“He has been extremely troublesome; and I’ll speak to him by-and-by,” said the matron.
“Speak, indeed; much he cares!”
“I’ll make him care, though.”
There was a little silence, and the ladies mentally returned to the more momentous topic from which the extortion of Howard Seymour had for a moment diverted them.
“What do you think of it?” murmured Mrs. Kincton Knox.
“Oh! I think there’s but one thing to think,” answered Miss Clara.
“I look upon it as perfectly conclusive; and, in fact, his appearance tallies so exactly with the descriptions we have heard that we hardly needed all this corroboration. As it is, I am satisfied.”
At this moment the door opened, and Vane Trevor was announced.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
TREVOR AND MAUBRAY IN THE DRAWINGROOM.
VANE TREVOR was a remote cousin, and so received as a kinsman; he entered and was greeted smilingly.
“We have secured such a treasure since we saw you — a tutor for my precious Howard; and such a young man — I can’t tell you half what I think of him.” (That, perhaps, was true). “He’s so accomplished.”
“Accomplished — is he?” said Trevor.
“Well, not, perhaps, in the common acceptation of the term, that I know of, but I referred particularly to that charming accomplishment of reading aloud with feeling and point, you know, so sadly neglected, and yet so conducive to real enjoyment and one’s appreciation of good authors when cultivated. You would hardly believe what a resource it is to us poor solitaries. I am quite in love with Mr. Herbert; and I will answer for Clara there; she is as nearly so as a young lady ought to be.”
Playfulness was not Mrs. Kincton Knox’s happiest vein. She was tall, tragic, and ungainly; and her conscious graciousness made one uncomfortable, and her smile was intimidating.
“He certainly does read charmingly,” threw in Miss Clara.
“We have grown, I fear,” continued Mrs. Kincton Knox, “almost too dependent on him for the enjoyment of our evenings; and I sometimes say, quite seriously to my girl there, Clara, I do trust we are not spoiling Mr. Herbert.”
“He does not look like a spoiled child — rather sad and seedy, doesn’t he?” replied Vane Trevor.
“Does he?” said Miss Clara.
“You’ve seen him, then?” supplemented her mother.
“Yes; had that honour as I mounted the steep walk — how charming that walk is — among the fir-trees. But I did not see anything very unusual about him.”
“I can only say I like him extremely,” observed Mrs. Kincton Knox, in a tone which concluded debate.
“And what do you say, Miss Knox?” inquired Vane Trevor, with one of his arch cackles.
“No; young ladies are not to say all they think, like us old people,” interposed Mrs. Knox; “but he’s a very agreeable young man.”
“Is he?” said Vane Trevor, with irrepressible amazement “That’s the first time, by Jove! I ever heard poor Maubray” — and hereupon he stopped, remembering that Maubray’s identity was a secret, and he looked, perhaps, a little foolish.
Mrs. Kincton Knox coughed a little, though she was glad to be quite sure that Mr. Winston Maubray was safe under her roof, and did not want him or Vane Trevor to know that she knew it. She therefore coughed a little grandly, and also looked a little put out. But Miss Clara, with admirable coolness, said quite innocently —
“What of Mr. Maubray? What have you heard of him? do tell us. How is poor Sir Richard? We never saw his son, you know, here; and is the quarrel made up?”
“That’s just what I was going to tell you about,” said Vane Trevor, scrambling rather clumsily on his legs again after his tumble. “Not the least chance — none in the world — of a reconciliation. And the poor old fellow, in one of his fits of passion, got a fit, by Jove, and old Sprague at Cambridge told me one half his body is perfectly dead, paralytic, you know, and he can’t last; so Winston, you see, is more eligible than ever.”
“Poor old man! you ought not to speak with so much levity,” said Mrs. Kincton Knox. “I did not hear a word of it — how horrible! And when had poor Sir Richard his paralytic stroke?”
“About a week ago. He knew some people yesterday; but they say he’s awfully shaken, and his face all — you know — pulled up on one side, and hanging down at the other; old Sprague says, a horrible object; by Jove, you can’t help pitying him, though he was a fearful old screw.”
“Melancholy! — and he was such a handsome man! Dear me! Is his son like him?” said Mrs. Kincton Knox ruefully.
“Why, not particularly just now. They say the two sides of his face are pretty much alike; and his right limbs are about as lively as his left;” and Vane Trevor cackled very agreeably over this sally.
“So I should hope, Mr. Trevor,” said the matron of the high nose and dark brows with a gloomy superiority, “and if there is any objection to answering my question, I should rather not hear it jested upon, especially with so shocking a reference to Sir Richard’s calamity — whom I knew, poor man! when he was as strong and as good looking as you are.”
“But seriously,” said Miss Clara, who saw that her mother had not left herself room to repeat her questions “what is he like? is he light or dark, or tall or shorter what?”
“Well, he’s dark at night, you know, when he’s put out his candle, and light enough in the daytime, when the sun’s shining, and he’s decidedly short sometimes — in his temper, I mean — he, he, he! — and tall in his talk always,” replied Vane Trevor, and he enjoyed a very exhilarating laugh at his witty conceits.
“You used to be capable of a little conversation,” said the matron grandly. “You seem to have abandoned yourself to — to— “
“To chaff, you were going to say,” suggested Vane, waggishly.
“No, certainly not, that’s a slang phrase such as is not usual among ladies, nor ever spoken at Kincton,” retorted the old lady.
“Well, it is though, whenever I’m here,” he replied agreeably. “But I’ll really tell you all I can: there’s nothing very remarkable in his appearance; he’s rather tall, very light: he has light hair, blue eyes, pretty good bat.”
“What’s that?” demanded the elder lady.
“He handles the willow pretty well, and would treat you to a tolerably straight, well pitched, slow underhand.
“I think you intimated that you were about making yourself intelligible?” interposed Mrs. Kincton Knox.
“And don’t you understand me?” inquired Vane Trevor of Miss Clara.
“Yes, I think it’s cricket, aint it?” she replied.
“Well, you see I was intelligible; yes, cricket, of course,” replied Vane.
“I can’t say, I’m sure, where Miss Kincton Knox learned those phrases; it certainly was not in this drawingroom,” observed her mamma, with a gloomy severity.
“Well, I mean he’s a tolerably good cricketer, and he reads poetry, and quarrels with his father, and he’s just going to step into the poor old fellow’s shoes, for, jesting apart, he really is in an awful state from all I can hear.”
“Is it thought he may linger long?” inquired Mrs. Kincton Knox; “though, indeed, poor man, it is hardly desirable he should, from all you say.”
“Anything but desirable. I fancy he’s very shaky indeed, not safe for a week — may go any day — that’s what Sprague says, and he’s awfully anxious his son should come and see him; don’t you think he ought?” said Mr. Vane Trevor.
“That depends,” said the old lady thoughtfully, for the idea of her bird in the hand flitting suddenly away at old Sprague’s whistle, to the bush of uncertainty, was uncomfortable and alarming. “I have always understood that in a case like poor Sir Richard’s nothing can be more unwise, and, humanly speaking, more certain to precipitate a fatal catastrophe than a — a — adopting any step likely to be attended with agitation. Nothing of the kind, at least, ought to be hazarded for at least six wee
ks or so, I should say, and not even then unless the patient has rallied very decidedly, and in such a state as the miserable man now as, a reconciliation would be a mere delusion. I should certainly say no to any such proposition, and I can’t think how Dr. Sprague could contemplate such an experiment in any other light than as a possible murder.”
At this moment the drawingroom door opened, and William Maubray’s pale and sad face appeared at it.
“Howard says you wished to see me?” said he.
“We are very happy, indeed, to see you,” replied the old lady, graciously. “Pray come in and join us, Mr. Herbert. Mr. Herbert, allow me to introduce my cousin, Mr. Trevor. You have heard us speak of Mr. Vane Trevor, of Revington?”
“I had the pleasure — I met him on his way here, and we talked — and — and — I know him quite well,” said William, blushing, but coming out with his concluding sentence quite stoutly, for before Vane Trevor’s sly gaze he would have felt like a trickster if he had not.
But the ladies were determined to suspect nothing, and Mrs. Knox observed —
“We make acquaintance very quickly in the country — a ten minutes’ walk together. Mr. Herbert, would you object to poor Howard’s having a holiday? — and, pray, join us at lunch, and you really must not leave us now.”
“I — oh! very happy — yes — a holiday — certainly,” replied he, like a man whose thoughts were a little scattered, and he stood leaning on the back of a chair, and showing, as both ladies agreed, by his absent manner and pale and saddened countenance, that Vane Trevor had been delivering Doctor Sprague’s message, desiring his presence it the deathbed of the departing baronet.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THEY CONVERSE.
“We were discussing a knotty point, Mr. Herbert, when you arrived,” said Mrs. Kincton Knox. “I say that nothing can warrant an agitating intrusion upon a sick bed. Mr. Trevor here was mentioning a case — a patient in a most critical state — who had an unhappy quarrel with his son. The old gentleman, a baronet, is now in a most precarious state.” Miss Clara stole a glance at William, who was bearing it like a brick. “A paralytic stroke; and they talked of sending for his son! Was ever such madness heard of? If they want to kill the old man outright they could not go more direct to their object. I happen to know something of that awful complaint. My darling Clara’s grandfather, my beloved father, was taken in that way — a severe paralytic attack, from which he was slowly recovering, and a servant stupidly dropped a china cup containing my dear father’s gruel, and broke it — a kind of thing which always a little excited him — and not being able to articulate distinctly, or in any way adequately to express his irritation, he had, in about twenty minutes after the occurrence, a second seizure, which quite prostrated him, and in fact he never spoke intelligibly after, nor were we certain that he recognised one of his immediate family. So trifling are the ways, so mysterious — h — hem! — and apparently inadequate the causes, which of course, under Divine regulation, in paralytic affections, invariably overpower the patient. Now, what I say is this, don’t you think a son, in such a case, instead of obtruding himself at the sick man’s bedside, ought to wait quietly for a month or two — quietly, I would say, in France, or wherever he is, and to allow his father just to rally?
William had been looking rather dreamily on the carpet during this long statement, and I am afraid he had hardly listened to it as closely as he ought, and on being appealed to on the subject he did the best he could, and answered —
“It’s an awful pity these quarrels.”
“He knows something of the case, too,” interposed Vane Trevor.
The ladies looked, one upon the flowers in the vase, and the other out of the window, in painful expectation of an immediate éclaircissement. But William only nodded a little frown at Trevor, to warn him off the dangerous ground he was treading, and he went on.
“The blame is always thrown on the young fellows; It isn’t fair.” William spoke a little warmly. “It’s the fault of the old ones a great deal oftener, they are so dictatorial and unreasonable, and expect you to have no will or conscience, or body or soul, except as they please. They forget that they were young themselves once, and would not have submitted to it; and then they talk of you as a rebel, by Jove! and a — a parricide almost, for presuming to have either a thought or a scruple, or— “
On a sudden William perceived that, fired with his subject, he was declaiming a little more vehemently than was usual in drawingrooms, and his inspiration failed him.
“Hear, hear, hear!” cried Trevor, with a tiny clapping of his hands, and a laugh.
Miss Clara looked all aglow with his eloquence, and her mamma said grandly —
“There’s truth, I’m sorry to say, in your remarks. Heaven knows I’ve suffered enough from unreasonableness, if ever mortal has. Here we sit in shadow of that great ugly, positively ugly tree there, and there it seems it must stand! I daren’t remove it;” and Mrs. Kincton Knox lifted her head and her chin, and looked round like a queen shorn of her regalities, and inviting the indignant sympathy of the well affected. “There is, no question of it, a vast deal of unreasonableness and Selfishness among the old. We all feel it,” and she happened to glance upon Miss Clara, who was smiling a little cynically on the snowy ringlets of her little white dog, Bijou. She continued fiercely, “And to return to the subject, I should think no son, who did not wish to kill his father, and to have the world believe so, would think of such a thing.”
“Killing’s a serious business,” observed Trevor.
“A man killed,” observed Mrs. Kincton Knox, “is a man lost to society. His place knows him no more. All his thoughts perish.”
“And they’re not often any great loss,” moralised Trevor. “Very true!” acquiesced Mrs. Kincton Knox, with alacrity, recollecting how little rational matter her spouse ever contributed to the council board of Kincton. “Still, I maintain, a son would not like to be supposed to have caused the death of his father. That is, unless my views of human nature are much too favourable. What do you think, Mr. Herbert?” and the lady turned her prominent dark eyes with their whites so curiously veined, encouragingly upon the young man.
“I think if I were that fellow,” he replied, and Mrs. Kincton Knox admired his diplomacy, “I should not run the risk.”
“Quite right!” approved the lady radiantly.
Trevor looked at his watch and stood up.
“Your trunk and things, gone up to your room, Vane?” inquired Mrs. Kincton Knox.
“I’ve no trunk; ha, ha! and no things — he, he, he! no, upon my honour. I can’t stay, really; I’m awfully sorry; but my plans were all upset, and I’m going back to the station, and must walk at an awful pace too; only half an hour — a very short visit; well, yes, but I could not deny myself — short as it is — and I hope to look in upon you again soon.”
“It’s very ill-natured, I think,” said Miss Clara. “Very,” said Mrs. Kincton Knox, yet both ladies were very well pleased to be relieved of Vane Trevor’s agreeable society. He would have been in the way — unutterably de trop. His eye upon their operations would have been disconcerting; he would have been taking the — the tutor long walks, or trying, perhaps, to flirt with Clara, as he did two years ago, and never leaving her to herself. So the regrets and upbraidings with which they followed Vane Trevor, who had unconsciously been helping to mystify them, were mild and a little hypocritical
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE EVENING.
WILLIAM MAUBRAY was bidden to luncheon, and was sad and abstemious at that pleasant refection, and when it was over Mrs. Kincton Knox said —
“My dear Clara, it’s quite out of the question my going with you to-day, I’m suffering so — that horrid neuralgia.”
“Oh! darling! how sorry I am!” exclaimed Miss Clara, with a look of such beautiful pity and affection as must have moved William Maubray if he had the slightest liking for ministering angels. “What can I do for you? You must, you know, try some
thing.”
“No, love, no; nature — nature and rest. I shall lie down for a little; but you must have your ride all the same to Coverdale, and I am certain Mr. Herbert will be so kind as to accompany you.”
William Maubray would have given a great deal for a solitary ramble; but of course, he was only too happy, and the happy pair scampered off on their ponies side by side, and two hours after Miss Clara walked into her mamma’s room, looking cross and tired, and sat down silently in a chair before the cheval glass.
“Well, dear?” inquired her mother inquisitively.
“Nothing, mamma. I hope your head’s better?”
“My head? Oh! yes, better, thanks. But how did you like your ride?”
“Very stupid,” answered the young lady.
“I suppose you’ve been in one of your tempers, and never spoke a word — and you know he’s so shy? Will you ever learn, Miss Kincton Knox, to command your miserable temper?” exclaimed her mother very grimly, but the young lady only flapped the folds of her skirt lazily with her whip.
“You quite mistake, mamma, I’m not cross; I’m only tired. I’m sorry you did not let him go off to the sick old man. He’s plainly pining to go and give him his gruel and his medicine.”
“Did he speak of him?” asked the old lady.
“No, nor of anything else: but he’s plainly thinking of him, and thinks he has murdered him — at least he looks as if he was going to be hanged, and I don’t care if he was,” answered Miss Clara.
“You must make allowances, my dear Clara,” said she. “You forget that the circumstances are very distressing.”
“Very cheerful, I should say. Why he hates his father, I dare say. Did not you hear the picture he drew of him? and it’s all hypocrisy, and I don’t believe his father has really anything to do with his moping.”
“And what do you suppose is the cause of it?” inquired Mrs. Kincton Knox.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 322
