Works of Ellen Wood, page 571
“Who would have thought of seeing you at home at this hour?” she exclaimed, in the winning manner which she could put on at times, and always did put on for George Ryle.
“And in Nora’s dairy, watching her make up the butter!” he answered, laughing. “The fact is, I have an appointment with a gentleman this morning, and he is keeping me waiting, and making me angry. I can’t spare the time.”
“You look angry!” exclaimed Octave, laughing at him.
“Looks go for nothing,” returned George.
“Is your harvest nearly in?”
“If this fine weather only lasts four or five days longer, it will be all in. We have had a glorious harvest this year. I hope every one’s as thankful as I am.”
“You have some especial cause for thankfulness?” she observed.
“I have.”
She had spoken lightly, and was struck by the strangely earnest answer. George could have said that but for that harvest they might not quite so soon have discharged her father’s debt.
“When shall you hold your harvest home?”
“Next Thursday; this day week,” replied George. “Will you come to it?”
“Thank you,” said Octave. “Yes, I will.”
Had it been to save his life, George Ryle could not have helped the surprise in his eyes, as he turned them on Octave Chattaway. He had asked the question in the careless gaiety of the moment; really not intending it as an invitation. Had he proffered it in all earnestness, he never would have supposed it one to be accepted by Octave. Mr. Chattaway’s family were not in the habit of visiting at Trevlyn Farm.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” thought George. “I don’t know what Mrs. Ryle will say to this; but if she comes, some of the rest shall come also.”
It almost seemed as if Octave had divined part of his thoughts. “I must ask my aunt Ryle whether she will have me. By way of bribe, I shall tell her that I delight in harvest-homes.”
“We must have you all,” said George. “Your sisters and Maude. Treve will be home I expect, and the Apperleys will be here.”
“Who else?” asked Octave. “But I don’t know about my sisters and Maude.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Freeman. They and the Apperleys always come.”
“Our starched old parson!” uttered Octave. “He is not a favourite with us at the Hold.”
“I think he is with your mother.”
“Oh, mamma’s nobody. Of course we are civil to the Freemans, and exchange dull visits with them occasionally. You must be passably civil to the parson you sit under.”
There was a pause. Octave advanced to Nora, who had gone on diligently with her work, never turning her head, or noticing Miss Chattaway by so much as a look. Octave drew close and watched her.
“How industrious you are, Nora! — just as if you enjoyed the occupation. I should not like to soil my hands, making up butter.”
“There are some might make it up in white kid gloves,” retorted Nora. “The butter wouldn’t be any the better for it, Miss Chattaway.”
At this juncture Mrs. Ryle’s voice was heard, and Octave left the dairy in search of her. George was about to follow when Nora stopped him.
“What is the meaning of this new friendship — these morning calls and evening visits?” she asked; her eyes thrown keenly on George’s face.
“How should I know?” he carelessly replied.
“If you don’t, I do,” she said. “Can you take care of yourself, George?”
“I believe I can.”
“Then do,” said Nora, with an emphatic nod. “And don’t despise my caution: you may want it.”
He laughed in his light-heartedness: but he did not tell Nora how unnecessary her warning was.
Later in the day, George Ryle had business which took him to Blackstone. It was not an inviting ride. The place, as he drew near, had that dreary aspect peculiar to the neighbourhood of mines. Rows of black, smoky huts were to be seen, the dwellings of the men who worked in the pits; and little children ran about with naked legs and tattered clothing, their thin faces white and squalid.
“Is it the perpetual dirt they live in makes these children look so unhealthy?” thought George — a question he had asked himself a hundred times. “I believe the mothers never wash them. Perhaps think it would be superfluous, where even the very atmosphere is black.”
Black, indeed! Within George’s view at that moment might be seen high chimneys congregating in all directions, throwing out volumes of smoke and flame. Numerous works were around, connected with iron and other rich mines abounding in the neighbourhood. Valuable areas for the furtherance of civilisation, the increase of wealth; but not pleasant to the eye, as compared with green meadows and blossoming trees.
The office belonging to Mr. Chattaway’s colliery stood in a particularly dreary offshoot from the main road. It was a low but not very small building, facing the road on one side, looking to those tall chimneys and the dreary country on two of the others. On the fourth was a sort of waste ground, which appeared to contain nothing but various heaps of coal, a peculiar description of barrow, and some round shallow baskets. The building looked like a great shed; it was roofed over, and divided into partitions.
As George rode by, he saw Rupert standing at the narrow entrance door, leaning against it, as if in fatigue or idleness. Ford, the clerk, a young man accustomed to taking life easily, and to give himself little concern as to how it went, was standing near, his hands in his pockets. To see them doing nothing was sufficient to tell George that Chattaway was not about, and he rode up to the office.
“You look tired, Rupert.”
“I am tired,” answered Rupert. “If things are to go on like this, I shall grow tired of life altogether.”
“Not yet,” said George, cheeringly. “You may talk of that some fifty years hence.”
Rupert made no answer. The sunlight fell on his fair features and golden hair. There was a haggardness in those features, a melancholy in the dark blue eyes, George did not like to see. Ford, the clerk, who was humming the verse of a song, cut short the melody, and addressed George.
“He has been in this gay state all the afternoon, sir. A charming companion for a fellow! It’s a good thing I’m pretty jolly myself, or we might get consigned to the county asylum as two cases of melancholy. I hope he won’t make a night of it again, that’s all. Nothing wears out a chap like a night without bed, and no breakfast at the end of it.”
“It isn’t that,” said Rupert. “I’m sick of it altogether. There has been nothing but a row here all day, George — ask Ford. Chattaway has been on at all of us. First, he attacked me. He demanded where I slept, and I wouldn’t tell him. Next, he attacked Cris — a most unusual thing — and Cris hasn’t got over it yet. He has gone galloping off, to gallop his ill-temper away.”
“Chattaway has?”
“Not Chattaway; Cris. Cris never came here until one o’clock, and Chattaway wanted him, and a row ensued. Next, Ford came in for it: he had made a mistake in his entries. Something had uncommonly put out Chattaway — that is certain. And to improve his temper, the inspector of collieries came to-day and found fault, ordering things to be done that Chattaway says he won’t do.”
“Where’s Chattaway now?”
“Gone home. I wish I was there, without the trouble of walking,” added Rupert. “Chattaway has been ordering a load of coals to the Hold. If they were going this evening instead of to-morrow morning, I protest I’d take my seat upon them, and get home that way.”
“Are you so very tired?” asked George.
“Dead beat.”
“It’s the sitting up,” put in Ford again. “I don’t think much of that kind of thing will do for Mr. Rupert Trevlyn.”
“Perhaps it wouldn’t do for you,” grumbled Rupert.
George prepared to ride away. “Have you had any dinner, Rupert?” he asked.
“I made an attempt, but my appetite had gone by. Chattaway was here till past two o’clock, and after that I wasn’t hungry.”
“He tried some bread-and-cheese,” said Ford. “I told him if he’d get a chop I’d cook it for him; but he didn’t.”
“I must be gone,” said George. “You will not have left in half-an-hour’s time, shall you, Rupert?”
“No; nor in an hour either.”
George rode off over the stony ground, and they looked after him. Then Ford bethought himself of a message he was charged to deliver at one of the pits, and Rupert went indoors and sat down to the desk on his high stool.
Within the half-hour George Ryle was back again. He rode up to the door, and dismounted. Rupert came forward, a pen in hand.
“Are you ready to go home now, Rupert?”
Rupert shook his head. “Ford went to the pit and is not back yet; and I have a lot of writing to do. Why?”
“I thought we would have gone home together. You shall ride my horse, and I’ll walk; it will tire you less than going on foot.”
“You are very kind,” said Rupert. “Yes, I should like to ride. I was thinking just now, that if Cris were worth anything, he’d let me ride his horse home. But he’s not worth anything, and would no more let me ride his horse and walk himself, than he’d let me ride him.”
“Has Cris not gone home?”
“I fancy not. Unless he has gone by without calling in. Will you wait, George?”
“No. I must walk on. But I’ll leave you the horse. You can leave it at the Farm, Rupert, and walk the rest of the way.”
“I can ride on to the Hold, and send it back.”
George hesitated a moment. “I would rather you left it at the Farm, Rupert. It will not be far to walk after that.”
Rupert acquiesced. Did he wonder why he might not ride the horse to the Hold? George would not say, “Because even that slight attention must, if possible, be kept from Chattaway.”
He fastened the bridle to a hook in the wall, where Mr. Chattaway often tied his horse, where Cris sometimes tied his. There was a stable near; but unless they were going to remain in the office or about the pits, Mr. Chattaway and his son seldom put up their horses.
George Ryle walked away with a quick step, and Rupert returned to his desk. A quarter-of-an-hour passed on, and the clerk did not return. Rupert grew impatient for his arrival, and went to the door to look out for him. He did not see Ford; but he did see Cris Chattaway. Cris was approaching on foot, at a snail’s pace, leading his horse, which was dead lame.
“Here’s a nice bother!” called out Cris. “How I am to get back home, I don’t know.”
“What has happened?” returned Rupert.
“Can’t you see what has happened? How it happened, I am unable to tell you. All I know is, the horse fell suddenly lame, and whined like a child. Something must have run into his foot, I conclude. Whose horse is that? Why, it’s George Ryle’s,” Cris exclaimed as he drew sufficiently near to recognise it. “What brings his horse here?”
“He has lent it to me, to save my walking home,” said Rupert.
“Where is he? Here?”
“He has gone home on foot. I can’t think where Ford’s lingering,” added Rupert, walking into the yard, and mounting one of the smaller heaps of coal for a better view of the road by which Ford might be expected to arrive. “He has been gone this hour.”
Cris was walking off in the direction of the stable, carefully leading his horse. “What are you going to do with him?” asked Rupert. “To leave him in the stable?”
“Until I can get home and send the groom for him. I’m not going to cool my heels, dragging him home,” retorted Cris.
Rupert retired indoors, and sat down on the high stool. He still had some accounts to make up. They had to be done that evening; and as Ford did not come in to do them, he must. Had Ford been there, Rupert would have left him to do it, and gone home at once.
“I wonder how many years of my life I am to wear out in this lively place?” thought Rupert, after five minutes of uninterrupted attention given to his work, which slightly progressed in consequence. “It’s a shame that I should be put to it. A paid fellow at ten shillings a week would do it better than I. If Chattaway had a spark of good feeling in him, he’d put me into a farm. It would be better for me altogether, and more fitting for a Trevlyn. Catch him at it! He wouldn’t let me be my own master for — —”
A sound as of a horse trotting off interrupted Rupert’s cogitations. He came down from his stool. A thought crossed him that George Ryle’s horse might have got loose, and be speeding home riderless, at his own will and pleasure.
It was George Ryle’s horse, but not riderless. To Rupert’s intense astonishment, he saw Mr. Cris mounted on him, and leisurely riding away.
“Halloa!” called Rupert, speeding after the horse and his rider. “What are you going to do with that horse, Cris?”
Cris turned his head, but did not stop. “I’m going to ride him home. His having been left here just happens right for me.”
“You get off,” shouted Rupert. “The horse was lent to me, not to you. Do you hear, Cris?”
Cris heard, but did not stop: he was urging the horse on. “You don’t want him,” he roughly said. “You can walk, as you always do.”
Further remonstrance, further following, was useless. Rupert’s words were drowned in the echoes of the horse’s hoofs, galloping away in the distance. Rupert stood, white with anger, impotent to stop him, his hands stretched out on the empty air, as if their action could arrest the horse and bring him back again. Certainly the mortification was bitter; the circumstance precisely one of those likely to affect an excitable nature; and Rupert was on the point of going into that dangerous fit known as the Trevlyn passion, when its course was turned aside by a hand laid upon his shoulder.
He turned, it may almost be said, savagely. Ford was standing there out of breath, his good-humoured face red with the exertion of running.
“I say, Mr. Rupert, you’ll do a fellow a service, won’t you? I have had a message that my mother’s taken suddenly ill; a fit, they say, of some sort. Will you finish what there is to do here, and lock up for once, so that I can go home directly?”
Rupert nodded. In his passionate disappointment, at having to walk home when he expected to ride, at being treated as of no moment by Cris Chattaway, it seemed of little consequence to him how long he remained, or what work he had to do: and the clerk, waiting for no further permission, sped away with a fleet foot. Rupert’s face was losing its deathly whiteness — there is no whiteness like that born of passion or of sudden terror; and when he sat down again to the desk, the hectic flush of reaction was shining in his cheeks and lips.
Well, oh, well for him, could these dangerous fits of passion have been always arrested on the threshold, as this had been arrested now! The word is used advisedly: they brought nothing less than danger in their train.
But, alas! this was not to be.
CHAPTER XVII
DEAD BEAT
Nora was at some business or other in the fold-yard, when the servant at Trevlyn Hold more especially devoted to the service of Cris Chattaway entered the gate with George Ryle’s horse. As he passed Nora on his way to the stables, she turned, and the man spoke.
“Mr. Ryle’s horse, ma’am. Shall I take it on?”
“You know the way,” was Nora’s short answer. She did not regard the man with any favour, reflecting upon him, in her usual partial fashion, the dislike she entertained for his master and Trevlyn Hold in general. “Mr. Trevlyn has sent it, I suppose.”
“Mr. Trevlyn!” repeated the groom, betraying some surprise.
Now, it was a fact that at Trevlyn Hold Rupert was never called “Mr. Trevlyn.” That it was his proper title was indisputable; but Mr. Chattaway had as great a dislike to hear Rupert called by it as he had a wish to hear himself styled “the Squire.” At the Hold, Rupert was “Mr. Rupert” only, and the neighbourhood generally had fallen into the same familiar mode when speaking of him. Nora supposed the man’s repetition of the name had insolent reference to this; as much as to say, “Who’s Mr. Trevlyn?”
“Yes, Mr. Trevlyn,” she resumed in sharp tones of reprimand. “He is Mr. Trevlyn, Sam Atkins, and you know he is, however some people may wish it forgotten. He is not Mr. Rupert, and he is not Mr. Rupert Trevlyn, but he is Mr. Trevlyn; and if he had his rights, he’d be Squire Trevlyn. There! you may go and tell your master that I said so.”
Sam Atkins, a civil, quiet young fellow, was overpowered with astonishment at Nora’s burst of eloquence. “I’m not saying naught against it, ma’am,” cried he, when he had sufficiently recovered. “But Mr. Rupert didn’t send me with the horse at all. It was young Mr. Chattaway.”
“What had he to do with it?” resentfully asked Nora.
“He rode it home from Blackstone.”
“He rode it? Cris Chattaway!”
“Yes,” said the groom. “He has just got home now, and told me to bring the horse back at once.”
Nora desired the man to take the horse to the stable, and went indoors. She could not understand it. When George returned home on foot, and she inquired what he had done with his horse, he told her that he had left it at Blackstone for Rupert Trevlyn. To hear now that Cris had reaped the benefit of it, and not Rupert, excited Nora’s indignation. But the indignation would have increased fourfold had she known that Mr. Cris had ridden the horse hard and made a détour of some five miles out of his way, to transact a private matter of business of his own. She went straight to George, who was seated at tea with Mrs. Ryle.
“Mr. George, I thought you told me you had left your horse at Blackstone for Rupert Trevlyn, to save his walking home?”
“So I did,” replied George.
“Then it’s Cris Chattaway who has come home on it. I’d see him far enough before he should have the use of my horse!”
“It can’t be,” returned George. “You must be mistaken, Nora; Cris had his own horse there.”
“You can go and ask for yourself,” rejoined Nora, crustily, not at all liking to be told she was mistaken. “Sam Atkins is putting the horse in the stable, and says Cris Chattaway rode it from Blackstone.”
