Trevlyn Hold: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"I knew him very well," said the stranger, taking the seat Ann had been dusting before offering; a ceremony she apparently considered a mark of respect. "Though my acquaintance with him was short, it was close. Do you know who baptized you?"

"No," replied Rupert, rather astonished at the question.

"I did. I christened your sister Maude; I baptized you. You were to be christened in England, your mother said, but she wished you baptized ere the journey commenced, and I did it when you were only a day old. Ah, poor thing! she hoped to make the journey with you when she should be strong enough; but another journey claimed her—that of death! Before you were two days old she died. It was I who wrote to announce your birth to Squire Trevlyn; it was I who, by the next post, announced your mother's death. It was I—my young friend, it was I—who buried your father and your mother."

"You are a clergyman, then?" said Rupert, somewhat dubious about the beard, and the very unclerical cut of the stranger altogether.

It may be that Mr. Daw noticed the doubtful glances, and entered upon an explanation. How, when a working curate, he had married a young lady of fortune, but of delicate health, and had gone abroad with her, throwing up for the time his clerical preferment. The doctors had said that a warm climate was essential to her; as they had said, if you remember, in the case of Joe Trevlyn. It happened that both parties sought the same place—the curate and his wife, Joe and Mrs. Trevlyn—and a close friendship sprang up between them. A short time and Joe Trevlyn died; a shorter time still, and his wife died. There was no English clergyman near the spot, and Mr. Daw gave his services. He baptized the children; he buried the parents. His own fate was a happier one, for his wife lived. She lived, but did not grow strong. It may be said—you have heard of such cases—that she only existed from day to day. She had so existed all through those long years; from that time until within a few months of this. "If you attempt to take her back to England, she will not live a month," the local medical men had said; and perhaps they were right. He had gone to the place for a few months' sojourn, and never left it for over twenty years. It reads like a romance. His wife's fortune had enabled him to live comfortably, and in a pecuniary point of view there was no need to seek preferment or exercise his calling. He would never seek it now. Habit and use are second nature, and the Reverend William Daw had learnt to be an idle man; to love the country of his adoption, his home in the Pyrenees; to believe that its genial climate had become necessary to himself. His business in England concluded (it was connected with his late wife's will), he was hastening back to it. Had preferment been offered him, he would have doubted his ability to fulfil its duties after so many years of leisure. The money that was his wife's would be his for the remainder of his days; so on that score he was at rest. In short, the Reverend William Daw had degenerated into a useless man; one to whom all exertion had become a trouble. He honestly confessed to it now, as he sat before Rupert Trevlyn; told him he had been content to live wholly for the country of his adoption, almost completely ignoring his own; had kept up no correspondence with it. Of friends he could, as a young curate, boast but few, and he had been at no pains to keep them. At first he had believed that six or twelve months would be the limit of his absence from England, and he was content to let friendships await his return. But he did not return; and the lapsed correspondence was too pleasant to his indolent tastes to be reopened. He told all this quietly now to Rupert Trevlyn, and said that to it he owed his ignorance of the deposition of Rupert from Trevlyn Hold. Mr. Freeman was one of his few old college friends, and he might have heard all about it years ago had he only written to him.

"I cannot understand how Mr. Chattaway should have succeeded," he cried, bending his dark eyes upon Rupert. "I can scarcely believe the fact now; it has amazed me, as one may say. Had there been no direct male heir; had your father left only Maude, for instance, I could have understood its being left away from her, although it would have been unjust."

"The property is not entailed," said Rupert.

"I am aware of that. During the last few months of your father's life, we were like brothers, and I knew all particulars as well as he did. He had married in disobedience to his father's will, but he never for a moment glanced at the possibility of disinheritance. I cannot understand why Squire Trevlyn should have willed the estate from his son's children."

"He only knew of Maude—as they say."

"Still less can I understand how Mr. Chattaway can keep it. Were an estate willed to me, away from those who had a greater right to it, I should never retain it. I could not reconcile it to my conscience to do so. How can Mr. Chattaway?"