Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  So William, having no excuses, did walk over to Revington to dine. There was almost a pain at his heart as he paused for a moment at the stile, only one field away, and saw pretty Vi on the dark green grass, looking at the flowers, with little Psyche frisking beside her, and the kindly old front of Gilroyd Hall, and its lofty chestnuts in the sad evening light, and he sighed, thinking— “Why won’t things stay as they are, as they were? What is the drift of this perpetual mutation? Is it really progress? Do we improve? Don’t we” (he would have said Violet?) “grow more selfish and less high-minded? It is all a beautiful decay, and the end is death.”

  Violet was plainly intent on her flowers; she had her hoe and her rake, and her movements somehow were so pretty that, unseen, he paused for another moment.

  “It is a blessed thing to have so little affection as that pretty creature; old times are nothing for her, and I, like a fool, yearn after them. The future for her no doubt looks all brilliant; for me it is a story, to the end of which I dare not look, and the pleasant past is a volume shut up and over; she is little Vi and Violet no longer, and even Miss Darkwell will very soon be like the song of a dead bird — a note only remembered; and I suppose I shall bring back the news tonight, a message from Mr. Vane Trevor, of Revington, to say that he lays his heart and his title-deeds at her feet. It’s all over: I look on it as all settled.”

  Just at these words the edge of the red sun sank behind the hills, and the last level beams of sunset gave place to the tender gray of twilight, except on the uplands of Revington, where they lingered for a few seconds.

  “Ay,” said William allegorising; “the shade for William Maubray; the golden light of life for Vane Trevor!

  Vane Trevor of Revington! William Maubray of —— nothing at all! — charming contrast.”

  And looking still on Gilroyd Hall, and the fading image of Violet Darkwell and Psyche frisking about, no longer white, but a moving gray spot on the sloping grass, he said, touching his fingertips to his lip, and waving them lightly towards her, “Goodbye, little Vi; goodbye, wicked little Vi; goodbye, dear, wicked little Vi, and may God bless you, you darling!”

  So with a sigh he turned and walked up to Revington. It is a good ancestral looking place, only a little too large for the estate as it now is. The Trevors had parted from time to time with many acres, and a house upon a scale which would have corresponded with three times their income, was rather a tax upon what remained.

  “I never liked this place,” thought William as the iron gate clanged behind him; “I always thought it gloomy, and stingy, and pompous. I wish he had let this dinner alone, I’d have been pleasanter at home, though it’s as well, perhaps, to hear what he has to say.

  I think he has something to say; but, hang it, why could not he tell it as well at Gilroyd, and to the people it concerns? why need he bring me this stupid walk up his hill?” And William as he talked was switching the laurel leaves at his side with his cane, and leaving here and there half a leaf or a whole one on the gravel, and sometimes half a dozen — not quite unconsciously; there was something of defiance, I am afraid, in this trespass.

  William came in the hall was not lighted; he was received in the dusk by a serious and rather broad gentleman in black, who took his hat and cane with a bow, led him through an anteroom, illuminated dismally by a single lamp, and announced his name at the drawing room, where Vane Trevor received him, advancing from the hearthrug to the middle of the room, in an unexceptionable evening toilet, and in French boots, and shook hands with just a little inclination which implied something of state, though smilingly performed.

  Mr. Trevor was very conscious of the extent of the mansion of Revington, of the scale of the rooms, of the pictures, and in short of everything that was grand about him.

  William was a little disgusted and rather uncomfortable, and ate his soup, and cutlets, and kickshaws, gloomily, while Trevor, leaning upon his elbow, talked away with a conscious superiority that was at once depressing and irritating.

  They had a jug of claret — not the best even in Trevor’s cellar, I am afraid — after dinner, and sat facing the fire, and sipping that nectar.

  “Snug little room this,” said Trevor, looking along the ceiling with his napkin over his knee, and his claret glass in his fingers. “It isn’t the parlour, only a sort of breakfast-room. The parlour, you know, is a — it’s considered a handsome room. Thirty-five feet by twenty.”

  “Yes, I know,” said William, with a dry carelessness.

  “Ah! well, yes — I dare say. A good many people — it’s an old place, rather — do know something about Revington.”

  “Especially those who have lived the greater part of ‘their lives within half a mile of it,” rejoined William.

  “Ah, ha! — yes; to be sure; I forgot you have been so constantly at Gilroyd. What a nice little bit of a thing it is. I could fancy growing quite in love with it — isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said William, shortly, and filled his glass, and drank it in a hurry. He fancied that Trevor was about to come to the point.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  OVER THEIR CLARET.

  “GREAT fun, croquet, isn’t it? Awful fun with pretty girls,” exclaimed Vane Trevor, rising, and standing on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and his glass in his hand, and simpering agreeably with his chin in the air. “I think it capital fun, I know. There’s so much cheating — ha, ha! — isn’t there? — and such lots of — of — whispering and conspiring — and — and — all that sort of thing, you know; and the girls like it awfully. At Torhampton we had capital games, and such glorious ground. Do you know the Torhamptons?”

  “The Marquess? — no, of course I don’t; how should I?” said William with a little laugh of disgust.

  “Oh! well, I thought a — but Lady Louisa, she is so sweetly pretty; I was told off pretty often to play with her and we had such fun knocking the fellows about. Capital player and awfully clever — they’re all clever — one of the cleverest families in England they’re thought; the old lady is so witty — you can’t imagine — and such a pleasant party staying there. I was almost the only fellow not a swell, by Jove, among them,” and he ran his eye along his handsome cornices, with a sort of smile that seemed to say something different. “I fancy they wish to be civil, however, from something Lady Fanny said — I rather fancy they have an idea of putting up Lord Edward — you know, for the county, but don’t let that go further, and I suppose they thought I might be of use. Won’t you have some more claret?”

  “I don’t know them — I don’t understand these things; I don’t care if all the Marquesses in England were up the chimney,” said William, cynically, throwing himself back in his chair, with his hands in his pockets, and looking sulkily into the fire.

  “Well — ha, ha! — that need not prevent your filling your glass, eh?” laughed Trevor, graciously and in dulgently, as though he belonged himself to that order of Marquesses of whom Maubray spoke so slightly, and forgave him.

  “Thanks; I will,” and so he did, and sipped a little; and after a little silence he asked with a surly quietude, “And why don’t you marry that lady — what’s her name —— Louisa — if she liked you?”

  “It doesn’t follow that she likes me, and you know there are difficulties; and even if she did, it does not follow that I like her; don’t you see?” and he cackled in gay self-complacency; “that is, of course, I mean liking in the way you mean.”

  Again this desultory conversation flagged for a little time, and Trevor, leaning on the chimneypiece, and looking down on William, remarked profoundly —

  “It’s odd — isn’t it? — when you come to think of it, how few things follow from one another; I’ve observed it in conversation — almost nothing, by Jove!”

  “Nothing from nothing, and nothing remains,” said William drowsily, to the fire, repeating his old arithmetical formula.

  “And about marrying and that sort of thing; seriously, you know — your glass is empty a
gain; do have some more.”

  So William poured a little into his glass and his heart seemed to stop and listen, although he looked as if he only half heard, and was weary of the subject.

  “And as we were saying, about marrying — and, by-the-bye, Maubray, it’s the sort of thing would just answer you, a quiet fellow — why don’t you think about it, old fellow, eh?”

  It was a way Trevor had of always forgetting those little differences of circumstance which, in contrast, redounded to his importance, and he asked such questions, of course, quite innocently.

  “You know very well I couldn’t,” said William, poking the fire, unbidden, with a few angry stabs. “How the devil can a fellow marry in college, and without a shilling?”

  “Ah, ah, it isn’t quite so bad; come! But of course there is a difference, and, as you say, there’s lots of time to look about — only if a fellow is really spooney on a girl — I mean awfully spooney, the big wigs say, don’t they? — the best thing a fellow going to the bar can do is to marry, and have a wife and lots of babbies — it makes them work so hard — doesn’t it? You’re going to the bar, you say, and that is the way to get on, eh?”

  “I’m glad there’s any way, but I don’t mean to try that,” murmured William, a little bitterly, and after a pause, during which who knows what a dance his fancy led him? “I know that sort of talk very well; but I never could see what right a fellow has to carry off a poor girl to his den merely that her hunger, and misery, and cries may stimulate him to get on at the bar; and the fact is, some fellows are slaves, and some can do just as they please; and life is damnably bitter for some, and very pleasant for others, and that’s the whole story; you can marry whenever you please, and I can’t.”

  “I’m afraid it’s a true bill,” said Trevor, complacently; whereupon there issued a silence, and twice and again was William Maubray moved to break it with a question, and as often his voice seemed to fail him. At last, however, he did say, quite quietly —

  “And why don’t you marry, if you think it so good a thing?”

  Was it something in William’s tone and air, although he was trying his best to seem quite unconcerned, that elicited the quick, and somewhat cunning glance that Trevor shot on him?

  At all events Trevor’s manner became a little diplomatic and reserved.

  “Why don’t I? Oh! fifty reasons — a hundred. There art all sorts of difficulties; I don’t mean, of course, anything mysterious — or that sort of bosh: this house and the property, everyone knows, are very well. I’ve been four years in possession, and I’ve no fault to find with Revington — either tenants or this,” and he nodded towards the ceiling, indicating that he meant the house.

  “But — you know — for a fellow like me; we’ve been here, you know, a long time: there was a Trevor here in Henry the Fifth’s time — but you know more history than I do.”

  Trevor considered his family and his domicile as a part of English history, and William, who was in an unpleasant mood just then, said —

  “And the estate was larger, wasn’t it?”

  “Ah, ha — yes certainly — that is, there was another estate,” acquiesced Trevor, eagerly, but looking a little put out. “The Torhamptons, by-the-bye, have got it now; a marriage, or something.”

  “A purchase, I thought,” insisted Maubray.

  “A purchase! very likely. It does not signify sixpence if the thing’s gone, and gone it is. But you see, having been here for a longer time, I’m afraid, than you and I are likely to live; and having a sort of place among the people — you understand — a kind of a — quite undeserved — only because we have been here so long — that sort of an influence — or whatever it is — a fellow isn’t as free as you’d fancy. By Jove! he’s tied up, I can tell you; horribly tied up. A poor devil like me. Egad, he’s not like a man with an income out of the funds — there’s that sort of thing, I suppose it is the shadow — don’t you see — of the old feudal thing, but so it is. There’s a sort of rural opinion, a kind of loyalty, in a very small way, of course; but it is that sort of feeling — and there’s no use, you know, in blinking it; and a fellow has to consider, you know, how his tenants and people would receive it; and — ask anyone — you can’t conceive how a fellow’s hampered, really hampered, now.”

  “Do you really think they care a farthing?” asked Maubray.

  “Care! You’ve no idea,” exclaimed his friend.

  “Well, when I make my fortune, I’ll keep it in the funds,” said Maubray.

  “I strongly advise you,” said Trevor, with admirable solemnity. “Have some coffee? And — here’s curacoa.”

  “When will he talk about Vi?” thought William, as he set down his coffee cup; “he can’t have brought me here to dinner merely to hear that pompous lecture.”

  And indeed, it seemed to William that Trevor had something more to say, but did not know how to begin it

  CHAPTER XVII.

  MOONSHINE.

  AND now, for they kept early hours at Gilroyd, William, with a peep at his watch, declared he must go, and Trevor popped on his fez and produced his cigars, and he set out with Maubray, in the moonlight, to see his friend out of the grounds.

  As they walked down the slope, with the thick chestnuts of Gilroyd Hall and two of its chimneys full in view — the misty lights and impenetrable shadows of moonlight — and all the familiar distances translated into such soft and airy outline — the landscape threw them, I dare say, somewhat into musing, and that sort of sympathy with the pensive moods of nature which has, time out of mind, made moonlight the lamp of lovers. And some special associations of the scenery induced them to smoke on in silence for some time, insensibly slackening their pace, the night scene was so well worth lingering over.

  “And your cousin — isn’t she? — down there, how awfully pretty she is,” said Trevor, at last, lowering his cigar between his fingers.

  “Cousin? I suppose we’re all cousins in some roundabout way related — I don’t know how, Yes, she is — she’s very pretty,”

  “Darkwell: connected, are they, with the Darkwells of Shropshire?” asked Trevor.

  “Perhaps — I really don’t know — I never knew there were Darkwells in Shropshire,” said William.

  “Oh, dear, yes! I thought everyone knew that. Darkwell’s the name of the place, too. A very old family,” said Trevor.

  “I did not know; but her father is a barrister, and lives in London, and has some sons, but I never saw them,” answered William.

  Trevor sighed. He was thinking what low fellows these sons might possibly be. A barrister. He remembered “young Boles’s” father visiting Rugby once, a barrister, making fifteen hundred a year, a shabby, lean-looking fellow, with a stoop, and a seedy black frock coat, and grizzled whiskers, who talked in a sharp, dry way, with sometimes a little browbeating tendency — not a bit like, a gentleman. On the other hand, to be sure, there were lots of swells among them; but still there was the image of old Boles’s father intruding into the moonlight, and poking about the old trees of Gilroyd. They had come to a halt under the mighty clump of beech trees that you can see against the sky from the distant road to Audminton, and, after a silence, Trevor said —

  “I remember a thing I saw in a play in London, about a fellow that married a mermaid, or something of the sort; and, egad, they got on capitally till their family began to appear, and — and the situation began to grow too, too fishy, in fact for him; so, by Jove, he cut and run, and I forget how the play ends; but it was awfully funny.”

  “Yes,” said William, “they ought to come to us like Aphrodite, from the foam of the sea, and have no kindred — in utter isolation.”

  “Who?” asked Trevor.

  “Our beautiful brides!” exclaimed Maubray, a little mockingly.

  “It’s a confounded world we live in,” resumed Trevor, after a little silence. “Look at me, now, for instance, how we are, and all this belongs to me, and has been ours for — goodness knows how many centuries and
I assure you I sometimes feel I’d rather be a simple fellow with a few hundreds a-year, and my way to make in the world, and my liberty along with it, than all this.”

  “Suppose we exchange,” said William, “I’ll take the estate off your hands, and allow you three hundred a-year, and your liberty, and wish you joy of the pleasant excitement of making your way in the world, and applaud when you get on a bit, and condole when you’re in the mud.”

  Trevor only smiled grandly, and shook his head at William’s waggery.

  “But seriously, just consider. You know I’m telling you things, old fellow, that I wouldn’t say to everyone, and this won’t, I know, go further” He resumed after a little interval spent in smoking, “But just think now. here’s everything, as you see; but the estate owes some money; and I give you my honour, it does not bring me in, net, when everything’s paid, three thousand a-year.”

  “Oh, no!” said William, in a tone which unconsciously implied, “a great deal less, as we all know.”

  “No, not three thousand — I wish it was,” said Trevor, with an eager frankness, that savoured of annoyance. He had not intended to be quite believed. “And there’s the position. You’re expected to take a lead in things, you see, as if you had your six thousand a-year, egad, or whatever it is; and how the devil are you to manage it?

  Don’t you see? And you tumble in love with a girl; and you find yourself encumbered with a pedigree — a confounded family tree, by Jove! and everyone expects you to marry accordingly. And I don’t say they’re not right, mind, for, by Jove! on the whole, I believe they are. So here I am with all this about me, and not a soul on earth to bully me, and yet I can’t do as I like. I don’t say, by Jove, that I do want to marry. I dare say it would not answer at all, at least for a jolly good number of years, and then I suppose, I must do as the rest of the world does. I must, you see, have some money, and I must have something of, you know, a — family; and that’s how I stand. Come along, it’s growing awfully late, and it’s very likely — ha — ha — ha! — I may die an old bachelor.”