Pleasant, listless Gilroyd Hall! thought William, as, after breakfast, he loitered up and down before the rich redbrick front of the old gabled house, with its profusion of small windows, with such thick, white sashes, and casings of white stone; and the pointed gables, with stone cornice and glittering weather-vane on the summit. That house, somehow, bore a rude resemblance to the old world dandyism which reigned in its younger days, and reminded William of the crimson coats, the bars of lace and quaint, gable-like cocked hats, which had, no doubt, for many a year passed in and out at its deep-porched door; where I could fancy lovers loitering in a charmed murmur, in summer shade, for an enchanted hour, till old Sir Harry’s voice and whistle, and the pound of his crutch-handled cane, and the scamper and yelp of the dogs, were heard in the oak hall approaching.
Under the old chestnuts, clustered with ivy, Violet joined him.
“Well, how are we to-day? I think we were a little cross last night, weren’t we?” said William, with his old trick of lecturing little Vi.
“We! One of us may have been, but it was not I,” she answered.
“I think my watch is wrong. Did you happen to look at the clock as you passed?”
“Halfpast eleven.”
“Ah! so I thought. How many hours long, Miss— “(Vi he was going to say)— “Darkwell, are contained in half an hour’s waiting? The spirit of Mariana has come upon me:
‘She only said, “My life is dreary,”
“He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am a-weary, a-weary,
I would that I were dead!”’
Can’t you a little understand it, too? — not, of course, quite like me, but a little?”
Vi was not going to answer, but suddenly she changed her mind and said —
“I don’t know, but I think you were a great deal more agreeable when you were a schoolboy. I assure you, I’m serious. I think you’ve grown so tiresome and conceited. I suppose all young men in the universities are. ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing,’ you used to tell me, and I think I can now agree with you — at least it seems to make people vain and disagreeable.”
Maubray answered looking on her gently, but speaking as if in a pensive soliloquy, and wondering as he went along whether he had really turned into a coxcomb; fur he was one of those sensitive, because diffident souls on whom the lightest reproof tells, and induces self-examination.
“I don’t know,” he said, “that I’ve even got the little learning that qualifies for danger. I don’t think I am vain — that is, not a bit vainer than I used to be; but I’m sure I’m more disagreeable — that is, to you. My babble and dull jokes are very well for a child, but the child has grown up, and left childish things behind: and a young lady in her teens is more fastidious, and — and, in fact, is a sort of an angel whom I am not formed to talk to with a chance of being anything but a bore. Very unlearned, and yet a book-worm; very young and yet net very merry; not a bad fellow, I think, and yet, with hardly a friend on earth, and — by Jove! here comes Trevor at last.”
And Trevor entered the gate, and approached then.
CHAPTER XI.
UNDER THE CHESTNUTS.
VANE TREVOR was rather good-looking; a young gentleman of the slender and delicate type; his dark hair curled, and on his small forehead one of those tresses, twisted, barber-fashion, into a neat little Ionic volute, and his glossy whiskers were curled on each cheek into little rolls like pistol barrels. There was in his toilet something of elaboration and precision which was uncomfortable, and made one fear to shake hands with him, and wish him safely back again in his bandbox.
He approached simpering. There was a general air of May Fair — cameo studs, varnished boots, and lavender gloves — that had nothing of the rough and careless country in it.
“How do, Miss Darkwell — charming day, is not it? Everything really so fresh; you can’t imagine — as I came along, and a — this, now really this little — a — place, it looks quite charming — quite, really, now — a — as you turn off the road, there’s everything you know to make it charming.” —
This latter period was delivered in a low tone, and with a gracious significance.
“How d’ye do, Maubray?”
“Quite well, thank you,” said William, with a smile that had a flicker of unconscious amusement in it. Perhaps without knowing it, he was envying him at that moment. “He’s a worse fool, by Jove! than I thought he was,” was his mental criticism; but he felt more conscious of his clumsy shoes, and careless get-up. “That’s the sort of thing they admire — why should a fellow be vexed — they can’t help it — it’s pure instinct.”
“What delicious ground for croquet; positively I never saw anything so beautiful in my life. Do you play, Miss Darkwell?”
“Sometimes, at the Rectory — not here. The Miss Mainwarings play, and once or twice I’ve joined their party.”
“But they have no ground there,” insisted Mr. Trevor; “it’s all on a slope. I happen to know it very well, because, in fact, it belongs to me. Old Mainwaring pays me a pretty smart rent for it, at least he thinks so. Ha! ha! ha!” and Vane Trevor cackled gaily over his joke, such as it was.
“Do you play?” demanded Violet of William. “Croquet? — no, not much — just a little — once or twice — I’ll do to fill a place if you want a very bad player.”
“Oh, never mind, we’ll pull you through, or push you — ha, ha, ha! — we will, indeed. You’ll learn it a — in no time, it’s so simple — isn’t it, Miss Darkwell? And then if you can get up one of those Miss Mainwarings — awfully slow girls, I’m told, but they will do to play with you, Maubray, just by way of ballast, he’s such a fast fellow — ha, ha, ha! You’ll want a — a slow partner, eh?”
“Yes, and you’ll want a clever one, so I surrender Miss Darkwell, just to balance the game,” answered William, who was a little combative that morning.
“Egad, I should like uncommonly to be balanced that way, I can tell you; much better, I assure you, Miss Darkwell, than the sort of balancing I’ve been at the last two days, with my steward’s books — ha, ha, ha! Awful slow work, figures. A regular dose of arithmetic. Upon my honour you’d pity me if you knew; you really would.”
“You really would,” echoed William, “if you knew how little he knows of it.”
“Come, now, old fellow, none of your chaff, but get the balls and hoops, if Miss Darkwell will allow you, and we will choose the ground.”
“Lots of ground — I’ll choose that if you like — only you’ll just run and get the hoops and balls, for we have none here,” answered Maubray.
“No croquet!” ejaculated Mr. Trevor, expanding his lavender kid fingers, and elevating his eyebrows. “I thought everyone had croquet now — I mean, you know, the mallet-things, and hoops and balls, — and — and those little painted sticks, you know — and what are we to do, Miss Darkwell?”
“I really don’t know. It’s quite true; and besides we have not got Miss Mainwaring, you forget.”
“Oh you’ll send Maubray, won’t you, to fetch her?”
“Yes,” said Maubray, “I’ll go with great pleasure, if Miss Darkwell wishes; but as I never saw the young lady before, I’m not quite sure that she’ll come away with me.”
“Well no — ha, ha, ha! — I don’t think she’d run away with Maubray at first sight?”
“Particularly to come to you? replied Maubray.
“There now, let’s be serious — there’s a little fellow I saw at your gate — yes, there he is, Miss Darkwell. Suppose you let me send him to Revington. I’ve no end of those things there; and I’ll give him a note to Sparks, and we shall have them in no time.”
“A long time, I’m afraid,” objected Violet.
“No, I assure you; a mere nothing; not twenty minutes. Do, pray, allow me.”
And he wrote with a pencil, on the back of a card, an order to Sparks for the croquet apparatus, and away trotted the messenger.
“Three can play
, you know, or two for that matter, as well as twenty, and so we can do quite well without troubling Miss Mainwaring.”
There was now a knocking at the drawingroom window, where William had seen dimly through the glass, the form of Aunt Dinah at her knitting, with Psyche in her new collar, seated by her. All looked towards the signal, and Miss Perfect threw up the window and said:
“How do you do, Mr. Trevor? what a sweet morning.”
“Perfectly charming,” responded the master of Revington, with a tender emphasis and smiling toward Miss Perfect with his hat in his hand; and Aunt Dinah smiled and nodded again in return.
“William, I want you for a moment — here, dear, you need not come in.”
The instinct which makes old ladies afford a dole now and then of a few minutes to lovers, is in harmony with the general rule of mercy and mitigation which alleviates every human situation.
As soon as Miss Dinah raised the window, William saw standing in the chiaro-oscuro of the apartment, a tall and rather handsome old clergyman. A little rusty was his black suit — a little dust was on his gaiters. It must have been he whom William had mistaken for the attorney who was to have visited his aunt that morning.
He had seen him walk his nag up to the door about an hour ago, and dismount.
The old clergyman was looking observantly and kindly on William; and, nodding to him, and with her thin hand extended toward her nephew, she said, “This is he!” with a proud smile in her old eyes, for she thought William the handsomest fellow alive.
“Happy to make your acquaintance, Sir,” said the cleric stepping forward and shaking William’s hand. “I knew your father, and grandfather, and your aunt and I are very old friends; and I’ve just been telling her how happy I shall be— “
“This is Doctor Wagget, my very good and kind old friend; you may have heard me speak of him often, I dare say,” interposed my aunt “And your reading, Sir, has been rather desultory, your aunt tells me, like my own, Sir — ha, ha, ha! We had rather give our time than pay it; read what is not exacted of us than what is. But I don’t know, Miss Perfect,” continued the doctor, turning to that lady, as if they were in consultation upon William’s case, “reading — that is in the case of a man who thinks — and I am sure our young friend here thinks for himself — resembles the browsing of cattle: they choose their own herbage, and the particular flowers and grasses that answer their special conditions best, eh? and so they thrive. Instinct directs us creatures, in the one as in the other; and so we read, he and I — ha, ha! what best nourishes, you see — what we can assimilate and enjoy. For plodding fellows, that devour the curriculum set before them — neither more nor less — are, you see, stall-fed, bulkier fellows; higher priced in the market; but they haven’t our flavour and texture. Oh, no — ha, ha — eh?”
The ecclesiastic was cheery and kindly, and in his manner was a curious mixture of energy and simplicity which William Maubray liked.
The conclusion of this little harangue he had addressed to William Maubray; and I am afraid that Miss Perfect was more interested by the picture on the lawn; for without reference to the doctor’s subject, she desired to know looking with a pleased inquisitiveness at the young people whether they were going to take a walk, or what? And prolonged her little tête-à-tête with William over the window-stool.
When William Maubray looked up again at Doctor Wagget, that divine had picked up a book, a trick of his, like that of the cattle from whom his illustration was borrowed, and who employ every moment’s pause at the wayside, in a pluck at the nearest foliage or turf of grass; and with the intimation, “you may as well join them,” Miss Perfect dismissed her nephew.
CHAPTER XII.
CROQUET.
WHILE William Maubray was thus employed, Mr. Trevor agreeably accosted Miss Violet.
“Now we are to choose the ground, you know, Miss Darkwell — you are to choose it, in fact. I think, don’t you, it looks particularly smooth just there. By Jove it does! — really, now, just like a billiard-table, behind those a — those a — what-d’ye-callem’s — the evergreens there.”
“I think it does, really,” said Miss Vi, gliding very contentedly into his ambuscade. “There’s a little shade too.”
“Yes, lots of shade; I hate the sun. I’m afraid my deeds are darkness, as Dr. Mainwaring says. There’s only one sort of light I really like, now, upon my honour — the light — the light you — you know, the light that comes from Miss Darkwell’s eyes — ha, ha! upon my honour.”
The idea was not quite original, perhaps, but Miss Darkwell blushed a little, and smiled, as it were, on the leaves, and wondered how soon the messenger with the croquet things would return. And Mr. Trevor consulted his watch, and said he would allow him a quarter of an hour more, and added that he would willingly allow the poor little beggar an hour, or any time; for his part, the — the time, in fact, went only too fast for him.
Miss Perfect, looking over her spectacles, and then with elevated chin through them, said:
“Where have they gone to? can you see?”
“I don’t know — I suppose sauntering about — they can’t be very far,” answered William, looking a little uneasily. And somehow forgetting that he was in the midst of a dialogue with Aunt Dinah, he strode away, whistling a little air, anxiously, in the direction in which he had left them.
“We have such a charming piece of ground here,” exclaimed Violet, on whose cheeks was a flush, and in whose beautiful eyes a light which Maubray did not like.
“First rate; capital, by Jove! it is,” exclaimed Trevor in corroboration.
“I don’t see anything very wonderful about it. I think the ground on the other side of these trees better, decidedly; and this is out of sight of the windows,” said William, a little drily.
“We don’t want a view of the windows — do we?” asked Mr. Trevor, with an agreeable simplicity, of Miss Darkwell. “The windows? I really did not think of them; but, perhaps, Mr. Maubray wishes to be within call for lunch.”
Mr. Trevor laughed pleasantly at this cruel sally.
“Well, yes, that, of course,” said William, “and, beside, my aunt might want to speak to me again, as she did just now; and I don’t want to be out of sight, in case she should.”
This was very bitter of William; and, perhaps, Miss Violet was a little put out, as she certainly was a little more flushed, and a short silence followed, during which, looking and walking slowly toward the gate, she asked, “ Is that the boy with the croquet?”
“Yes — no — yes, by Jove, it is! What wonderful eyes yours are, Miss Darkwell!”
The latter remark was in a tender undertone, the music of which was accompanied by the long-drawn screak of the iron gate, as the boy entered with a holland bag, mallets, and hoops.
The hoops were hardly placed, when Miss Perfect once more knocked at the window and beckoned.
“Aunt Dinah wants me again,” said William, and he went to the window, mallet in hand.
The old clergyman had gone away, and I think Aunt Dinah only wanted to give the lovers a few minutes.
“Villikens and his Dinah,” said Mr. Trevor, and exploded in repeated cachinations over his joke. “I vote we call him Villikens — capital name, isn’t it? — I really do. But, by Jove, I hope the old lady won’t go on calling him up from his game every minute. We’d have been a great deal better at the other side of the trees, where we were going to play, don’t you think?”
“He is coming at last,” said Miss Violet.
“Shall we be partners, you and I? Do let us, and give him two balls,” urged Mr. Trevor, graciously, and a little archly.
“Well, I think that’s dull, rather, isn’t it? one playing with two balls,” remonstrated Miss Darkwell.
And before the debate could proceed William Maubray had arrived. —
“Everyone for himself, eh?” said Trevor; and so the game set in, Trevor and William Maubray playing rather acrimoniously, and making savage roquets upon one another; an
d Miss Darkwell — though William dealt tenderly with her — was hard upon him, and, so far as her slender force would go, knocked him about inconveniently.
“Capital roquet, Miss Darkwell,” Trevor would cry, as William’s ball bounded away into perspective, and his heart felt sore, as if her ungrateful mallet had smitten it; and his reprisals on Trevor were terrific.
Thus, amid laughter, a little hypocritical, and honest hard knocks, the game proceeded, and Miss Darkwell, at its close, was the winner.
William Maubray could lose as goodhumouredly as any fellow at other games, but he was somehow sore and angry here. He was spited by Violet’s partial dealing. Violet, how unnatural! Little Vi! his bird! his property, it seemed, leagued with that coxcomb to whack him about — to make a butt and a fool of him.
“I’m not going to play any more. I’ll sit down here, if you like, and do” — gooseberry, he was on the point of saying, for he was very angry, and young enough, in his wrath, to talk away like a schoolboy— “and do audience, or rather spectator; or, if you choose, Trevor, to take that walk over the Warren you promised me, I’m ready. I’ll do exactly whatever Miss Darkwell prefers. If she wishes to play on with you, I’ll remain, and if she has had enough of us, I’ll go.”
“I can’t play — there is not time for another game,” said Miss Vi, peeping at her watch. “My aunt will want me in a few minutes about that old woman — old Widow Grey. I — I’m afraid I must go. Goodbye.”
“Awfully sorry! But, perhaps you can? Well, I suppose, no help for it,” said Trevor.
And they walked slowly to the door, where Miss Vi pronounced the conventional invitation to enter, which was, however, wistfully declined, and Trevor and William Maubray set out upon their walk, and Miss Vi, in the drawing room, sat down on the oldfashioned window-seat, and looked out, silent, and a little sulkily after them.
Miss Perfect glanced over her spectacles, with a stealthy and grave inquisitiveness, at the pretty girl.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 312