Trevlyn Hold Part 98

"It's to see you looking like this, sir. You'll get well, sir, won't you?"

"Oh yes; I feel all right now, Jim. A little tired, that's all. Come up and see me to-morrow, and I'll tell my uncle who you are and all about you."

Standing at the door of the drawing-room, in an uncertain sort of att.i.tude, was Mr. Chattaway. He was evidently undecided whether to receive the offending Rupert with a welcome, burst forth into a reproach, or run away and hide himself. Rupert decided it by walking up to him, and holding out his hand.

"Let us be friends, Mr. Chattaway. I have long repented of my mad pa.s.sion, and I thank you for absolving me from its consequences. Perhaps you are sorry on your side for the treatment that drove me to it. We will be friends, if you like."

But Mr. Chattaway did not respond to the generous feeling or touch the offered hand. He muttered something about its having been Rupert's fault, not his, and disappeared. Somehow he could not stand the keen eye of Squire Trevlyn that was fixed upon him.

In truth it was a terrible time for Chattaway, and the man was living out his punishment. All his worst dread had come upon him without warning, and he could not rebel against it. There might be no attempt to dispute the claims of Squire Trevlyn; Mr. Chattaway was as completely deposed as though he had never held it.

Rupert was installed in his luxurious room, everything within it that could contribute to his ease and comfort. Squire Trevlyn had been tenderly attached to his brother Joe when they were boys together. He robust, manly; Joe delicate. It may be that the want of strength in the younger only rendered him dearer to the elder brother. Perhaps it was only the old affection for Joe transferred now to the son; certain it was, that the Squire's love had already grown for Rupert, and all care was lavished on him.

But as the days went on it became evident to all that Rupert had only come home to die. The removal over, the excitement of those wonderful changes toned down, the sad fact that he was certainly fading grew on Squire Trevlyn. Some one suggested that a warmer climate should be tried; but Mr. King, on being appealed to, answered that he must get stronger first; and his tone was significant.

Squire Trevlyn noticed it. Later, when he had the surgeon to himself, he spoke to him. "King, you are concealing the danger? Can't we move him?"

"I would have told you before, Squire, had you asked me. As to moving him to a warmer climate--certainly he could be moved, but he would only go there to die; and the very fatigue of the journey would shorten his life."

"I don't believe it," retorted the Squire, awaking out of his dismay.

"You are a croaker, King. I'll call in a doctor from Barmeston."

"Call in all the doctors you like, Squire, if it will afford you satisfaction. When they understand his case, they will tell you as I do."

"Do you mean to say that he must die?"

"I fear he must; and speedily. The day before you came home I tried his lungs, and from that moment I have known there was no hope. The disease must have been upon him for some time; I suppose he inherits it from his father."

The same night Squire Trevlyn sent for a physician: an eminent man: but he only confirmed the opinion of Mr. King. All that remained now was to break the tidings to Rupert; and to lighten, as far as might be, his pa.s.sage to the grave.

But a word must be spoken of the departure of Mr. Chattaway and his family from the Hold. That they must inevitably leave it had been unpleasantly clear to Mr. Chattaway from the very hour of Squire Trevlyn's arrival. He gave a day or two to digesting the dreadful necessity, and then began to turn his thoughts practically to the future.

Squire Trevlyn had promised not to take from him anything he might have put by of his ill-gotten gains. These gains, though a fair sum, were not sufficient to enable him to live and keep his family, and Mr. Chattaway knew that he must do something in the shape of work. His thoughts turned, not unnaturally, to the Upland Farm, and he asked Squire Trevlyn to let him have the lease of it.

"I'll let you have it upon one condition," said the Squire. "I should not choose my sister Edith to sink into obscurity, but she may live upon the Upland Farm without losing caste; it is a fine place both as to land and residence. Therefore, I'll let it you, I say, upon one condition."

Maude Trevlyn happened to be present at the conversation, and spoke in the moment's impulse.

"Oh, Uncle Rupert! you promised----"

"Well, Miss Maude?" he cried, and fixing his eyes on her glowing face.

Maude timidly continued.

"I thought you promised someone else the Upland Farm."

"That favourite of yours and of Rupert's, George Ryle? But I am not going to let him have it. Well, Mr. Chattaway?"

"What is the condition?" inquired Mr. Chattaway.

"That you use the land well. I shall have a clause inserted in the lease by which you may cease to be my tenant at any time by my giving you a twelvemonth's notice; and if I find you carrying your parsimonious nature into the management of the Upland Farm, as you have on this land, I shall surely take it from you."

"What's the matter with this land?" asked Mr. Chattaway.

"The matter is, that I find the land impoverished. You have spared money upon it in your mistaken policy, and the inevitable result has followed.

You have been penny wise and pound foolish, Chattaway; as you were when you suffered the rick-yard to remain uninsured."

Mr. Chattaway's face darkened, but he made no reply to the allusion.

"I'll undertake to do the farm justice, Squire Trevlyn, if you will lease it to me."

"Very well. Let me, however, candidly a.s.sure you that, but for Edith's sake, I'd see you starve before you should have had a homestead on this land. It is my habit to be plain-spoken: I must be especially so with you. I suffer from you in all ways, James Chattaway. I suffer always in my nephew Rupert. When I think of the treatment dealt out to him from you, I can scarcely refrain from treating you to a taste of the punishment you inflicted upon him. It is possible, too, that had the boy been more tenderly cared for, he might have had strength to resist this disease which has crept upon him. About that I cannot speak; it must lie between you and G.o.d; his father, with every comfort, could not escape it, it seems; and possibly Rupert might not have done so."

Mr. Chattaway made no reply. The Squire, after a pause, during which he had been plunged in thought, continued. "I suffer also in the matter of the two-thousand-pound debt of Thomas Ryle's, and I have a great mind--do you hear me, sir?--I have a great mind that the refunding it should come out of your pocket instead of mine; even though I had to get it from you by suing you for so much of the mesne profits."

"Refunding the debt?" repeated Mr. Chattaway, looking absolutely confounded. "Refunding it to whom?"

"To the Ryles, of course. That money was as surely given by my father to them on his death-bed, as that I am here, talking to you. I feel, I know that it was. I know that Thomas Ryle, ever a man of honour, spoke the truth when he a.s.serted it. Do you think I can do less than refund it? I don't, if you do."

"George Ryle does not want it; he is capable of working for his living,"

was the only answer Mr. Chattaway in his anger could give.

"I do not suppose he will want it," was the quiet remark of Squire Trevlyn; "I dare say he'll manage to do without it. It is to Mrs. Ryle that I shall refund it, sir. Between you all, I find that she was cut off with a shilling at my father's death."

Mr. Chattaway liked the conversation less and less. He deemed it might be as agreeable to leave details to another opportunity, and withdrew.

Squire Trevlyn looking round for Maude, discerned her at the end of the room, her head bent in sorrow.

"What's this, young lady? Because I don't let Mr. George Ryle the Upland Farm? You great goose! I have reserved a better one for him."

The tone was peculiar, and she raised her timid eyelids. "A better one!"

she stammered.

"Yes. Trevlyn Hold."

Maude looked aghast. "What do you mean, Uncle Rupert?"

"My dear, but for this unhappy fiat which appears to have gone forth for your brother Rupert, perhaps I might have let the Upland Farm to George.

As it is, I cannot part with both of you. If poor Rupert is to be taken from me, you must remain."

She looked up, utterly unable to understand him.

"And as you appear not to be inclined to part with Mr. George, all that can be done in the matter, so far as I see, is that we must have him at the Hold."

"Oh, Uncle Rupert!" And Maude's head and her joyous tears were hidden in the loving arms that were held out to shelter her.

"Child! Did you think I had come home to make my dead brother's children unhappy? You will know me better by and by, Maude."