DINNER AT REVINGTON.
Trevor did appear, and was received smilingly; and Aunt Dinah came out
and sat a little apart on the rustic seat, and looked on cheerfully, the
day was so very charming. Perhaps she fancied it a case for a chaperone,
and being a little more in evidence, than a seat in the drawing-room
window would make her, and with her work, and with Psyche at her feet,
she presided very cheerily.
When, after two or three games, Trevor was taking his leave, Miss Violet
Darkwell having, notwithstanding various nods and small frowns from
grannie, persisted in announcing that she was tired, and had beside a
long letter to write before Tom left for the town, the master of
Revington said—(he and Maubray were knocking the balls about at random)—
“I say, Maubray, you must come over to Revington and have a mutton chop,
or something. You really must; an old schoolfellow, you know; and I want
to talk to you a bit, upon my honour I do. I’m totally alone, you know,
at present, and you must come.”
“But I’m going to-morrow, and this is my last evening here,” said
William, who felt unaccountably queer and reluctant.
What could Trevor want to talk to him about? There was something in
Trevor’s look and manner a little odd and serious—he fancied even
embarrassed. Perhaps it is some nonsense about Vi!
“I want him to come and dine with me, Miss Perfect, and he says you
can’t spare him,” said Trevor, addressing that lady. “I really do. I’ve
no one to talk to. Do tell him to come.”
“Certainly,” said Aunt Dinah, with an imperious little nod to William
Maubray. “_Go_, William, my dear, we shall see you to-night, and
to-morrow morning. He’ll be very happy I’m sure,” said Aunt Dinah, who,
like William Maubray possibly, anticipated a revelation.
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?) “grow
more selfish and less high-minded? It is all a beautiful decay, and the
end is death.”
Violet was plainly intent on her flowers; she had her hoe and her rake,
and her movements somehow were so pretty that, unseen, he paused for
another moment.
“It is a blessed thing to have so little affection as that pretty
creature; old times are nothing for her, and I, like a fool, yearn after
them. The future for her no doubt looks all brilliant; for me it is a
story, to the end of which I dare not look, and the pleasant past is a
volume shut up and over; she is little Vi and Violet no longer, and even
Miss Darkwell will very soon be like the song of a dead bird—a note only
remembered; and I suppose I shall bring back the news to-night, a
message from Mr. Vane Trevor, of Revington, to say that he lays his
heart and his title-deeds at her feet. It’s all over; I look on it as
all settled.”
Just at these words the edge of the red sun sank behind the hills, and
the last level beams of sunset gave place to the tender gray of
twilight, except on the uplands of Revington, where they lingered for a
few seconds.
“Ay,” said William allegorising; “the shade for William Maubray; the
golden light of life for Vane Trevor! Vane Trevor of Revington! William
Maubray of⸺nothing at all!⸺charming contrast.”
And looking still on Gilroyd Hall, and the fading image of Violet
Darkwell and Psyche frisking about, no longer white, but a moving gray
spot on the sloping grass, he said, touching his finger-tips to his lip,
and waving them lightly towards her, “Good-bye, little Vi; good-bye,
wicked little Vi; good-bye, dear, wicked little Vi, and may God bless
you, you darling!”
So with a sigh he turned and walked up to Revington. It is a good
ancestral looking place, only a little too large for the estate as it
now is. The Trevors had parted from time to time with many acres, and a
house upon a scale which would have corresponded with three times their
income, was rather a tax upon what remained.
“I never liked this place,” thought William as the iron gate clanged
behind him; “I always thought it gloomy, and stingy, and pompous. I wish
he had let this dinner alone, I’d have been pleasanter at home, though
it’s as well, perhaps, to hear what he has to say. I think he _has_
something to say; but, hang it, why could not he tell it as well at
Gilroyd, and to the people it concerns? why need he bring _me_ this
stupid walk up his hill?” And William as he talked was switching the
laurel leaves at his side with his cane, and leaving here and there half
a leaf or a whole one on the gravel, and sometimes half a dozen—not
quite unconsciously; there was something of defiance, I am afraid, in
this trespass.
William came in; the hall was not lighted; he was received in the dusk
by a serious and rather broad gentleman in black, who took his hat and
cane with a bow, led him through an anteroom, illuminated dismally by a
single lamp, and announced his name at the drawing-room, where Vane
Trevor received him, advancing from the hearthrug to the middle of the
room, in an unexceptionable evening toilet, and in French boots, and
shook hands with just a little inclination which implied something of
state, though smilingly performed.
Mr. Trevor was very conscious of the extent of the mansion of Revington,
of the scale of the rooms, of the pictures, and in short of everything
that was grand about him.
William was a little disgusted and rather uncomfortable, and ate his
soup, and cutlets, and kickshaws, gloomily, while Trevor, leaning upon
his elbow, talked away with a conscious superiority that was at once
depressing and irritating.
They had a jug of claret—not the best even in Trevor’s cellar, I am
afraid—after dinner, and sat facing the fire, and sipping that nectar.
“Snug little room this,” said Trevor, looking along the ceiling with his
napkin over his knee, and his claret glass in his fingers. “It isn’t the
parlour, only a sort of breakfast-room. The parlour, you know, is a—it’s
considered a handsome room. Thirty-five feet by twenty.”
“Yes, I know,” said William, with a dry carelessness.
“Ah! well, yes—I dare say. A good many people—it’s an old place,
rather—do know something about Revington.”
“Especially those who have lived the greater part of their lives within
half a mile of it,” rejoined William.
“Ah, ha!—yes; to be sure; I forgot you have been so constantly at
Gilroyd. What a nice little bit of a thing it is. I could fancy growing
quite in love with it—isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said William, shortly, and filled his glass, and drank it in a
hurry. He fancied that Trevor was about to come to the point.
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