Trevlyn Hold: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"From whom have you been hearing of Rupert's doings?"

It is very probable that Maude would have been at a loss for an answer, but she was saved a reply, for Emily spoke up before she had time to give one, ill-nature in her tone and words.

"Maude must have heard it from George Ryle. You saw her talking to him, papa. She said he had been speaking of Rupert."

Mr. Chattaway did not ask another question. It would have been superfluous to do so, in the conclusion he had come to. He believed Rupert had slept at Trevlyn Farm. How else could George Ryle have become acquainted with his movements?

"They'll be hatching a plot to try to over-throw me," he muttered to himself as he went out to his horse: for his was one of those mean, suspicious natures that are always fancying the world is antagonistic to them. "Maude Ryle has been wanting to get me out of Trevlyn Hold ever since I came into it. From the very hour she heard the Squire's will read, and found I had inherited, she has been planning and plotting for it. She would rather see Rupert in it than me; and rather see her pitiful Treve in it than anyone. Yes, yes, Mr. Rupert, we know what you frequent Trevlyn Farm for. But it won't answer. It's waste of time. They must change England's laws before they can upset Squire Trevlyn's will. But it's not less annoying to know that my tenure is constantly being hauled over and peered into, to see if they can't find a flaw in it, or insert one of their own making."

It was strange that these fears should continually trouble the master of Trevlyn Hold. A man who legally holds an estate, on which no shade of a suspicion can be cast, need not dread its being wrested from him. It was in Squire Trevlyn's power to leave the Hold and its revenues to whom he would. Had he chosen to bequeath it to an utter stranger, it was in his power to do so: and he had bequeathed it to James Chattaway. Failing direct male heirs, it may be thought that Mr. Chattaway had as much right to it as anyone else. At any rate, it had been the Squire's pleasure to bequeath it to him, and there the matter ended. That the master of Trevlyn Hold was ever conscious of a dread his tenure was to be some time disturbed, was indisputable. He never betrayed it to any living being by so much as a word; he strove to conceal it even from himself; but there it was, deep in his secret heart. There it remained, and there it tormented him; however unwilling he might have been to acknowledge the fact.

Could it be that a prevision of what was really to take place was cast upon him?—a mysterious foreshadowing of the future? There are people who tell us such warnings come.

The singularity of the affair was, that no grounds could exist for this latent fear. Whence then should it arise? Why, from that source whence it arises in many people—a bad conscience. It was true the estate had been legally left to him; but he knew that his own handiwork, his deceit, had brought it to him; he knew that when he suppressed the news of the birth of Rupert, and suffered Squire Trevlyn to go to his grave uninformed of the fact, he was guilty of nothing less than a crime in the sight of God. Mr. Chattaway had heard of that inconvenient thing, retribution, and his fancy suggested that it might possibly overtake him.

If he had only known that he might have set his mind at rest as to the plotting and planning, he would have cared less to oppose Rupert's visits to the Farm. Nothing could be further from the thoughts of Rupert, or George Ryle, than any plotting against Chattaway. Their evenings, when together, were spent in harmless conversation, in chess, without so much as a reference to Chattaway. But that gentleman did not know it, and tormented himself accordingly.

He mounted his horse, and rode away. As he was passing Trevlyn Farm, buried in unpleasant thoughts, he saw Nora Dickson at the fold-yard gate, and turned his horse's head towards her.