“I really can’t tell; perhaps he’s privately married, or in love with a milliner perhaps, and that has been the cause of this quarrel,” she said with an indolent mockery that might be serious, and, at all events, puzzled the elder lady.
“Ho! stuff, my dear child!” exclaimed her mother, with an uneasy scorn. “You had better call Brookes and get your habit off. And where did you leave him?”
“At the hall door,” replied Miss Clara, as she walked out of the room.
“H’m stuff!” repeated Mrs. Kincton Knox, still more uneasily, for she knew that Clara had her wits about her.
“Married, indeed! It’s probably just this — Vane Trevor has come here with a long foolish exhortation from Doctor — what’s his name? — Sprague — and upset the young man a little, and perhaps agitated him. He’ll be quite a different person tomorrow.”
And so indeed it proved. Whatever his secret feelings, William Maubray was externally a great deal more like himself. In the state which follows such a shock as William had experienced before the monotony of sadness sets in, there is sometimes an oscillation of spirits from extreme depression to an equally morbid hilarity, the symbol of excitement only. So in a long ride, which William took with the young lady to-day, accompanied by his pupil, who, on his pony, entertained himself by pursuing the sheep on the hill side, Miss Clara found him very agreeable, and also ready at times to philosophise, eloquently and sadly, in the sort of Byronic vein into which bitter young lovers will break. So the sky was brightening, and William, who suspected nothing of the peculiar interest with which his varying moods were observed, was yet flattered by the gradual but striking improvement of his relations, accepted the interest displayed by the ladies as a feminine indication of compassion and appreciation, and expressed a growing confidence and gratitude, the indirect expressions of which they, perhaps, a little misapprehended.
In the evening Mrs. Kincton Knox called again for the “Lord of Burleigh,” not being fertile in resource — Miss Clara turned her chair toward the fire, and with her feet on a boss, near the fender, leaned back, with a handscreen in her fingers, and listened.
“That is what I call poetry!” exclaimed the matron with the decision of a brigadier, and a nod of intimidating approbation, toward William, “and so charmingly read!”
“I’m afraid Miss Knox must have grown a little tired of it,” suggested William.
“One can never tire of poetry so true to nature,” answered Miss Clara.
“She’s all romance, that creature,” confidentially murmured her mamma, with a compassionating smile.
“What is it?” inquired Miss Clara.
“You’re not to hear, but we were saying, weren’t we, Mr. Herbert? that she has not a particle of romance in her nature,” replied her mamma with her gloomy pleasantry.
“No romance certainly, and I’m afraid no common sense either,” replied the young lady naively.
“Do you write poetry?” asked the old lady of William.
“You need not ask him, he could not read as he did, if he did not write,” said Miss Clara turning round in an eager glow, which momentary enthusiasm some other feeling overpowered, and she turned away again a little bashfully.
“You do write, I see it confessed in your eyes,” exclaimed Mrs. Kincton Knox. “He does, Clara, you’re right I really think sometimes she’s a — a — fairy.”
“Ask him, mamma, to read us some of his verses,” pleaded Clara, just a little timidly.
“You really must, Mr. Herbert — no, no, I’ll hear of no excuses; our sex has its privileges, you know, and where we say must, opposition vanishes,”
“Really,” urged William, “any little attempts of mine are so unworthy— “
“We must and will have them tomorrow evening; dear me, how the hours do fly. You have no idea, Clara dear, how late it is, quite dreadful. I’m really angry with you, Mr. Herbert, for beguiling us into such late hours.”
So the party broke up, and when Mrs. Kincton Knox entered her daughter’s room where she was in a dishevelled stage of preparation for bed, she said, her maid being just despatched on a message —
“I really wish, mamma, you’d stop about that Lord of Burleigh; I saw him look quite oddly when you asked for it again tonight, and he must know, unless he’s a fool, that you don’t care two pence about poetry, and you’ll just make him think we know who he is.”
“Pooh! nonsense, Clara! don’t be ridiculous,” said her mother, a little awkwardly, for she had a secret sense of Clara’s superiority. “I don’t want you to teach me what I’m to do, I hope, and who brought him here, pray, and investigated, and, in fact — here’s Brookes back again —— and you know we are to have his own verses tomorrow night, so we don’t want that, nor any more, if you’d rather not, and you can’t possibly be more sick of it than I am.”
“So, on the whole well pleased, the ladies betook themselves to their beds, and Mrs. Kincton Knox lay long awake, constructing her clumsy castles in the air.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
VANE TREVOR AT THE GATE OF GILROYD.
NEXT morning, at breakfast, as usual, the postbag brought its store of letters and news, and Mrs. Kincton Knox dispensed its contents in her usual magisterial manner. There were two addressed in Vane Trevor’s handwriting; one to the tutor, which the matron recognised as she sent it round to him in Howard’s hand, the other to herself.
“Pray, no ceremony with us,” said the lady of the house, with a gorgeous complacency; “read your letter here, Mr. Herbert: we are all opening ours, you see.”
So William Maubray, with an odd little flutter at his heart, opened the letter, which he knew would speak of those of whom it agitated him to think.
It was dated from Revington, whither, with a sort of home sickness new to him, Trevor had returned almost directly after his visit to Kincton.
Vane Trevor had, without intending it, left, perhaps, on Maubray’s mind an impression, that a little more had occurred than the progress of the drama could actually show. He had not yet committed himself irrevocably; but he had quite made up his mind to take the decisive Step, and only awaited the opportunity.
The day after his arrival he joined the Gilroyd ladies as they left the Rectory, where — for the great law of change and succession is at work continually and everywhere — the Mainwarings were no more, and good old Doctor Wagget was now installed, and beginning to unpack and get his books into their shelves, and he and old Miss Wagget were still nodding, and kissing their bands, and smiling genially on the doorsteps on their departing visitors.
Just here Vane Trevor lighted upon them. How lovely Miss Violet Darkwell looked! Was not that a blush, or only the rosy shadow under her bonnet?
“A blush, by Jove!” thought Vane Trevor, and he felt as elated as, a few weeks before, he would have been had he got a peerage.
So they stopped in a little group on the road under the parsonage trees; and, the usual greeting accomplished, the young man accompanied them on their way toward Gilroyd, and said he —
“I looked in the other day, on my way back from Lowton, on my cousins, the Kincton Knoxes, at Kincton, you know, and, by Jove! I met — who do you think?”
“I haven’t an idea,” replied Miss Darkwell, to whom he had chiefly addressed himself.
“Anne Dowlass, I dare say, my roguish, runaway little girl,” suggested Miss Perfect, inquisitively.
“Oh, no! not a girl,” answered Trevor.
“Well, it was the Bishop of Shovel-on-Headley,” said she firmly.
“No; by Jove! I don’t think you’d guess in half an hour. Upon my honour! He! he! he! Well, what do you think of Maubray?”
“William?” repeated Miss Perfect, faintly, and in a tone such as would indicate sudden pain.
“Yes, by Jove! the very man, upon my honour — as large as life. He’s— “
Suddenly, Vane Trevor recollected that he was not to divulge the secret of his being there in the office of tutor.
“
Well, he’s — what is he doing?” urged Aunt Dinah.
“He’s — he’s staying there; and, upon my honour — you won’t tell, I know, but, upon my honour — the old lady, and — he! he! he! — the young one are both — I give you my honour — in love with him!”
And Trevor laughed shrilly.
“But, I really aint joking — I’m quite serious, I do assure you. The old woman told me, in so many words almost, that Clara’s in love with him — awfully in love, by Jove!”
Trevor’s narrative was told in screams of laughter.
“And, you know, she’s really, awfully pretty: a stunning girl she was a year or two ago; and — you know that kind of thing could not be — both in the same house — and the girl in love with him — and nothing come of it. It’s a case, I assure you; and it will be a match, as sure as I’m walking beside you.”
“H’m!” ejaculated Aunt Dinah, with a quick little nod and closed lips, looking straight before her.
“How pretty that light is, breaking on the woods; how’ splendid the colours;” said Miss Darkwell.
“Yes — well! It really is now jolly!” responded Vane Trevor; and he would have made a pretty little speech on that text; but the presence of Miss Perfect, of course, put that out of the question.
Miss Perfect was silent during nearly all the rest of the walk; and the conversation remained to the young people, and Vane Trevor was as tenderly outspoken as a lunatic in his case dare be under restraint and observation.
They had reached the poplars, only a stone’s throw from the gate of Gilroyd, when Miss Perfect asked abruptly, “How was the young man looking?”
Vane Trevor had just ended a description of old Putties, the keeper of the “Garter,” whom he had seen removed in a drunken apoplexy to the hospital yesterday; and Aunt Dinah’s question for a moment puzzled him, but he quickly recovered the thread of the by-gone allusion.
“Oh! Maubray? I beg pardon. Maubray was looking very well, I think: a little like a hero in love, of course, you know, but very well. He was just going to lunch with the ladies when I left, and looked precious hungry, I can tell you. I don’t think you need trouble yourself about Maubray, Miss Perfect, I assure you you needn’t, for he’s taking very good care of himself every way, by Jove.”
“I don’t trouble myself,” said Aunt Dinah, rather sternly, interrupting Trevor’s agreeable cackle. “He has quite broken with me, as I already informed you — quite, and I don’t care who knows it. I shall never interfere with him or his concerns more. He shall never enter that gate, or see my face more; that’s no great privation, of course; but I don’t wish his death or destruction, little as he deserves of me, and that’s the reason I asked how he looked; and, having heard, I don’t desire to hear more about him, or to mention his name again.”
And Miss Perfect stared on Vane Trevor with a grim decision, which the young man was a little puzzled how to receive, and, with the gold head of his cane to his lip, looked up at a cloud, with a rueful and rather vacant countenance, intended to express something of a tragic sympathy.
He walked with them to the pretty porch; but Aunt Dinah was still absent and grim, and bid him goodbye, and shook hands at the door, without asking him in; and though he seemed to linger a little, there was nothing for it, but to take his departure, rather vexed.
That evening was silent and listless at Gilroyd, and though Miss Perfect left the parlour early, I think there was a séance, for, as she lay in her bed, Violet heard signs of life in the study beneath her, and Miss Perfect was very thoughtful, and old Winnie Dobbs very sleepy, ail next day.
It was odd, now that Vane Trevor had come to set his heart upon marrying Violet Darkwell, that his confidence in his claims, which he would have thought it simple lunacy to question a few weeks ago, began to waver. He began to think how that gentlemanlike Mr. Sergeant Darkwell, with the bright and thoughtful face, who was, no doubt, ambitious, would regard the rental and estate of Revington with those onerous charges upon it; how Miss Perfect, with her whims and fancies, and positive temper, might view the whole thing; and, lastly, whether he was quite so certain of the young lady’s “inclinations,” as the old novels have it, as he felt a little time before: and so he lay awake in an agitation of modesty, quite new to him.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
VANE TREVOR WALKS DOWN TO SEE MISS VIOLET.
LOOKING at himself in his glass next morning, Vane Trevor pronounced the coup d’œil “awfully seedy. This sort of thing, by Jove, it will never do, it would wear out any fellow; where’s the good in putting off? there’s no screw loose, there’s nothing against me; I hope I stand pretty well here — hang it —— I’ll walk down to-day,” and he looked over the slopes to sunny Gilroyd, “and if a good opportunity turns up, I’ll speak to Miss Darkwell.”
And though he had taken care, in secret mercy to his nerves, to state his resolve hypothetically, his heart made two or three strange throbs and experienced a kind of sinking like that said to attend, on the eve of battle, an order to prepare for action.
Accordingly, before twelve o’clock Vane Trevor walked into the porch of Gilroyd, and rang the bell beside the open door, and stood with the gold head of his cane to his chin, looking on the woodlands toward Revington, and feeling as he might have felt in an ominous dream.
“Miss Perfect at home?” he inquired of the maid, with a haggard simper.
“She was in the drawingroom,” into which room, forgetting the preliminary of announcement, he pushed his way. She was not there, but he heard her talking to Winnie Dobbs in the gallery.
“Just passing by; afraid I’m very troublesome, but I could not resist,” pleaded Vane Trevor, as he glanced over Miss Perfect’s gray silk shoulder, and somewhat old fashioned collar, toward the door, expecting, perhaps, another apparition.
“I’m very glad you’ve come, Mr. Trevor. — Shall we sit down? for I want to ask you to satisfy me upon a point.”
This was a day of agitations for Trevor, and his heart made an odd little dance, and a sudden drop, and though he smiled, he felt his cheek grow a little pale.
“By Jove!” thought Trevor as he placed himself near Aunt Dinah, “she’ll save me a lot of trouble, and open the subject all in a sentence.”
He was leaning against the window case, and the damask curtains, though somewhat the worse of the sun, made a gorgeous drapery about him, as with folded arms, and trying to look perfectly serene, he looked down on Miss Perfect’s face. The lady seemed to have some little difficulty about speaking, and cleared her voice, and looked out of the window for help, and all the time the young man felt very oddly. At last she said —
“I had made up my mind not to allude to the subject, but last night, something occurred which has induced me just to ask a question or two.” Aunt Dinah paused; and with rather pale lips, Vane Trevor smiled an assurance that he would be too happy to answer any question which Miss Perfect might please to ask.
Again a little silence — again the odd sensation in Vane’s heart, and the same sickening sense of suspense, and he felt he could not stand it much longer.
“I said I would not allude again to William Maubray; but I have altered that resolution. I mean, however, to ask but a question or two.”
“Oh?” was all that Trevor uttered, but he felt that he could have wished the old woman and William Maubray in a sack at the bottom of his best pond at Revington.
“I wish to know, the Kincton Knoxes, aren’t they a leading people rather, in their part of the world?”
“Oh, dear, yes. Kincton is one of the best places in the county,” ejaculated Trevor, who being a kinsman, bore a handsome testimony.
“And — and — the young lady, Miss Clara Knox, she, I suppose, is — is admired?”
“So she is, by Jove — I know, I admired her awfully — so admired that the fellows won’t let one another marry her, by Jove! — he, he, he! Very fine girl, though, and I believe her father, or rather her mother, will give her a lot of money.”
“And you spoke, you remember, of an idea that — that in fact it would end in a marriage,” resumed Miss Perfect.
“Did I really say? well, but you won’t mention what I say, upon my honour, and quite seriously, I should not wonder a bit. It is not altogether what she said, you know, Mrs. Kincton Knox, I mean, though that was as strong as you could well imagine — but her manner; I know her perfectly, and when she wishes you to understand a thing — and I assure you that’s what she wished me to suppose — and I, really I can’t understand it; it seems to me perfectly incomprehensible, like a sort of infatuation, for she’s one of the sharpest women alive, Mrs, Kincton Knox; but, by Jove, both she and Clara, they seem to have quite lost their heads about Maubray. I never heard anything like it, upon my honour.”
And Trevor, who had by this time quite shaken off the chill of his suspense, laughed very hilariously, till Aunt Dinah said, with some displeasure —
“For the life of me, I can’t see anything ridiculous in it. William Maubray is better connected than they, and he’s the handsomest young man I ever beheld in my life; and if she has money enough of her own, for both, I can’t see what objection or difficulty there can be.”
“Oh! certainly — certainly not on those grounds; only what amused me was, there’s a disparity; you know — she’s, by Jove! she is — she’s five years older, and that’s something.”
“And — and if it is to be, how soon do you suppose it likely?” asked Miss Perfect, fixing her eyes anxiously on him.
“Well, you know, I know no more than the man in the moon; but if they really mean it, I don’t see what’s to delay it,” answered Trevor.
“Because” — hesitated Aunt Dinah, “I have reason to know that if that unfortunate young man — not that I have any reason to care more than anyone else, should marry before the lapse of five years, he will be utterly ruined, and undone by so doing.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 323