TREVOR AND MAUBRAY IN THE DRAWING-ROOM
Vane Trevor was a remote cousin, and so received as a kinsman; he
entered and was greeted smilingly.
“We have secured _such_ a treasure since we saw you—a tutor for my
precious Howard; and such a young man—I can’t tell you _half_ what I
think of him.” (That, perhaps, was true). “He’s so accomplished.”
“Accomplished—is he?” said Trevor.
“Well, not, perhaps, in the common acceptation of the term, that I know
of, but I referred particularly to that charming accomplishment of
reading aloud with feeling and _point_, you know, so sadly neglected,
and yet so conducive to real enjoyment and one’s appreciation of good
authors when cultivated. You would hardly believe what a resource it is
to us poor solitaries. I am quite in love with Mr. Herbert; and I will
answer for Clara there; she is as nearly so as a young lady ought to
be.”
Playfulness was not Mrs. Kincton Knox’s happiest vein. She was tall,
tragic, and ungainly; and her conscious graciousness made one
uncomfortable, and her smile was intimidating.
“He certainly does read charmingly,” threw in Miss Clara.
“We have grown, I fear,” continued Mrs. Kincton Knox, “almost too
dependent on him for the enjoyment of our evenings; and I sometimes say,
quite seriously to my girl there, Clara, I do trust we are not spoiling
Mr. Herbert.”
“He does not look like a spoiled child—rather sad and seedy, doesn’t
he?” replied Vane Trevor.
“Does he?” said Miss Clara.
“You’ve seen him, then?” supplemented her mother.
“Yes; had that honour as I mounted the steep walk—how charming that walk
is—among the fir-trees. But I did not see anything very unusual about
him.”
“I can only say I like him _extremely_,” observed Mrs. Kincton Knox, in
a tone which concluded debate.
“And what do you say, Miss Knox?” inquired Vane Trevor, with one of his
arch cackles.
“No; young ladies are not to say all they think, like us old people,”
interposed Mrs. Knox; “but he’s a very agreeable young man.”
“Is he?” said Vane Trevor, with irrepressible amazement. “That’s the
first time, by Jove! I ever heard poor Maubray”—and hereupon he stopped,
remembering that Maubray’s identity was a secret, and he looked,
perhaps, a little foolish.
Mrs. Kincton Knox coughed a little, though she was glad to be quite sure
that Mr. Winston Maubray was safe under her roof, and did not want him
or Vane Trevor to know that she knew it. She therefore coughed a little
grandly, and also looked a little put out. But Miss Clara, with
admirable coolness, said quite innocently—
“What of Mr. Maubray? What have you heard of him? _do_ tell us. How is
poor Sir Richard? We never saw his son, you know, here; and is the
quarrel made up?”
“That’s just what I was going to tell you about,” said Vane Trevor,
scrambling rather clumsily on his legs again after his tumble. “Not the
least chance—none in the world—of a reconciliation. And the poor old
fellow, in one of his fits of passion, got a fit, by Jove, and old
Sprague at Cambridge told me one half his body is perfectly dead,
paralytic, you know, and he can’t last; so Winston, you see, is more
eligible than ever.”
“Poor old man! you ought not to speak with so much levity,” said Mrs.
Kincton Knox. “I did not hear a word of it—how horrible! And when had
poor Sir Richard his paralytic stroke?”
“About a week ago. He knew some people yesterday; but they say he’s
awfully shaken, and his face all—you know—pulled up on one side, and
hanging down at the other; old Sprague says, a horrible object; by Jove,
you can’t help pitying him, though he was a fearful old screw.”
“Melancholy!—and he _was_ such a handsome man! Dear me! Is his son like
him?” said Mrs. Kincton Knox ruefully.
“Why, not particularly just now. They say the two sides of his face are
pretty much alike; and his right limbs are about as lively as his left;”
and Vane Trevor cackled very agreeably over this sally.
“So I should hope, Mr. Trevor,” said the matron of the high nose and
dark brows with a gloomy superiority, “and if there is any objection to
answering my question, I should rather not hear it jested upon,
especially with so shocking a reference to Sir Richard’s calamity—whom I
knew, poor man! when he was as strong and as good looking as you are.”
“But seriously,” said Miss Clara, who saw that her mother had not left
herself room to repeat her question, “what is he like? is he light or
dark, or tall or short—or what?”
“Well, he’s dark at night, you know, when he’s put out his candle, and
light enough in the daytime, when the sun’s shining, and he’s decidedly
_short_ sometimes—in his temper, I mean—he, he, he!—and tall in his talk
always,” replied Vane Trevor, and he enjoyed a very exhilirating laugh
at his witty conceits.
“You used to be capable of a little conversation,” said the matron
grandly. “You seem to have abandoned yourself to—to⸺”
“To _chaff_, you were going to say,” suggested Vane, waggishly.
“No, certainly not, that’s a slang phrase such as is not usual among
ladies, nor ever spoken at Kincton,” retorted the old lady.
“Well, it _is_ though, whenever I’m here,” he replied agreeably. “But
I’ll really tell you all I can: there’s nothing very remarkable in his
appearance; he’s rather tall, very light: he has light hair, blue eyes,
pretty good bat.”
“What’s that?” demanded the elder lady.
“He handles the willow pretty well, and would treat you to a tolerably
straight, well pitched, slow underhand.”
“I think you intimated that you were about making yourself
intelligible?” interposed Mrs. Kincton Knox.
“And don’t _you_ understand me?” inquired Vane Trevor of Miss Clara.
“Yes, I think it’s cricket, aint it?” she replied.
“Well, you see I was intelligible; yes, cricket, of course,” replied
Vane.
“I can’t say, I’m sure, where Miss Kincton Knox learned those phrases;
it certainly was not in this drawing-room,” observed her mamma, with a
gloomy severity.
“Well, I mean he’s a tolerably good cricketer, and he reads poetry, and
quarrels with his father, and he’s just going to step into the poor old
fellow’s shoes, for, jesting apart, he really is in an awful state from
all I can hear.”
“Is it thought he may linger long?” inquired Mrs. Kincton Knox; “though,
indeed, poor man, it is hardly desirable he should, from all you say.”
“Anything but desirable. I fancy he’s very shaky indeed, not safe for a
week—may go any day—that’s what Sprague says, and he’s awfully anxious
his son should come and see him; don’t you think he ought?” said Mr.
Vane Trevor.
“That depends,” said the old lady thoughtfully, for the idea of her bird
in the hand flitting suddenly away at old Sprague’s whistle, to the bush
of uncertainty, was uncomfortable and alarming. “I have always
understood that in a case like poor Sir Richard’s nothing can be more
unwise, and, humanly speaking, more certain to precipitate a fatal
catastrophe than a—a—adopting any step likely to be attended with
agitation. Nothing of the kind, at least, ought to be hazarded for at
least six weeks or so, I should say, and not even then unless the
patient has rallied very decidedly, and in such a state as the miserable
man now is, a reconciliation would be a mere delusion. _I_ should
certainly say _no_ to any such proposition, and I can’t think how Dr.
Sprague could contemplate such an experiment in any other light than as
a possible _murder_.”
At this moment the drawing-room door opened, and William Maubray’s pale
and sad face appeared at it.
“Howard says you wished to see me?” said he.
“We are very happy, indeed, to see you,” replied the old lady,
graciously. “Pray come in and join us, Mr. Herbert. Mr. Herbert, allow
me to introduce my cousin, Mr. Trevor. You have heard us speak of Mr.
Vane Trevor, of Revington?”
“I had the pleasure—I met him on his way here, and we talked—and—and—I
know him quite well,” said William, blushing, but coming out with his
concluding sentence quite stoutly, for before Vane Trevor’s sly gaze he
would have felt like a trickster if he had not.
But the ladies were determined to suspect nothing, and Mrs. Knox
observed—
“We make acquaintance very quickly in the country—a ten minutes’ walk
together. Mr. Herbert, would you object to poor Howard’s having a
holiday?—and, pray, join us at lunch, and you really must not leave us
now.”
“I—oh! very happy—yes—a holiday—certainly,” replied he, like a man whose
thoughts were a little scattered, and he stood leaning on the back of a
chair, and showing, as both ladies agreed, by his absent manner and pale
and saddened countenance, that Vane Trevor had been delivering Doctor
Sprague’s message, desiring his presence at the death-bed of the
departing baronet.
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