Chetwynd Calverley. Ainsworth William Harrison

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a minute, Mr. Carteret, I beg of you!” cried Chetwynd. “I am yet in hopes that I may move him. Let me make one more appeal to your sense of justice, sir!” he added to his father. “I promise you it shall be the last!”

      “I cannot listen to you!” replied Mr. Calverley.

      “You refuse, then, to alter your will?”

      “Positively refuse!” rejoined the old gentleman. “For heaven’s sake let me die in peace! Can you not prevail on him to go,” he added to his wife and daughter. “He will kill me outright!”

      “You hear what your father says!” cried Mrs. Calverley, in an authoritative tone. “Go, I command you!”

      “Yes, I will go,” rejoined Chetwynd; “but not at your bidding! You are the sole cause of this misunderstanding between my father and myself. By your arts you have cheated me out of my inheritance!”

      “Ah!” ejaculated Mrs. Calverley.

      “This is madness!” exclaimed Mr. Carteret, trying to drag him from the room.

      “Hear my last, words, sir!” cried Chetwynd to his father. “I never will touch a shilling of your money if it is to be doled out to me by this woman!”

      And he rushed out of the room.

      V. THE OLD BUTLER

      Pushing aside the attorney’s clerk, whom he found on the landing, he hurried downstairs, and had just snatched up his hat in the hall, when he perceived the old butler eyeing him wistfully.

      He had a great regard for this faithful old servant, whom he had known since he was a boy, so he went up to him, and patting him kindly on the shoulder, said —

      “Good-bye, dear old Norris. I don’t mean to remain a minute longer in my father’s house, and I may never return to it. Farewell, old friend!”

      “You shan’t go out thus, sir, unless you knock me down,” rejoined Norris, detaining him. “You’ll do yourself a mischief. No one is in the dining-room. Please to go in there. I want to have a few words with you – to reason with you.”

      And he tried to draw him towards the room in question; but Chetwynd resisted.

      “Reason with me!” he exclaimed. “I know what you’ll say, Norris. You’ll advise me to make it up with my father, and bow the knee to my stepmother; but I’ll die rather!”

      “Mr. Chetwynd, it’s a chance if your father is alive to-morrow morning. Think of that, and what your feelings will be when he’s gone. You’ll reproach yourself then, sir, for I know you’ve a good heart. I’ve got you out of many a scrape when you were a boy, and I’m persuaded something may be done now, if you’ll only condescend to listen to me.”

      “Well, I’ll stay a few minutes on purpose to talk to you. But I hear Carteret coming downstairs. I don’t want to meet him. I don’t want to meet anybody – not even my sister.”

      “Then I’ll tell you what to do, sir. Go up the back staircase to your own room. It’s just as you left it. No one will know you’re here. I’ll come to you as soon as I can.”

      And he almost forced him through a folding-door into a passage communicating with the back staircase.

      Chetwynd had disappeared before the attorney and his clerk reached the hall; but Mr. Carteret stopped for a moment to speak to the old butler.

      “Ah, we’ve had a frightful scene, Norris!” he said. “It will surprise me if the old gentleman survives it. I suppose Mr. Chetwynd is gone?”

      “I really can’t say, sir. He was here a few minutes ago.”

      “Looking rather wild, eh?”

      “I’m sure he looked wild enough when he passed me just now,” observed the clerk. “I thought he’d have thrown me over the banisters.”

      “Serve you right, too!” muttered Norris.

      “Nothing could be more injudicious, and, I may add, more unfeeling, than his conduct to his father,” remarked Carteret.

      “I’m sorry to hear it,” said the butler; “but you must make some allowance for him.”

      “I can make every allowance,” rejoined the attorney. “But no good purpose can be answered by such violence as he gave way to. On the contrary, irreparable harm is done.”

      “Not irreparable harm, I hope, sir?”

      “I very much fear so. He used language towards Mrs. Calverley that I don’t think she will ever forgive It’s of the last importance that he should be set right with her. Should you see him before he goes, tell him so.”

      “I will, sir – if I do see him. There’s master’s bell. Excuse me; I must go upstairs.”

      “Don’t mind me, Norris. I can let myself out. As I drive back, at Mrs. Calverley’s request, I shall call on Doctor Spencer, and send him to see Mr. Calverley at once. That will save time.”

      “Very good, sir,” replied the butler.

      And he flew upstairs; while Mr. Carteret and his clerk went out at the front door.

      “Has anybody just left the house, Edward?” inquired Mr. Carteret of his groom, who was waiting with the phaeton near the door.

      “No, sir,” replied the man.

      “I fancied he was not gone,” thought the attorney. “I am glad I spoke to Norris.”

      VI. SELF-EXAMINATION

      Chetwynd had become more tranquillised since he entered the room that had once belonged to him – and that might be said to belong to him still – since it had always been kept for him.

      A comfortable bed-chamber, with windows looking upon the garden. Night was now coming on, but it was still light enough to see every object in the room, and Chetwynd examined them with interest – almost with emotion.

      The furniture was precisely the same he had left; the narrow iron bed, without curtains, and covered with an eider-down quilt – the easy-chair on which he used to sit and smoke – the books on the shelf and the prints on the walls, were still there, as of yore. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed.

      When he last occupied that room Teresa was his father’s ward, and believing himself in love with her, he indulged in dreams of future happiness – for there seemed no obstacle to their union.

      Now, all was gone. Teresa had become hateful to him. Yet, somehow or other, her image was associated with the room.

      Throwing open the windows, he looked out into the garden, and, after listening to the singing of the birds, sat down in the easy-chair, and tried to lay out a plan for the future.

      Impossible! His mind was much too confused for the task. He could decide on nothing. Never having done anything during his life but amuse himself, he had no idea what he should have to do when thrown upon his own resources.

      Compelled to examine himself, he found his knowledge of business exceedingly limited. However, he had СКАЧАТЬ