Trevlyn Hold: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

A GHOST FOR OLD CANHAM

Trevlyn Hold was a fine place, the cynosure and envy of the neighbourhood around; and yet it would perhaps be impossible in all that neighbourhood to find any family so completely miserable as that which inhabited the house. The familiar saying is a very true one: "All is not gold that glitters."

Enough has been said of the trials and discomforts of Mrs. Chattaway; they had been many and varied, but never had trouble accumulated upon her head as now. The terrible secret that Rupert was within hail, wasting unto death, was torturing her brain night and day. It seemed that the whole weight of it lay upon her; that she was responsible for his weal and woe: if he died would reproach not lie at her door, remorse be her portion for ever? It might be that she should have disclosed the secret, and not have left him there to die.

But how disclose it? Since the second letter received from Connell, Connell, and Ray, Mr. Chattaway had been doubly bitter against Rupert—if that were possible; and to disclose Rupert's hiding-place would only be to consign him to prison. Mr. Chattaway was another who was miserable in his home. Suspense is far worse than reality; and the present master would never realise in his own heart the evils attendant on being turned from the Hold as he was realising them now. His days were one prolonged scene of torture. Miss Diana Trevlyn partook of the general discomfort: for the first time in her life a sense of ill oppressed her. She knew nothing of the secret regarding Rupert; somewhat scornfully threw away the vague ideas imparted by the letters from Connell and Connell; and yet Miss Diana was conscious of being oppressed with a sense of ill, which weighed her down, and made life a burden.

The evil had come at last. Retribution, which they too surely invoked when they diverted God's laws of right and justice from their direct course years ago, was working itself just now. Retribution is a thing that must come; though tardy, as it had been in this case, it is sure. Look around you, you who have had much of life's experience, who may be drawing into its "sear and yellow leaf." It is impossible but that you have gathered up in the garner of your mind instances you have noted in your career. In little things and in great, the working of evil inevitably brings forth its reward. Years, and years, and years may elapse; so many, that the hour of vengeance seems to have rolled away under the glass of time; but we need never hope that, for it cannot be. In your day, ill-doer, or in your children's, it will surely come.

The agony of mind, endured now by the inmates of Trevlyn Hold, seemed sufficient punishment for a whole lifetime and its misdoings. Should they indeed be turned from it, as these mysterious letters appeared to indicate, that open, tangible punishment would be as nothing to what they were mentally enduring now. And they could not speak of their griefs one to another, and so lessen them in ever so slight a degree. Mr.

Chattaway would not speak of the dread tugging at his heart-strings—for it seemed to him that only to speak of the possibility of being driven forth, might bring it the nearer; and his unhappy wife dared not so much as breathe the name of Rupert, and the fatal secret she held.

She, Mrs. Chattaway, was puzzled more than all by these letters from Connell and Connell. Mr. Chattaway could trace their source (at least he strove to do so) to the malicious mind and pen of Rupert; but Mrs. Chattaway knew that Rupert it could not well be. Nevertheless, she had been staggered on the arrival of the second to find it explicitly stated that Rupert Trevlyn had written to announce his speedy intention of taking possession of the Hold. "Rupert had written to them!" What was she to think? If it was not Rupert, someone else must have written in his name; but who would be likely to trouble themselves now for the lost Rupert?—regarded as dead by three parts of the world. Had Rupert written? Mrs. Chattaway determined again to ask him, and to set the question so far at rest.

But she did not do this for two days after the arrival of the letter. She waited the answer which Mr. Flood wrote up to Connell and Connell, spoken of in the last chapter. As soon as that came, and she found that it explained nothing, then she resolved to question Rupert at her next stolen visit. That same afternoon, as she returned on foot from Barmester, she contrived to slip unseen into the lodge.

Rupert was sitting up. Mr. King had given it as his opinion that to lie constantly in bed, as he was doing, was worse than anything else; and in truth Rupert need not have been entirely confined to it had there been any other place for him. Old Canham's chamber opposite was still more stifling, inasmuch as the builder had forgotten to make the small window to open. Look at Rupert now, as Mrs. Chattaway enters! He has managed to struggle into his clothes, which hang upon him like sacks, and he sits uncomfortably on a small rush-bottomed chair. Rupert's back looks as if it were broken; he is bent nearly double with weakness; his lips are white, his cheeks hollow, and his poor, weak hands tremble with joy as they are feebly raised to greet Mrs. Chattaway. Think what it was for him! lying for long hours, for days, in that stifling room, a prey to his fears, sometimes seeing no one for two whole days—for it was not every evening that an opportunity could be found of entering the lodge. What with the Chattaways' passing and repassing the lodge, and Ann Canham's grumbling visitors, an entrance for those who might not be seen to enter it was not always possible. Look at poor Rupert; the lighting up of his eye, the kindling hectic of his cheek!