Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  So Fate had resolved that William Maubray should visit Kincton Hall, while Aunt Dinah was daily expecting the return of her prodigal to Gilroyd.

  “If I don’t hear from William Maubray before Sunday, I shall write on Monday morning to Doctor Sprague,” said she, after a long silence at breakfast.

  She looked at Violet, but the young lady was looking on the cloth, and with her fingertips stirring hither and thither some flowers that lay there — not her eyes, only her long eyelashes were visible — and the invitation to say something conveyed in Aunt Dinah’s glance, miscarried “And I think it very strange — not what I should have expected from William — that he has not written. I don’t mean an apology, that’s a matter between his own conscience and his Maker I mean some little inquiry.

  Affection, of course we cannot command, but respect and courtesy we may.”

  “I had thought better of William. I think Doctor Sprague will be surprised,” she resumed. “I did not think he could have parted on the terms he did, and never written a line after for nearly a week. He seems to me quite a changed person.”

  “Just at that age,” said Miss Violet, in a low tone, looking nearer to her flowers, and growing interested in a rose whose rumpled leaves she was adjusting with her fingertips, “some one says — I read it lately somewhere — I forget who — they grow weary of home and home faces, and want change and adventure, that is action and danger, of one kind or another, what they are sent into the world for, I suppose — that and liberty.” She spoke very low, as if to her flowers, and when she ceased Miss Perfect, finding she had no more to say, added —

  “And a wise business they make of it — fifty blunders in as many days, and begin looking out for wives before they know how to earn a guinea.”

  Violet looked up and smiled, and popped her rose gently into the water glass beside her, and went on adjusting her flowers.

  “Wives, indeed! Yes — just what his poor father did before him, and his grandfather, old Sir Everard, he was married, privately, at twenty! It runs in the blood, my dear, like gaming or drinking: and the next I shall hear of William, I dare say, will be a note to ask my blessing on his marriage!”

  Again Miss Violet laughed softly, and smiling for a moment, with a pretty slip of verbena in her fingers, she added it to the growing bouquet in the glass.

  “You may laugh, my dear, but it is what I’m afraid of I assure you I am serious.”

  “But it may turn out very happy, or very splendid, you know; he may meet with a young lady more foolish than himself, and with a great dot.”

  “No, my dear, he’s a soft, romantic goose, and I really think if it were not imprudent, the romance would lose all its attraction. I tell you, it runs in the family, and he’s not a bit wiser than his father, or his grandfather before him.”

  “This will never do without a bit of blue. May I run out to the flowers?”

  “Certainly, dear;” and Aunt Dinah peered through her spectacles at the half made-up bouquet in the glass.

  “Yes, it does — it wants blue. Isn’t there blue verbena?”

  And away ran Violet, and her pretty figure and gay face flitted before the windows in the early sun among the flowers. And Aunt Dinah looked for a moment with a smile and a sigh. Perhaps she was thinking of the time when it was morning sun and opening flowers for her, and young fellows — one of whom, long dead in India, was still a dream for her — used to talk their foolish flatteries, that sounded like muffled music in the distant air; and she looked down dreamily on the back of her slim wrinkled hand that lay on the table.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  W. MAUBRAY ARRIVES.

  WHEN, a few days later, Maubray, who was a shy man stepped down from his fly, as the vehicle which conveyed him from the neighbouring railway station, though it more resembled a snail, was called, and found himself under the cold, gray, Ionic colonnade which received people at Kincton, with a dismal and exclusive hospitality, his heart sank, a chilly shadow descended upon him, and in the silent panic of the moment he felt tempted to reenter the vehicle, return to Dr. Sprague, and confess that he wanted nerve to fulfil his engagement.

  William was conducted through the hall, up the great stairs, over a sombre lobby and up a second and narrower stair, to a gallery cold and dim, from which his room door opened. Upon this floor the quietude of desertion reigned. He looked from his low window into a small courtyard, formed on three sides by the house itself, and on the fourth by a rear of the offices, behind which a thick mass of autumnal foliage showed itself in the distance The circumscribed view was dreary and formal. How different from homely, genial old Gilroyd! But that was a dream, and this reality; and so his toilet proceeded rapidly, and he descended, looking by no means like a threadbare dominie, but handsome and presentable, and with the refinement of his good birth and breeding in his features.

  “Can I see Mr. Kincton Knox?” inquired William of the servant in the hall.

  “I’ll inquire, Sir,” and William was left in that tesselated and pillared apartment, while the servant entered his master’s study, and speedily returning, informed him with a superciliousness which was new to William, and decidedly uncomfortable, that he might enter.

  It was a handsome study, stored with handsome books and sundry busts, one of the deceased Horace Kincton Knox, in porphyry, received William on a pedestal near the door, and looked alarmingly like a case of smallpox.

  The present master of Kincton, portly, handsome, though threescore years had not passed over him in vain, with a bald forehead, and a sort of simple dignity, as William fancied, rose smiling, and came to meet him with his hand extended, and with a cordial glow about him, as though he had known him for years.

  “You are very welcome, Sir — very happy to see you — very happy to make your acquaintance; and how is my good friend, Sprague? a very old friend of mine, though we have dropped out of sight a good deal; and I correspond very little, so we lose sight of one another; but he’s well, and doing well too? I’m very happy to see you.”

  There was something homely and reassuring in this kind old man, which was very pleasant to William.

  “Doctor Sprague was very well when I left him, and gave me this note, Sir, for you,” replied William, presenting it to his host, who took it, and glanced at it as they stood on the hearthrug together; and as he read it, he observed:

  “Very cold the weather is, very cold — at this time of year. You’ve had a cold drive. Not had luncheon yet? Two o’clock, you know: yes, about a quarter to two now, in a quarter of an hour.”

  He had by this time laid Doctor Sprague’s note on the table.

  “And the little boy, Sir, where is he?” suggested William.

  “Oh, oh! little Howard! I suppose we shall see him at lunch.”

  “I should wish very much to hear any directions or suggestions, and to know something as to what he has been doing,” said William.

  “Very true — very right, Mr. — Mr.,” and old Kincton Knox groped towards the note, intending to refresh his memory.

  “Herbert,” interposed William, colouring a little. ‘‘Doctor Sprague made a point of the name, and I believe, Sir, wrote particularly about it.”

  “Quite so — very right, Sir. It is Herbert. I quite approve — quite, Sir; and about the boy. The fact is, Mr. Herbert, I leave him very much to his mother. She can tell you much more what he has been doing — very young, you know, still — and — and she’ll tell you all about him; and I hope you will be happy, I’m sure; and don’t fail to tell the people whatever you want, you know; I live very much to myself — quiet room this — fond of books, I suppose? Well, I shall be always very happy to see you here; in fact it will be a great pleasure. We may as well sit down, do, pray; for you know ladies don’t care very much for this sort of reading;” and he waved his short white hand towards the bookcases; “and sometimes one feels a little lonely; and Sprague tells me you have a turn for reading.”

  The door opened, and a servant announced that M
rs Kincton Knox wished to see Mr. Herbert in the schoolroom.

  “Ho!” exclaimed the master of Kincton, with a grave countenance and a promptitude which savoured of discipline. “Well, at lunch I shall see you, Mr. Herbert; we’ll meet in ten minutes or so; and, Edward, you’ll show Mr. — a — Herbert to the schoolroom.”

  Across the hall was he conducted, to a room in which were some sporting prints and two dingy oil paintings of “sometime,” favourite hunters who sniffed and heard their last of field and bugle a century ago. There were also some guns and fishing rods; and, through this to the schoolroom, where Mrs. Kincton Knox, in purple silk, with a turban on her head, loomed awfully before him as he entered, and made him a slight and rustling courtesy, which rather warned him off than greeted him.

  “Mr. — a — a — Herbert?” said the lady of the prominent black eyes, with a lofty inquiry.

  “I — a — Doctor Sprague — told me he had written very fully about the — the,” stammered William, who began to feel like a concealed ticket-of-leave man.

  “The name, yes? said Mrs. Kincton Knox, looking steadily on him, and then ensued a silence.

  “He informed me that having explained the circumstances fully, and also that it was his not my particular wish, you had seen no difficulty in it,” said William.

  “Difficulty — none — there can be no difficulty when there’s no constraint,” replied Mrs. Kincton Knox, laying down a metaphysical axiom, as she sometimes did, which William could not quite clearly understand; “and although I have always maintained the position that where there’s mystery there is guilt; yet feeling a confidence in Doctor Sprague’s character and profession — of both of which Mr. Kincton Knox happened to know something — we have endeavoured to overcome our objection.”

  “I understood there was no objection,” interposed William, flushing.

  “Pray allow me. An objection satisfied is not necessarily an objection foregone; in this case, however, you are at liberty to treat it in that light. We waive our objection, and we have every reasonable confidence that we shall not have occasion to repent having done so.”

  This was spoken graciously and condescendingly, for she thought that a person who looked so decidedly like a gentleman would rather conduce to the dignity of the Kincton “household.” But it did not seem to strike the young man at all in that light.

  “You are about, Mr. — a — Sir, to undertake the charge of my precious child — sensitive, delicate — too delicate and too impressionable to have permitted his making all the progress I could have wished in the rudiments — you understand — of future education and accomplishment; a little wild, but full of affection, and of natural docility — but still unused — from the causes I have mentioned — to restraint or coercion. Your duty will therefore be a delicate one. I need not say that nothing of the nature of punishment will be permitted or endured. You will bear in mind the illustration of the sacred writer — the sun and the tempest, and the traveller’s cloak.” At this point William coughed slightly into his handkerchief. “Mild influences, in my mind, effect more than ever was accomplished by harshness; and such is the system under which our precious Howard must learn. Am I understood?”

  “Quite,” said William. “I should not myself undertake the task of punishing any child; but I am afraid, unless the parents are prepared to pull him up now and then for idleness or inattention, you will find his progress far from satisfactory.”

  That is a question quite for them? said Mrs. Kincton Knox, in her queenlike way.

  William bowed.

  “What I want chiefly in a person — in a gentleman in your capacity — is that he shall begin to — my precious child shall begin to associate with a superior mind, and imbibe rather by contact than task-work. Do I make myself clear? The — a — the — you know, of course, the kind of thing.”

  William did not apprehend quite so clearly the nature of his duties as he would have wished, but said nothing.

  “You and he will breakfast with us at halfpast nine. I regret I cannot ask you to lunch. But you and Howard will dine at three o’clock in this room, and have tea and any little thing that Mrs. Ridgeway, the housekeeper, may send you at six. The boy goes to his bed at halfpast nine, and I conclude you already know your own room.”

  “And where is my pupil?” inquired William.

  Mrs. Kincton Knox rang the bell. “He shall be with you presently, Mr. Herbert, and you will please to bear in mind that the dear boy’s health is just at present our first object, and that he must not be pressed to study more than he wishes.”

  Master Howard Seymour Knox entered, eyeing the tutor suspiciously and loweringly. He had, perhaps, heard confidently of possible canings, and viewed William Maubray with a sheepish kind of malevolence.

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  WILLIAM MAUBRAY BEGINS TO EXCITE AN INTEREST.

  THERE was positively nothing to interest William Maubray pupil, and a great deal to irritate and disgust him. What can be more sterile than the nature of a selfish child spoiled by indulgence. It was one comfort, however, that he was not expected to accomplish a miracle, that is, to teach a boy who had the option of learning nothing, and often for two hours or more at a time he was relieved altogether of his company, when he went out to drive with Mrs. Kincton Knox, or to have a ride on his pony with the groom.

  But the monotony and solitude grew dreadful. At breakfast he sat with, but not of, the party. Except, indeed, the kindly old gentleman, who lived in a monastic seclusion among his books and trees and flowers, and to whom William’s occasional company was a cheer and a happiness, no one at the breakfast table seemed, after the first slight and silent salutation was over, conscious of his presence.

  Miss Clara and her mamma talked of matters that interested them — their neighbours, and the fashions and the peerage, and even the furniture, as if William were a picture, or nothing at all.

  He could not fail, notwithstanding his exclusion, to perceive that Clara was handsome — very handsome, indeed — quite a brilliant blonde, and with that confident and haughty air of — was it fashion — was it blood — was it the habit of being adored with incense and all sorts of worship — he could not tell. He only knew that it became her, and helped to overpower him.

  We are not to suppose that all this time female curiosity at Kincton slumbered and slept over such a problem as William Maubray. Treat him how they might in his presence, he was a topic both of interest and inquiry in his absence. The few letters that reached him afforded no clue; they were addressed with uniform exactitude to “W. Herbert, Esq.” The books he had brought with him to Kincton contributed no light; for William had not inscribed his name in his books. Miss Clara’s maid, who was intensely interested in the investigation, brought a pockethandkerchief of the tutor’s to her young mistress’s room, where both she and her mamma conned over the initials “W.M.” in a small but florid arabesque in the corner. It was, no doubt, a condescension such as William ought to have been proud of.

  “There’s five on ‘em so, Miss — the rest unmarked, and nothing else marked, except three old shirts.”

  “Why, you goose, what can I care?” laughed Miss Clara. “I’m not his nurse, or his seamstress. Take it away this moment. What a pretty discussion!”

  This “W.M.,” however, was not without its interest, and two days later the maid exhibited an old copy of Feltham’s “Resolves,” abstracted from William’s little file of books, with “William Martin” neatly inscribed on the fly-leaf, but in a hand so quaint and ancient, and with ink so brown, that even Miss Clara “pooh-poohed “ the discovery.

  Now, the young lady could not help in some sort requiting William’s secret estimate of her good looks. She thought the young tutor decidedly handsome; in fact, there could be no question about it. He was well formed too; and with that undefinable grace which people are apt to refer to gentle blood. There was, moreover, a certain refinement and sensitiveness in his countenance utterly incompatible with the idea of vulgarity of
any kind. Now, a tutor might be anything — a decayed nobleman or a chandler’s son. Was not Louis Philippe an usher in a school? All you were to assume was that he could teach Latin grammar, and was in want of money.

  There were some little signs of superfluity, too, in William’s valuables. The butler, who was a native of Geneva, presuming on William’s tutorship, had, on a fitting opportunity, begged leave to inspect his watch, and appraised it at twenty guineas among his fellow-servants. This and the massive gold chain, which also excited his admiration, were gifts from Miss Perfect, as was also that glorious dressing-case, presented on his attaining his twenty-first year, resplendent with gold and mother-o’-pearl, and which the same competent authority valued at seventy guineas at least. Now, those things, though little, and some not at all seen outside the walls of his own little bedroom, emitted, like the concealed relics of a saint, so to speak, a glory and a fragrance which permeated the house. It was quite impossible, then, that want of money had driven this Mr. Herbert, or whoever he was, into his present position.

  On the plate on top of this resplendent dressing-case the maid, who, fired by Monsieur Drouet’s report, had visited the treasure clandestinely, were inscribed, as she reported to Miss Clare, the same mysterious characters “W. M.”

  “I like the old gentleman — kind old man. What wonderful things books are; nourishment for all sorts and sizes of minds — poor old Mr. Kincton Knox. How he reads and positively enjoys them. Yet the best things in them might just as well never have been written or thought, for any real perception he has of them! A kind man; I like him so much; I feel so obliged to him. And what illbred, insupportable persons the ladies are; that pompous, strong-willed, stupid old woman; her magnificence positively stifles me; and the young lady, how disagreeably handsome she is, and how unpertinent. It must be a love of inflicting pain and degradation — how cruel, how shabby, how low!”