VIOLET DARKWELL.
At the head of the stairs, the topmost step of which had been their
bench, there rose to him two female figures. He did not instantly
recognise them, for one candle only was burning, and it was on the
little table nearly behind them. One was old Winnie Dobbs, the other
Violet Darkwell; she stood up slight and girlish still, but looking
taller than he had expected, with an old faded silk quilted shawl of
Aunt Dinah’s about her shoulders, and hood-wise over her head, for the
night was frosty.
“Ha! Vi—little Vi, I was going to say; dear me! how you have grown! So
glad to see you.”
He had the girl’s slim hand in his, and was speaking as he felt, very
kindly.
“We’ve been waiting here, Winnie and I, to hear what you thought of dear
grannie,”—(grannie was merely a pet name in this case, defining no
relationship)—“and what do you think, William?”
“I really don’t understand it,” he answered. “I—I hope it’s all
nonsense; I really think so. She says she is very well; and the
doctor—Drake, you know—I really think he was laughing, and one thing I’m
quite certain of—it is connected in her mind with that foolish
spirit-rapping.”
“And you don’t believe in it?” inquired the young lady.
“All bosh and nonsense. Not a bit of it,” he replied.
“Oh, William, I am so delighted to hear you say so!” she exclaimed, much
relieved by the promulgation of so valuable an opinion. “And you’re
quite right, I _know_, about grannie. It _is_, really—is not it,
Winnie?—all, all about that awful spirit-rapping. Grannie never speaks
of it to me; I believe she’s afraid of frightening me; but old Winnie,
here—you must not tell of her—she tells me all about it—everything; and
I _am_ so afraid of it; and it is _entirely_ that. Grannie thinks she
has got a message! fancy! How awful! And Winnie does not know what the
words were; for grannie writes down the letters with a pencil, and tells
her only what she thinks fit; and I am _so_ delighted—you can’t think.”
“You good little Vi, I’m so glad to see you!” She laughed a low little
laugh—the first for several days—as he shook her hand again; and he
said—
“Winnie, do, like a dear old thing, open my portmanteau—here’s the
key—and fetch me a canister you’ll see at the top, with a great paper
label, blue and red, on it.”
Away went Winnie Dobbs, with his key and candle, and he said to the
pretty girl who stood leaning lightly against the banister—
“My old friend, Vi! When I went into the drawing-room just now, I looked
all round for you, and could not think what had become of you, and was
really afraid you had gone away to London. I don’t think I should ever
care to come to Gilroyd Hall again; I should prefer seeing my aunt
anywhere else—it would not be like itself if you were gone.”
“So you really missed me, William!” she laughed.
“I should think so. And another thing—you are not to call me William.
Why don’t you call me Willie, or old bear, as you used to do? If you
change old names, I’ll begin and call you Miss Darkwell.”
“How awful!”
“Indeed I will, and be as formal as you please, and treat you like a
young lady, and you’ll never be ‘wicked little Vi’ any more.”
She was laughing as she leaned back, and he could see her small teeth,
and he bethought him that she was looking really quite lovely; so with
two fingers he picked up her little hand again, as it lay at her side,
and he said—
“And we are always to be good friends, you know—great friends; and
although you’ve no more dolls to mend, I’ll still be of use. I’m going
to the bar, and I’ll manage all your law suits, if you let me; and when
you are going to be married, I’ll draw your settlements, and you are to
have me always for your counsel.”
She was still smiling, but said nothing, and looked wonderfully pretty,
with the old gray silk hood wrapped all about her, so that sober old
William was on the very point of kissing the slender hand he held in
his. But a new feeling of shyness prevented, and he only shook her hand
gently once more, and laid it by her side again, as you replace some
precious thing you have been admiring where you found it.
“And you really think we may be happy about dear old grannie again?” she
said.
The sound of Winnie’s footsteps was heard approaching.
“Yes; certainly. I’ll try to get a word with Doctor Drake. I can’t
imagine anything serious. Won’t you come to the drawing-room now?”
“No; not to-night; not while those people are there. I was so wretched
about dear grannie, I could not bear to go in at first; and now it would
be odd, I think, going down when tea is over.”
“As if I had brought you down from the nursery, as I often did, Vi, on
my back. Well, old Winnie, have you got it?”
“Here, I think, Master William,” answered Winnie.
“Yes; all right. So you won’t come, Vi?”
“No.”
“Quite made up your mind?”
“Quite, Willie.”
“That’s right—_Willie_,” said he, with a smile, and a nod of
approbation. “I should so like to stay here a little longer, as you
won’t come, and hear all the news, and tell you mine; but Aunt Dinah
would lose patience—I’m afraid she _has_.”
“Yes, indeed; you had better go. Good-night, bear.”
“Good-night, wicked little Vi. Remember we meet at breakfast—shan’t we?”
“Oh, certainly. Good-night.”
“Good-night.”
And so the gray silk hood vanished, with a smile, prettily, round the
corner, and William Maubray descended with his snuff to the
drawing-room, with the pretty oval portrait of that young face still
hovering before him in the air.
Miss Letty Drake, whose countenance was unpleasantly long in proportion
to her height, and pallid, and her small figure bony, and who was
dressed on this sad occasion in her silk “half-mourning,” a sad and, it
was thought, a dyed garment, which had done duty during many periods of
affliction, as William entered the room, was concluding a sentence with
a low and pointed asperity, thus—“which seems to me hardly compatible
with Saint Paul’s description of Christian charity,” and a short silence
followed these words.
“I was going to ring the bell, William,” said the doomed lady of the
house. “One would have thought you were _making_ that snuff. Let me see
it—h’m. See, get off this cover. Ho! what is this? A lead wrapper!”
“You said, Aunt Dinah, you wished it.”
“Did I? Well, no matter. Get it open. Thanks. Yes; that’s it. Yes; very
good. You take snuff, doctor, don’t you?”
“Aw—_yes_, certainly, nothing like it, I do believe—where a man is
obliged to work his head—aw haw—a stimulus and a sedative.”
The doctor, it was averred, “worked” his occasionally with brandy and
water, and not a great deal otherwise.
“No, many thanks; don’t care for perfumes; high toast is my snuff.” And
Doctor Drake illustrated the fact by a huge pinch, which shed another
brown shower over the wrinkles of his waistcoat.
“Letty, dear,” said Aunt Dinah, turning suddenly to Miss Drake, “we
won’t quarrel; we can’t agree, but I won’t quarrel.”
“Well, dear, I’m glad to hear you say so. I’m sure, for my part, I never
quarrel. ‘Be ye angry, and let not the sun go down on your wrath.’”
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