“Well, dear, they went away?” she said, after a silence.
“Oh! yes; I was tired playing, and, I think, William wanted to go for a walk.”
“There seemed to be a great deal of fun over the game,” said Aunt Dinah, who wanted to hear everything.
“Yes, I believe so; but one tires of it. I do, I know:” and saying this, Violet took up her novel, and Aunt Dinah scrutinised her, from time to time, obliquely, over her crochet needles, and silence reigned in the drawingroom.
“Very pretty Miss Darkwell is. I quite envy you. Your cousin, isn’t she?” said Trevor, graciously. He felt that William would be flattered by the envy, even playful, of Vane Trevor, Esq., of Revington.
“Cousin, or something, someway or other connected or related, I don’t know exactly. Yes, I believe she is very well. She was prettier as a child, though. Isn’t there a short way to the Warren?”
“Yes, I’ll take you right. She looks, I’d say, about seventeen.”
“Yes, I dare say,” answered William. “Do you know those Miss Mainwarings — Doctor Mainwaring’s daughters?”
But it would not do. Vane Trevor would go on talking of Violet Darkwell, in spite of William’s dry answers and repeated divergences, unaccountably to that philosophical young gentleman’s annoyance.
CHAPTER XIII.
UNSOCIABLE.
AT dinner, in the parlour of Gilroyd Hall, there was silence for some time. William looked a little gloomy, Violet rather fierce and stately, and Aunt Dinah eyed her two guests covertly, without remark, but curiously. At last she said to William —
“You took a walk with Mr. Trevor?”
“Yes, a tiresome one,” he answered.
“Where?”
“All about and round that stupid Warren — six or seven miles,” answered William.
“How very fatiguing!” exclaimed Violet, compassionately, as if to herself.
“No, not the exercise; that was the only thing that made it endurable,” answered William, a little crossly. “But the place is uglier than I fancied, and Trevor is such a donkey.”
Aunt Dinah, with her eyes fixed on William’s, made a nod and a frown, to arrest that line of remark, which, she felt, might possibly prejudice Vi, and could do no possible good. And Miss Vi, looking all the time on the wing of the chicken on her plate, said, “The salt, please,” and nothing more.
“Vi, my dear,” said Miss Perfect, endeavouring to be cheery, “he asked my leave last Sunday to send you an Italian greyhound. He has two, he says, at Revington. Did he mention it to-day?”
“Perhaps he did. I really forget,” said Miss Vi, carelessly, laying down her fork, and leaning back, with a languid defiance, for as she raised her eyes, she perceived that William was smiling.
“I know what you mean,” she said, with a sudden directness to William. “You want me — that is, I think you want me to think you think— “
“Oh! do stop one moment. There are so many ‘thinks’ there. I’m quite bewildered among them all. Let’s breathe an instant. You think I want to make you think that I think. Yes, now I have it, I think. Pray go on.”
Polite!” said Miss Vi, and turned toward Aunt Dinah.
“Well, no,” said William, for the first time laughing a little like himself; “it was not polite, but very rude and illbred, and I’m very sorry; and I assure you,” he continued more earnestly, “I should be very angry, if any one else had made the stupid speech that I have just made: and, really, I believe it is just this — you have been too patient with me, and allowed me to go on lecturing you like an old tutor — and — and — really, I’m certain I’ve been a horrid bore.”
Vi made no reply, but looked, and, no doubt, thought herself more illused for his apologies.
After tea she played industriously, having avowed a little cold, which prevented her singing. William had asked her. He turned over the leaves of a book, as he sat back in an elbow-chair, and Aunt Dinah was once more deep in her old box of letters, with her gold spectacles on.
They were as silent a party as could be fancied; more silent than at dinner. Still, the pleasant light of fire and candle — the handsome young faces and the kindly old one — and the general air of oldfashioned comfort that pervaded the apartment, made the picture pleasant; and the valses and the nigger ditties, with snatches of Verdi, and who knows what composer beside, made the air ring with a merry medley, which supplied the lack of conversation.
To William, with nothing but his book to amuse him, time moved slowly enough. But Violet had many things to think of; and one could see that her eyes saw other scenes and shapes far away, perhaps, from the music, and that she was reading to herself the romance that was unrolled within her pretty girlish head.
So prayers came, and William read the chapter; and I am afraid his thoughts wandered, and he felt a little sore and affronted, he could not tell why, for no one had illused him; and, when their devotions were over, Miss Vi took her candle, and bid grannie goodnight, with an embrace and a kiss, and William with a nod and a cold little smile, as he stood beside the door, having opened it for her.
He was growing formal in spite of himself, and she quite changed. What heartless, cruel creatures these pretty girls are!
She had quite vanished up the stairs, and he still held the door-handle in his fingers, and stood looking up the vacant steps, and, as it were, listening to distant music. Then, with a little sigh, he suddenly closed the door, and sat down drowsily before the fire, and began to think that he ought to return to his Cambridge chambers, his books, and monastic life: and he thought how fortunate those fellows were, who, like Trevor — what a goose that fellow is! — were born to idleness, respect, and admiration.
“Money! — d — n money — curse it! I wish I had a lot of it!” and William clutched the poker, but the fire did not want poking, and he gave it a rather vicious knock upon the bar, which startled Miss Perfect, and recalled his own thoughts from unprofitable speculations, upon the preposterous injustice of Fate, and some ultimate state of poetical compensation, in which scholars and men of mind, who played all sorts of games excellently, and noodles, who never did anything decently — in fact, he and Trevor — would be dealt with discriminately, and with common fairness.
“Don’t, dear William, pray, make such a clatter. I’m so nervous.”
“I beg a thousand pardons. I’m so stupid.”
“Well, it does not signify — an accident — but don’t mind touching the fire-irons,” said Miss Perfect; “and how did your walk with Mr. Trevor proceed? Did he talk of anything?”
“Oh! didn’t he? Fifty things. He’s a wonderful fellow to talk, is Trevor,” said William, looking with half-closed eyes into the fire.
“Oh, yes,” persisted Aunt Dinah; “but was there anything — anything particular — anything that could interest us?”
“Next to nothing that could interest anyone,” said William, uncommunicatively.
“Well, it would interest me, if he talked of Violet,” said Aunt Dinah, coming directly to the point. “Did he?”
“Of Violet? Yes, I believe he did,” answered William, rather reluctantly.
“Well, and why did not you say so? Of course, you knew that’s what I meant,” said Miss Perfect.
“How could I know, auntie?”
“I think, William Maubray, you are a little disagreeable tonight.”
William, at these words, recollected that there was truth in the reproof. His mood was disagreeable to himself, and, therefore, to others.
“My dear auntie, I’m very sorry. I’m sure I have been — not a little, but very — and I beg your pardon. What was it? Yes — about Violet. He did, a great deal. In fact he talked about her till he quite tired me.”
“He admires her, evidently. Did he talk of her good looks? She is, you know, extremely pretty,” said Aunt Dinah.
“Yes, he thinks her very pretty. She is very pretty. In fact, I don’t think — judging by the women who come to church — there is a
good-looking girl, except herself, in this part of the world; and she would be considered pretty anywhere — very pretty.”
“Revington is a very nice place, and the Trevors a good old family. The connection would be a very desirable one: and I — though, of course, not knowing, in the least, whether the young man had any serious intentions — I never alluded to the possibility to Vi herself, Yet, I do think she likes him.”
“I should not wonder,” said William.
“And he talked pretty frankly?” continued Aunt Dinah.
“I suppose so. He did not seem to have anything to conceal; and he always talks a great deal, an enormous quantity;” and William yawned, as it seemed, over the recollection.
CHAPTER XIV.
A SUNNY MORNING.
“I SUPPOSE, if he likes her, there’s nothing to conceal in that?” challenged Miss Perfect.
“No, of course,” replied William, spiritedly; “I think she’s a thousand times too good for him, every way — that’s what I think; and I wonder, young as she is, Vi can be such a fool. What can she see in him? He has got two thousand a-year, and that’s all you can say for him.”
“I don’t know that — in fact, he strikes me as a very pretty young man, quite apart from his property,” said Aunt Dinah, resolutely; “and I could quite understand a young girl’s falling in love with him.”
William, leaning with his elbow on the chimneypiece, smiled a little bitterly, and said, quietly, “I dare say.”
“I don’t say, mind, that she is. I don’t know the least, whether she cares twopence about him,” said Aunt Dinah.
“I hope she doesn’t,” rejoined William.
“And why so?” asked Aunt Dinah.
“Because, I’m perfectly certain he has not the least notion of ever asking her to marry him. He’s mi thinking seriously about her, and never will? replied he.
“Well, it’s nothing to vaunt of. You need not talk as if you wished her to be mortified,” said Aunt Dinah.
“I! — I wish no such thing, I assure you; but, even if she admires and adores the fellow all you say, still I can’t wish her his wife — because I’m sure he’s not the least worthy of her. I assure you he’s no better than a goose. You don’t know him — you can’t — as the fellows in the same school did — and Violet ought to do fifty times better.”
“You said he does not think seriously about her,” said Miss Perfect. “Remember, we are only talking, you and I together, and I assure you I never asked her whether she liked him or not, nor hinted a possibility of anything, as you say, serious coming of it; but what makes you think the young man disposed to trifle?”
“I didn’t say to trifle,” answered William; “but every fellow will go on like that where there’s a pretty girl, and no one supposes they mean anything. And from what he said to-day, I would gather that he’s thinking of some swell, whenever he marries, which he talks of like a thing so far away as to be nearly out of sight; in fact, nothing could be more contrary to any sign of there being any such notion in his head — and there isn’t. I assure you he has no more idea, at present, of marrying than I have.”
“H’m!” was the only sign of attention which Aunt Dinah emitted, with closed lips, as she looked gloomily into her work-basket, I believe for nothing.
William whistled “Rule Britannia,” in a low key the little oval portrait of the Very Rev. Simeon Lewis Perfect, Dean of Crutch Friars, the sainted and ascetic parent of the eccentric old lady, who was poking in her work-basket, his own maternal grandfather; and a silence ensued, and the conversation expired.
Next morning, William, returning from his early saunter in the fields, saw the graceful head of Violet peeping through the open window of the parlour, through the jessamine and roses that clustered round it Her eyes glanced on him, and she smiled and nodded.
“Uncertain as the weather!” thought he, as he smiled and kissed his hand, approaching, “a lowering evening yesterday, and now so sunny a morning.”
“How do you do, Miss Violet? you said you wanted a water-lily, so I found two in my morning’s ramble, and here they are.”
“How beautiful. Thank you very much. Where did you find them?” said Vi, quite glowing.
“In the Miller’s Tarn,” he answered. “I’m so glad you like them.”
“Quite beautiful! The Miller’s Tarn?”
She remembered that she had mentioned it yesterday as a likely place, but it was two miles away; four miles there and back, for a flower. It deserved her thanks, and she did thank him; and reminded him in tone and look of that little Vi of other years, very pleasantly yet somehow sadly.
“I mean to return to Cambridge tomorrow,” said William, a little regretfully; he had glanced round at the familiar scene; “and I am sorry to leave so soon.”
“And must you go?” asked Violet.
“Not quite must, but I think I ought. If I had brought with me some papers I have been transcribing for Doctor Sprague, I might have stayed a little longer, but they are locked up and he wants the copy on Tuesday, and so I can’t help it.”
“It was hardly worth while coming, Poor grannie will miss you very much.”
“And you, not at all.”
“I? Oh, yes, of course we shall all miss you.”
“Some, but not you, Vi.”
The old “Vi” passed quite unnoticed.
“I, and why not I?”
“Because your time is so pleasantly occupied.”
“I don’t know what you mean, said the young lady coldly, with a little toss of her head. “More riddles, I suppose.”
“Mine are poor riddles; very easily found out. Are we to have croquet to-day?”
“I’m sure I can’t tell,” replied she.
“Did not Trevor tell you he was coming here at eleven?” asked William.
“I don’t recollect that he said anything about coming to-day,” she answered carelessly.
“I did not say to-day,” said William provokingly.
“You did. I’m nearly certain. At all events I understood it, and really it does not the least signify.”
“Don’t be vexed — but he told me he had settled with you to come here to-day, at eleven, to play as he did yesterday,” said William.
“Ho! then I suppose I have been telling fibs as usual? I remark I never do anything right when you are here. You can’t think how pleasant it is to have some one by you always insinuating that you are about something shabby,”
“You put it in a very inexcusable light,” said William, laughing. “It may have been a vaunt of Trevor’s, for I think he’s addicted to boasting a little; or a misapprehension, or — or an indistinctness; there are fibs logical and fibs ethical, and fibs logical and ethical; but you don’t read logic, nor care for metaphysics.”
“Nor metaphysicians,” she acquiesced.
“Well,” said William, “he says he’s coming at eleven.”
“I think we are going to have prayers,” interrupted Violet, turning coldly from the window, through which William saw the little congregation of Gilroyd Hall assembling at the row of chairs by the parlour door, and Aunt Dinah’s slight figure gliding to the corner of the chimneypiece, to the right of the Very Rev. Simeon Lewis Perfect, sometime Dean of Crutch Friars, where the Bible and Prayer-book lay, and in the shadow her golden spectacles glimmered like a saintly glory round her chaste head.
So William hastened to do his office of deacon, and read the appointed chapter; and their serene devotions over, the little party of three, with the windows open, and the fragrance and twitterings of that summer-like morning entering through those leafy apertures, sat down to breakfast, and William did his best to entertain the ladies with recollections lively and awful of his college life.
“Halfpast nine, Miss Violet; don’t forget eleven,” said William, leaning by the window-frame, and looking out upon the bright and beautiful landscape. “I’ll go out just now and put down the hoops.”
“Going to play again to-day,” enquir
ed Miss Perfect briskly; “charming morning for a game — is he coming, William?”
“Yes, at eleven,”
“H’m!” murmured Aunt Dinah, in satisfactory rumination. —
And William, not caring to be drawn into another discussion of this interesting situation, jumped from the window upon the sward, and strolled away toward the river.
CHAPTER XV.
DINNER AT REVINGTON
TREVOR did appear, and was received smilingly; and Aunt Dinah came out and sat a little apart on the rustic seat, and looked on cheerfully, the day was so very charming. Perhaps she fancied it a case for a chaperone, and being a little more in evidence, than a seat in the drawingroom window would make her, and with her work, and with Psyche at her feet, she pre sided very cheerily.
When, after two or three games, Trevor was taking his leave, Miss Violet Darkwell having, notwithstanding various nods and small frowns from grannie, persisted in announcing that she was tired, and had beside a long letter to write before Tom left for the town, the master of Revington said — (he and Maubray were knocking the balls about at random) —
“I say, Maubray, you must come over to Revington and have a mutton chop, or something. You really must; an old schoolfellow, you know; and I want to talk to you a bit, upon my honour I do. I’m totally alone, you know, at present, and you must come.”
“But I’m going tomorrow, and this is my last evening here,” said William, who felt unaccountably queer and reluctant.
What could Trevor want to talk to him about? There was something in Trevor’s look and manner a little odd and serious — he fancied even embarrassed. Perhaps it is some nonsense about Vi!
“I want him to come and dine with me, Miss Perfect, and he says you can’t spare him,” said Trevor, addressing that lady. “I really do. I’ve no one to talk to. Do tell him to come.”
“Certainly,” said Aunt Dinah, with an imperious little nod to William Maubray. “Go, William, my dear, we shall see you tonight, and tomorrow morning. He’ll be very happy I’m sure,” said Aunt Dinah, who, like William Maubray possibly, anticipated a revelation.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 313