A VISIT TO RUPERT
And what were the emotions of Mrs. Chattaway? They were of a mixed
nature. In spite of the very small comfort which possession of the Hold
had brought her individually; in spite of the feeling of usurpation, of
_wrong_, which had ever rested unpleasantly upon her; she would have
been superior to frail human nature, had not a sense of dismay struck
upon her at its being thus suddenly wrested from them. She knew not what
her husband's means might be: whether he had anything or nothing, by
saving or otherwise, that he could call his own, apart from the revenues
of the Hold: but she did know sufficient to be sure that it could not be
a tithe of what was needed to keep them; and where were they to go with
their helpless daughters? That these unpleasant considerations floated
through her mind in a vague, confused vision was true; but far above
them came a rush of thought, of care, closer to the present hour. Her
brother had said--and there was determination not to be mistaken in his
tones--that unless Mr. Chattaway produced Rupert Trevlyn, he would
publicly charge him with the murder. Nothing but the strongest
self-control had restrained Mrs. Chattaway from avowing all when she
heard this. Mr. Chattaway was a man not held in the world's favour, but
he was her husband; and in her eyes his faults and failings had ever
appeared in a venial light. She would have given much to stand out and
say, "You are accusing my husband wrongfully; Rupert is alive, and I am
concealing him."
But she did not dare do this. That very husband would have replied,
"Then I order Rupert into custody--how dared you conceal him?" She took
an opportunity of asking George Ryle the meaning of the warning
despatched by Nora. George could not explain it. He had met Bowen
accidentally, and the officer had told him in confidence that they had
received a mysterious hint that Rupert Trevlyn was not far off--hence
George's intimation. It was to turn out that the _other_ Rupert Trevlyn
had been spoken of: but neither Bowen nor George knew this.
George Ryle rapidly drew his own conclusion from this return of Squire
Trevlyn: it would be the preservation of Rupert; was the very best thing
that could have happened for him. It may be said, the only thing. The
tether had been lengthened out to its extreme limits, and to keep him
much longer where he was, would be impossible; or, if they so kept him,
it would mean death. George Ryle saw that a protector for Rupert had
arisen in Squire Trevlyn.
"He must be told the truth," he whispered to Mrs. Chattaway.
"Yes, perhaps it may be better," she answered; "but I dare not tell him.
Will you undertake it?"
He nodded, and began to wonder what excuse he could invent for seeking a
private conference with the newly-returned Squire. But while he plotted
and planned, Maude rendered it unnecessary.
By a sense of the fitness of things, the state-rooms at the Hold,
generally kept for visitors, were assigned by Miss Diana to her brother.
He was shown to them, and was in the act of gazing from the window at
the well-remembered features of the old domain when there stole in upon
him one, white and tearless, but with a terrified imploring despair in
her countenance.
"Maude, my child, what is it? I like your face, my dear, and must have
you henceforth for my very own child!"
"Not me, Uncle Rupert, never mind me," she said, the kindly tones
telling upon her breaking heart and bringing forth a gush of tears. "If
you will only love Rupert!--only get Mr. Chattaway to forgive him!"
"But he may be dead, child."
"Uncle Rupert, if he were not dead--if you found him now, to-day," she
reiterated--"would _you_ deliver him up to justice? Oh, don't blame him;
don't visit it upon him! It was the Trevlyn temper, and Mr. Chattaway
should not have provoked it by horsewhipping him."
"_I_ blame him! _I_ deliver a Trevlyn up to justice!" echoed Squire
Trevlyn, with a threatening touch of the Trevlyn temper at that very
moment. "What are you saying, child? If Rupert is in life he shall have
his wrongs righted from henceforth. The cost of a burnt rick? The ricks
were mine, not Chattaway's. Rupert Trevlyn is my heir, and he shall so
be recognised and received."
She sank down before him crying softly with the relief his words brought
her. Squire Trevlyn placed his hand on her pretty hair, caressingly.
"Don't grieve so, child; he may not be dead. I'll find him if he is to
be found. The police shall know they have a Squire Trevlyn amongst them
again."
"Uncle Rupert, he is very near; lying in concealment--ill--almost dying.
We have not dared to betray it, and the secret is nearly killing us."
He listened in amazement, and questioned her until he gathered the
outlines of the case. "Who has known of this, do you say?"
"My aunt Edith, and I, and the doctor; and--and--George Ryle."
The consciousness with which the last name was brought out, the sudden
blush, whispered a tale to keen Squire Trevlyn.
"Halloa, Miss Maude! I read a secret. _That_ will not do, you know. I
cannot spare you from the Hold for all the George Ryles in the world.
You must be its mistress."
"My aunt Diana will be that," murmured Maude.
"That she never shall be whilst I am master," was the emphatic
rejoinder. "If Diana could look quietly on and see her father deceived,
help to deceive him; see Chattaway usurp the Hold to the exclusion of
Joe's son, and join in the wickedness, she has forfeited all claim to
it: she shall neither reign nor reside in it. No, my little Maude, you
must live with me, as mistress of Trevlyn Hold."
Maude's tears were flowing in silence. She kept her head down.
"What is George Ryle to you?" somewhat sternly asked Squire Trevlyn. "Do
you love him?"
"I had no one else to love: they were not kind to me--except my aunt
Edith," she murmured.
He sat lost in thought. "Is he a good man, Maude? Upright, honourable,
just?"
"That, and more," she whispered.
"And I suppose you love him? Would it quite break your heart were I to
issue my edict that you should never have him; to say you must turn him
over to Octave Chattaway?"
It was only a jest. Maude took it differently, and lifted her glowing
face. "But he does not like Octave! It is Octave who likes----"
She had spoken impulsively, and now that recollection came to her she
hesitated. Squire Trevlyn, undignified as it was, broke into a subdued
whistle.
"I see, young lady. And so, Mr. George has had the good taste to like
some one better than Octave. Well, perhaps I should do so, in his
place."
"But about Rupert?" she pleaded.
"Ah, about Rupert. I must go to him at once. Mark Canham stared as I
came through the gate just now, as one scared out of his wits. He must
have been puzzled by the likeness."
Squire Trevlyn went down to the hall, and was putting on his hat when
they came flocking around, asking whether he was going out, offering to
accompany him, Diana requesting him to wait whilst she put on her
bonnet. But he waved them off: he preferred to stroll out alone, he
said; he might look in and have a talk with some of his father's old
dependants--if any were left.
George Ryle was standing outside, deliberating as to how he should
convey the communication, little thinking it had already been done.
Squire Trevlyn came up, and passed an arm within his.
"I am going to the lodge," he remarked. "You may know whom I want to see
there."
"You have heard, then!" exclaimed George.
"Yes. From Maude. By-the-by, Mr. George, what secret understanding is
there between you and that young lady?"
George looked surprised; but he was not one to lose his equanimity. "It
is no longer a secret, sir. I have confided it to Miss Diana. If Mr.
Chattaway will grant me the lease of a certain farm, I shall speak to
him."
"Mr. Chattaway! The farms don't belong to him now, but to me."
George laughed. "Yes, I forgot. I must come to you for it, sir. I want
the Upland."
"And you would like to take Maude with it?"
"Oh, yes! I must take her with it."
"Softly, sir. Maude belongs to me, just as the farms do: and I can tell
you for your consolation, and you must make the best of it, that I
cannot spare her from the Hold. There; that's enough. I have not come
home to have my will disputed: I am a true Trevlyn."
A somewhat uncomfortable silence ensued, and lasted until they reached
the lodge. Squire Trevlyn entered without ceremony. Old Mark, who was
sitting before the hearth apparently in deep thought, turned his head,
saw who was coming in, rose as quickly as his rheumatism allowed him,
and stared as if he saw an apparition.
"Do you know me, Mark?"
"To my dazed eyes it looks like the Squire," was Mark's answer, slowly
shaking his head, as one in perplexity. "But I know it cannot be. I
stood at these gates as he was carried out to his last home in Barbrook
churchyard. The Squire was older, too."
"The Squire left a son, Mark."
"Sir--sir!" burst forth the old man, after a pause, as the light flashed
upon him. "Sir--sir! You surely are never the young heir, Mr. Rupert, we
have all mourned as dead?"
"Do you remember the young heir's features, Mark?"
"Ay, I have never forgot them, sir."
"Then look at mine."
There was doubt no longer; and Mark Canham, in his enthusiastic joy
forgetting his rheumatism, would almost have gone down on his knees in
thankfulness. He brought himself up with a groan. "I be fit for nothing
now but to nurse my rheumatiz, sir. And you be the true Rupert
Trevlyn--Squire from henceforth? Oh, sir, say it!"
"I am the Squire, Mark. But I came here to see another Rupert
Trevlyn--he who will be Squire after me."
Old Mark shook his head. He glanced towards the staircase as he spoke,
and dropped his voice to a whisper, as if fearing that it might
penetrate to one who was lying above.
"If he don't get better soon, sir, he'll never live to be the Squire.
He's very ill. Circumstances have been against him, it can't be denied;
but I fear me it was in his constitution from the first to go off, as
his father, poor Mr. Joe, went off afore him."
"Nonsense," said the Squire. "We'll get him well again!"
"And what of Chattaway?" asked old Canham. "He'll never forego his
vengeance, sir. I have been in mortal fear ever since Master Rupert's
been lying here. The fear had selfishness in it, maybe," he added,
ingenuously; "for Chattaway'd turn me right off, without a minute's
warning, happen he come to know of it. He's never liked my being at the
lodge at all, sir; and would have sent me away times and again but for
Miss Diana."
"Ah," said the Squire. "Well, it does not rest with him now. What has he
allowed you, Mark?"
"Half-a-crown a week, sir."
"Half-a-crown a week?" repeated Squire Trevlyn, his mouth curling with
displeasure. "How have you lived?"
"It have been a poor living at best, sir," was the simple answer. "Ann
works hard, at home or out, but she don't earn much. Her eyes be bad,
sir; happen you may call to mind they was always weak and ailing. The
Squire fixed my pay here at five shillings a week, and Chattaway changed
it when he come into power. Miss Diana's good to us; but for her and the
bit o' money Ann can earn, I don't see as we could ha' got along at
all."
"Would you like the half-a-crown changed back again to five shillings,
Mark?"
"I should think it was riches come to me right off, Squire."
"Then you may reckon upon it from this day."
He moved to the staircase as he spoke, leaving the old man in an ecstasy
of delight. Ann Canham, who had shrunk into hiding, came forward. Her
father turned triumphantly.
"Didn't I tell ye it was the Squire? And you to go on at me, saying I
was clean off my wits to think it! I know'd it was no other."
"But you said it was the dead Squire, father," was poor Ann's meek
response.
"It's all the same," cried old Canham. "There'll be a Trevlyn at the
Hold again; and our five shillings a week is to come back to us. Bless
the Trevlyns! they was always open-handed."
"Father, what a dreadful come-down for Chattaway! What will he do? He'll
have to turn out."
"Serve him right!" shouted Mark. "How many homes have he made empty in
his time! Ann, girl, I have kep' my eyes a bit open through life, in
spite of limbs cramped with rheumatiz, and I never failed to notice one
thing--them who are fond o' making others' homes desolate, generally
find their own desolate afore they die. Chattaway'll get a taste now of
what he have been so fond o' dealing out to others. I hope the bells'll
ring the day he turns out o' the Hold!"
"But Madam will have to turn out with him!" meekly suggested Ann Canham.
It took Mark back. He liked Madam as much as he disliked her husband.
"Happen something'll be thought of for Madam," said he. "Maybe the new
Squire'll keep her at the Hold."
George Ryle had gone upstairs, and prepared the wondering Rupert for the
appearance of his uncle. As the latter entered, his tall head bowing, he
halted in dismay. In the fair face bent towards him from the bed, the
large blue eyes, the bright, falling hair, he believed for the moment he
saw the beloved brother Joe of his youth. But in the hollow, hectic
cheeks, the drawn face, the parched lips, the wasted hands, the
attenuated frame, he read too surely the marks of the disease which had
taken off that brother; and a conviction seated itself in the Squire's
mind that he must look elsewhere for his heir.
"My poor boy! Joe's boy! This place is killing you!"
"No, Uncle Rupert, it is not that at all. It is the fear."
Squire Trevlyn could not breathe. He looked up at the one pane, and
pushed it open with his stick. The cold air came in, and he seemed
relieved, drawing a long breath. But the same current, grateful to him,
found its way to the lungs of Rupert, and he began to cough violently.
"It's the draught," panted the poor invalid.
George Ryle closed the window again, and the Squire bent over the bed.
"You must come to the Hold at once, Rupert."
The hectic faded on Rupert's face. "It is not possible," he answered.
"Mr. Chattaway would denounce me."
"Denounce you!" hotly repeated Squire Trevlyn. "Denounce my nephew and
my brother Joe's son! He had better let me see him attempt it."
In the impulse, characteristic of the Trevlyns, the Squire turned to
descend the stairs. He was going to have Rupert brought home at once.
George Ryle followed him, and arrested him in the avenue.
"Pardon me, Squire Trevlyn. You must first of all make sure of
Chattaway. I am not clear also but you must make sure of the police."
"What do you mean?"
"The police have the matter in hand. Are they able to relinquish it,
even for you?"
They stood gazing at each other in doubt and discomfort. It was an
unpleasant phase of the affair; and one which had certainly not until
that moment presented itself to Squire Trevlyn's view.