Kitabı oku: «Trevlyn Hold», sayfa 9

"Octave thought you were going up there to-night, George."

"Did she?"

"The two Beecroft girls are there, and they turned me out of the drawing-room. Octave said 'I wasn't wanted.' Will you play chess to-night, George?"

"If you like; after supper."

"I must be home by half-past ten, you know. I was a minute over the half-hour the other night, and one of the servants opened the door for me. Chattaway pretty nearly rose the roof off, he was so angry; but he could not decently turn me out again."

"Chattaway is master of Trevlyn Hold for the time being," remarked Mrs. Ryle. "Not Squire; never Squire"—she broke off, straying abruptly from her subject, and as abruptly resuming it. "You will do well to obey him, Rupert. When I make a rule in this house, I never permit it to be broken."

A valuable hint, if Rupert had only taken it for guidance. He meant well: he never meant, for all his light and careless speaking, to disobey Mr. Chattaway's mandate. And yet it happened that very night!

The chess-board was attractive, and the time slipped on to half-past ten. Rupert said a hasty good night, snatched up his hat, tore through the entrance-room and made the best speed his lungs allowed him to Trevlyn Hold. His heart was beating as he gained it, and he rang that peal at the bell which had sent its echoes through the house; through the trembling frame and weak heart of Mrs. Chattaway.

He rang—and rang. There came back no sign that the ring was heard. A light shone in Mrs. Chattaway's dressing-room; and Rupert took up some gravel, and gently threw it against the window. No response was accorded in answer to it; not so much as the form of a hand on the blind; the house, in its utter stillness, might have been the house of the dead. Rupert threw up some more gravel as silently as he could.

He had not to wait very long this time. Cautiously, slowly, as though the very movement feared being heard, the blind was drawn aside, and the face of Mrs. Chattaway appeared looking down at him. He could see that she had not begun to undress. She shook her head; raised her hands and clasped them with a gesture of despair; and her lips formed themselves into the words, "I may not let you in."

He could not hear the words, but read the expression of the whole all too clearly—Chattaway would not suffer him to be admitted. Mrs. Chattaway, dreading possibly that her husband might cast his eyes within her dressing-room, quietly let the blind fall again, and removed her shadow from the window.

What was Rupert to do? Lie on the grass that skirted the avenue, and take his night's rest under the trees in the freezing air and night dews? A strong frame, revelling in superfluous health, might possibly risk that; but not Rupert Trevlyn.

A momentary thought come over him that he would go back to Trevlyn Farm, and ask for a night's shelter there. He would have done so, but for the recollection of Mrs. Ryle's stern voice and sterner face when she remarked that, as he knew the rule made for his going in, he must not break it. Rupert had never got on too cordially with Mrs. Ryle. He remembered shrinking from her haughty face when he was a child; and somehow he shrank from it still. No; he would not knock them up at Trevlyn Farm.

What must he do? Should he walk about until morning? Suddenly a thought came to him—were the Canhams in bed? If not, he could go there, and lie on their settle. The Canhams never went to bed very early. Ann Canham sat up to lock the great gate—it was Chattaway's pleasure that it should not be done until after ten o'clock; and old Canham liked to sit up, smoking his pipe.

With a brisk step, now that he had decided on his course, Rupert walked down the avenue. At the first turning he ran against Cris Chattaway, who was coming leisurely up it.

"Oh, Cris! I am so glad! You'll let me in. They have shut me out to-night."

"Let you in!" repeated Cris. "I can't."

Rupert's blue eyes opened in the starlight. "Have you not your latch-key?"

"What should hinder me?" responded Cris. "I'm going in; but I can't let you in."

"Why not?" hotly asked Rupert.

"I don't choose to fly in the Squire's face. He has ordered you to be in before half-past ten, or not to come in at all. It has gone half-past ten long ago: is hard upon eleven."

"If you can go in after half-past ten, why can't I?" cried Rupert.

"It's not my affair," said Cris, with a yawn. "Don't bother. Now look here. It's of no use following me, for I shall not let you in."

"Yes you will, Cris."

"I will not," responded Cris, emphatically. Rupert's temper was getting up.

"Cris, I wouldn't show myself such a hangdog sneak as you to be made king of England. If every one had their rights, Trevlyn Hold would be mine, to shut you out of it if I pleased. But I wouldn't please. If only a dog were turned out of his kennel at night, I would let him into the Hold for shelter."

Cris put his latch-key into the lock. "I don't turn you out. You must settle that question with the Squire. Keep off. If he says you may be let in at eleven, well and good; but I'm not going to encourage you in disobeying orders."

He opened the door a few inches, wound himself in, and shut it in Rupert's face. He made a great noise in putting up the bar, which was not in the least necessary. Rupert had given him his true appellation—that of sneak. He was one: a false-hearted, plausible, cowardly sneak. As he stood at a table in the hall, and struck a match to light his candle, his puny face and dull light eyes betrayed the most complaisant enjoyment.

He went upstairs smiling. He had to pass the angle of the corridor where his mother's rooms were situated. She glided silently out as he was going by. Her dress was off, and she had apparently thrown a shawl over her shoulders to come out to Cris: an old-fashioned spun-silk shawl, with a grey border and white centre: not so white, however, as the face of Mrs. Chattaway.

"Cris!" she said, laying her hand upon his arm, and speaking in the most timid whisper, "why did you not let him in?"

"I thought we had been ordered not to let him in," returned he of the deceitful nature. "I have been ordered, I know that."

"You might have done it just for once, Cris," his mother answered. "I know not what will become of him, out of doors this sharp night."

Cris disengaged his arm, and continued his way up to his room. He slept on the upper floor. Maude was standing at the door of her chamber when he passed—as Mrs. Chattaway had been.

"Cris—wait a minute," she said, for he was hastening by. "I want to speak a word to you. Have you seen Rupert?"

"Seen him and heard him too," boldly avowed Cris. "He wanted me to let him in."

"Which, of course, you would not do?" answered Maude, bitterly. "I wonder if you ever performed a good-natured action in your life?"

"Can't remember," mockingly retorted Cris.

"Where is Rupert? What is he going to do?"

"You know where he is as well as I do: I suppose you could hear him. As to what he is going to do, I didn't ask him. Roost in a tree with the birds, perhaps."

Maude retreated into her room and closed the door. She flung herself into a chair, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. Her heart ached for her brother with pain that amounted to agony: she could have forced down her proud spirit and knelt to Mr. Chattaway for him: almost have sacrificed her own life to bring comfort to Rupert, whom she loved so well.

He—Rupert—stamped off when the door was closed against him, feeling he would like to stamp upon Cris himself. Arrived in front of the lodge, he stood and whistled, and presently Ann Canham looked from the upper casement in her nightcap.

"Why, it's never you, Master Rupert!" she exclaimed, in intense surprise.

"They have locked me out, Ann. Can you manage to come down and open the door without disturbing your father? If you can, I'll lie on the settle for to-night."

Once inside, there ensued a contest. In her humble way, begging pardon for the presumption, Ann Canham proposed that Master Rupert should occupy her room, and she'd make herself contented with the settle. Rupert would not hear of it. He threw himself on the narrow bench they called the settle, and protested that if Ann said another word about giving up her room, he would go out and spend the night in the avenue. So she was fain to go back to it herself.

A dreary night on that hard bench; and the morning found him cold and stiff. He was stamping one foot on the floor to stamp life into it, when old Canham entered, leaning on a crutch. Ann had told him the news, and the old man was up before his time.

"But who shut you out, Master Rupert?" he asked.

"Chattaway."

"Ann says Mr. Cris went in pretty late last night. After she had locked the big gate."

"Cris came up whilst I was ringing to be let in. He went in himself, but would not let me enter."

"He's a reptile," said old Canham in his anger. "Eh me!" he added, sitting down with difficulty in his armchair, and extending the crutch before him, "what a mercy it would have been if Mr. Joe had lived! Chattaway would never have been stuck up in authority then. Better the Squire had left Trevlyn Hold to Miss Diana."

"They say he would not leave it to a woman."

"That's true, Master Rupert. And of his children there were but his daughters left. The two sons had gone. Rupert the heir first: he died on the high seas; and Mr. Joe next."

"Mark, why did Rupert the heir go to sea?"

Old Canham shook his head. "Ah, it was a bad business, Master Rupert, and it's as well not to talk of it."

"But why did he go?" persisted Rupert.

"It was a bad business, I say. He, the heir, had fallen into wild ways, got to like bad company, and that. He went out one night with some poachers—just for the fun of it. It wasn't on these lands. He meant no harm, but he was young and random, and he went out and put a gauze over his face as they did,—just, I say, for the fun of it. Master Rupert, that night they killed a gamekeeper."

A shiver passed through Rupert's frame. "He killed him?—my uncle, Rupert Trevlyn?"

"No, it wasn't he that killed him—as was proved a long while afterwards. But you see at the time it wasn't known exactly who had done it: they were all in league together, all in a mess, as may be said. Any way, the young heir, whether in fear or shame, went off in secret, and before many months had gone over, the bells were tolling for him. He had died far away."

"But people never could have believed that a Trevlyn killed a man?" said Rupert, indignantly.

Old Canham paused. "You have heard of the Trevlyn temper, Master Rupert?"

"Who hasn't?" returned Rupert. "They say I have a touch of it."

"Well, those that believed it laid it to that temper, you see. They thought the heir had been overtook by a fit of passion, and might have done the mischief in it. In those fits of passion a man is mad."

"Is he?" abstractedly remarked Rupert, falling into a reverie. He had never before heard this episode in the history of the uncle whose name he bore—Rupert Trevlyn.

CHAPTER XIV
NO BREAKFAST

Old Canham stood at the door of his lodge, gazing after one who was winding through the avenue, in the direction of Trevlyn Hold, one whom old Canham delighted to patronise and make much of in his humble way; whom he encouraged in all sorts of vain and delusive notions—Rupert Trevlyn. Could Mr. Chattaway have divined the treason talked against him nearly every time Rupert dropped into the lodge, he might have tried hard to turn old Canham out of it. Harmless treason, however; consisting of rebellious words only. There was neither plotting nor hatching; old Canham and Rupert never glanced at that; both were perfectly aware that Chattaway held his place by a tenure which could not be disturbed.

Many years ago, before Squire Trevlyn died, Mark Canham had grown ill in his service. In his service he had caught the cold which ended in an incurable rheumatic affection. The Squire settled him in the lodge, then just vacant, and allowed him five shillings a week. When the Squire died, Chattaway would have undone this. He wished to turn the old man out again (but it must be observed in a parenthesis that, though universally styled old Canham, the man was less old in years than in appearance), and place some one else in the lodge. I think, when there is no love lost between people, as the saying runs, each side is conscious of it. Chattaway disliked Mark Canham, and had a shrewd suspicion that Mark returned the feeling with interest. But he found he could not dismiss him from the lodge, for Miss Trevlyn put her veto upon it. She openly declared that Squire Trevlyn's act in placing his old servant there should be observed; she promised Mark he should not be turned out of it as long as he lived. Chattaway had no resource but to bow to it; he might not cross Diana Trevlyn; but he did succeed in reducing the weekly allowance. Half-a-crown a week was all the regular money enjoyed by the lodge since the time of Squire Trevlyn. Miss Diana sometimes gave him a trifle from her private purse; and the gardener was allowed to make an occasional present of vegetables in danger of spoiling: at the beginning of winter, too, a load of wood would be stacked in the shed behind the lodge, through the forethought of Miss Diana. But it was not much altogether to keep two people upon; and Ann Canham was glad to accept a day's hard work offered her at any of the neighbouring houses, or do a little plain sewing at home. Very fine sewing she could not do, for she suffered from weak eyes.

Old Canham watched Rupert until the turnings of the avenue hid him from view, and then drew back into the room. Ann was busy with the breakfast. A loaf of oaten bread and a basin of skim milk, she had just heated, was placed before her father. A smaller cup served for her own share: and that constituted their breakfast. Three mornings a week Ann Canham had the privilege of fetching a quart of skim milk from the dairy at the Hold. Chattaway growled at the extravagance of the gift, but he did no more, for it was Miss Diana's pleasure that it should be supplied.

"Chattaway'll go a bit too far, if he don't mind," observed old Canham to his daughter, in relation to Rupert. "He must be a bad nature, to lock him out of his own house. For the matter of that, however, he's a very bad one; and it's known he is."

"It is not his own, father," Ann Canham ventured to retort. "Poor Master Rupert haven't no right to it now."

"It's a shame but he had. Why, Chattaway has no more moral right to that fine estate than I have!" added the old man, holding up his left hand in the heat of argument. "If Master Rupert and Miss Maude were dead,—if Joe Trevlyn had never left a child at all,—others would have a right to it before Chattaway."

"But Chattaway has it, father, and nobody can't alter it, or hinder it," sensibly returned Ann. "You'll have your milk cold."

The breakfast hour at Trevlyn Hold was early, and when Rupert entered, he found most of the family downstairs. Rupert ran up to his bedroom, where he washed and refreshed himself as much as was possible after his weary night. He was one upon whom only a night out of bed would tell seriously. When he went down to the breakfast-room, they were all assembled except Cris and Mrs. Chattaway. Cris was given to lying in bed in a morning, and the self-indulgence was permitted. Mrs. Chattaway also was apt to be late, coming down generally when breakfast was nearly over.

Rupert took his place at the breakfast-table. Mr. Chattaway, who was at that moment raising his coffee-cup to his lips, put it down and stared at him. As he might have stared at some stranger who had intruded and sat down amongst them.

"What do you want?" asked Mr. Chattaway.

"Want?" repeated Rupert, not understanding. "My breakfast."

"Which you will not get here," calmly and coldly returned Mr. Chattaway. "If you cannot come home to sleep at night, you shall not have your breakfast here in the morning."

"I did come home," said Rupert; "but I was not let in."

"Of course you were not. The household had retired."

"Cris came home after I did, and was allowed to enter," objected Rupert again.

"That is no business of yours," said Mr. Chattaway. "All you have to do is to obey the rules I lay down. And I will have them obeyed," he added, more sternly.

Rupert sat on. Octave, who was presiding at the table, did not give him any coffee; no one attempted to hand him anything. Maude was seated opposite to him, and he could see that the unpleasantness was agitating her painfully; her colour went and came; she toyed with her breakfast, but could not swallow it: least of all, dared she interfere to give even so much as bread to her ill-fated brother.

"Where did you sleep last night, pray?" inquired Mr. Chattaway, pausing in the midst of helping himself to some pigeon-pie, as he looked at Rupert.

"Not in this house," curtly replied Rupert. The unkindness seemed to be changing his very nature. It had continued long and long; had been shown in many and various forms.

The master of Trevlyn Hold finished helping himself to the pie, and began eating it with apparent relish. He was about half-way through the plateful when he again stopped to address Rupert, who was sitting in silence, nothing but the table-cloth before him.

"You need not wait. If you stop there until mid-day you'll get no breakfast. Gentlemen who sleep outside do not break their fasts in my house."

Rupert pushed back his chair, and rose. Happening to glance across at Maude, he saw that her tears were dropping silently. It was a most unhappy home for both! He crossed the hall to the door: and thought he might as well depart at once for Blackstone. Fine as the morning was, the air, as he passed out, struck coldly upon him, and he turned back for an overcoat.

It was in his bedroom. As he came down with it on his arm, Mrs. Chattaway was crossing the corridor, and she drew him inside her sitting-room.

"I could not sleep," she murmured. "I was awake nearly all night, grieving and thinking of you. Just before daylight I dropped into a sleep, and then dreamt you were running up to the door from the waves of the sea, which were rushing onwards to overtake you. I thought you were knocking at the door, and we could not get down to it in time, and the waters came on and on. Rupert, darling, all this is telling upon me. Why did you not come in?"

"I meant to be in, Aunt Edith; indeed I did; but I was playing chess with George Ryle, and did not notice the time. It was only just turned half-past when I got here; Mr. Chattaway might have let me in without any great stretch of indulgence," he added, bitterly. "So might Cris."

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I got in at old Canham's, and lay on the settle. Don't repeat this, or it may get the Canhams into trouble."

"Have you breakfasted?"

"I am not to have any."

The words startled her. "Rupert!"

"Mr. Chattaway ordered me from the table. The next thing, I expect, he will order me from the house. If I knew where to go I wouldn't stop in it another hour. I would not, Aunt Edith."

"Have you had nothing—nothing?"

"Nothing. I would go round to the dairy and get some milk, but I should be reported. I'm off to Blackstone now. Good-bye."

Tears were filling her eyes as she lifted them in their sad yearning. He stooped and kissed her.

"Don't grieve, Aunt Edith. You can't make it better for me. I have got the cramp like anything," he carelessly observed as he went off. "It is through lying on the cold, hard settle."

"Rupert! Rupert!"

He turned back, half in alarm. The tone was one of wild, painful entreaty.

"You will come home to-night, Rupert?"

"Yes. Depend upon me."

She remained a few minutes longer watching him down the avenue. He had put on his coat, and went along with slow and hesitating steps; very different from the firm, careless steps of a strong frame, springing from a happy heart. Mrs. Chattaway pressed her hands to her brow, lost in a painful vision. If his father, her once dearly-loved brother Joe, could look on at the injustice done on earth, what would he think of the portion meted out to Rupert?

She descended to the breakfast-room. Mr. Chattaway had finished his breakfast and was rising. She kissed her children one by one; sat down patiently and silently, smiling without cheerfulness. Octave passed her a cup of coffee, which was cold; and then asked her what she would take to eat. But she said she was not hungry that morning, and would eat nothing.

"Rupert's gone away without his breakfast, mamma," cried Emily. "Papa would not let him have it. Serve him right! He stayed out all night."

Mrs. Chattaway stole a glance at Maude. She was sitting pale and quiet; her air that of one who has to bear some long, wearing pain.

"If you have finished your breakfast, Maude, you can be getting ready to take the children for their walk," said Octave, speaking with her usual assumption of authority—an assumption Maude at least might not dispute.

Mr. Chattaway left the room, and ordered his horse to be got ready. He was going to ride over his land for an hour before proceeding to Blackstone. Whilst the animal was being saddled, he rejoiced his eyes with his rich stores; the corn in his barns, the hay-ricks in his yard. All very satisfactory, very consoling to the covetous master of the Hold.

He went out, riding hither and thither. Half-an-hour afterwards, in the lane skirting Mrs. Ryle's lands on the one side and his on the other, he saw another horseman before him. It was George Ryle. Mr. Chattaway touched his horse with the spur, and rode up to him. George turned his head and continued his way. Chattaway had been better pleased had George stopped.

"Are you hastening on to avoid me, Mr. Ryle?" he called out, sullenly. "You might have seen that I wished to speak to you, by the pace at which I urged my horse."

George reined in, and turned to face Mr. Chattaway. "I saw nothing of the sort," he answered. "Had I known you wanted me, I should have stopped; but it is no unusual circumstance to see you riding fast about your land."

"Well, what I have to say is this: that I'd recommend you not to get Rupert Trevlyn to your house at night, and keep him there to unreasonable hours."

George paused. "I don't understand you, Mr. Chattaway."

"Don't you?" retorted that gentleman. "I'm not talking Dutch. Rupert Trevlyn has taken to frequenting your house of late; it's not altogether good for him."

"Do you fear he will get any harm in it?" quietly asked George.

"I think it would be better that he should stay away. Is the Hold not sufficient for him to spend his evenings in, but he must seek amusement elsewhere? I shall be obliged to you not to encourage his visits."

"Mr. Chattaway," said George, his face full of earnestness, "it appears to me that you are labouring under some mistake, or you would certainly not speak to me as you are now doing. I do not encourage Rupert to my mother's house, in one sense of the word; I never press for his visits. When he does come, I show myself happy to see him and make him welcome—as I should do by any other visitor. Common courtesy demands this of me."

"You do press for his visits," said Mr. Chattaway.

"I do not," firmly repeated George. "Shall I tell you why I do not? I have no wish but to be open in the matter. An impression has seated itself in my mind that his visits to our house displease you, and therefore I have not encouraged them."

Perhaps Mr. Chattaway was rather taken back by this answer. At any rate, he made no reply to it.

"But to receive him courteously when he does come, I cannot help doing," continued George. "I shall do it still. If Trevlyn Farm is to be a forbidden house to Rupert, it is not from our side the veto shall come. As long as Rupert pays us these visits of friendship—and what harm you can think they do him, or why he should not pay them, I am unable to conceive—so long he will be met with a welcome."

"Do you say this to oppose me?"

"Far from it. If you look at the case in an unprejudiced light, you may see that I speak in accordance with the commonest usages of civility. To close the doors of our house to Rupert when there exists no reason why they should be closed—and most certainly he has given us none—would be an act we might blush to be guilty of."

"You have been opposing me all the later years of your life. From that time when I wished to place you with Wall and Barnes, you have done nothing but act in opposition to me."

"I have forgiven that," said George, pointedly, a glow rising to his face at the recollection. "As to any other opposition, I am unconscious of it. You have given me advice occasionally respecting the farm; but the advice has not in general tallied with my own opinion, and therefore I have not taken it. If you call that opposing you, Mr. Chattaway, I cannot help it."

"I see you have been mending that fence in the three-cornered paddock," remarked Mr. Chattaway, passing to another subject, and speaking in a different tone. Possibly he had had enough of the last.

"Yes," said George. "You would not mend it, and therefore I have had it done. I cannot let my cattle get into the pound. I shall deduct the expense from the rent."

"You'll not," said Mr. Chattaway. "I won't be at the cost of a penny-piece of it."

"Oh yes, you will," returned George, equably. "The damage was done by your team, through your waggoner's carelessness, and the cost of making it good lies with you. Have you anything more to say to me?" he asked, after a pause. "I am very busy this morning."

"Only this," replied Mr. Chattaway significantly. "That the more you encourage Rupert Trevlyn, by making a companion of him, the worse it will be for him."

George lifted his hat in salutation. The master of Trevlyn Hold replied by an ungracious nod, and turned his horse back down the lane. As George rode on, he met Edith and Emily Chattaway—the children, as Octave had styled them—running towards him. They had seen their father, and were hastening after him. Maude came up more leisurely. George stopped to shake hands with her.

"You look pale and ill, Maude," he said, his low voice full of sympathy, his hand retaining hers. "Is it about Rupert?"

"Yes," she replied, striving to keep back her tears. "He was not allowed to come in last night, and has been sent away without breakfast this morning."

"I know all about it," said George. "I met Rupert just now, and he told me. I asked him if he would go to Nora for some breakfast—I could not do less, you know," he added musingly, as if debating the question with himself. "But he declined. I am almost glad he did."

Maude was surprised. "Why?" she asked.

"Because I have had an idea—have felt it for some time—that any attention shown to Rupert, no matter by whom, only makes his position worse with Chattaway. And Chattaway has now confirmed it by telling me so."

Maude's eyelids drooped. "How sad it is!" she exclaimed with emotion—"and for one in his weak state! If he were only strong as the rest of us are, it would matter less. I fear—I do fear he must have slept under the trees in the avenue," she continued. "Mr. Chattaway inquired where he had passed the night, and Rupert answered–"

"I can so far relieve your fears, Maude," interrupted George, glancing round, as if to make sure no ears were near. "He was at old Canham's."

Maude gave a deep sigh in her relief. "You are certain, George?"

"Yes, yes. Rupert told me so just now. He said how hard he found the settle. Here come your charges, Maude; so I will say good-bye."

She suffered her hand to linger in his, but her heart was too full to speak. George bent lower.

"Do not make the grief weightier than you can bear, Maude. It is real grief; but happier times may be in store for Rupert—and for you."

He released her hand, and cantered down the lane; and the two girls came up, telling Maude they should go home now, for they had walked long enough.