AN OLD IMPRESSION
It was surely a scene to excite some interest, if only the interest of
curiosity, that was presented at Trevlyn Hold that night. Octave
Chattaway in evening dress--for she had not begun to prepare for bed,
although some time in her chamber--standing at the hall-door which she
had opened; Miss Diana pressing forward from the back of the hall in a
hastily assumed dressing gown; Mr. Chattaway in a waistcoat; Cris in
greater deshabille; and Mrs. Chattaway dressed as was Octave.
Rupert came in, coughing with the night air, and leaning on the arm of
George Ryle. There was no light, except such as was afforded by a candle
carried by Miss Trevlyn; but she stepped forward and lighted the lamp.
"Now then," said she. "What is all this?"
"It is this," returned the master of Trevlyn Hold: "that I make rules
for the proper regulation of my household, and a beardless boy chooses
to break them. I should think"--turning shortly upon Miss Diana--"that
you are not the one to countenance that."
"No," said she; "when rules are made they must be kept. What is your
defence, Rupert?"
Rupert had thrown himself upon a bench against the wall in utter
weariness of mind and body. "I don't care to make any defence," said he,
in his apathy, as he leaned his cheek upon his hand, and fixed his blue
eyes on Miss Trevlyn; "I don't know that there's much defence to make.
Mr. Chattaway orders me to be in by half-past ten. I was at George
Ryle's last night, and I a little exceeded the time, getting here five
minutes or so after it, so I was locked out. Cris let himself in with
his latch-key, but he would not let me in."
Miss Diana glanced at Cris, but said nothing. Mr. Chattaway interrupted.
George, erect, fearless, was standing opposite the group, and it was to
him that Chattaway turned.
"What I want to know is this--by what right _you_ interfere, George
Ryle?"
"I am not aware that I have interfered--except by giving Rupert my arm
up the hill, and asking you to admit him. No very unjustifiable
interference, surely, Mr. Chattaway."
"But it is, sir. And I ask why you presume to do it?"
"Presume? I saw Rupert to-night, accidentally, as he was coming from
Blackstone. It was about nine o'clock. He appeared terribly tired, and
wished to come into the house and rest. There he fell asleep. I awoke
him in time, but he seemed too weary to get here himself, and I came
with him to help him along. He walked slowly--painfully I should say;
and it made him later than he ought to have arrived. Will you be so
good, Mr. Chattaway, as to explain what part of this was unjustifiable
interference? I do not see that I could have done less."
"You will see that you do less in future," growled Mr. Chattaway. "I
will have no interference of yours between the Hold and Rupert Trevlyn."
"You may make yourself perfectly easy," returned George, some sarcasm in
his tone. "Nothing could be farther from my intention than to interfere
in any way with you, or with the Hold, or with Rupert in connection with
you and the Hold. But, as I told you this morning, until you show me
good and sufficient reason for the contrary, I shall observe common
courtesy to Rupert when he comes in my way."
"Nonsense!" interposed Miss Diana. "Who says you are not to show
courtesy to Rupert? Do you?" wheeling sharply round on Chattaway.
"There's one thing requires explanation," said Mr. Chattaway, turning to
Rupert, and drowning Miss Diana's voice. "How came you to stop at
Blackstone till this time of night? Where had you been loitering?"
Rupert answered the questions mechanically, never lifting his head. "I
didn't leave until late. Ford wanted to go home, and I had to stop.
After that I sat down on the way and dropped asleep."
"Sat down on your way and dropped asleep!" echoed Miss Diana. "What made
you do that?"
"I don't know. I had been tired all day. I had no bed, you hear, last
night. I suppose I can go to mine now?" he added, rising. "I want it
badly enough."
"You can go--for this time," assented the master of Trevlyn Hold. "But
you will understand that it is the last night I shall suffer my rules to
be set at naught. You shall be in to time, or you do not come in at
all."
Rupert shook hands with George Ryle, spoke a general "Good night" to the
rest collectively, and went towards the stairs. At the back of the hall,
lingering there in her timidity, stood Mrs. Chattaway. "Good night, dear
Aunt Edith," he whispered.
She gave no answer: only laid her hand upon his as he passed: and so
momentary was the action that it escaped unobserved, except by one pair
of eyes--those of Octave Chattaway.
George was the next to go. Octave put out her hand to him. "Does
Caroline come to the harvest-home?" she inquired.
"Yes, I think so. Good night."
"Good night," replied Octave, amiably. "I am glad you took care of
Rupert."
"She's as false as her father," thought George, as he went down the
avenue.
They were all dispersing. There was nothing now to remain up for.
Chattaway was turning to the staircase, when Miss Diana stepped inside
one of the sitting-rooms, carrying her candle, and beckoned to him.
"What do you want, Diana?" he asked, not in pleasant tones, as he
followed her in.
"Why did you shut out Rupert last night?"
"Because I chose to do it!"
"But suppose I chose that he should not be shut out?"
"Then we shall split," angrily rejoined the master of Trevlyn Hold. "I
say that half-past ten is quite late enough for Rupert. He is younger
than Cris; you and Edith say he is not strong; _is_ it too early?"
Mr. Chattaway was so far right. It was a sufficiently late hour; and
Miss Diana, after a pause, pronounced it to be so. "I shall talk to
Rupert," she said. "There's no harm in his going to spend an hour or two
with George Ryle, or with any other friend, but he must be home in good
time."
"Just so; he must be home in good time," acquiesced Chattaway. "He shall
be home by half-past ten. And the only way to insure that, is to lock
him out at first when he transgresses. Therefore, Diana, I shall follow
my own way in this, and I beg you not to interfere."
Miss Diana went up to Rupert's room. He had taken off his coat, and
thrown himself on the bed, as if the fatigue of undressing were too much
for him.
"What's that for?" asked Miss Diana, as she entered. "Is that the way
you get into bed?"
Rupert rose and sat down on a chair. "Only coming upstairs seems to tire
me," he said in tones of apology. "I should not have lain a minute."
Miss Diana threw back her head a little, and looked at Rupert: the
determined will of the Trevlyns shining out in every line of her face.
"I have come to ask where you slept last night. I mean to know, Rupert."
"I don't mind your knowing," replied Rupert; "I have told Aunt Edith. I
decline to tell Chattaway, and I hope that no one else will tell him."
"Why?"
"Because he might lay blame where no blame is due. Chattaway turned me
from the door, Aunt Diana, and Cris, who came up just after, turned me
from it also. I went down to the lodge, and Ann Canham let me in; and I
lay part of the night on their hard settle, and part of the night I sat
upon it. That's where I was. But if Chattaway knew it, he'd turn old
Canham and Ann from the lodge, as he turned me from the door."
"Oh no, he wouldn't," said Miss Diana, "if it were my pleasure to keep
them in it. Do you feel ill, Rupert?"
"I feel middling. It is that I am tired, I suppose. I shall be all right
in the morning."
Miss Diana descended to her own room. Waiting there for her was Mrs.
Chattaway. In spite of a shawl thrown over her shoulders, she seemed to
be shivering. She slipped the bolt of the door--what was she afraid
of?--and turned to Miss Trevlyn, her hands clasped.
"Diana, this is killing me!" she wailed. "Why should Rupert be treated
as he is? I know I am but a poor creature, that I have been one all my
life--a very coward; but sometimes I think that I must speak out and
protest against the injustice, though I should die in the effort."
"Why, what's the matter?" uttered Miss Diana, whose intense composure
formed a strange contrast to her sister's agitated words and bearing.
"Oh, you know!--you know! I have not dared to speak out much, even to
you, Diana; but it's killing me--it's killing me! Is it not enough that
we despoiled Rupert of his inheritance, but we must also----"
"Be silent!" sharply interrupted Miss Diana, glancing around and
lowering her voice to a whisper. "Will you never have done with that
folly, Edith?"
"I shall never have done with its remembrance. I don't often speak of
it; once, it may be, in seven years, not more. Better for me that I
could speak of it; it would prey less upon my heart!"
"You have benefited by it as much as any one has."
"I cannot help myself. Heaven knows that if I could retire to some poor
hut, and live upon a crust of bread, and benefit by it no more, I should
do so--oh, how willingly! But there's no escape. I am hemmed in by its
consequences; we are all hemmed in by them--and there's no escape."
Miss Diana looked at her. Steadfastly, keenly; not angrily, but
searchingly and critically, as a doctor looks at a patient supposed to
be afflicted with mania.
"If you do not take care, Edith, you will become insane upon this point,
as I believe I have warned you before," she said, with calmness. "I am
not sure but you are slightly touched now!"
"I do not think I am," replied poor Mrs. Chattaway, passing her hand
over her brow. "I feel confused enough sometimes, but there's no fear
that madness will really come. If thinking could have turned me mad, I
should have gone mad years ago."
"The very act of your coming here in this excited state, when you should
be going to bed, and saying what you do say, must be nothing less than a
degree of madness."
"I would go to bed, if I could sleep," said Mrs. Chattaway. "I lie awake
night after night, thinking of the past; of the present; thinking of
Rupert and of what we did for him; the treatment we deal out to him now.
I think of his father, poor Joe; I think of his mother, Emily Dean, whom
we once so loved; and I--I cannot sleep, Diana!"
There really did seem something strange in Mrs. Chattaway to-night. For
once in her life, Diana Trevlyn's heart beat a shade faster.
"Try and calm yourself, Edith," she said soothingly.
"I wish I could! I should be more calm if you and my husband would allow
it. If you would only allow Rupert to be treated with common
kindness----"
"He is not treated with unkindness," interrupted Miss Diana.
"It appears to me that he is treated with nothing but great unkindness.
He----"
"Is he beaten?--is he starved?"
"The system pursued towards him is altogether unkind," persisted Mrs.
Chattaway. "Indulgences dealt out to our own children are denied to him.
When I think that he might be the true master of Trevlyn Hold----"
"I will not listen to this," interrupted Miss Diana. "What has come to
you to-night?"
A shiver passed over the frame of Mrs. Chattaway. She was sitting on a
low toilette chair covered with white drapery, her head bent on her
hand. By her reply, which she did not look up to give, it appeared that
she took the question literally.
"I feel the pain more than usual; nothing else. I do feel it so
sometimes."
"What pain?" asked Miss Diana.
"The pain of remorse: the pain of the wrong dealt out to Rupert. It
seems greater than I can bear. Do you know," raising her feverish eyes
to Miss Diana, "that I scarcely closed my eyelids last night? All the
long night through I was thinking of Rupert: fancying him lying outside
on the damp grass; fancying----"
"Stop a minute, Edith. Are you seeking to blame your husband to me?"
"No, no; I don't wish to blame any one. But I wish it could be altered."
"If Rupert knows the hour for coming in--and it is not an unreasonable
hour--it is he who is to blame if he exceeds it."
Mrs. Chattaway could not gainsay this. In point of fact, though she
found things grievously uncomfortable, wrong altogether, she had not the
strength of mind to say _where_ the fault lay, or how it should be
altered. On this fresh agitation, the coming in at half-past ten, she
could only judge as a vacillating woman. The hour, as Miss Diana said,
was not unreasonable, and Mrs. Chattaway would have fallen in with it,
and approved her husband's judgment, if Rupert had only obeyed the
mandate. If Rupert did not obey it--if he somewhat exceeded its
bounds--she would have liked the door to be still open to him, and no
scolding given. It was the discomfort that worried her; mixing itself up
with the old feeling of the wrong done to Rupert, rendering things, as
she aptly expressed it, more miserable than she could bear.
"I'll talk to Rupert to-morrow morning," said Miss Diana. "I shall add
my authority to Chattaway's, and tell him that he _must_ be in."
It may be that a shadow of the future was casting itself over the mind
of Mrs. Chattaway, dimly and vaguely pointing to the terrible events
hereafter to arise--events which would throw their consequences on the
remainder of Rupert's life, and which had their origin in this new and
ill-omened order, touching his coming home at night.
"Edith," said Miss Diana, "I would recommend you to become less
sensitive on the subject of Rupert. It is growing into a morbid
feeling."
"I wish I could! It does grow upon me. Do you know," sinking her voice
and looking feverishly at her sister, "that old impression has come
again! I thought it had worn itself out. I thought it had left me for
ever."
Miss Diana almost lost patience. Her own mind was a very contrast to her
sister's; the two were as opposite in their organisation as the poles.
Fanciful, dreamy, vacillating, weak, the one; the other strong,
practical, matter-of-fact.
"I don't know what you mean by the 'old impression,'" she rejoined, with
a contempt she did not seek to disguise. "Is it not some new folly?"
"I told you of it in the old days, Diana. I used to feel
certain--certain--that the wrong we inflicted on Rupert would avenge
itself--that in some way he would come into his inheritance, and we
should be despoiled of it. I felt so certain of it, that every morning
of my life when I got up I seemed to expect its fulfilment before the
day closed. But the time went on and on, and it never came. It went on
so long that the impression wore itself out, I say, and now it has come
again. It is stronger than ever. For some weeks past it has been growing
more present with me day by day, and I cannot shake it off."
"The best thing you can do now is to go to bed, and try and sleep off
your folly," cried Miss Trevlyn, with the stinging contempt she allowed
herself at rare times to show to her sister. "I feel more provoked with
you than I can express. A child might be pardoned for indulging in such
absurdities; a woman, never!"
Mrs. Chattaway rose. "I'll go to bed," she meekly answered, "and get
what sleep I can. I remember that you ridiculed this feeling of mine in
the old days----"
"Pray did anything come of it then?" interrupted Miss Diana,
sarcastically.
"I have said it did not. And the impression left me. But it has come
again. Good night, Diana."
"Good night, and a more sensible frame of mind to you!" was the retort
of Miss Diana.
Mrs. Chattaway crept softly along the corridor to her own dressing-room,
hoping that her husband by that time was in bed and asleep. What was her
surprise, then, to see him sitting at the table when she entered, not
undressed, and as wide awake as she was.
"You have business late with Diana," he remarked.
Mrs. Chattaway felt wholly and entirely subdued; she had felt so since
the previous night, when Rupert was denied admittance. The painful
shyness, clinging to her always, seemed partially to have left her for a
time. It was as though she had not strength left to be timid; almost as
Rupert felt in his weariness of body, she was past caring for anything
in her utter weariness of mind. Otherwise, she might not have spoken to
Miss Diana as she had just done: most certainly she could never have
spoken as she was about to speak to Mr. Chattaway.
"What may your business with her have been?" he resumed.
"It was not much, James," she answered. "I was saying how ill I felt."
"Ill! With what?"
"Ill in mind, I think," said Mrs. Chattaway, putting her hand to her
brow. "I was telling her that the old fear had come upon me; the
impression that used to cling to me always that some change was at hand
regarding Rupert. I lost it for a great many years, but it has come
again."
"Try and speak lucidly, if you can," was Mr. Chattaway's answer. "What
has come again?"
"It seems to have come upon me in the light of a warning," she resumed,
so lucidly that Mr. Chattaway, had he been a few steps lower in social
grade, might have felt inclined to strike her. "I have ever felt that
Rupert would in some manner regain his rights--I mean what he was
deprived of," she hastily added, condoning the word which had slipped
from her. "That he will regain Trevlyn Hold, and we shall lose it."
Mr. Chattaway listened in consternation, his mouth gradually opening in
bewilderment. "What makes you think that?" he asked, when he found his
voice.
"I don't exactly _think_ it, James. Think is not the right word. The
feeling has come upon me again within the last few weeks, and I cannot
shake it off. I believe it to be a presentiment; a warning."
Paler and paler grew Mr. Chattaway. He did not understand. Like Miss
Diana Trevlyn, he was very matter-of-fact, comprehending nothing but
what could be seen and felt; and his wife might as well have spoken in
an unknown tongue as of "presentiments." He drew a rapid conclusion that
some unpleasant fact, bearing upon the dread _he_ had long felt, must
have come to his wife's knowledge.
"What have you heard?" he gasped.
"I have heard nothing; nothing whatever. I----"
"Then what on earth are you talking about?"
"Did you understand me, James? I say the impression was once firmly
seated in my mind that Rupert would somehow be restored to what--to
what"--she scarcely knew how to frame her words with the delicacy she
deemed due to her husband's feelings--"to what would have been his but
for his father's death. And that impression has now returned to me."
"But you have not heard anything? Any plot?--any conspiracy that's being
hatched against us?"
"No, no."
Mr. Chattaway stared searchingly at his wife. Did he fancy, as Miss
Diana had done, that her intellect was becoming disordered?
"Then, what do you mean?" he asked, after a pause. "Why should such an
idea arise?"
Mrs. Chattaway was silent. She could not tell him the truth; could not
say she believed it was the constant dwelling upon the wrong and
injustice, which had first suggested the notion that the wrong would
inevitably recoil on its workers. They had broken alike the laws of God
and man; and those who do so cannot be sure of immunity from punishment
in this world. That they had so long enjoyed unmolested the inheritance
gained by fraud, gave no certainty that they would enjoy it to the end.
She felt it, if her husband and Diana Trevlyn did not. Too often there
were certain verses of Holy Writ spelling out their syllables upon her
brain. "Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of
the fatherless; for their Redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause
with thee."
All this she could not say to Mr. Chattaway. She could give him no good
reason for what she had said; he did not understand imaginative fancies,
and he went to rest after bestowing upon her a sharp lecture for
indulging them.
Nevertheless, in spite of her denial, the master of Trevlyn Hold could
not divest himself of the impression that she must have picked up some
scrap of news, or heard a word dropped in some quarter, which had led
her to say what she did. And it gave him terrible discomfort.
Was the haunting shadow, the latent dread in his heart, about to be
changed into substance? He lay on his bed, turning uneasily from side to
side until the morning, wondering from what quarter the first glimmer of
mischief would come.