Works of Ellen Wood, page 589
“No, sir, we saw nothing,” was the reply of the man addressed. “Mr. Ryle’s lad, Jim Sanders, came for us. I never see a chap in such commotion; he a’most got the engine ready himself.”
The mention of Jim Sanders caused a buzz around. Bridget’s assertion that the offender was Rupert Trevlyn had been whispered and commented upon; and if some were found to believe the whisper, others scornfully rejected it. There was Mr. Chattaway’s assertion also; but Mr. Chattaway’s ill-will to Rupert was remembered that night, and the assertion was doubtfully received. A meddlesome voice interrupted the fireman.
“Jim Sanders! why ’twas he fired it. There ain’t no doubt he did. Little wonder he seemed frighted.”
“Did he fire it?” interrupted Farmer Apperley, eagerly. “What, Jim? Why, what possessed him to do such a thing? I met him just now, looking frightened out of his life, and he laid the guilt on Rupert Trevlyn.”
“Hush, Mr. Apperley!” whispered a voice at his elbow, and the farmer turned to see George Ryle. The latter, with an almost imperceptible movement, directed his attention to the right: the livid face of Mrs. Chattaway. As one paralysed stood she, her hands clasped as she listened.
“Yes, it was Mr. Rupert,” protested Bridget, with a sob. “Jim Sanders told me he watched Mr. Rupert thrust the lighted torch into the rick. He seemed not to know what he was about, Jim said; seemed to do it in madness.”
“Hold your tongue, Bridget,” interposed a sharp commanding voice. “Have I not desired you already to do so? It is not upon the hearsay evidence of Jim Sanders that you can accuse Mr. Rupert.”
The speaker was Miss Diana Trevlyn. In good truth, Miss Diana did not believe Rupert could have been guilty of the act. It had been disclosed that the torch in the rick-yard belonged to Jim Sanders, had been brought there by him, and she deemed that fact suspicious against Jim. Miss Diana had arrived unwillingly at the conclusion that Jim Sanders had set the rick on fire by accident; and in his fright had accused Rupert, to screen himself. She imparted her view of the affair to Mr. Apperley.
“Like enough,” was the response of Mr. Apperley. “Some of these boys have no more caution in ’em than if they were children of two years old. But what could have put Rupert into such a state? If anybody ever looked insane, he did to-night.”
“When?” asked Miss Diana, eagerly, and Mrs. Chattaway pressed nearer with her troubled countenance.
“It was just before I came up here. I was on my way to Bluck’s and someone with a white face, breathless and panting, broke through the hedge right across my path. I did not know him at first; he didn’t look a bit like Rupert; but when I saw who it was, I tried to stop him, and asked what was the matter. He shook me off, went over the opposite hedge like a wild animal, and there tore about the field. If he had been an escaped lunatic from the county asylum, he couldn’t have run at greater speed.”
“Did he say nothing?” a voice interrupted.
“Not a word,” replied the farmer. “He seemed unable to speak. Well, before I had digested that shock, there came another, flying up in the same mad state, and that was Jim Sanders. I stopped him. Nearly at the same time, or just before it, I had seen a light shoot up into the sky. Jim said as well as he could speak for fright, that the rick-yard was on fire, and Mr. Rupert had set it alight.”
“At all events, the mischief seems to lie between them,” remarked some voices around.
There would have been no time for this desultory conversation — at least, for the gentlemen’s share in it — but that the fire-engine had put a stop to their efforts. It had planted itself on the very spot where the line had been formed, scattering those who had taken part in it, and was rapidly getting itself into working order. The flames were shooting up terribly now, and Mr. Chattaway was rushing here, there, and everywhere, in his frantic but impotent efforts to subdue them. He was not insured.
George Ryle approached Mrs. Chattaway, and bent over her, a strange tone of kindness in his every word: it seemed to suggest how conscious he was of the great sorrow that was coming upon her. “I wish you would let me take you indoors,” he whispered. “Indeed it is not well for you to be here.”
“Where is he?” she gasped, in answer. “Could you find him, and remove him from danger?”
A sure conviction had been upon her from the very moment that her husband had avowed his chastisement of Rupert — the certainty that it was he, Rupert, and no other who had done the mischief. Her own brothers — but chiefly her brother Rupert — had been guilty of one or two acts almost as mad in their passion. He could not help his temper, she reasoned — some, perhaps, may say wrongly; and if Mr. Chattaway had provoked him by that sharp, insulting punishment, he, more than Rupert, was in fault.
“I would die to save him, George,” she whispered. “I would give all I am worth to save him from the consequences. Mr. Chattaway says he will prosecute him to the last.”
“I am quite sure you will be ill if you stay here,” remonstrated George, for she was shivering from head to foot; not, however, with cold, but with emotion. “I will go with you to the house, and talk to you there.”
“To the house!” she repeated. “Do you suppose I could remain in the house to-night? Look at them; they are all out here.”
She pointed to her children; to the women-servants. It was even so: all were out there. Mr. Chattaway, in passing, had once or twice sharply demanded what they, a pack of women, did in such a scene, and the women had drawn away at the rebuke, but only to come forward again. Perhaps it was not in human nature to keep wholly away from that region of excitement.
A half-exclamation of fear escaped Mrs. Chattaway’s lips, and she pressed a few steps onwards.
Holding a close and apparently private conference with Mr. Apperley, was Bowen, the superintendent of the very slight staff of police stationed in the place. As a general rule, these rustic districts are too peaceable to require much supervision from the men in blue.
“Mr. Apperley, you will not turn against him!” she implored, from between her fevered and trembling lips; and in good truth, Mrs. Chattaway gave indications of being almost as much beside herself that night as the unhappy Rupert. “Is Bowen asking you where you saw Rupert, that he may go and search for him? Do not you turn against him!”
“My dear, good lady, I haven’t a thing to tell,” returned Mr. Apperley, looking at her in surprise, for her manner was strange. “Bowen heard me say, as others heard, that Mr. Rupert was in the Brook field when I came from it. But I have nothing else to tell of him; and he may not be there now. It’s hardly likely he would be.”
Mrs. Chattaway lifted her white face to Bowen. “You will not take him?” she imploringly whispered.
The man shook his head — he was an intelligent officer, much respected in the neighbourhood — and answered her in the same low tone. “I can’t help myself, ma’am. When charges are given to us, we are obliged to take cognisance of them, and to arrest, if need be, those implicated.”
“Has this charge been given you?”
“Yes, this half-hour ago. I was up here almost with the breaking out of the flames, for I happened to be close by, and Mr. Chattaway made his formal complaint to me, and put it in my care.”
Her heart sank within her. “And you are looking for him?”
“Chigwell is,” replied the superintendent, alluding to a constable. “And Dumps has gone after Jim Sanders.”
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed a voice at her elbow. It was that of George Ryle; and Mrs. Chattaway turned in amazement. But George’s words had not borne reference to her, or to anything she was saying.
“It is beginning to rain,” he exclaimed. “A fine, steady rain would do us more good than the engines. What does that noise mean?”
A murmur of excitement had arisen on the opposite side of the rick-yard, and was spreading as fast as did the flame. George looked in vain for its cause: he was very tall, and raised himself on tiptoe to see the better: as yet without result.
But not for long. The cause soon showed itself. Pushing his way through the rick-yard, pale, subdued, quiet now, came Rupert Trevlyn. Not in custody; not fettered; not passionate; only very worn and weary, as if he had undergone some painful amount of fatigue. It was only that the fit of passion had left him; he was worn-out, powerless. In the days gone by it had so left his uncle Rupert.
Mr. Bowen walked up, and laid his hand upon his shoulder. “I am sorry to do it, sir,” he said, “but you are my prisoner.”
“I can’t help it,” wearily responded Rupert.
But what brought Rupert Trevlyn back into the very camp of the Philistines? In his terrible passion, he had partly fallen to the ground, partly flung himself down in the field where Mr. Apperley saw him, and there lay until the passion abated. After a time he sat up, bent his head upon his knees, and revolved what had passed. How long he might have stayed there, it is impossible to say, but that shouts and cries in the road aroused him, and he looked up to see that red light, and men running in its direction. He went and questioned them. “The rick-yard at the Hold was on fire!”
An awful consciousness came across him that it was his work. It is a fact, that he did not positively remember what he had done: that is, had no clear recollection of it. Giving no thought to the personal consequences — any more than an hour before he had measured the effects of his work — he began to hasten to the Hold as fast as his depressed physical state would permit. If he had created that flame, it was only fair he should do what he could towards putting it out.
The clouds cleared, and the rain did not fulfil its promise as George Ryle had fondly hoped. But the little engine from Barbrook did good service, and the flames were not spreading over the whole rick-yard. Later, the two great Barmester engines thundered up, and gave their aid towards extinguishing the fire.
And Rupert Trevlyn was in custody for having caused it!
CHAPTER XXXVIII
NORA’S DIPLOMACY
Amidst all the human beings collected in and about the burning rick-yard of Trevlyn Hold, perhaps no one was so utterly miserable, not even excepting the unhappy Rupert, as its mistress, Mrs. Chattaway. He stood there in custody for a dark crime; a crime for which the punishment only a few short years before would have been the extreme penalty of the law; he whom she had so loved. In her chequered life she had experienced moments of unhappiness than which she had thought no future could exceed in intensity; but had all those moments been concentrated into one dark and dreadful hour, it could not have equalled the trouble of this. Her vivid imagination leaped over the present, and held up to view but one appalling picture of the future — Rupert working in chains. Poor, unhappy, wronged Rupert! whom they had kept out of his rights; whom her husband had now by his ill-treatment goaded to the ungovernable passion which was the curse of her family: and this was the result.
Every pulse of her heart beating with its sense of terrible wrong; every chord of love for Rupert strung to its utmost tension; every fear that an excitable imagination can depict within her, Mrs. Chattaway leaned against the palings in utter faintness of spirit. Her ears took in with unnatural quickness the comments around. She heard some hotly avowing their belief that Rupert was not guilty, except in the malicious fancy of Mr. Chattaway; heard them say that Chattaway was scared and startled that past day when he found Rupert was alive, instead of dead, down in the mine: even the more moderate observed that after all it was only Jim Sanders’s word for it; and if Jim did not appear to confirm it, Mr. Rupert must be held innocent.
The wonder seemed to be, where was Jim? He had not reappeared on the scene, and his absence certainly looked suspicious. In moments of intense fear, the mind receives the barest hint vividly and comprehensively, and Mrs. Chattaway’s heart bounded within her at that whispered suggestion. If Jim Sanders did not appear Rupert must be held innocent. Was there no possibility of keeping Jim back? By persuasion — by stratagem — by force, even, if necessary? The blood mounted to her pale cheek at the thought, red as the lurid flame which lighted up the air. At that moment she saw George Ryle hastening across the yard near to her and glided towards him. He turned at her call.
“You see! They have taken Rupert!”
“Do not distress yourself, dear Mrs. Chattaway,” he answered. “I wish you could have been persuaded not to remain in this scene: it is altogether unfit for you.”
“George,” she gasped, “do you believe he did it?”
George Ryle did believe it. He had heard about the horsewhipping; and aware of that mad passion called the Trevlyn temper, he could not do otherwise than believe it.
“Ah, don’t speak!” she interrupted, perceiving his hesitation. “I see you condemn him, as some around us are condemning him. But,” she added, with feverish eagerness, “there is only the word of Jim Sanders against him. They are saying so.”
“Very true,” replied George, heartily desiring to give her all the comfort he could. “Mr. Jim must make good his words before we can condemn Rupert.”
“Jim Sanders has always been looked upon as truthful,” interposed Octave Chattaway, who had drawn near. Surely it was ill-natured to say so at that moment, however indisputable the fact might be!
“It has yet to be proved that Jim made the accusation,” said George, replying to Octave. “Although Bridget asserts it, it is not obliged to be fact. And even if Jim did say it, he may have been mistaken. He must show that he was not mistaken before the magistrates to-morrow, or the charge will fall to the ground.”
“And Rupert be released?” added Mrs. Chattaway eagerly.
“Certainly. At least, I suppose so.”
He passed on his way; Octave went back to where she had been standing, and Mrs. Chattaway remained alone, buried in thought.
A few minutes, and she glided out of the yard. With stealthy steps, and eyes that glanced fearfully around her, she escaped by degrees beyond the crowd, and reached the open field. Then, turning an angle at a fleet pace, she ran against some one who was coming as swiftly up. A low cry escaped her. It seemed to her that the mere fact of being encountered like this, was sufficient to betray the wild project she had conceived. Conscience is very suggestive.
But it was only Nora Dickson: and Nora in a state of wrath. When the alarm of fire reached Trevlyn Farm, its inmates had hastened to the scene with one accord, leaving none in the house but Nora and Mrs. Ryle. Mrs. Ryle, suffering from some temporary indisposition, was in bed, and Nora, consequently, had to stay and take care of the house, doing violence to her curiosity. She stood leaning over the gate, watching the people hasten by to the excitement from which she was excluded; and when the Barbrook engine thundered past, Nora’s anger was unbounded. She felt half inclined to lock up the house, and start in the wake of the engine; the fierce if innocent anathemas she hurled at the head of the truant Nanny were something formidable; and when that damsel at length returned, Nora would have experienced the greatest satisfaction in shaking her. But the bent of her indignation changed; for Nanny, before Nora had had time to say so much as a word, burst forth with the news she had gathered at the Hold. Rupert Trevlyn fired the hay-rick because Mr. Chattaway had horsewhipped him.
Nora’s breath was taken away: wrath for her own grievance merged in the greater wrath she felt for Rupert’s sake. Horsewhipped him? That brute of a Chattaway had horsewhipped Rupert Trevlyn? A burning glow rushed over her as she listened; a resentful denial broke from her lips: but Nanny persisted in her statement. Chattaway had locked out Rupert the previous night, and Madam, unknown to her husband, admitted him: Chattaway had demanded of Rupert who let him in, but Rupert, fearing to compromise Madam, refused to tell, and then Chattaway used the horsewhip.
Nora waited to hear no more. She started off to the Hold in her indignation; not so much now to take part in the bustling scene, or to indulge her curiosity, as to ascertain the truth of this shameful story. Rupert could scarcely have felt more indignant pain at the chastisement, than Nora at hearing it. Close to the outer gate of the fold-yard, she encountered Mrs. Chattaway.
A short explanation ensued. Nora, forgetting possibly that it was Mrs. Chattaway to whom she spoke, broke into a burst of indignation at Mr. Chattaway, a flood of sympathy for Rupert. It told Mrs. Chattaway that she might trust her, and her delicate fingers entwined themselves nervously around Nora’s stronger ones in her hysterical emotion.
“It must have been done in a fit of the Trevlyn temper, Nora,” she whispered imploringly, as if beseeching Nora’s clemency. “The temper was born with him, you know, and he could not help that — and to be horsewhipped is a terrible thing.”
If Nora felt inclined to doubt the report before, these words dispelled the doubt, and brought a momentary shock. Nora was not one to excuse or extenuate a crime so great as that of wilfully setting fire to a rick-yard: to all who have to do with farms, it is especially abhorrent, and Nora was no exception to the rule; but in this case by some ingenious sophistry of her own, she did shift the blame from Rupert’s shoulders, and lay it on Mr. Chattaway’s; and she again expressed her opinion of that gentleman’s conduct in very plain terms.
“He is in custody, Nora!” said Mrs. Chattaway with a shiver. “He is to be examined to-morrow before the magistrates, and they will either commit him for trial, or release him, according to the evidence. Should he be tried and condemned for it, the punishment might be penal servitude for life!”
“Heaven help him!” ejaculated Nora in her dismay at this new feature presented to her view. “That would be a climax to his unhappy life!”
“But if they can prove nothing against him to-morrow, the magistrates will not commit him,” resumed Mrs. Chattaway. “There’s nothing to prove it but Jim Sanders’s word: and — Nora,” — she feverishly added— “perhaps we can keep Jim back?”
