Trevlyn Hold. Henry Wood
pressing that the property should be resigned to him, Mr. Chattaway had only to point to the will, and say, "You cannot act against that."
It may be that this very fact brought remorse home with greater force to Mrs. Chattaway. It may be that incessantly dwelling upon it caused a morbid state of feeling, which increased the malady. Certain it is, that night and day the wrongs of Rupert pressed on her mind. She loved him with that strange intensity which brings an aching to the heart. When the baby orphan was brought home to her from its foreign birthplace, with its rosy cheeks and its golden curls—when it put out its little arms to her, and gazed at her with its large blue eyes, her heart went out to it there and then, and she caught it to her with a love more passionate than any ever given to her own children. The irredeemable wrong inflicted on the unconscious child, fixed itself on her conscience in that hour, never to be lifted from it.
If ever a woman lived a dual life, that woman was Mrs. Chattaway. Her true aspect—that in which she saw herself as she really was—was as different from the one presented to the world as light from darkness. Do not blame her. It was difficult to help it. The world and her own family saw in Mrs. Chattaway a weak, gentle, apathetic woman, who did not take upon herself even the ordinary authority of the head of a household. They little imagined that that weak woman, remarkable for nothing but indifference, passed her days in sadness, in care, in thought. The hopeless timidity (inherited from her mother) which had been her bane in former days, was her bane still. She had not dared to rise up against her husband when the wrong was inflicted upon Rupert Trevlyn; she did not dare openly rise up now against the petty tyrannies daily dealt out to him. There may have been a latent consciousness in her mind that if she did interfere it would not change things for the better, and might make them worse for Rupert. Probably it would have done so.
There were many things she could have wished for Rupert, and went so far as to hint some of them to Mr. Chattaway. She wished he could be altogether relieved from Blackstone; she wished greater indulgences for him at home; she wished he might be transported to a warmer climate. A bare suggestion she dropped, once in a way, to Mr. Chattaway, but they fell unheeded on his ear. He replied to the hint of the warmer climate with a prolonged stare and a demand as to what romantic absurdity she could be thinking of. Mrs. Chattaway had never mentioned it again. In these cases of constitutional timidity, a rebuff, be it ever so slight, is sufficient to close the lips for ever. Poor lady! she would have sacrificed her own comfort to give peace and comfort to the unhappy Rupert. He was miserably put upon; treated with less consideration than the servants; made to feel his dependent state daily and hourly by petty annoyances; and yet she could not openly interfere!
Even now, as she sat watching the deepening shades, she was dwelling on this; resenting it in her heart, for his sake. It was the evening of the day when the girls had met George Ryle in the lane. She could hear sounds of merriment downstairs from her children and their visitors, and felt sure Rupert did not make one of them. It had long been the pleasure of Cris and Octave to exclude Rupert from the evening gatherings of the family, as far as they could do so; and if, through the presence of herself or Miss Diana, they could not absolutely deny his entrance, they treated him with studied indifference. She sat on, revolving these bitter thoughts in the gloom, until roused by the entrance of an intruder.
It was Rupert himself. He approached Mrs. Chattaway, and she fondly threw her arm round him, and drew him down to a chair by her side. Only when they were alone could she show him these marks of affection, or prove to him that he did not stand in the world entirely isolated from all love.
"Do you feel better to-night, Rupert?"
"Oh, I am a great deal better. I feel quite well. Why are you sitting in the dark, Aunt Edith?"
"It is not quite dark yet. What are they doing below, Rupert? I hear plenty of laughter."
"They are playing at some game, I think."
"At what?"
"I don't know. I was joining them, when Octave, as usual, said they were enough without me; so I came away."
Mrs. Chattaway made no reply. She never spoke a reproachful word of her children to Rupert, whatever she might feel; she never, by so much as a breathing, cast a reproach on her husband to living mortal. Rupert leaned his head on her shoulder, as though weary. Sufficient light was left to show how delicate his features, how attractive his face. The lovely countenance of his boyhood characterised him still—the suspiciously bright cheeks and silken hair. Of middle height, slender and fragile, he scarcely looked his twenty years. There was a resemblance in his face to Mrs. Chattaway: and it was not surprising, for Joe Trevlyn and his sister Edith had been remarkably alike when they were young.
"Is Cris come in?" asked Mrs. Chattaway.
"Not yet."
Rupert rose as he spoke, and stretched himself. The verb s'ennuyer was one he often felt obliged to conjugate, in his evenings at the Hold.
"I think I shall go down for an hour to the farm."
Mrs. Chattaway started: shrank from the words, as it seemed. "Not to-night, Rupert!"
"It is so dull at home, Aunt Edith."
"They are merry enough downstairs."
"Yes. But Octave takes care that I shall not be merry with them."
What could she answer?
"Then, Rupert, you will be sure to be home," she said, after a while. And the pained emphasis with which she spoke no pen could express. The words evidently conveyed some meaning, understood by Rupert.
"Yes," was all he answered, the tones of his voice betraying his resentment.
Mrs. Chattaway caught him to her, and hid her face upon his shoulder. "For my sake, Rupert, darling, for my sake!"
"Yes, yes, dear Aunt Edith: I'll be sure to be in time," he reiterated. "I won't forget it, as I did the other night."
She stood at the window, and watched him away from the house and down the avenue, praying that he might not forget. It had pleased Mr. Chattaway lately to forbid Rupert the house, unless he returned to it by half-past ten. That this motive was entirely that of ill-naturedly crossing Rupert, there could be little doubt about. Driven by unkindness from the Hold, Rupert had taken to spending his evenings with George Ryle; sometimes at the houses of other friends; now and then he would invade old Canham's. Rupert's hour for coming in from these visits was about eleven; he had generally managed to be in by the time the clock struck; but the master of Trevlyn Hold suddenly issued a mandate that he must be in by half-past ten; failing strict obedience as to time, he was not to be let in at all. Rupert resented it, and one or two unpleasant scenes had ensued. A similar rule was not applied to Cris, who might come in at any hour he pleased.
Mrs. Chattaway went down to the drawing-room. Two girls, the daughters of neighbours, were spending the evening there, and they were playing at proverbs with great animation: Maude Trevlyn, the guests, and the Miss Chattaways. Octave alone joined in it listlessly, as if her thoughts were far away. Her restless glances towards the door seemed to say she was watching for the entrance of one who did not come.
By-and-by Mr. Chattaway came home, and they sat down to supper. Afterwards, the guests departed, and the younger children went to bed. Ten o'clock struck, and the time went on again.
"Where's Rupert?" Mr. Chattaway suddenly asked his wife.
"He went down to Trevlyn Farm," she said, unable, had it been to save her life, to speak without deprecation.
He made no reply, but rang the bell, and ordered the household to bed. Miss Diana Trevlyn was out upon a visit.
"Cris and Rupert are not in," observed Octave, as she lighted her mother's candle and her own.
Mr. Chattaway took out his watch. "Twenty-five minutes past ten," he said, in his hard, impassive manner—a manner which imparted the idea that he was utterly destitute of sympathy for the whole human race. "Mr. Rupert must be quick if he intends to be admitted to-night; Give your mother her bed-candle."
It may appear almost incredible that Mrs. Chattaway should meekly take her candle and follow her daughter upstairs without remonstrance, when she would have given the world to sit up longer. She was becoming quite