Trevlyn Hold Part 47

"I am afraid of Octave. I know she will be so angry. What if she should meet me with angry words?"

"Then--Maude--you will give me leave to answer her?"

"Yes. Oh yes."

"It will involve more than you think," said George, laughing at her eager tones. "I must tell her, if necessary, that I have a right to defend you."

Maude stopped in her surprise, and half drew her arm from his as she looked up at him in the starlight. His pointed tone stirred all the pulses of her heart.

"You cannot have mistaken me, Maude, this long time past," he quietly said. "If I have not spoken to you more openly; if I do not yet speak out to the world, it is that I see at present little prospect before us.

I would prefer not to speak to others until that is more a.s.sured."

Maude, in spite of the intense happiness which was rising within her, felt half sick with fear. What of the powers at Trevlyn Hold?

"Yes, there might be opposition," said George, divining her thoughts, "and the result--great unpleasantness altogether. I am independent enough to defy them, but you are not, Maude. For that reason I will not speak if I can help it. I hope Octave will not provoke me to excess."

Maude started as a thought flashed over her, and she looked up at George, a terrified expression in her face. "You _must not_ speak, George; you must not, for my sake. Were Octave only to suspect this, she----"

"Might treat you to a bowl of poison--after the stage fas.h.i.+on of the good old days," he laughed. "Maude, do you think I have been blind? I understand."

"You will be silent, then?"

"Yes," he answered, after a pause. "For the present."

They had taken the way through the fields--it was the nearest way--and George spoke of his affairs as he walked; more confidentially than he had ever in his life entered upon them to any one. That he had been in a manner sacrificed to the interests of Treve, there was no denying, and though he did not allude to it in so many words, it was impossible to ignore the fact entirely to Maude. One more term at Oxford, and Treve was to enter officially upon his occupation of Trevlyn Farm. The lease would be transferred to his name; he would be its sole master; and George must look out for another home: but until then he was bound to the farm--and bound most unprofitably. To the young, however, all things wear a hopeful _couleur-de-rose_. What would some of us give for it in after-life!

"By the spring I may be settled in a farm of my own, Maude. I have been giving a longing eye to the Upland. Its lease will be out at Lady-day, and Carteret leaves it. An unwise man in my opinion to leave a certain competency here for uncertain riches in the New World. But that is his business; not mine. I should like the Upland Farm."

Maude's breath was nearly taken away. It was the largest farm on the Trevlyn estate. "You surely would not risk that, George! What an undertaking!"

"Especially with Chattaway for a landlord, you would say. I shall take it if I can get it. The worst is, I should have to borrow money, and borrowed money weighs one down like an incubus. Witness what it did for my father. But I daresay we should manage to get along."

Maude opened her lips, wis.h.i.+ng to say something she did not quite well know how to say. "I--I fear----" and there she stopped timidly.

"What do you fear, Maude?"

"I don't know how I should ever manage in a farm," she said, feeling she ought to speak out her doubts, but blus.h.i.+ng vividly under cover of the dark night at having to do it. "I have been brought up so--so--uselessly--as regards domestic duties."

"Maude, if I thought I should marry a wife only to make her work, I should not marry at all. We will manage better than that. You have been brought up a lady; and, in truth, I should not care for my wife to be anything else. Mrs. Ryle has never done anything of the sort, you know, thanks to good Nora. And there are more Noras in the world. Shall I tell you a favourite scheme of mine, one that has been in my mind for some time now?"

She turned--waiting to hear it.

"To give a home to Rupert. You and I. We could contrive to make him happier than he is now."

Maude's heart leaped at the vision. "Oh, George! if it could only be!

How good you are! Rupert----"

"Hush, Maude!" For he had become conscious of the proximity of others walking and talking like themselves. Two voices were contending with each other; or, if not contending, speaking as if their opinions did not precisely coincide. To George's intense astonishment he recognised one of the voices as Mr. Chattaway's, and uttered a suppressed exclamation.

"It cannot be," Maude whispered. "He is miles and miles away. Even allowing that he had returned, what should bring him here?--he would have gone direct to the Hold."

But George was positive that it was Chattaway. The voices were advancing down the path on the other side the hedge, and would probably come through the gate, right in front of George and Maude. To meet Chattaway was not particularly coveted by either of them, even at the most convenient times, and just now it was not convenient at all. George drew Maude under one of the great elm trees, which overshadowed the hedge on this side.

"Just for a moment, Maude, until they have pa.s.sed. I am certain it is Chattaway!"

The gate swung open and someone came through it. Only one. Sure enough it was Chattaway. He strode onwards, muttering to himself, a brown paper parcel in his hand. But ere he had gone many steps, he halted, turned, came creeping back and stood peering over the gate at the man who was walking away. A little movement to the right, and Mr. Chattaway might have seen George and Maude standing there.

But he did not. He was grinding his teeth and working his disengaged hand, altogether too much occupied with the receding man, to pay attention to what might be around himself. Finally, his display of anger somewhat cooling down, he turned again and continued his way towards Trevlyn Hold.

"Who can it be that he is so angry with?" whispered Maude.

"Hus.h.!.+" cautioned George. "His ears are sharp."

Very still they remained until he was at a safe distance, and then they went through the gate. Almost beyond their view a tall man was pacing slowly along in the direction of Trevlyn Farm, whirling an umbrella round and round in his hand.

"Just as I thought," was George's comment to himself.

"Who is it, George?"

"That stranger who is visiting at the parsonage."

"He seemed to be quarrelling with Mr. Chattaway."

"I don't know. Their voices were loud. I wonder if Rupert has found his way to the Farm?"

"Octave forbade him to go."

"Were I Ru I should break through _her_ trammels at any rate, and show myself a man," remarked George. "He may have done so to-night."

They turned in at the garden-gate, and reached the porch. All signs of the stranger had disappeared, and sounds of merriment came from within.

George turned Maude's face to his. "You will not forget, Maude?"

"Forget what?" she shyly answered.

"That from this night we begin a new life. Henceforth we belong to each other. Maude! you will not forget!" he feverishly continued.

"I shall not forget," she softly whispered.

And, possibly by way of reminder, Mr. George, under cover of the silent porch, took his first lover's kiss from her lips.

CHAPTER XXVIII

AT DOCTORS' COMMONS