A FRIEND APPEARS
William Maubray’s harmless self love was flattered by the growing
consideration with which he was treated. The more they saw of him
plainly the better they liked him, and William began, too, dimly to
fancy that there must be something very engaging about him.
A night or two later, his pupil having just gone to bed, a footman came
with a little scrap of pink paper, pencilled over, in Mrs. Kincton
Knox’s hand, on a salver, for William, who found these words:
“It has just struck me that I might possibly prevail upon your
good-nature, to look in upon our solitude for half an hour; though we
don’t like abridging your hours of liberty, it would really be quite a
kindness to indulge me; and if you can lay your hand upon your volume of
Tennyson, pray bring it with you.”
Up got William, and with his book in his hand followed the servant, who
announced Mr. Herbert at the drawing-room door, and William found
himself in that vast apartment, the lights of which were crowded about
the fire, and the rest comparatively dim.
“So good of you, Mr. Herbert,” said Mrs. Kincton Knox, with a superb
smile, and even extending her fingers in the solemn exuberance of her
welcome. “It is so very kind of you to come; so unreasonable, I fear: we
had a debate, I assure you,” and she smiled with awful archness toward
Miss Clara, “but my audacity carried it—you’ve brought the book too—he
has brought the book, Clara; how very kind, is not it?”
Miss Clara answered by a glance at their visitor, almost grateful, and a
smile at her mother, who continued—
“You have no idea, Mr. Herbert—pray sit where we can both hear and see
you—how very lonely we are in these great rooms, when we are
_tête-à-tête_, as you see.”
William’s remarks in reply were not very original or very many, but such
as they were nothing could be more successful, and the ladies exchanged
smiles of approbation over the timid little joke, which had all but
broken down.
So William read aloud, and the ladies, each in her way, were charmed,
and next night he was invited again, and there was more conversation and
rather less reading, and so he grew much more easy and intimate, and
began to look forward to these little reunions with a very pleasant
interest: and Miss Clara’s brilliant beauty and some little indications
of a penchant very flattering began to visit his fancy oftener than I
should have supposed likely; although it is hard to say when the
way-side flowers on the longest journey quite lose their interest; or
how much care and fatigue are needed to make a man cease to smile now
and then, or whistle a stave on his way.
William and his pupil were walking down the thick fir wood that lies on
the slope between Kincton and the Old London road, when just at a curve
in the path, within twenty yards, whom should he come upon suddenly in
this darksome by-way but Mr. Vane Trevor. They both stopped short.
“By Jove! Maubray?” exclaimed Trevor, after a pause, and he cackled one
of his agreeable laughs.
“Did not expect to see you here, Trevor,” replied William, looking on
the whole rather dismally surprised.
“Why, what are you afraid of, old Maubray? I’m not going to do you any
harm, upon my honour,” and he laughed again, approaching his friend, who
likewise advanced to meet him smiling, with rather an effort. “Very glad
to see you, and I’ve a lot to tell you,” said he. “I don’t mean any
nonsense, but really serious things.”
“All well at home?” asked William, eagerly.
“Oh, dear, yes, quite well—all flourishing. It is not—it’s nothing
unpleasant, you know, only I mean something—it’s of importance to me, by
Jove! and to, I fancy, other people also; and I see you’re puzzled. Can
we get rid of that little wretch for a minute or two?” and he glanced at
Howard Seymour Knox, to whom, he just remembered, he had not yet spoken.
“And how do you do, Howard, my boy? Flourishing, I see. Would you like
to have a shot with my revolver? I left it at the gamekeeper’s down
there. Well, give them this card, and they’ll give it to you—and we’ll
try and shoot a rabbit—eh?”
Away went Master Howard, and Trevor said—
“And do tell me, what are you doing here, of all places in the world?”
“I’m a resident tutor—neither more nor less,” said William Maubray, with
a bitter gaiety.
“You mean you’ve come here to Kincton to teach that little cur—I hope
you lick him a trifle?” inquired Trevor.
“Yes; but I don’t lick him, and in fact the situation—that’s the right
word, isn’t it?—is very, what’s the word? We get on quietly, and they’re
all very civil to me, and it’s very good of a swell like you to talk so
to a poor devil of a pedagogue.”
“Come Maubray, none of your chaff. I knew by your aunt’s manner there
was a screw loose somewhere—something about a living, wasn’t there?”
It was plain, however, that Trevor was thinking of something that
concerned him more nearly than William Maubray’s squabble with his aunt.
“It’s a long story,” said William; “she wants me to go into the Church,
and I won’t, and so there’s a quarrel, and that’s all.”
“And the supplies stopped?” exclaimed Trevor.
“Well, I think she would not stop them; she is very generous—but I could
not, you know, it’s time I should do something: and I’m here—Doctor
Sprague thought it right—under the name of Herbert. They know it’s an
assumed name—we took care to tell them that—so there’s no trick, you
know, and please don’t say my name’s Maubray, it would half break my
aunt’s heart.”
“Secret as the tomb, _Herbert_, I’ll remember, and—and I hope that nasty
little dog won’t be coming back in a minute—it’s a good way though—and,
by Jove! it’s very comical, though, and almost providential this,
meeting you here, for I did want a friend to talk a bit to, awfully, and
you know, Maubray, I really _have_ always looked on you in the light of
a friend.”
There was a consciousness of the honour which such a distinction
conferred in the tone in which this was spoken, and William, in the
cynical irony which, in this interview, he had used with Trevor,
interposed with—
“A humble friend, and very much flattered.”
“You’re no such thing, upon my honour, and I think you’re joking. But I
really do regard you as a friend, and I want to tell you no end of
things, that I really think will surprise you.”
William Maubray looked in Trevor’s face, gravely and dubiously, and said
he, with the air of a man of the world, “Well, I should like to hear—and
any advice I can offer, it is not of any great value I fear, is quite at
your service.”
“Let’s sit down here,” said Trevor, and side by side they seated
themselves on a rustic seat, and in the golden shade of the firs and
pines, Vane Trevor began to open his case to William.
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