Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  The ice and snow spread crisp and hard, and the frosty sun has little heat, but yet the thaw will come. And the radiance emitted by William’s dressing-case, watch and other glories, began imperceptibly to tell upon the frozen rigour of his first reception. There was a word now and then about the weather, he was asked more graciously to take some more tea. The ladies sometimes smiled when they thus invited him, and Miss Clara began to take an interest in her brother, and even one day in her riding habit, in which she looked particularly well, looked into the schoolroom for a moment, just to give Howard a little box of bonbons she had promised him before she went out. —

  May I, Mr. Herbert?” asked Miss Clara, with that smile which no one could resist.

  “Certainly,” said William, bowing very low, and she thought there was something haughty in his grave humility.

  So she thanked him, smiling more, and made her present to Howard, who broke out with —

  “This aint the one you said. You’ve been and eat it, you greedy!”

  “Now!” pleaded Miss Clara, whose fingers tingled to box his ears, though she prolonged the word in her most coaxing tone, “Howard! Howard! could you? your own poor Clara! You shall come up and have any two others you like best, when I come back, if Mr. Herbert allows it,” and with a smile, and a light kiss on the boy’s forehead, who plunged away from her muttering, that brilliant vision vanished, leaving William standing for a moment wondering, and thinking how graceful and pretty she looked in that becoming get-up.

  “Well,” thought William, that night compunctiously and pleased, “I believe I have done them an injustice. I forgot that I was a total stranger, and expected a reception different perhaps from what I was entitled to. But this perhaps is better; people whose liking and confidence move slowly, and whose friendship, bestowed gradually, is not suddenly withdrawn.”

  And so he went to sleep more happily.

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  FROM KINCTON TO GILROYD.

  A MONTH passed away with little change. Thanks to the very explicit injunction, constantly repeated, to teach his pupil no more than his pupil wished to learn, William Maubray got on wonderfully well with that ill-conditioned brat, who was “the hope of the house of Kincton Knox.” Still, notwithstanding this, and all those flattering evidences of growing favour vouchsafed by the ladies of the mansion, the weeks were very long. Miss Clara, although now and then she beamed on him with a transient light, yet never actually conversed; and magnificent and dreary Mrs. Kincton Knox, whether gracious or repellent, was nearly equally insupportable.

  Every time he walked out, and, pausing on the upland, looked long and mournfully in the direction in which he fancied lay Gilroyd, with its sunset blush of old red brick, its roses, deep green-sward and chestnut shadows, a sort of home sickness overcame him. Beyond that horizon there was affection, and in old times the never-failing welcome, the smile, the cordial sympathy, and the liberty that knew not Kincton. And with a pain and swelling at his heart came the scene of his expulsion — a mute, hurried leavetaking; the clang of the iron gate, never to open more for him; and Aunt Dinah’s fierce and cruel gaze, like the sword of fire in the way, forbidding his return.

  How was it with fierce and cruel Aunt Dinah all this time? “The boy will come to his senses,” she was constantly repeating to herself, as she closed her book from which her thoughts had been straying, upon her finger, with a short sigh and a proud look. Or when she looked up from her work, with the same little sigh, on the pretty flower landscape, with its background of foliage, seen so sunnily through the jessamine and rose clusters, “Time will bring him to reason; a little time, a very little time.”

  But when a little time passed away, and no signs came with the next week of returning reason, Aunt Dinah grew fiercer and more warlike. “Sulky and obstinate! Ungrateful young man! Well, so be it. We’ll see who can maintain silence longest. Let him cool; let him take his own time, I won’t hurry him, I promise him,” and so forth.

  But another week passed, still in silence, and Miss Perfect “presented her compliments to Dr. Sprague, and begged to inquire whether her nephew, William Maubray, had returned to Cambridge a little more than a fortnight since. Not that she had the least right or wish to inquire minutely henceforward into his plans, place of residence, pursuits, or associates; but simply that having for so long a time taken an interest in him, and, as she hoped, been of some little use to him — if supporting and educating him entirely might so be deemed — she thought she had a claim to be informed how he was, whether well or ill. Beyond that she begged to be excused from asking, and requested that Doctor Sprague would be so good as to confine himself to answering that simple inquiry, and abstain from mentioning anything further about William Maubray.”

  In reply to this, Doctor Sprague “begged to inform Miss Perfect that when he last saw him, about ten days since, when he left Cambridge, her nephew, William Maubray, was very well. On his return from his recent visit to Gilroyd, he had remained but a week in his rooms, and had then left to prosecute a plan by which he hoped to succeed in laying a foundation for future efforts and success. Doctor Sprague was not very well, and had been ordered to take a little exceptional holiday abroad, and Miss Perfect’s letter had reached him just on the eve of his departure for the continent.”

  Unobserved, almost to herself, there had been before Aunt Dinah’s eyes, as she read her book, or worked at her crochet, or looked out wearied on the lawn, a little vignette representing a college tutor’s chamber, Gothic in character, and a high-backed oaken chair, antiquated and carved, in which, like Faust philosophising to the respectful Vagner, sat Doctor Sprague, with his finger on the open letter she had sent him, exhorting and reproving the contumacious William Maubray, and in the act of despatching him, in a suit of sackcloth, with peas in his shoes, on a penitential pilgrimage to Gilroyd.

  This pleasing shadow, like an illusion of the magic lantern, vanished in pitch darkness, as Miss Perfect read the good doctor’s answer. With a pallid, patient smile, and feeling suddenly cold from her head to her feet, she continued to gaze in sore distress upon the letter. Had William enlisted, or had he embarked as steward on board an American steamer? Was he about working his passage to New Zealand, or had he turned billiard marker?

  Neighbours dropped in now and then to pay a visit, and Violet had such conversation as the vicinity afforded, and chatted and laughed all she could. But Miss Perfect was very silent for some days after the arrival of Dr. Sprague’s letter. She was more gentle, and smiled a good deal, but was wan, and sighed from time to time, and her dinner was a mere make-belief. And looking out of her bedroom window in the evening, toward Saxton, she did not hear old Winnie Dobbs, who had thrice accosted her. But after a little she turned to the patient old handmaid, and said —

  “Pretty the old church looks in the sun; I sometimes wish I were there.”

  Old Winnie followed the direction of her eyes, and gazed also, saying mildly —

  “Good sermons, indeed, Ma’am, and a good parson, kind to the poor; and very comfortable it is, sure, if they did not raise the stove so high. I think ’twas warmer before they raised it.”

  “For a hundred and fifty years the Gilroyd people have been all buried there,” continued Aunt Dinah, talking more to the old church than to Winnie.

  “Well, I should not wonder,” said Winnie, “there is a deal o’ them lies there. My grandmother minded the time old Lady Maubray was buried yonder, with that fine marble thing outside o’ the church. The rails is gone very rusty now, and that coat of arms, and the writing, it’s wearing out — it is worn, the rain or something; and indeed I sometimes do think where is the good of grandeur; when we die it’s all equal, the time being so short as it is. Master Willie asked me to show it him last Sunday three weeks coming out o’ church, and even his young eyes— “

  “Don’t name him, don’t mention him,” said Aunt Dinah suddenly in a tone of cold decision.

  Winnie’s guileless light blue eyes looked up
in helpless wonder in her mistress’s face.

  “Don’t name his name, Winnie Dobbs. He’s gone? said she in the same severe tone.

  “Gone!” repeated Winnie. “Yes, sure! but he’ll come back.”

  “No, he shan’t, Winnie; he’ll darken my doors no more. Come what may, that shan’t be. Perhaps, I may assist him occasionally still, but see him, never! He has renounced me, and I wash my hands of him.” She was answering Winnie’s look of consternation. “Let him go his own way as he chooses it — I’ve done with him.”

  There was a long pause here, during which ancient Winnie Dobbs stared with an imbecile incredulity at her mistress, who was looking still at the old church. Then old Winnie sighed. Then she shook her head, touching the tip of her tongue with a piteous little “tick, tick, tick,” to the back of her teeth.

  And Aunt Dinah continued drearily —

  “And Miss Violet must find this very dull — I’ve no right to keep her here. She would be happier in some other home, poor child. I’m but a dismal companion, and how long is it since young Mr. Trevor was here? You don’t remember — there, don’t try, but it must be three weeks or more, and — and I do think he was very attentive. I mean, Winnie, but you are to say nothing below stairs, you know — I mean, I really think he was in love with Miss Vi.”

  “Well, indeed, they did talk about it — the neighbours; there was talk, a deal o’ talk, and I don’t know, but I often thought she liked him.”

  “Well, that’s off too, quite, I think; you know it is very rude, impertinent, in fact, his never having called here once, or done more than just raise his hat to us in the church door on Sundays, ever since William Maubray went away. I look upon his conduct as altogether outrageous, and being the kind of person he is, I’m very glad he disclosed himself so early, and certainly it would have been a thousand pities the girl should have ever thought of him. So that’s over too, and all the better it is, and I begin to grow tired of the whole thing — very tired, Winnie; and I believe the people over there,” and she nodded toward the churchyard, “are best provided for, and it’s time, Winnie, I should be thinking of joining them where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”

  “God forbid, Ma’am!” remonstrated old Winnie, mildly, and they turned together from the window to accomplish Aunt Dinah’s toilet.

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  THE PIPING BULLFINCH.

  NEXT Sunday Mr. Vane Trevor, after church, happened to be carried in one of the converging currents of decently-dressed Christianity into the main channel through the porch, almost side by side with the two Gilroyd ladies then emerging.

  Mr. Vane Trevor, in pursuance of his prudent resolve, would have avoided this meeting. But so it was. In the crowded church porch, out of which the congregation emerges so slowly, with a sort of decent crush, almost pressed inconveniently against good Miss Perfect, the young gentleman found himself, and in a becoming manner, with a chastened simper, inquiring after their health, and making the proper remarks about the weather.

  Aunt Dinah received these attentions very drily; but Miss Vi, in such an arch, becoming little shell-like bonnet, looked perfectly lovely; and to do her justice, was just as friendly as usual.

  It was no contrivance of his, the meeting with this bewitching little bonnet where he did. How could he help the strange little thrill with which he found himself so near — and was it in human nature, or even in good manners, to deny himself a very little walk, perhaps only to the churchyard gate, beside Miss Violet Darkwell?

  “How is my friend Maubray?” inquired Trevor of Miss Perfect, whom he found himself next.

  “I really don’t know — I have not heard — I suppose he is very well,” she answered, with an icy severity that rather surprised the young man, who had heard nothing of the quarrel.

  “I must write. I ought to have asked him when he meant to return. I am so anxious for an excuse to renew our croquet on the lawn at Gilroyd.”

  This little speech was accompanied with a look which Violet could hardly mistake.

  “I don’t think it likely,” said Miss Perfect, in the same dry tone.

  “Any time within the next three weeks, the weather will answer charmingly,” continued Trevor, addressing Miss Darkwell.

  “But I rather think Miss Darkwell will have to make her papa a little visit. He’s to return on the eighteenth, you remember, my dear; and he says, you know, you are to meet him at Richmond.”

  So said Aunt Dinah, who had no notion of this kind of trifling.

  Trevor again saw the vision of a lean, vulgar, hardvoiced barrister, trudging beside him with a stoop, and a seedy black frock-coat; and for a minute was silent. But he looked across at pretty Miss Vi, so naturally elegant, and in another moment the barrister had melted into air, and he saw only that beautiful nymph.

  “I want to look at old Lady Maubray’s monument round the east end, here, of the church. You would not dislike, dear, to come — only a step. I must have any repairs done that may be needed. Good-morning, Mr, Trevor.”

  But Mr. Trevor begged leave to be of the party, knowing exactly where the monument stood.

  There is a vein of lovemaking with which a country churchyard somehow harmonises very tenderly. Among the grass-grown graves the pretty small feet, stepping lightly and reverently, the hues and outlines of beauty and young life; the gay faces shadowed with a passing sadness — nothing ghastly, nothing desolate — only a sentiment of the solemn and the melancholy, and underlying that tender sadness, the trembling fountains of life and gladness, the pulses of youth and hope.

  “Yes; very, very much neglected,” said Miss Perfect. “We can do nothing with that marble, of course,” she observed, nodding toward the arched cornice at top, which time and weather had sadly worn and furrowed. “It was her wish, my dear father often told me; she would have it outside, not in the church; but the rails, and this masonry — we must have that set to rights — yes.”

  And so, stepping lightly among weeds and long grass, and by humble headstones and timeworn tombs, they came forth under the shadow of the tall elms by the churchyard gate, and again Miss Perfect intimated a farewell to Trevor, who, however, said he would go home by the stile — a path which would lead him by the gate of Gilroyd; and before he had quite reached that, he had begun to make quite a favourable impression once more on the old lady; insomuch that, in her forgetfulness, she asked him at the gate of Gilroyd to come in, which very readily he did; and the little party sat down together in the drawingroom of Gilroyd, and chatted in a very kindly and agreeable way; and Vane Trevor, who, like Aunt Dinah, was a connoisseur in birds, persuaded her to accept a bullfinch, which he would send her next morning in a new sort of cage, which had just come out He waited in vain, however, for one of those little momentary absences, which, at other times, had left him and Violet alone. Miss Perfect, though mollified, sat him out very determinedly. So, at last, having paid a very long visit, Mr. Vane Trevor could decently prolong it no further, and he went away with an unsatisfactory and disappointed feeling, not quite reasonable, considering the inflexible rule he had imposed upon himself in the matter of Gilroyd Hall and its inhabitants.

  “Maubray has told her all I said,” thought Vane Trevor, as he pursued the solitary path along the uplands of Revington. “The old woman — what a bore she is — was quite plainly vexed at first; but that jolly little creature — Violet — Violet, it is a pretty name — she was exactly as usual. By Jove! I thought she’d have been a bit vexed; but she’s an angel,” he dreamed on, disappointed. “I don’t think she can have even begun to care for me the least bit in the world — I really don’t.” He was looking down on the path, his hands in his pockets, and his cane under his arm; and he kicked a little stone out of his way at the emphatic word, rather fiercely. “And so much the better; there’s no need of all that caution. Stuff! they know quite well I’ve no idea of marrying; and what more? And there’s no danger of her, for she is plainly quite content with those terms, a
nd does not care for me — now, that’s all right.”

  It is not always easy to analyse one’s own motives; but, beneath that satisfaction, there was very considerable soreness, and something like a resolution to make her like him, in spite of her coldness. The pretty, little, impertinent, cold, bewitching gipsy. It was so absurd.

  She did not seem the least flattered by the distinction of his admiration.

  Next morning, after breakfast, he drove down in his dog-cart, instead of sending the bird as he had proposed There were some ingenious contrivances in this model cage which required explanation. The oddest thing about the present was that the piping bullfinch sang two of Violet’s favourite airs. Trevor had no small difficulty, and a diffuse correspondence, in his search for one so particularly accomplished.

  When in the drawingroom at Gilroyd, he waved a feather before its eyes, and the little songster displayed his acquirements. Trevor stole a glance at Miss Vi; but she looked perfectly innocent, and smiled with a provoking simplicity on the bird. Miss Perfect was, however, charmed, and fancied she knew the airs, but was, honestly, a little uncertain.

  “It is really too good of you, Mr. Trevor,” she exclaimed.

  “On the contrary, I’m much obliged by your accepting the charge. I’m a sort of wandering Arab, you know, and I shall be making the tour of my friends’ country houses; so poor little Pipe would have been very lonely, perhaps neglected; and I should very likely have had a letter some day announcing his death, and that, for fifty reasons, would have half broken my heart;” whereat he laughed a little, for Aunt Dinah, and glanced one very meaning and tender ogle on Miss Violet.

  “Well, Mr. Trevor, disguise it how you may you are very goodnatured,” said Miss Perfect, much pleased with her new pet; “and I’m very much obliged.”