OVER THEIR CLARET
“Great fun, croquet, isn’t it? Awful fun with pretty girls,” exclaimed
Vane Trevor, rising, and standing on the hearthrug, with his back to the
fire, and his glass in his hand, and simpering agreeably with his chin
in the air. “_I_ think it capital fun, I know. There’s so much
cheating—ha, ha!—isn’t there?—and such lots of—of—whispering and
conspiring—and—and—all that sort of thing, you know; and the girls like
it awfully. At Torhampton we had capital games, and such glorious
ground. Do you know the Torhamptons?”
“The Marquess?—no, of course I don’t; how should I?” said William with a
little laugh of disgust.
“Oh! well, I thought a—but Lady Louisa, she is so sweetly pretty; I was
told off pretty often to play with her and we _had_ such fun knocking
the fellows about. Capital player and awfully clever—they’re all
clever—one of the cleverest families in England they’re thought; the old
lady is _so_ witty—you can’t imagine—and such a pleasant party staying
there. I was almost the only fellow not a swell, by Jove, among them,”
and he ran his eye along his handsome cornices, with a sort of smile
that seemed to say something different. “I fancy they wish to be civil,
however, from something Lady Fanny said—I rather fancy they have an idea
of putting up Lord Edward—you know, for the county, but don’t let that
go further, and I suppose they thought I might be of use. Won’t you have
some more claret?”
“I don’t know them—I don’t understand these things; I don’t care if all
the Marquesses in England were up the chimney,” said William, cynically,
throwing himself back in his chair, with his hands in his pockets, and
looking sulkily into the fire.
“Well—ha, ha!—that need not prevent your filling your glass, eh?”
laughed Trevor, graciously and indulgently, as though he belonged
himself to that order of Marquesses of whom Maubray spoke so slightly,
and forgave him.
“Thanks; I will,” and so he did, and sipped a little; and after a little
silence he asked with a surly quietude, “And why don’t you marry that
lady—what’s her name—_Louisa_—if she liked you?”
“It doesn’t _follow_ that she likes me, and you know there are
difficulties; and even if she did, it does not follow that I like _her_;
don’t you see?” and he cackled in gay self-complacency; “that is, of
course, I mean liking in the way you mean.”
Again this desultory conversation flagged for a little time, and Trevor,
leaning on the chimney-piece, and looking down on William, remarked
profoundly—
“It’s odd—isn’t it?—when you come to think of it, how few things follow
from one another; I’ve observed it in conversation—almost nothing, by
Jove!”
“Nothing from nothing, and nothing remains,” said William drowsily, to
the fire, repeating his old arithmetical formula.
“And about marrying and that sort of thing; seriously, you know—your
glass is empty again; do have some more.”
So William poured a little into his glass and his heart seemed to stop
and listen, although he looked as if he only half heard, and was weary
of the subject.
“And as we were saying, about marrying—and, by-the-bye, Maubray, it’s
the sort of thing would just answer you, a quiet fellow—why don’t you
think about it, old fellow, eh?”
It was a way Trevor had of always forgetting those little differences of
circumstance which, in contrast, redounded to his importance, and he
asked such questions, of course, quite innocently.
“You know very well I couldn’t,” said William, poking the fire,
unbidden, with a few angry stabs. “How the devil can a fellow marry in
college, and without a shilling?”
“Ah, ah, it isn’t _quite_ so bad; come! But of course there is a
difference, and, as you say, there’s lots of time to look about—only if
a fellow is really spooney on a girl—I mean awfully spooney, the big
wigs say, don’t they?—the best thing a fellow going to the bar can do is
to marry, and have a wife and lots of babbies—it makes them work so
hard—doesn’t it? You’re going to the bar, you say, and that is the way
to get on, eh?”
“I’m glad there’s any way, but I don’t mean to try that,” murmured
William, a little bitterly, and after a pause, during which who knows
what a dance his fancy led him? “I know that sort of talk very well; but
I never could see what right a fellow has to carry off a poor girl to
his den merely that her hunger, and misery, and cries may stimulate him
to get on at the bar; and the fact is, some fellows are slaves, and some
can do just as they please; and life is damnably bitter for some, and
very pleasant for others, and that’s the whole story; you can marry
whenever you please, and I can’t.”
“I’m afraid it’s a true bill,” said Trevor, complacently; whereupon
there issued a silence, and twice and again was William Maubray moved to
break it with a question, and as often his voice seemed to fail him. At
last, however, he did say, quite quietly—
“And why don’t you marry, if you think it so good a thing?”
Was it something in William’s tone and air, although he was trying his
best to seem quite unconcerned, that elicited the quick, and somewhat
cunning glance that Trevor shot on him?
At all events Trevor’s manner became a little diplomatic and reserved.
“Why don’t I? Oh! fifty reasons—a hundred. There are all sorts of
difficulties; I don’t mean, of course, anything mysterious—or that sort
of bosh: this house and the property, everyone knows, are very well.
I’ve been four years in possession, and I’ve no fault to find with
Revington—either tenants or _this_,” and he nodded towards the ceiling,
indicating that he meant the house.
“But—you know—for a fellow like me; we’ve been here, you know, a long
time: there was a Trevor here in Henry the Fifth’s time—but you know
more history than I do.”
Trevor considered his family and his domicile as a part of English
history, and William, who was in an unpleasant mood just then, said—
“And the estate was larger, wasn’t it?”
“Ah, ha—_yes certainly_—that is, there was another estate,” acquiesced
Trevor, eagerly, but looking a little put out. “The Torhamptons,
by-the-bye, have got it now; a marriage, or something.”
“A purchase, I thought,” insisted Maubray.
“A _purchase_! very likely. It does not signify sixpence if the thing’s
gone, and gone it is. But you see, having been here for a longer time,
I’m afraid, than you and I are likely to live; and having a sort of
place among the people—you understand—a kind of a—quite undeserved—only
because we have been here so long—that sort of an _influence_—or
whatever it is—a fellow isn’t as free as you’d fancy. By Jove! he’s tied
up, I can tell you; horribly tied up. A poor devil like me. Egad, he’s
not like a man with an income out of the funds—there’s that sort of
thing, I suppose it is the shadow—don’t you see—of the old feudal thing,
but so it is. There’s a sort of rural opinion, a kind of loyalty, in a
very small way, of course; but it _is_ that sort of feeling—and there’s
no use, you know, in blinking it; and a fellow has to consider, you
know, how his tenants and people would receive it; and—ask anyone—you
can’t conceive how a fellow’s hampered, really hampered, now.”
“Do you really think they care a farthing?” asked Maubray.
“Care! You’ve no idea,” exclaimed his friend.
“Well, when I make my fortune, I’ll keep it in the funds,” said Maubray.
“I _strongly_ advise you,” said Trevor, with admirable solemnity. “Have
some coffee? And—here’s curacoa.”
“When will he talk about Vi?” thought William, as he set down his coffee
cup; “he can’t have brought me here to dinner merely to hear that
pompous lecture.”
And indeed, it seemed to William that Trevor had something more to say,
but did not know how to begin it.
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