J. S. le Fanu

“ I don’t think I am vain—that is, not a bit vainer than I used to be; but I’m sure I’m more disagreeable—that is, to you. My babble and dull jokes are very well for a child, but the child has grown up, and left childish things behind: and a young lady in her teens is more fastidious, and—and, in fact, is a sort of an angel whom I am not formed to talk to with a chance of being anything but a bore. Very unlearned, and yet a book-worm; very young and yet not very merry; not a bad fellow, I think, and yet, with hardly a friend on earth, and—by Jove! here comes Trevor at last. ”

“ So William, having no excuses, did walk over to Revington to dine. There was almost a pain at his heart as he paused for a moment at the stile, only one field away, and saw pretty Vi on the dark green grass, looking at the flowers, with little Psyche frisking beside her, and the kindly old front of Gilroyd Hall, and its lofty chestnuts in the sad evening light, and he sighed, thinking—“Why won’t things stay as they are, as they were? What is the drift of this perpetual mutation? Is it really progress? Do we improve? Don’t we” (he would have said Violet?) ”

“ You never were spooney on a girl in all your life, and of course you can’t tell; but you’ve no idea how impossible it is for a fellow, when once he comes to be really in—in love—to—to make himself happy, and be content to lose her. I can’t, I know.”
“No, of course,” answered William, with the same smile and an involuntary sigh.
“And then, you know, money and that sort of thing, it’s all very fine, all very good in a wife; but by Jove! there’s more than you think in—in fascination and beauty and manner, and that sort of thing. ”

“ Like a restless soul as he was, William toiled hither and thither through the little town of Saxton with his hands in his pockets, and his looks on the pavement, more like an unfortunate gentleman taking his walk in a prison yard, than the proprietor of Gilroyd pacing the High Street of Saxton, where he ranked second only to Trevor, Prince of Revington.
Repose is pleasant, but that of Saxton is sometimes too much for the most contemplative man who is even half awake. ”

“ Yes, it ought to be here now,” said William looking at his watch. “I’ll send you something pretty from Paris if you let me; nothing very splendid you know, only a little reminder such as a poor beggar like me, can offer,” and he laughed, not very merrily. “And I shall hear all the news from Aunt Dinah, and send her all mine; and I like flowers. I always remember the Gilroyd flowers along with you. You were always among them, you know, and will you give me that little violet—a namesake? No one ever refuses a flower, it is the keepsake everyone gets for the asking.” ”

“ 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 something.”
“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.” ”

“ The liberty of speech so dear to Englishmen was denied him, life was gliding away in this speechless dream, the spell of that lean and silent old lady was upon him. How he yearned for the easy country life with its kindly chaperons and endless opportunities. Love, as we all know, is a madness, and it is the property of madmen to imagine conspiracies, and William began to think that there was an understanding between Sergeant Darkwell and the “she-cousin,” and that she was there to prevent his ever having an opportunity of saying one confidential word in Violet’s ear. ”

“ Among the grass-grown graves the pretty small feet, stepping lightly and reverently, the hues and outlines of beauty and young life; the gay faces shadowed with a passing sadness—nothing ghastly, nothing desolate—only a sentiment of the solemn and the melancholy, and underlying that tender sadness, the trembling fountains of life and gladness, the pulses of youth and hope.
“Yes; very, very much neglected,” said Miss Perfect. “We can do nothing with that marble, of course,” she observed, nodding toward the arched cornice at top, which time and weather had sadly worn and furrowed. ”

“ What’s the good o’ life without kindness? Both o’ them handsome, and young, and loving. What more need they ask?” said old Winnie. “And if they aren’t happy, who will?”
“Yes, old Winnie, they will, very happy, I’m sure; and now I’ll bid you good-night, I’m so tired, very tired; it’s a long tedious way, and I’m always wishing to come back to you, and dear old grannie, and poor old Gilroyd, where we were all so happy, where I always feel so safe—but I believe we always fancy the old times the pleasantest—when I was a child. Good-night, old Winnie.” ”

“ You conceited, young, provoking coxcomb! As if the world were looking for miracles of piety from you? Who on earth expects you to be one bit more pious than other curates who do their best? Who are you, pray, that anything more should be expected from you? Do your duty in that state of life to which it shall please God to call you. That’s simple. We expect no more.”
“But that’s everything,” said William, with a hopeless shake of his head. ”

“ That evening Miss Violet Darkwell arrived at Gilroyd. She did not think old “grannie” looking well—was it a sadness or a feebleness—there was something unusual in her look that troubled her. She thought her Violet looking quite beautiful—more so than ever—so perhaps she was. And she asked her all sorts of questions about all sorts of things, and how the Mainwarings had arranged the rooms, for Aunt Dinah had known the house long ago, and whether the paint had ever been taken off that covered the old oak wainscot in the parlour, and ever so many other particulars besides. ”

“ It is only the pleasant ones that take wing at noise, like a flight of birds.
Away in due time went Master Howard—no sign appeared from the drawing-room—and William Maubray, who in his elevation and his fall had experienced for the second time something of the uncertainty of human affairs, went to his bed mortified and dismal, and feeling that, go where he would, repulse and insult awaited him. ”

“ Wrestling with love is sometimes like wrestling with an angel, and when the struggle seems well nigh over, and the athlete sure of his victory, one unexpected touch of the angelic hand sets him limping again for many a day. Little did he fancy that the chance meeting in the shadowy porch of Saxton Church would rivet again the sightless chains which it had taken some time and trouble to unclasp, and send him maundering and spiritless in his fetters among the woods and lonely paths of Revington ”

“ William had occasionally seen Dr. Drake in the streets 15of Saxton, and on the surrounding high roads at a distance, but he had never before had the honour of an interview.
The doctor was short and fat, a little bald, and rather dusty, and somehow, William thought, resembled a jolly old sexton a good deal more than a physician. He rose up, with his hands in his trowsers pockets, and some snuff in the wrinkles of his black cloth waistcoat, and bowed, with raised eyebrows and pursed mouth, gravely to his plate of crumpet. ”

“ Kincton Knox, whether gracious or repellent, was nearly equally insupportable.
Every time he walked out, and, pausing on the upland, looked long and mournfully in the direction in which he fancied lay Gilroyd, with its sunset blush of old red brick, its roses, deep green-sward and chestnut shadows, a sort of home sickness overcame him. Beyond that horizon there was affection, and in old times the never-failing welcome, the smile, the cordial sympathy, and the liberty that knew not Kincton. ”

“ 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. ”

“ William had closed the door; he poked his fire, and sat before it, eyeing it scornfully.
“I can’t think why anyone likes them—why we go on liking them—they are so odious. I suppose they used not to be so. There’s Aunt Dinah—kind, true old Aunt Dinah—she never could have been a heartless, insolent creature, like that—never. We are all growing worse; the world will soon be ripe for judgment.” ”

“ When William Maubray looked up again at Doctor Wagget, that divine had picked up a book, a trick of his, like that of the cattle from whom his illustration was borrowed, and who employ every moment’s pause at the wayside, in a pluck at the nearest foliage or turf of grass; and with the intimation, “you may as well join them,” Miss Perfect dismissed her nephew. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Good Miss Wagget being in a fuss with the schoolmistress of the Saxton Ragged School (why will benevolent people go on leavening the bread of knowledge which they offer with the bitterness of that insulting epithet?) —counting out copy-books, and primers, and slate-pencils, and rustling to and fro from the press to the hall-table, where they were getting those treasures into order—was little in the way of their conversation, except for an interjectional word now and then, or a smile or a nod, as she bustled in and out of the room, talking still to the matron in the hall. ”

“ Yes, dear William, I’m very glad it has happened; it is always well to know the truth—it may affright, but when it comes in the shape of warning it is always welcome—that is it ought to be. I needed nothing more to convince me, but you did, and you’ve got it. Depend upon it, if you disobey you are a ruined man all your days; and if I die before the time, I’ll watch you as an old gray cat watches a mouse—ha, ha, ha! and if you so much as think of it, I’ll plague you—I will. ”

“ He knew intuitively that the person thus approaching came in quest of him, and he lay expecting, in a state of unaccountable terror. The handle of his door turned, and it seemed that his intending visitor paused, having opened the door about a hand’s breadth, and William knew that he had only suspended, not abandoned his purpose, be it what it might. Then the door swung slowly open, and in the deep shadow, a figure of gigantic stature entered, paused beside his bed, and seized his wrist with a tremendous gripe. ”

“ The flattering tongues of men! sweet airy music attuned to love and vanity, to woman’s pride and weakness, half despised, half cherished. Long after—a phrase—a fragment of a sentence, like a broken bar, or half remembered cadence of some sweet old air, that sounded in your young ears, in dances and merry-makings, now far and filmy as bygone dreams, turns up unbidden—comes back upon remembrance, and is told, with a saddened smile, to another generation. ”

“ The last idea that struck her was the most congruous, and up she jumped, made a wild toilet, whose sole principle was warmth, tied a faded silk handkerchief over her nightcap, across her ears, and with her long white flannel dressing-gown about her, and a taper in her hand, issued, like the apparition of the Bleeding Nun, upon the gallery, and tapped sharply on William Maubray’s door. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I’m glad you say you have no present intention of marrying; in fact, dear William, the idea has caused me the most extreme anxiety, having the warning I have; as for me, however, my course is taken. I expect to be what we call a mocking spirit—yes, a mocking spirit—and I’ll play you such tricks as will make you think twice, if such an idea should be in your head. ”