Trevlyn Hold Part 24

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion, and might have done the mischief in it. In those fits of pa.s.sion 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 const.i.tuted 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sed 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?"