by Ellen Wood
But she did not do this for two days after the arrival of the letter. She waited the answer which Mr. Flood wrote up to Connell and Connell, spoken of in the last chapter. As soon as that came, and she found that it explained nothing, then she resolved to question Rupert at her next stolen visit. That same afternoon, as she returned on foot from Barmester, she contrived to slip unseen into the lodge.
Rupert was sitting up. Mr. King had given it as his opinion that to lie constantly in bed, as he was doing, was worse than anything else; and in truth Rupert need not have been entirely confined to it had there been any other place for him. Old Canham’s chamber opposite was still more stifling, inasmuch as the builder had forgotten to make the small window to open. Look at Rupert now, as Mrs. Chattaway enters! He has managed to struggle into his clothes, which hang upon him like sacks, and he sits uncomfortably on a small rush-bottomed chair. Rupert’s back looks as if it were broken; he is bent nearly double with weakness; his lips are white, his cheeks hollow, and his poor, weak hands tremble with joy as they are feebly raised to greet Mrs. Chattaway. Think what it was for him! lying for long hours, for days, in that stifling room, a prey to his fears, sometimes seeing no one for two whole days — for it was not every evening that an opportunity could be found of entering the lodge. What with the Chattaways’ passing and repassing the lodge, and Ann Canham’s grumbling visitors, an entrance for those who might not be seen to enter it was not always possible. Look at poor Rupert; the lighting up of his eye, the kindling hectic of his cheek!
Mrs. Chattaway contrived to squeeze herself between Rupert and the door, and sat down on the edge of the bed as she took his hand in hers. “I am so glad to see you have made an effort to get up, Rupert!” she whispered.
“I don’t think I shall make it again, Aunt Edith. You have no conception how it has tired me. I was a good half-hour getting into my coat and waistcoat.”
“But you will be all the better for it.”
“I don’t know,” said Rupert, in a spiritless tone. “I feel as if there would never be any ‘better’ for me again.”
She began telling him of what she had been purchasing for him at Barmester — a dressed tongue, a box of sardines, potted meats, and similar things found in the provision shops. They were not precisely the dishes suited to Rupert’s weakly state; but since the accident to Rebecca he had been fain to put up with what could be thus procured. And then Mrs. Chattaway opened gently upon the subject of the letters.
“It seems so strange, Rupert, quite inexplicable, but Mr. Chattaway has had another of those curious letters from Connell and Connell.”
“Has he?” answered Rupert, with apathy.
Mrs. Chattaway looked at him with all the fancied penetration she possessed — in point of fact she was one of those persons who possess none — but she could not detect the faintest sign of consciousness. “Was there anything about me in it?” he asked wearily.
“It was all about you. It said you had written to Connell and Connell stating your intention of taking immediate possession of the Hold.”
This a little aroused him. “Connell and Connell have written that to Mr. Chattaway! Why, what queer people they must be!”
“Rupert! You have not written to them, have you?”
He looked at Mrs. Chattaway in surprise; for she had evidently asked the question seriously. “You know I have not. I am not strong enough to play jokes, Aunt Edith. And if I were, I should not be so senseless as to play that joke. What end would it answer?”
“I thought not,” she murmured; “I was sure not. Setting everything else aside, Rupert, you are not well enough to write.”
“No, I don’t think I am. I could hardly scrawl those lines to George Ryle some time ago — when the fever was upon me. No, Aunt Edith: the only letter I have written since I became a prisoner was the one I wrote to Mr. Daw, the night I first took shelter here, just after the encounter with Mr. Chattaway, and Ann Canham posted it at Barmester the next day. What on earth can possess Connell and Connell?”
“Diana argues that Connell and Connell must be receiving these letters, or they would not write to Mr. Chattaway in the manner they are doing. For my part, I can’t make it out.”
“What does Mr. Chattaway say?” asked Rupert, when a fit of coughing was over. “Is he angry?”
“He is worse than angry,” she seriously answered; “he is troubled. He thinks you are writing them.”
“No! Why, he might know that I shouldn’t dare do it: he might know that I am not well enough to write them.”
“Nay, Rupert, you forget that Mr. Chattaway does not know you are ill.”
“To be sure; I forgot that. But I can’t believe Mr. Chattaway is troubled. How could a poor, weak, friendless chap, such as I, contend for the possession of Trevlyn Hold? Aunt Edith, I’ll tell you what it must be. If Connells are not playing this joke themselves, to annoy Mr. Chattaway, somebody must be playing it on them.”
Mrs. Chattaway acquiesced: it was the only conclusion she could come to.
“Oh, Aunt Edith, if he would only forgive me!” sighed Rupert. “When I get well — and I should get well, if I could go back to the Hold and get this fear out of me — I would work night and day to repay him the cost of the ricks. If he would only forgive me!”
Ah! none knew better than Mrs. Chattaway how vain was the wish; how worse than vain any hope of forgiveness. She could have told him, had she chosen, of an unhappy scene of the past night, when she, Edith Chattaway, urged by the miserable state of existing things and her tribulation for Rupert, had so far forgotten prudence as to all but kneel to her husband and beg him to forgive that poor culprit; and Mr. Chattaway, excited to the very depths of anger, had demanded of his wife whether she were mad or sane, that she should dare ask it.
“Yes, Rupert,” she meekly said, “I wish it also, for your sake. But, my dear, it is just an impossibility.”
“If I could be got safely out of the country, I might go to Mr. Daw for a time, and get up my strength there.”
“Yes, if you could. But in your weak state discovery would be the result before you were clear from these walls. You cannot take flight in the night. Everyone knows you: and the police, we have heard, are keeping their eyes open.”
“I’d bribe Dumps, if I had money — —”
Rupert’s voice dropped. A commotion had suddenly arisen downstairs, and, his fears ever on the alert touching the police and Mr. Chattaway, he put up his hand to enjoin caution, and bent his head to listen. But no strange voice could be distinguished: only those of old Canham and his daughter. A short time, and Ann came up the stairs, looking strange.
“What’s the matter?” panted Rupert, who was the first to catch sight of her face.
“I can’t think what’s come to father, sir,” she returned. “I was in the back place, washing up, and heard a sort o’ cry, as one may say, so I ran in. There he was standing with his hair all on end, and afore I could speak he began saying he’d seen a ghost go past. He’s staring out o’ window still. I hope his senses are not leaving him!”
To hear this assertion from sober-minded, matter-of-fact old Canham, certainly did impart a suspicion that his senses were departing. Mrs. Chattaway rose to descend, for she had already lingered longer than was prudent. She found old Canham as Ann had described him, with that peculiarly scared look on the face some people deem equivalent to “the hair standing on end.” He was gazing with a fixed expression towards the Hold.
“Has anything happened to alarm you, Mark?”
Mrs. Chattaway’s gentle question recalled him to himself. He turned towards her, leaning heavily on his stick, his eyes full of vague terror.
“It happened, Madam, as I had got out o’ my seat, and was standing to look out o’ window, thinking how fine the a’ternoon was, when he come in at the gate with a fine silver-headed stick in his hand, turning his head about from side to side as if he was taking note of the old place to see what changes there might be in it. I was struck all
of a heap when I saw his figure; ’twas just the figure it used to be, only maybe a bit younger; but when he moved his head and looked full at me, I felt turned to stone. It was his face, ma’am, if I ever saw it.”
“But whose?” asked Mrs. Chattaway, smiling at his incoherence.
Old Canham glanced round before he spoke; glanced at Mrs. Chattaway, with a half-compassionate, half-inquiring look, as if not liking to speak. “Madam, it was the old Squire, my late master.”
“It was — who?” demanded Mrs. Chattaway, less gentle than usual in her great surprise.
“It was Squire Trevlyn; Madam’s father.”
Mrs. Chattaway could do nothing but stare. She thought old Canham’s senses were decidedly gone.
“There never was a face like his. Miss Maude — that is, Mrs. Ryle now — have his features exact; but she’s not as tall and portly, being a woman. Ah, Madam, you may smile at me, but it was Squire Trevlyn.”
“But, Mark, you know it is impossible.”
“Madam, ’twas him. He must ha’ come out of his grave for some purpose, and is visiting his own again. I never was a believer in them things afore, or thought as the dead come back to life.”
Ghosts have gone out of fashion; therefore the enlightened reader will not be likely to endorse old Canham’s belief. But when Mrs. Chattaway, turning quickly up the avenue on her way to the Hold, saw, at no great distance from her, a gentleman standing to talk to some one whom he had encountered, she stopped, as one in sudden terror, and seemed about to fall or faint. Mrs. Chattaway did not believe in “the dead coming back” any more than old Canham had believed in it; but in that moment’s startled surprise she did think she saw her father.
She gazed at the figure, her lips apart, her bright complexion fading to ashy paleness. Never had she seen so extraordinary a likeness. The tall, fine form, somewhat less full perhaps than of yore, the distinctly-marked features with their firm and haughty expression, the fresh clear skin, the very manner of handling that silver-headed stick, spoke in unmistakable terms of Squire Trevlyn.
Not until they parted, the two who were talking, did Mrs. Chattaway observe that the other was Nora Dickson. Nora came down the avenue towards her; the stranger went on with his firm step and his firmly-grasped stick. Mrs. Chattaway was advancing then.
“Nora, who is that?” she gasped.
“I am trying to collect my wits, if they are not scared away for good,” was Nora’s response. “Madam Chattaway, you might just have knocked me down with a feather. I was walking along, thinking of nothing, except my vexation that you were not at home — for Mr. George charged me to bring this note to you, and to deliver it instantly into your own hands, and nobody else’s — when I met him. I didn’t know whether to face him, or scream, or turn and run; one doesn’t like to meet the dead; and I declare to you, Madam Chattaway, I believed, in my confused brain, that it was the dead. I believed it was Squire Trevlyn.”
“Nora, I never saw two persons so strangely alike,” she breathed, mechanically taking the note from Nora’s hand. “Who is he?”
“My brain’s at work to discover,” returned Nora, dreamily. “I am trying to put two and two together, and can’t do it; unless the dead have come to life — or those we believed dead.”
“Nora! you cannot mean my father!” exclaimed Mrs. Chattaway, gazing at her with a strangely perplexed face. “You know he lies buried in Barbrook churchyard. What did he say to you?”
“Not much. He saw me staring at him, I suppose, and stopped and asked me if I belonged to the Hold. I answered, no; I did not belong to it; I was Miss Dickson, of Trevlyn Farm. And then it was his turn to stare at me. ‘I think I should have known you,’ he said. ‘At least, I do now that I have the clue. You are not much altered. Should you have known me?’ ‘I don’t know you now,’ I answered: ‘unless you are old Squire Trevlyn come out of his grave. I never saw such a likeness.’”
“And what did he say?” eagerly asked Mrs. Chattaway.
“Nothing more. He laughed a little at my speech, and went on. Madam Chattaway, will you open the note, please, and see if there’s any answer. Mr. George said it was important.”
She opened the note, which had lain unheeded in her hand, and read as follows:
“Do not attempt further visits. Suspicions are abroad.
“G. B. R.”
She had just attempted one, and paid it. Had it been watched? A rush of fear bounded within her for Rupert’s sake.
“There’s no answer, Nora,” said Mrs. Chattaway: and she turned homewards, as one in a dream. Who was that man before her? What was his name? where did he come from? Why should he bear this strange likeness to her dead father? Ah, why, indeed! The truth never for one moment entered the mind of Mrs. Chattaway.
He went on: he, the stranger. When he came to the lawn before the house, he stepped on to it and halted. He looked to this side, he looked to that; he gazed up at the house; just as one loves to look on returning to a beloved home after an absence of years. He stood with his head thrown back; his right hand stretched out, the stick it grasped planted firm and upright on the ground. How many times had old Squire Trevlyn stood in the selfsame attitude on that same lawn!
There appeared to be no one about; no one saw him, save Mrs. Chattaway, who hid herself amidst the trees, and furtively watched him. She would not have passed him for the world, and she waited until he should be gone. She was unable to divest her mind of a sensation akin to the supernatural, as she shrank from this man who bore so wonderful a resemblance to her father. He, the stranger, did not detect her behind him, and presently he walked across the lawn, ascended the steps, and tried the door.
But the door was fastened. The servants would sometimes slip the bolt as a protection against tramps, and they had probably done so to-day. Seizing the bell-handle, the visitor rang such a peal that Sam Atkins, Cris Chattaway’s groom, who happened to be in the house and near the door, flew with all speed to open it. Sam had never known Squire Trevlyn; but in this stranger now before him, he could not fail to remark a great general resemblance to the Trevlyn family.
“Is James Chattaway at home?”
To hear the master of the Hold inquired for in that unceremonious manner, rather took Sam back; but he answered that he was at home. He had no need to invite the visitor to walk in, for the visitor had walked in of his own accord. “What name, sir?” demanded Sam, preparing to usher the stranger across the hall.
“Squire Trevlyn.”
This concluded Sam Atkins’s astonishment. “What name, sir, did you say?”
“Squire Trevlyn. Are you deaf, man? Squire Trevlyn, of Trevlyn Hold.”
And the haughty motion of the head, the firm pressure of the lips, might have put a spectator all too unpleasantly in mind of the veritable old Squire Trevlyn, had one who had known him been there to see.
CHAPTER LV
THE DREAD COME HOME
Nothing could well exceed Mr. Chattaway’s astonishment at hearing that George Ryle wished to make Maude Trevlyn his wife. And nothing could exceed his displeasure. Not that Mr. Chattaway had higher views for Maude, or deemed it an undesirable match in a pecuniary point of view, as Miss Diana Trevlyn had intimated. Had Maude chosen to marry without any prospect at all, that would not have troubled Mr. Chattaway. But what did trouble Mr. Chattaway was this — that a sister of Rupert Trevlyn should become connected with George Ryle. In Mr. Chattaway’s foolish and utterly groundless prejudices, he had suspected, as you may remember, that George Ryle and Rupert had been ever ready to hatch mischief against him; and he dreaded for his own sake any bond of union that might bring them closer together.
There was something else. By some intuitive perception Mr. Chattaway had detected that misplaced liking of his daughter’s for George Ryle: and this union would not have been unpalatable to Mr. Chattaway. Whatever may have been his ambition for his daughter’s settlement in life, whatever his dislike to George Ryle, he was willing to forego it all for his own sake. Every c
onsideration was lost sight of in that one which had always reigned paramount with Mr. Chattaway — self-interest. You have not waited until now to learn that James Chattaway was one of the most selfish men on the face of the earth. Some men like, as far as they can, to do their duty to God and to their fellow-creatures; the master of Trevlyn Hold had made self the motive-spring through life. And what sort of a garner for the Great Day do you suppose he had been laying up for himself? He was soon to experience a little check here, but that was little, in comparison. The ills our evil conduct entails upon ourselves here, are as nothing to the dread reckoning we must render up hereafter.
Mr. Chattaway would have leased the Upland Farm to George Ryle with all the pleasure in life, provided he could have leased his daughter with it. Were George Ryle his veritable son-in-law, he would fear no longer plotting against himself. Somehow, he did fear George Ryle, feared him as a good man, brave, upright, honourable, who might be tempted to make common cause with the oppressed against the oppressor. It may be, also, that Miss Chattaway did not render herself as universally agreeable at home as she might have done, for her naturally bad temper did not improve with years; and for this reason Mr. Chattaway was not sorry that the Hold should be rid of her. Altogether, he contemplated with satisfaction, rather than the contrary, the connection of George Ryle with his family. And he could not be quite blind to certain predilections shown by Octave, though no hint or allusion had ever been spoken on either side.
And on that first day when George Ryle, after speaking to Mr. Chattaway about the lease of the Upland Farm, said a joking word or two to Miss Diana of his marriage, Octave had overheard. You saw her with her scarlet face looking over her aunt’s shoulder: a face which seemed to startle George, and caused him to take his leave somewhat abruptly.