A MESSAGE IN THE “TIMES.”
With this little speech, Aunt Dinah, thinking for the moment of nothing
but her bird, and very much pleased with Mr. Trevor, carried the little
songster away to her room, leaving the young people together at the open
parlour window.
“I hope _you_ like him?” Trevor said, in a low tone.
“Oh, _charming_!” replied Miss Vi.
“I should not for all the world—you’ll never know the reason why,
perhaps—have let him go to any place else, but here—upon my honour,”
said Mr. Vane Trevor, speaking very much in earnest.
“Miss Perfect, I can see, is charmed,” said Violet.
“Ah, _yes_—you think so—very happy, I’m sure; but I shall miss him very
much. I—you’ve no idea what company he has been to me: and what a lot of
trouble I had in finding one to—in fact, the sort of one I wanted.”
“They are very pretty, very sweet; but after all don’t you think the
natural song the best? I should be afraid of the repetition; I should
tire of the same airs,” said Miss Darkwell.
“Of others—yes, perhaps, I should, but of those, _never_,” said Mr. Vane
Trevor, eloquently.
No romantic young gentleman who means to walk in the straight and narrow
path of prudence, does well in falling into such a dialogue of
covert-meanings with so very pretty a girl as Miss Violet Darkwell. It
is like going up in a balloon, among invisible and irresistible
currents, and the prince of the powers of the air alone can tell how
long a voyage you are in for, and in what direction you may come down.
The flattering tongues of men! sweet airy music attuned to love and
vanity, to woman’s pride and weakness, half despised, half cherished.
Long after—a phrase—a fragment of a sentence, like a broken bar, or half
remembered cadence of some sweet old air, that sounded in your young
ears, in dances and merry-makings, now far and filmy as bygone dreams,
turns up unbidden—comes back upon remembrance, and is told, with a
saddened smile, to another generation. Drink in the sweet music at your
pretty ears; it will not last always. There is a day for enjoyment, and
a day for remembrance, and then the days of darkness.
A little blush—the glory, too, of ever so faint a smile! the beautiful
flush of beauty’s happy triumph was on the fair face of the girl, as she
listened for a moment, with downcast eyes; and Vane Trevor, conceited
young man as he was, had never felt so elated as when he saw that
transient, but beautiful glow, answering to his folly.
I may look on her with different eyes, like the Choragus of an old play,
and wonder and speculate which it is she likes—the flattery or the
lover—or each for the sake of the other; or the flattery only, caring
not that bullfinch’s feather on the carpet for him? There is not much in
her face to guide me; I can only see, for certain, that she is pleased.
“I shall never forget those airs; you sang them the first time I heard
you sing; and I’m afraid I have been awfully unreasonable about them,
asking you to sing them for me every time nearly I had an opportunity;
and I—I assure you—I don’t know what I shall do without my poor bird;
and⸺”
Exactly at this point Aunt Dinah returned, and Mr. Vane Trevor, with
admirable presence of mind, said:
“I was just saying to Miss Darkwell, I am sure I have heard her sing
those little songs the bird whistles.”
“So she does,” interrupted Miss Perfect. “I could not think where I
heard them. You know those airs, Vi?”
“Yes—I think they _are_ among my songs,” answered Violet, carelessly.
“It would be very good of you, Miss Perfect—now that I’ve parted with my
musician, you know—if you would allow me—just perhaps once before I
leave Revington—I shall be away probably some months—to look in some
evening, when Miss Darkwell is at her music—it is very impertinent, I’m
afraid, to ask—but knowing those airs so well, I should like so much to
hear them sung, if you happened to be able to find them.” The concluding
words were to Violet.
“Oh, dear yes—won’t you, Vi?—certainly, any evening, we shall be very
happy; but you know we are very early people, and our tea hour seven
o’clock.”
“Oh, quite delightful,” exclaimed the accommodating Vane Trevor. “I have
no hours at all at Revington—when I’m alone there, I just eat when I’m
hungry and sleep when I’m sleepy.”
“The certain way to lose your health!” exclaimed Miss Perfect.
“Very much obliged—I’ll certainly turn up, you know, seven o’clock some
evening.”
And so he took his leave, and was haunted day and night by Violet
Darkwell’s beautiful downcast face, as he had seen it that morning.
“I knew I’d make her like me—by Jove, I knew I should—she does, I’m
quite sure of it, she’s beginning to like me, and if I choose I’ll make
her like me awfully.”
Now, all the rest of that day, Trevor thought a great deal less than he
had ever done before, of the pomps and vanities of Revington, and the
vain glories of the Trevors of that ilk. Wrestling with love is
sometimes like wrestling with an angel, and when the struggle seems well
nigh over, and the athlete sure of his victory, one unexpected touch of
the angelic hand sets him limping again for many a day. Little did he
fancy that the chance meeting in the shadowy porch of Saxton Church
would rivet again the sightless chains which it had taken some time and
trouble to unclasp, and send him maundering and spiritless in his
fetters among the woods and lonely paths of Revington; not yet, indeed,
bewailing in vain his captivity, but still conscious of the invisible
influence in which he was again entangled, and with no very clear
analysis of the present, or thoughts for the future.
Time had brought no tidings of William Maubray, and, except on
occasions, Aunt Dinah’s fits of silence were growing longer, and her old
face more wan and sad.
“Ungrateful creature!” said she, unconsciously aloud.
“Who, Ma’am?” asked old Winnie, mildly. Her mistress was disrobing for
bed.
“Eh, who?” repeated Miss Perfect. “My nephew William Maubray, to think
of his never once sending me a line, or a message!—we might all be dead
here and he never know. Not that I care for his indifference and
heartless ingratitude, for as I told you before, I shall never see his
face again. You need not stare, you need not say a word, Winnie; it is
quite fixed. You may go to see him at Cambridge if he’s there, or
wherever he is, but the door of Gilroyd he shall never enter more while
I live, and he and his concerns shall trouble me just as little as I and
mine do him.”
It was about this time that William Maubray, who was permitted regularly
to look into the _Times_, saw the following notification among its
advertisements:—
“If the young gentleman who abruptly left his old relative’s house,
under displeasure, on the night of ⸺, is willing to enter the
Church, a path to reconciliation may be opened; but none otherwise.
If he needs pecuniary assistance it will be supplied to the extent
of £50, on his applying through his tutor, Doctor S⸺, but not
directly.”
“How insulting—how severe and unforgiving,” murmured William. “How could
she fancy it possible that I could accept the insult of her gift?”
With a swelling heart he turned to another part of the paper, and tried
to read. But the odious serpent coiled and hissing at him from its
little tabulated compartment, was too near, and he could think of
nothing else.
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