AN IMPROMPTU JOURNEY
The dew was lying upon the grass in the autumn morning as the Squire of
Trevlyn Hold rode from his door. He had hurried over his breakfast, his
horse waiting for him, and he spurred him impatiently along the avenue.
Ann Canham had not yet opened the gate. Upon hearing a horse's hoofs,
she ran out to do so; and stood holding it back, dropping her humble
curtsey as Mr. Chattaway rode past. He vouchsafed not the slightest
notice: neither by glance nor nod did he appear conscious of her
presence. It was his usual way.
"He's off to Blackstone early," thought Ann, as she fastened back the
gate.
But Mr. Chattaway did not turn towards Blackstone. He turned in the
opposite direction and urged his horse to a gallop. Ann Canham looked
after him.
"He has business at Barmester, maybe," was the conclusion to which she
came.
Nothing more sure. He rode briskly to the town, and pulled up his horse
almost at the same spot where you once saw him pull it up before--the
house of Messrs. Wall and Barnes.
Not that he was about to visit that flourishing establishment this
morning. Next to it was a private house, on the door-plate of which
might be read, "Mr. Flood, Solicitor": and he was the gentleman Mr.
Chattaway had come to see.
Attracted probably by the clatter of the horse--for Chattaway had pulled
up suddenly, and with more noise than he need have done, there came one
to the shop-door and looked out. It was Mr. Wall, and he stepped forth
to shake hands with Chattaway.
"Good morning, Chattaway. You are in Barmester betimes. What lovely
weather we are having for the conclusion of the harvest!"
"Very; it has been a fine harvest altogether," replied Chattaway; and
from his composure no one could have dreamt of the terrible care and
perplexity running riot in his heart. "I want to say a word to Flood
about a lease that is falling in, so I thought I'd start early and make
a round of it on my way to Blackstone."
"An accident occurred yesterday to your son and Madam Chattaway, did it
not?" asked Mr. Wall. "News of it was flying about last night. I hope
they are not much hurt."
"Not at all. Cris was so stupid as to attempt to drive a horse unbroken
for driving--a vicious temper, too. The dog-cart is half smashed. Here,
you! come here."
The last words were addressed to a boy in a tattered jacket, who was
racing after a passing carriage. Mr. Chattaway wanted him to hold his
horse; and the boy quickly changed his course, believing the office
would be good for sixpence at least.
The lawyer's outer door was open. There was a second door in the
passage, furnished with a knocker: the office opened on the left. Mr.
Chattaway tried the office-door; more as a matter of form than anything
else. It was locked, as he expected, and would be until nine o'clock. So
he gave an imposing knock at the other.
"I shall just catch him after breakfast," soliloquised he, "and can have
a quiet quarter-of-an-hour with him, undisturbed by----Is Mr. Flood at
home?"
He had tried the door as a matter of form, and in like manner put the
question, passing in without ceremony: the servant arrested him.
"Mr. Flood's out, sir. He is gone to London."
"Gone to London!" ejaculated Chattaway.
"Yes, sir, not an hour ago. Went by the eight o'clock train."
It was so complete a check to all his imaginings, that for a minute the
master of Trevlyn Hold found speech desert him. Many a bad man on the
first threat of evil flies to a lawyer, in the belief that he can, by
the exercise of his craft, bring him out of it. Chattaway, after a night
of intolerable restlessness, had come straight off to his lawyer, Flood,
with the intention of confiding the whole affair to him, and asking what
was to be done in it; never so much as glancing at the possibility of
that legal gentleman's absence.
"Went up by the eight o'clock train?" he repeated when he found his
voice.
"Yes, sir."
"And when's he coming home?"
"He expects to be away about a week, sir."
A worse check still. Chattaway's terrible fear might have waited a day;
but a week!--he thought suspense would drive him mad. He was a great
deal too miserly to spend money upon an unnecessary journey, yet there
appeared nothing for it but to follow Mr. Flood to London. That
gentleman had heard perplexing secrets of Chattaway's before, had always
given him the best advice, and remained faithful to the trust; and
Chattaway believed he might safely confide this new danger to him. Not
to any other would he have breathed a word. In short, Flood was the only
confidential adviser he possessed in the world.
"Where will Mr. Flood put up in London?"
"I can't say, sir. I don't know anything about where he stays. He goes
up pretty often."
"At the old place, I daresay," muttered Chattaway to himself. "If not, I
shall learn where, through his agents in Essex Street."
He stood a moment on the pavement before mounting. A slow and cheap
train would leave Barmester in half-an-hour for London. Should he go by
that train?--go from Barmester, instead of returning home and taking the
train at the little station near his own home? Was there need of so much
haste? In Chattaway's present frame of mind the utmost haste he could
make was almost a necessary relief: but, on the other hand, would his
sudden departure excite suspicion at home, or draw unwelcome attention
to his movements abroad? Deep in thought was he, when a hand was laid
upon his shoulder. Turning sharply, he saw the honest face of the
linen-draper close to his.
"The queerest thing was said to me last night, Chattaway. I stepped into
Robbins, the barber's, to have my hair and whiskers trimmed, and he told
me a great barrister was down here, a leading man from the Chancery
court, come upon some business connected with you and the late Squire
Trevlyn. With the property, I mean."
Chattaway's heart leaped into his mouth.
"I thought it a queer tale," continued Mr. Wall. "His mission here being
to restore Rupert Trevlyn to the estates of his grandfather, Robbins
said. Is there anything in it?"
Had the public already got hold of it, then? Was the awful thing no
longer a fear but a reality? Chattaway turned his face away, and tried
to be equal to the emergency.
"You are talking great absurdity, Wall. Who's Robbins? Were I you, I
should be ashamed to repeat the lies propagated by that chattering old
woman."
Mr. Wall laughed. "He certainly deals in news, does Robbins; it's part
of his trade. Of course one only takes his marvels for what they are
worth. He got _this_ from Barcome, the tax-collector. The man had
arrived at the scene of the dog-cart accident shortly after its
occurrence, and heard this barrister--who, as it seems, was also
there--speaking publicly of the object of his mission."
Chattaway snatched the reins from the ragged boy's hands and mounted;
his air expressing all the scorn he could command. "When they impound
Squire Trevlyn's will, then they may talk about altering the succession.
Good morning, Wall."
A torrent of howls, accompanied by words a magistrate on the bench must
have treated severely, saluted his ears as he rode off. They came from
the aggrieved steed-holder. Instead of the sixpence he fondly reckoned
on, Chattaway had flung him a halfpenny.
He rode to an inn near the railway station, went in and called for pen
and ink. The few words he wrote were to Miss Diana. He found himself
obliged to go up unexpectedly to London on the business _which she knew
of_, and requested her to make any plausible excuse for his absence that
would divert suspicion from the real facts. He should be home on the
morrow. Such was the substance of the note.
He addressed it to Miss Trevlyn of Trevlyn Hold, sealed it with his own
seal, and marked it "private." A most unnecessary additional security,
the last. No inmate of Trevlyn Hold would dare to open the most simple
missive, bearing the address of Miss Trevlyn. Then he called one of the
stable-men.
"I want this letter taken to my house," he said. "It is in a hurry. Can
you go at once?"
The man replied that he could.
"Stay--you may ride my horse," added Mr. Chattaway, as if the thought
that moment struck him. "You will get there in half the time that you
would if you walked."
"Very well, sir. Shall I bring him back for you?"
"Um--m--m, no, I'll walk," decided Mr. Chattaway, stroking his chin as
if to help his decision. "Leave the horse at the Hold."
The man mounted the horse and rode away, never supposing Mr. Chattaway
had been playing off a little _ruse_ upon him, and had no intention of
going to Trevlyn Hold that day, but was bound for a place rather farther
off. In this innocent state he reached the Hold, while Mr. Chattaway
made a _detour_ and gained the station by a cross route, where he took
train for London.
Cris Chattaway's groom, Sam Atkins, was standing with his young master's
horse before the house, in waiting for that gentleman, when the
messenger arrived. Not the new horse of the previous day's notoriety,
nor the one lamed at Blackstone, but a despised and steady old animal
sometimes used in the plough.
"There haven't been another accident surely!" exclaimed Sam Atkins, in
his astonishment at seeing Mr. Chattaway's steed brought home. "Where's
the Squire?"
"He's all right; and has sent me up here with this," was the man's
reply, producing the note. And at that moment Miss Diana Trevlyn
appeared at the hall-door. Miss Diana was looking out for Mr. Chattaway.
After the communication made to her that morning by Mr. Daw, she could
only come to the conclusion that the paper had been suppressed by
Chattaway, and was waiting in much wrath to demand his explanation of
it.
"What brings the Squire's horse back?" she imperiously demanded.
Sam Atkins handed her the note, which she opened and read. Read it twice
attentively, and then turned indoors. "Chattaway's a fool!" she angrily
decided, "and is allowing this mare's nest to prey on his fears. He
ought to know that while my father's will is in existence no earthly
power can deprive him of Trevlyn Hold."
She went upstairs to Mrs. Chattaway's sitting-room. That lady,
considerably recovered from the shock of the fall, was writing an
affectionate letter to her daughter Amelia, telling her she might come
home with Caroline Ryle. Miss Diana went straight up to the table, took
a seat, and without the least apology closed Mrs. Chattaway's desk.
"I want your attention for a moment, Edith. You can write afterwards.
Carry your memory back to the morning, so many years ago, when we
received the news of Rupert's birth?"
"No effort is need to do that, Diana. I think of it all too often."
"Very good. Then perhaps, without effort, you can recall the day
following, when the letter came announcing Mrs. Trevlyn's death?"
"Yes, I remember it also."
"The minute details? Could you, for instance, relate any of the
circumstances attending the arrival of that letter, if required to do so
in a court of law? What time of the day it came, who opened it, where it
was opened, and so forth?"
"Why do you ask me?" returned Mrs. Chattaway, surprised at the
questions.
"I ask you to be answered. I have a reason for wishing to recall these
past things. Think it over."
"Both letters, so far as I can recollect, were given to Mr. Chattaway,
and he opened them. He was in the habit then of opening papa's business
letters. I have no doubt they were opened in the steward's room; James
used to be there a great deal with the accounts and other matters
connected with the estate."
"I have always known that James Chattaway did open those letters," said
Miss Diana; "but I thought you might have been present when he did so.
Were you?"
"No. I remember his coming into my chamber later, and telling me Mrs.
Trevlyn was dead. I never shall forget the shock I felt."
"Attend to me, Edith. I have reason to believe that the last of those
letters contained an inclosure for me. It never reached me. Do you know
what became of it?"
The blank surprise on Mrs. Chattaway's countenance, her open questioning
gaze, was a sufficient denial.
"I see you do not. And now I am going to ask you something else. Did you
ever hear that Emily Trevlyn, when she was dying, left a request that I
should be guardian to her children?"
"Never. Have you been dreaming these things, Diana? Why should you ask
about them now?"
"I leave dreams to you," was Miss Diana's reply. "My health is too sound
to admit of sleeping dreams; my mind too practical to indulge in waking
ones. Never mind why I asked: it was only as a personal matter of my
own. By the way, I have had a line from your husband, written from
Barmester. A little business has taken him out, and he may not be home
until to-morrow. We are not to sit up for him."
"Has he gone to Nettleby hop-fair?" hastily rejoined Mrs. Chattaway.
"Perhaps so," said Miss Diana, carelessly. "At any rate, say nothing
about his absence to any one. The children are unruly if they know he is
away. I suppose he will be home to-morrow."
But Mr. Chattaway was not home on the morrow. Miss Diana was burning
with impatience for his return; that explanation was being waited for,
and she was one who brooked not delay: but she was obliged to submit to
it now. Day after day passed on, and Mr. Chattaway was still absent from
Trevlyn Hold.