MOONSHINE
And now, for they kept early hours at Gilroyd, William, with a peep at
his watch, declared he must go, and Trevor popped on his fez and
produced his cigars, and he set out with Maubray, in the moonlight, to
see his friend out of the grounds.
As they walked down the slope, with the thick chestnuts of Gilroyd Hall
and two of its chimneys full in view—the misty lights and impenetrable
shadows of moonlight—and all the familiar distances translated into such
soft and airy outline—the landscape threw them, I dare say, somewhat
into musing, and that sort of sympathy with the pensive moods of nature
which has, time out of mind, made moonlight the lamp of lovers. And some
special associations of the scenery induced them to smoke on in silence
for some time, insensibly slackening their pace, the night scene was so
well worth lingering over.
“And your cousin—isn’t she?—down there, how awfully pretty she is,” said
Trevor, at last, lowering his cigar between his fingers.
“Cousin? I suppose we’re all cousins in some roundabout way related—I
don’t know how. Yes, she is—she’s very pretty.”
“Darkwell: connected, are they, with the Darkwells of Shropshire?” asked
Trevor.
“Perhaps—I really don’t know—I never knew there were Darkwells in
Shropshire,” said William.
“Oh, dear, yes! I thought everyone knew that. Darkwell’s the name of the
place, too. A very old family,” said Trevor.
“I did not know; but her father is a barrister, and lives in London, and
has some sons, but I never saw them,” answered William.
Trevor sighed. He was thinking what low fellows these sons might
possibly be. A barrister. He remembered “young Boles’s” father visiting
Rugby once, a barrister, making fifteen hundred a year, a shabby,
lean-looking fellow, with a stoop, and a seedy black frock coat, and
grizzled whiskers, who talked in a sharp, dry way, with sometimes a
little brow-beating tendency—not a bit like a gentleman. On the other
hand, to be sure, there were lots of swells among them; but still there
was the image of old Boles’s father intruding into the moonlight, and
poking about the old trees of Gilroyd. They had come to a halt under the
mighty clump of beech trees that you can see against the sky from the
distant road to Audminton, and, after a silence, Trevor said—
“I remember a thing I saw in a play in London, about a fellow that
married a mermaid, or something of the sort; and, egad, they got on
capitally till their family began to appear, and—and the situation began
to grow too, too fishy, in fact for him; so, by Jove, he cut and run,
and I forget how the play ends; but it was awfully funny.”
“Yes,” said William, “they ought to come to us like Aphrodite, from the
foam of the sea, and have no kindred—in utter isolation.”
“Who?” asked Trevor.
“Our beautiful brides!” exclaimed Maubray, a little mockingly.
“It’s a confounded world we live in,” resumed Trevor, after a little
silence. “Look at me, now, for instance, how we are, and all this
belongs to me, and has been ours for—goodness knows how many centuries
and I assure you I sometimes feel I’d rather be a simple fellow with a
few hundreds a-year, and my way to make in the world, and my liberty
along with it, than all this.”
“Suppose we exchange,” said William, “I’ll take the estate off your
hands, and allow you three hundred a-year, and your liberty, and wish
you joy of the pleasant excitement of making your way in the world, and
applaud when you get on a bit, and condole when you’re in the mud.”
Trevor only smiled grandly, and shook his head at William’s waggery.
“But seriously, just consider. You know I’m telling you things, old
fellow, that I wouldn’t say to everyone, and this won’t, I know, go
further.” He resumed after a little interval spent in smoking, “But just
think now: here’s everything, as you see; but the estate owes some
money; and I give you my honour, it does not bring me in, net, when
everything’s paid, three thousand a-year.”
“Oh, no!” said William, in a tone which unconsciously implied, “a great
deal less, as we all know.”
“No, not three thousand—I wish it was,” said Trevor, with an eager
frankness, that savoured of annoyance. He had not intended to be quite
believed. “And there’s the position. You’re expected to take a lead in
things, you see, as if you had your six thousand a-year, egad, or
whatever it is; and how the devil are you to manage it? Don’t you see?
And you tumble in love with a girl; and you find yourself encumbered
with a pedigree—a confounded family tree, by Jove! and everyone expects
you to marry accordingly. And I don’t say they’re not right, mind, for,
by Jove! on the whole, I believe they are. So here I am with all this
about me, and not a soul on earth to bully me, and yet I can’t do as I
like. I don’t say, by Jove, that I do want to marry. I dare say it would
not answer at all, at least for a jolly good number of years, and then I
suppose, I must do as the rest of the world does. I must, you see, have
some money, and I must have something of, you know, a—a—_family_; and
that’s how I stand. Come along, it’s growing awfully late, and it’s very
likely—ha—ha—ha!—I may die an old bachelor.”
“Well, you know,” said William, who thought that Trevor had spoken with
extraordinary good sense, “there’s no such hurry. Fellows wait, as you
say, and look about them: and it’s a very serious thing, by Jove! here
we are at the gate; and I’ve had a very pleasant evening—_jolly_! I did
not think two fellows, by themselves, could be so jolly, and that
capital claret!” Poor William was no great judge, nor, for that matter,
indeed, was his great friend, Mr. Trevor, who, however, knew its price,
and laying his hand on William’s arm, said—
“Well, old fellow, I’m glad—I really am—you enjoyed yourself; and I hope
when next you come, you’ll have another glass or two with me. There’s
one thing I say about wine, be it what it may—hang it, let it be real,
and get it from a good house; and give my respects to the ladies—don’t
forget; and when you come again, we must have more croquet. Let the
balls and mallets stay where they are, you know, till then; and God
bless you, Maubray, old boy, and if I can give you a lift, you know, any
way, tell me, and I dare say my solicitor _can_ give you a lift when you
get to the bar. Sends out a lot of briefs, you know. I’ll speak to him,
if you wish.”
“A good time before that,” laughed William. “Many thanks, though; I
suppose I shall turn up in a few weeks again, and I’m beginning to take
to the croquet rather, and we can have lots of play; but, by Jove! I’m
keeping you all night—good-bye.”
So they shook hands, each thinking more highly of the other. I’m afraid
our mutual estimates are seldom metaphysically justifiable.
“Well,” thought Trevor, as he smoked his way up hill to the house, “no
one can say I have not spoken plain enough. I should not like to have to
give up that little acquaintance. It’s an awfully slow part of the
world. And now they know everything. If the old woman was thinking about
anything, this will put it quite out of her head; and I can be careful,
poor little thing! It would be a devil of a thing if she did grow to
like me.”
And with a lazy smile he let himself in, and had a little sherry and
water, and _Bell’s Life_ in the drawing-room.
William Maubray experienced an unaccountable expansion of spirits and
sympathies, as he strode along the pathway that debouches close upon the
gate of Gilroyd Hall. Everything looked so beautiful, and so
interesting, and so serene. He loitered for a moment to gaze on the
moon: and recollecting how late it was he rang at the bell fiercely,
hoping to find Violet Darkwell still in the drawing-room.
“Well, Tom, my aunt in the drawing-room?” said William, as he confided
his coat and hat to that faithful domestic.
“Ay, Sir, she be.”
“And Miss Darkwell?”
“Gone up wi’ Mrs. Winnie some time.”
“Oh, that’s all right, nothing like early sleep for young heads, Tom:
it’s rather late,” said William Maubray, disappointed, in a cheerful
tone.
So he opened the door, and found Aunt Dinah in the drawing-room.
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