FROM KINCTON TO GILROYD
A month passed away with little change. Thanks to the very explicit
injunction, constantly repeated, to teach his pupil no more than his
pupil wished to learn, William Maubray got on wonderfully well with that
ill-conditioned brat, who was “the hope of the house of Kincton Knox.”
Still, notwithstanding this, and all those flattering evidences of
growing favour vouchsafed by the ladies of the mansion, the weeks were
very long. Miss Clara, although now and then she beamed on him with a
transient light, yet never actually conversed; and magnificent and
dreary Mrs. 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. And with a
pain and swelling at his heart came the scene of his expulsion—a mute,
hurried leave-taking; the clang of the iron gate, never to open more for
him; and Aunt Dinah’s fierce and cruel gaze, like the sword of fire in
the way, forbidding his return.
How was it with fierce and cruel Aunt Dinah all this time? “The boy will
come to his senses,” she was constantly repeating to herself, as she
closed her book from which her thoughts had been straying, upon her
finger, with a short sigh and a proud look. Or when she looked up from
her work, with the same little sigh, on the pretty flower landscape,
with its background of foliage, seen so sunnily through the jessamine
and rose clusters, “Time will bring him to reason; a little time, a very
little time.”
But when a little time passed away, and no signs came with the next week
of returning reason, Aunt Dinah grew fiercer and more warlike. “Sulky
and obstinate! Ungrateful young man! Well, so be it. We’ll see who can
maintain silence longest. Let him cool; let him take his own time. _I_
won’t hurry him, I promise him,” and so forth.
But another week passed, still in silence, and Miss Perfect “presented
her compliments to Dr. Sprague, and begged to inquire whether her
nephew, William Maubray, had returned to Cambridge a little more than a
fortnight since. Not that she had the least right or _wish_ to inquire
minutely henceforward into his plans, place of residence, pursuits, or
associates; but simply that having for so long a time taken an interest
in him, and, as she hoped, been of some little use to him—if supporting
and educating him entirely might so be deemed—she thought she had a
claim to be informed how he was, whether well or ill. Beyond that she
begged to be excused from asking, and requested that Doctor Sprague
would be so good as to confine himself to answering that simple inquiry,
and abstain from mentioning anything further about William Maubray.”
In reply to this, Doctor Sprague “begged to inform Miss Perfect that
when he last saw him, about ten days since, when he left Cambridge, her
nephew, William Maubray, was very well. On his return from his recent
visit to Gilroyd, he had remained but a week in his rooms, and had then
left to prosecute a plan by which he hoped to succeed in laying a
foundation for future efforts and success. Doctor Sprague was not very
well, and had been ordered to take a little exceptional holiday abroad,
and Miss Perfect’s letter had reached him just on the eve of his
departure for the continent.”
Unobserved, almost to herself, there had been before Aunt Dinah’s eyes,
as she read her book, or worked at her crochet, or looked out wearied on
the lawn, a little vignette representing a college tutor’s chamber,
Gothic in character, and a high-backed oaken chair, antiquated and
carved, in which, like Faust philosophising to the respectful Vagner,
sat Doctor Sprague, with his finger on the open letter she had sent him,
exhorting and reproving the contumacious William Maubray, and in the act
of dispatching him, in a suit of sackcloth, with peas in his shoes, on a
penitential pilgrimage to Gilroyd.
This pleasing shadow, like an illusion of the magic lantern, vanished in
pitch darkness, as Miss Perfect read the good doctor’s answer. With a
pallid, patient smile, and feeling suddenly cold from her head to her
feet, she continued to gaze in sore distress upon the letter. Had
William enlisted, or had he embarked as steward on board an American
steamer? Was he about working his passage to New Zealand, or had he
turned billiard marker?
Neighbours dropped in now and then to pay a visit, and Violet had such
conversation as the vicinity afforded, and chatted and laughed all she
could. But Miss Perfect was very silent for some days after the arrival
of Dr. Sprague’s letter. She was more gentle, and smiled a good deal,
but was wan, and sighed from time to time, and her dinner was a mere
make-belief. And looking out of her bed-room window in the evening,
toward Saxton, she did not hear old Winnie Dobbs, who had thrice
accosted her. But after a little she turned to the patient old handmaid,
and said—
“Pretty the old church looks in the sun; I sometimes wish I were there.”
Old Winnie followed the direction of her eyes, and gazed also, saying
mildly—
“Good sermons, indeed, Ma’am, and a good parson, kind to the poor; and
very comfortable it is, sure, if they did not raise the stove so high. I
think ’twas warmer before they raised it.”
“For a hundred and fifty years the Gilroyd people have been all buried
there,” continued Aunt Dinah, talking more to the old church than to
Winnie.
“Well, I should not wonder,” said Winnie, “there is a deal o’ them lies
there. My grandmother minded the time old Lady Maubray was buried
yonder, with that fine marble thing outside o’ the church. The rails is
gone very rusty now, and that coat of arms, and the writing, it’s
wearing out—it is worn, the rain or something; and indeed I sometimes do
think where is the good of grandeur; when we die it’s all equal, the
time being so short as it is. Master Willie asked me to show it him last
Sunday three weeks coming out o’ church, and even his young eyes⸺”
“Don’t name him, don’t mention him,” said Aunt Dinah suddenly in a tone
of cold decision.
Winnie’s guileless light blue eyes looked up in helpless wonder in her
mistress’s face.
“Don’t name his name, Winnie Dobbs. He’s _gone_,” said she in the same
severe tone.
“Gone!” repeated Winnie. “Yes, sure! but he’ll come back.”
“No, he shan’t, Winnie; he’ll darken my doors no more. Come what may,
_that_ shan’t be. Perhaps, I may _assist_ him occasionally still, but
see him, never! He has renounced me, and I wash my hands of him.” She
was answering Winnie’s look of consternation. “Let him go his own way as
he chooses it—I’ve _done_ with him.”
There was a long pause here, during which ancient Winnie Dobbs stared
with an imbecile incredulity at her mistress, who was looking still at
the old church. Then old Winnie sighed. Then she shook her head,
touching the tip of her tongue with a piteous little “tick, tick, tick,”
to the back of her teeth.
And Aunt Dinah continued drearily—
“And Miss Violet must find this very dull—I’ve no right to keep her
here. She would be happier in some other home, poor child. I’m but a
dismal companion, and how long is it since young Mr. Trevor was here?
You don’t remember—there, don’t try, but it must be three weeks or more,
and—and I do think he was very attentive. I mean, Winnie, but you are to
say nothing below stairs, you know—I mean, I really think he was in love
with Miss Vi.”
“Well, indeed, they did talk about it—the neighbours; there was talk, a
deal o’ talk, and I don’t know, but I often thought she liked him.”
“Well, _that’s_ off too, _quite_, I think; you know it is very rude,
impertinent, in fact, his never having called here once, or done more
than just raise his hat to us in the church door on Sundays, ever since
William Maubray went away. I look upon his conduct as altogether
outrageous, and being the kind of person he is, I’m very glad he
disclosed himself so early, and certainly it would have been a thousand
pities the girl should have ever thought of him. So that’s over too, and
all the better it is, and I begin to grow tired of the whole thing—very
tired, Winnie; and I believe the people over there,” and she nodded
toward the church-yard, “are best provided for, and it’s time, Winnie, I
should be thinking of joining them where the wicked cease from
troubling, and the weary are at rest.”
“God forbid, Ma’am!” remonstrated old Winnie, mildly, and they turned
together from the window to accomplish Aunt Dinah’s toilet.
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