before the codicil, and leaves the estate to the eldest son Rupert, and failing him, to Joseph. Rupert died; Joe died; and then the codicil was drawn up, willing it to you. You come in, you see, after the two sons; contingent on their death; no mention whatever is made of the child Rupert.”
Chattaway coughed. He did not deem it necessary to repeat that Squire Trevlyn had never known the child Rupert was in existence: but Flood was, no doubt, aware of that fact.
“It’s a good thing for you Joe Trevlyn died before his father,” carelessly remarked Mr. Flood, as he glanced again at the will.
“Why?” cried Chattaway.
“Because, had he not, this codicil would be valueless. It is — —”
“But he was dead, and it gives the estate to me,” fiercely interrupted Chattaway, going into a white heat again.
“Yes, yes. But it was a good thing, I say, for you. Had Joe been alive, he would have come in, in spite of this codicil; and he could have bequeathed the property to his boy after him.”
“Do you suppose I don’t know all that?” retorted Chattaway. “It was only in consequence of Joe Trevlyn’s death that the estate was willed to me. Had he lived, I never should have had it, or expected it.”
The peevish tone betrayed how sore was the subject altogether, and Mr. Flood smiled. “You need not be snappy over it, Chattaway,” he said; “there’s no cause for that. And now you may go back to the Hold in peace, without having your sleep disturbed by dreams of ejection. And if that unknown friend of yours should happen to mention in your hearing his kind intention of deposing you for Rupert Trevlyn, tell him, with my compliments, to come up here and read Squire Trevlyn’s will.”
Partially reassured, Mr. Chattaway lost little time in taking his departure from London. He quitted it that same afternoon, and arrived at Barbrook just after dark, whence he started for the Hold.
But he did not proceed to it as most other travellers in his rank of life would have done. He did not call a fly and drive to it; he preferred to go on foot. He did not even walk openly along the broad highway, but turned into by-paths, where he might be pretty sure of not meeting a soul, and stole cautiously along, peering on all sides, as if looking out for something he either longed or dreaded to see.
CHAPTER XXIX
A WELCOME HOME
Was there a fatality upon the master of Trevlyn Hold? — was he never to be at rest? — could not even one little respite be allowed him in this, the first hour of his return home? It seemed not. He was turning into the first of those fields you have so often heard of, next to the one which had been the scene of poor Mr. Ryle’s unhappy ending, when a tall man suddenly pounced upon him, came to a standstill, and spoke.
“I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I address Mr. Chattaway?”
In his panic Mr. Chattaway nearly dropped a small parcel he held. An utter fear had taken possession of him: for in the speaker he recognised his dreaded enemy; the man who had proclaimed that he was about to work evil against him. It seemed like a terrible omen, meeting him the first moment of his arrival.
“I have been wishing to see you for some days past,” continued the stranger, “and have been to the Hold three or four times to ask if you had come home. I was a friend of the late Joe Trevlyn’s. I am a friend now of his son.”
“Yes,” stammered Chattaway — for in his fear he did not follow his first impulse, to meet the words with a torrent of anger. “May I ask what you want with me?”
“I wish to converse upon the subject of Rupert Trevlyn. I would endeavour to impress upon you the grievous wrong inflicted upon him in keeping him out of the property of his forefathers. I do not think you can ever have reflected upon the matter, Mr. Chattaway, or have seen it in its true light — otherwise you would surely never deprive him of what is so indisputably his.”
Mr. Chattaway, his fears taking deeper and deeper possession of him, had turned into the field, in the hope of getting rid of the stranger. In any direction, no matter what, so that he could shake him off — for what to answer he did not know. It must be conciliation or defiance; but in that hurried moment he could not decide which would be the better policy. The stranger also turned and kept up with him.
“My name is Daw, Mr. Chattaway. You may possibly remember it, for I had the honour of a little correspondence with you about the time of Mrs. Trevlyn’s death. It was I who transmitted to you the acc
ount of the birth of the boy Rupert. I am now informed that that fact was not suffered to reach the ears of Squire Trevlyn.”
“I wish to hear nothing about it, sir; I desire to hold no communication with you at all,” cried Mr. Chattaway, bearing on his way.
“But it may be better for you that you should do so, and I ask it in courtesy,” persisted Mr. Daw, striding beside him. “Appoint your own time and place, and I will wait upon you. These things are always better settled amicably than the reverse: litigation generally brings a host of evil in its train; and Rupert Trevlyn has no money to risk. Not but that his costs could come out of the estate,” equably concluded Mr. Daw.
The master of Trevlyn Hold turned passionately, arresting his course for an instant. “Litigation! what do you mean? How dare you speak to me in this manner? Who but a footpad would accost a gentleman by night, as you are accosting me?”
The discourteous thrust did not seem to put out Mr. Daw. “I only wish you to appoint a time to see me — at your own home, or anywhere else you may please,” he reiterated, not losing his manners. “But I am not to be balked in this, Mr. Chattaway. I have taken up the cause of Rupert Trevlyn, and shall try to carry it through.”
A blaze of anger burst from Mr. Chattaway, words and tones alike fierce, and Mr. Daw turned away. “I will see you when you are in a reasonable mood,” he said. “To-morrow I will call at the Hold, and I hope you will meet me more amicably than you have done to-night.”
“I will never meet you; I will never see or listen to you,” retorted Chattaway, his anger mastering him and causing him to forget prudence. “If you want to know by what right I retain the Hold over the boy, Rupert Trevlyn, go and consult Squire Trevlyn’s will. That is the only answer you will get from me.”
Panting with the anger he could not restrain, Mr. Chattaway stood and watched the calm, retreating steps of the stranger, and then turned his own in the direction of home; unconscious that he in his turn was also watched, and by two who were very close to him — George Ryle and Maude Trevlyn.