“Certainly no worse” said William, very truly, shaking his hand cordially.
“And I’ll be off to-day. I’ll go to the opera, or something tonight. I’ve been too long shut up; a fellow grows rusty, you know, in this tiresome comer. I wish some fool of a fellow would take a lease of it. Goodbye, old fellow; you must come up to town and see me when I’m settled, mind.”
And so the) parted
CHAPTER LXI.
A DOUBT TROUBLES MAUBRAY.
I COME now to some incidents, the relation of which partakes, I can’t deny, of the marvellous. I can however, vouch for the literal truth of the narrative; so can William Maubray; so can my excellent friend Doctor Wagget; so also can my friend Doctor Drake, a shrewd and sceptical physician, all thoroughly cognizant of the facts. If, therefore, anything related in the course of the next two or three chapters should appear to you wholly incredible, I beg that you will not ascribe the prodigious character of the narrative to any moral laxities on the part of the writer.
I believe William Maubray liked Vane Trevor very honestly, and that he was as capable of friendship as any man I have ever met with; but this I will aver, that he had not been so cheerful since poor Aunt Dinah’s death as for the remainder of the day on which he had heard the authentic report of his friend’s overthrow.
Down to the town of Saxton, that evening, walked William, for in his comfortable moods he required human society, as he yearned for sympathy in his afflictions. He visited his hospitable friend, Doctor Drake, now in his pardonable elation on the occasion of his friend’s downfall, as he had done when writhing under the thunderbolts of poor Aunt Dinah.
In this case, however, he could not disclose what lay nearest, to his heart. It would not have done to commit poor Trevor’s little secret to Doctor Drake, nor yet to tell him how wildly in love he was, and how the events of this day had lighted up his hopes. In fact, Doctor Drake had long ceased to be the sort of doctor whom a gay fellow suffering from one of Cupid’s bow-shot wounds would have cared to consult, and William visited him on this occasion simply because he was elated, excited, and could not do without company of some sort.
At about halfpast nine o’clock Doctor Drake was called away to visit Mr. Thomas, the draper.
“Gouty pain in the duodenum — there’s a man, now, wansh — a — kill himself. He is killing himself. Advice! You might as well advise that ub — bottle. You might, a bilious fellow — lithic acid — gouty— ‘sgouty a fellow, by Jove, Sir, as you’d like to see, and all I can do he wone rink his — his little — whatever it is, anyway but hot — hot. Sir, and with sugar — sugar, and you know that’s poison simple p — poison. You see me, any li’l’ thing I take — sometimes a liddle she’y, sometimes a li’l’ ole Tom, or branle; I take it cole, without — quite innocent — rather usefle — shlight impulse — all the organs — never affec’ the heaa — never touch the liver — that’s the way, Sir; that’s how you come to live long — lots o’ waw’r — cole waw’r, and just sprinkle over, that’s your sort, Sir, stick a’ that, Sir; cole, cole waw’r — lots o”waw’r, Sir; never make too stiff, you know, an’ you may go on all nigh’ — don’ go, you know, I mayn be half’n hour all nigh, Sir, an’ no harm done — no harm, Sir, rather usefle.”
By this time the doctor had got himself into his surtout, and selecting Mr. Thomas’s gouty cordials, ether and other bottles from his drawer, he set forth on his sanitary expedition, and the symposium ended.
So William walked musingly homeward. What a tender melancholy over everything! What a heavenly night! What a good, honest, clever fellow, Doctor Drake was! By Jove, he had forgotten to ask for Miss Drake, who was no doubt in the drawingroom — a jolly old creature was Miss Drake! Should he go back and drink some of her tea? He halted and turned, not right about, but right face, and hesitated in the moonlight. No, it was too late — he forgot how late it was. But he’d go down specially to drink tea with Miss Drake another evening. And so, he resumed that delicious walk homewards.
There was no use in denying it any longer to himself — none — he knew it — he felt it — he was in love with Violet Darkwell — awfully in love! And as every lover is an egotist, and is disposed on the whole to think pretty well of himself; the hypothesis did cross his fancy frequently that the downfall of his friend Trevor was somehow connected with the fortunes of William Maubray. Was there — might there not be — did he not remember signs and tokens, such as none but lovers’ eyes can read or see, that seemed to indicate a preference; might there not be a preoccupation?
What a charm in the enigmatic conditions of a lover’s happiness! How beautiful the castles in the air in which his habitation is! How she stands at the open portal, or leans from the casement in beautiful shadow, or golden light divine! How he reads his fate in air-drawn characters, in faintest signs, remembered looks, light words, a tone! How latent meanings hover in all she says, or sings, or looks, or does; and how imagination is enthralled by the mystery, and he never tires of exploring, and guessing and wondering, and sighing. Those deep reserves and natural wiles of girls are given to interest us others, with those sweet doubts and trembling hopes that constitute the suspense and excitement of romance.
William Maubray sat himself down in a delightful melancholy, in his great chair by the drawingroom fire, and ordered tea, and told old Winnie that she must come and have a cup, and keep him company and so she did very gladly, and William made her talk a great deal about poor Aunt Dinah, and this retrospect went on with a stream of marginal anecdote about Miss Violet, to every syllable of which, though maundered over in honest Winnie’s harum-scarum prose, he listened breathlessly, as to the far-off music of angels. And when all was told out, led her back artfully, and heard the story bit by bit again, and listened to her topsy-turvy praises of Violet in a delightful dream, and would have kept her up all night narrating, but honest Homer nodded at last, and William was fain to let the muse take flight to her crib.
Then, leaning back in his chair, he mused alone, revolving sweet and bitter fancies, thinking how well Sergeant Darkwell thought of him, how near Violet still was, what easy access to the Rectory, how sure he was of the old people’s good word, how miserable he should be, what a failure his life without her. How she had refused Vane Trevor — refused Revington. Was that a mere motiveless freak? Was there no special augury in his favour discernible in it? He had the Bar before him now — could not Sergeant Darkwell bring him forward, put him in the way of business? He was not afraid of his work — he liked it. Anything — everything, for sake of her. Besides, he was no longer penniless. He could make a settlement now. Thanks to poor dear Aunt Dinah, Gilroyd was his. Aunt Dinah!
And here the thought of her odd threatenings and prohibition crossed his brain. Five years! Nonsense!
Madness! That would never do. Five years before so young a man, looks like fifty. In a lover’s chronicle it is an age. Quite impracticable. He would lay the case before Sergeant Darkwell and Doctor Wagget. He well knew how they, conscientious, good, clear-headed men, would treat it. But, alas! it troubled him — it vexed him. The menace was in his ear — a shadow stood by him. There were memoranda in his desk, and poor Aunt Dinah’s last letter. He would read them over. He had fancied very likely that she meant more — and more seriously, than a reperusal would support. So eagerly he opened his desk, and got out these momentous papers.
CHAPTER LXII.
THE FURNITURE BEGINS TO TALK.
He read Aunt Dinah’s letters over again, and marked the passage with his pencil, and read again, “Do remember, dear boy, all told you, dear, about the five years. I dreamed much since. If you think of such a thing I must do it.”
This last sentence he underlined, “If you think of such a thing, I must do it. Sorry I shoul” (she means should) “fear or dislike me. I should haunt, torment Willie. But you will do right.” Do right. She meant wait for five years, of course. My poor darling aunt! I wish you had never seen one of those odious books of American bosh —
Elihu Bung! I wish Elihu Bung was sunk in a barrel at the bottom of the sea.
Then William looked to his diary, for about that period of his life he kept one for two years and seven months, and he read these entries:
“ — Dear Aunt Dinah pressed me very much to give her a distinct promise not to marry for five years — marry indeed! I — poor, penniless William Maubray I shall never marry — yet I can’t make this vow — and she threatened me saying, ‘If I’m dead there’s nothing that spirit can do, if you so much as harbour the thought, be I good, or evil, or mocking, I’ll not do to prevent it. I’ll trouble you, I’ll torment you, I’ll pick your eyes out, but I won’t suffer you to ruin yourself.’ And she said very often that she expected to be a mocking spirit; and said again, ‘Mind I told you, though I be dead, you sha’n’t escape me.’ That night I had an odious nightmare. An apparition like my aunt came to my bedside, and caught my arm with its hand, and said quite distinctly, ‘Oh! my God! William, I am dead; don’t let me go.’ I fancied I saw the impression of fingers on my arm; and think I never was so horrified in my life. And afterwards in her own bedroom, my aunt having heard my dream, returned to the subject of her warning and said, ‘If I die before the time, I’ll watch you as an old gray cat watches a mouse, if you so much as think of it I’ll plague you; I’ll save you in spite of yourself, and mortal was never haunted and tormented as you will be, till you give it up.’ And saying this she laughed.
“The whole of this new fancy turns out to be one of the Henbane delusions. How I wish all those cursed books of spiritualism were with Don Quixote’s library.”
William had now the facts pretty well before him. He had moreover a very distinct remembrance of that which no other person had imagined or seen — the face of the apparition of Aunt Dinah, and the dark and pallid stare she had actually turned upon him, as he recounted the particulars of his vision. It had grown very late, and he was quite alone, communing in these odd notes, and with these strange remembrances with the dead. Perhaps all the strong tea he had drunk with old Winnie that night helped to make him nervous. One of his candles had burnt out by this time, and as he raised his eyes from these curious records, the room looked dark and indistinct, and the slim, black cabinet that stood against the wall at the further end of the room startled him, it looked so like a big muffled man.
I dare say he began to wish that he had postponed his scrutiny of his papers until the morning. At all events he began to experience those sensations, which in morbid moods of this kind, dispose us to change of scene. What was it that made that confounded cabinet, and its shadow, again look so queer, as he raised his eyes and the candle; just like a great fellow in a loose coat extending his arm to strike?
That was the cabinet which once, in a confidential mood, poor Aunt Dinah had described as the spiritual tympanum on which above all other sympathetic pieces of furniture in the house she placed her trust. Such a spirit-gauge was in no other room of Gilroyd. It thrummed so oracularly; it cracked with such a significant emphasis.
“Oh! I see; nothing but the shadow, as I move the candle. Yes, only that and nothing more. I wish it was out of that, it is such an ugly black beast of a box.”
Now William put poor Aunt Dinah’s letter carefully back in its place, as also his diary, and locked his desk; and just then the cabinet uttered one of those cracks which poor Aunt Dinah so much respected. In the supernatural silence it actually made him bounce. It was the first time in his life he had ever fancied such things could have a meaning.
“The fire’s gone out; the room is cooling, and the wood of that ridiculous cabinet is contracting. What can it do but crack? I think I’m growing as mad as — he was on the point of saying as poor Aunt Dinah, but something restrained him, and he respectfully substituted as a March hare.”
Here the cabinet uttered a fainter crack, which seemed to say, “I hear you;” and William paused, expecting almost to see something sitting on the top of it, or emerging through its doors, and he exclaimed, “Such disgusting nonsense!” and he looked round the room, and over his shoulder, as he placed his keys in his pocket.
His strong tea, and his solitude, and the channel into which he had turned his thoughts; the utter silence, the recent death, and the lateness of the hour, made the disgusted philosopher rise to take the candle which had not a great deal of life left in it, and shutting the door on the cabinet, whose loquacity he detested, he got to his bedroom in a suspicious and vigilant state; and he was glad when he got into his room. William locked his door on the inside. He lighted his candles, poked his fire, violently wrested his thoughts from uncomfortable themes, sat himself down by the fire and thought of Violet Darkwell. “Oh that I dare think it was for my sake she refused Vane Trevor!” and so on, building many airy castles, and declaiming eloquently over his work. The old wardrobe in the room made two or three warning starts and cracks, but its ejaculations were disrespectfully received.
“Fire away, old fool, much I mind you! A gentlemanlike cabinet may be permitted, but a vulgar cupboard, impudence.”
So William got to his bed, and fell asleep: in no mood I think to submit to a five years’ wait, if a chance of acceptance opened; and in the morning lie was astonished.
Again, my reader’s incredulity compels me to aver in the most solemn manner that the particulars I now relate of William Maubray’s history are strictly true. He is living to depose to all. My excellent friend Doctor Drake can certify to others, and as I said, the rector of the parish, to some of the oddest. Upon this evidence, not doubting, I found my narrative.
CHAPTER LXIII.
WILLIAM MAUBRAY IS TORMENTED.
ON the little table at his bedside, where his candle stood, to his surprise, on awakening, he saw one of the boots which he had put off in the passage on the previous night. There it was, no possible mistake about it; and what was more it was placed like one of his ornamental bronze weights; one of those indeed was fashioned like a buskin upon some papers.
What were these papers? With growing amazement he saw that they were precisely those which he had been reading the night before, and had carefully locked up in his desk — poor Aunt Dinah’s warning letter — and his own notes of her threatening words!
It was little past seven now; he had left his shutters open as usual. Had he really locked his door? No doubt upon that point. The key was inside, and the door locked. The keys of his desk, what of them? There they were precisely where he had left them, on the chimneypiece. This certainly was very odd. Who was there in the house to play him such a trick? No one could have opened his door; his key stuck in the lock on the inside; and how else could anyone have entered? Who was there to conceive such a plot? and by what ingenuity could any merry devil play it off?
And who could know what was passing in his mind? Here was a symbol such as he could not fail to interpret, The heel of his boot on the warnings and entreaties of his poor dead aunt! could anything be more expressive?
William began to feel very oddly. He got on his clothes quickly, and went down to the drawingroom. His desk was just — had placed it; he unlocked it; his papers were not disturbed; nothing apparently had been moved but the letter and his diary.
William sat down utterly puzzled, and looked at the black japanned cabinet, with its straggling bass-reliefs of golden Chinamen, pagodas, and dragons glimmering in the cold morning light, with more real suspicion than he had ever eyed it before.
Old Winnie thought that day that Mr. William was unusually “dull.” The fact is that he was beginning to acquire, not a hatred, but a fear of Gilroyd, and to revolve in his mind thoughts of selling the old house and place, or letting it, and getting out of reach of its ambiguous influences. He was constantly thinking over these things, puzzling his brain over an inscrutable problem, still brooding over the strange words of Aunt Dinah, “A mocking spirit; I’ll trouble; I’ll torment you. You shan’t escape me. Though I be dead, I’ll watch you as an old gray cat watches a mouse. If you so much as think of it, I’ll p
lague you!” and so forth.
William walked over to the Rectory. He asked first for Miss Wagget — she was out; then for the rector — so was he.
“Are you quite sure the ladies are out — both?” he inquired, lingering.
“Yes, Sir. Miss Darkwell drove down with the mistress to the church, about the new cushions, I think.”
“Oh! then I’ll call another time;” and William’s countenance brightened as he looked down on the pretty spire, and away he went on the wings of hope.
The church door was open, and sexton and clerk were there, and William, looking round the empty pews and up to the galleries, inquired for Miss Wagget. He was not lucky. The sexton mistook the inquiry for Mr. Wagget, and directed William to the vestry-room, at whose door he knocked with a beating heart, and entering, found the rector examining the register for the year’48.
“Ha! — found me out? Tracked to my lair,” said he, saluting William with a wave of his hand, and a kindly smiling. “Not a word, though, till this is done — just a minute or two. Sit down.”
“I’ll wait in the church, Sir,” said William, and slipped out to renew his search. But his news was disappointing. The ladies had driven away, neither clerk nor sexton could tell whither, except that it was through High Street; and William mounted the elevated ground about the yew tree, and gazed along the High Street, but all in vain, and along the upward road to Treworth, but equally without result: and the voice of the rector, who thought he was admiring the landscape, recalled him.
Mr. Wagget was not only an honourable and a religious man — he was kindly and gay; he enjoyed everything — his trees and his flowers, his dinner, his friends, even his business, but, above all things, his books; and herein was a powerful sympathy with the younger student, who was won besides to confidence by the genial spirits of the good man.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 333