HOW THEY TALKED
After a few turns, and some little talk, Mrs. Kincton Knox said:—
“I’m afraid, Mr. Herbert, like most of us, young as you are, you have
your troubles. You will excuse an old woman, old enough to be your
mother, and who likes you, who really feels a very deep interest in you,
for saying so. I wish—I wish, in fact, there was a little more
confidence, but all in good time. I said you were—you were—it’s perhaps
impertinent of me to say I observed it, but my motive is not curiosity,
nor, you will believe, unkind. I did see you were distressed this
morning by the letter that reached you. I trust there was no illness,
nor⸺”
“No, nothing—that is, which I had not—which was not,” he replied.
“Nothing very unexpected.”
“For if there was any necessity, any _wish_ to leave Kincton for a
little, I should offer my poor services as a substitute with your pupil,
if you would trust him to me.”
Although her graciousness was oppressive, and her playfulness awful,
there were welcome signs of sympathy in this speech, and William Maubray
greeted them with something like confidence, and, said he:—
“It’s awfully kind of you, Mrs. Kincton Knox, to think about me. I—I
don’t know exactly what to say, except that I am very grateful, and—and
it’s quite true, I’ve had a great deal of vexation and suffering—a kind
of quarrel—a very bad quarrel, indeed, at home, as I call it, and—and
some other things.”
“Other things!—no doubt. There is one trouble to which the young are
exposed, and from which old people are quite exempt. The course of true
love, you know, as our great moralist says, never did run smooth.”
Her prominent eyes were fixed with an awful archness upon Maubray, and
conscious as he was, he blushed and paled under her gaze, and was dumb.
“My maxim in all such cases is, _never despair_. When a young man is
endowed, like you, with good looks, and refinement. You see I am talking
to you almost as I would to a son, that darling boy of mine is such a
link, and one grows so soon to know a _guest_, and those delightful
evenings, and I think—I _think_, Mr. Herbert, I can see a little with my
old eyes, and I’ve divined your secret.”
“I may—that is, I think it may have been—a _fancy_, just. I don’t know,”
said William, very much put out.
“But _I_ know. You may be perfectly certain you _are_ in love, if you
aint quite certain that you are _not_. Trust an old woman who has seen
something of life—that is, of human nature,” insisted Mrs. Kincton Knox.
“I—I don’t know, I did not know it myself until, I think, within the
last few days. I dare say I’m a great fool. I’m sure I am, in fact, and
I ought not to have allowed—but I really did not know.”
He suspected that Trevor had told all he knew of his story, and that the
women, with the sagacity of their sex, had divined the rest.
“You see, Mr. Herbert, I have not guessed amiss. When I see a young
person very much dejected and _distrait_, I at once suspect a _romance_;
and now let me say a word of _comfort_, derived from observation. As I
said before—I’ve known such things happen—_never despair_. There is a
spark of romance in our sex as well as in yours. I think I _may_ be of
use to you. I dare say things are not quite so desperate as they appear.
But do trust me—do be frank.”
“I will. I’ll tell you everything. I—I don’t know where to begin. But
I’m so much obliged. I’ve no one to speak to, and⸺”
At this moment the “darling boy” Howard bounced from behind a thick
shrub, with a shriek which was echoed by his fond mother, who, if
anything so dignified could jump, _did_ jump, and even William’s manly
heart made an uncomfortable bounce in his breast. At the same time
Master Howard Seymour turned his ankle, and tumbled with a second horrid
roar on the walk, from which his mother and his instructor lifted him,
not much hurt, but bellowing in a fury, and requiring to be conducted
for comfort to the house.
“I shall call upon you again, Mr. Herbert, when my poor darling is
better, and we can—there, there! my rosebud,” began Mrs. Kincton Knox,
distracted between her curiosity and her compassion.
“Shall I take him on my back? Get up.” And so, he took the urchin, who
was hopping round them in circles with hideous uproar, in his arms, and
bore him away beside his anxious parent towards the house, where having
ministered to the sufferer, Mrs. Kincton Knox looked into the
drawing-room, and found Miss Clara seated by the fire, with her slender
feet as usual, on a boss, reading her novel.
Mrs. Kincton Knox, stooping over her, kissed her, and Miss Clara,
knowing that the unusual caress indicated something extraordinary,
looked up with a dreary curiosity into her mother’s face. When they were
_tête-à-tête_, these ladies did not trouble one another much with smiles
or caresses. Still her mother was smiling with a mysterious triumph, and
nodded encouragingly upon her.
“Well?” asked Miss Clara.
“I think you’ll find that I was right, and that somebody will ask you a
question before long,” answered her mother, with an oracular smile.
Miss Clara certainly did look a little interested at this intimation,
and sat up with comparative energy, looking rather earnestly into her
mother’s prominent, hard brown eyes.
“He’s been talking very, I may say, frankly to me, and although we were
interrupted by—an accident, yet there was no mistaking him. At least
that’s _my_ opinion.”
And Mrs. Kincton Knox sat down, and with her imposing coiffure nodding
over her daughter’s ear, recounted, with perhaps some little colouring,
her interesting conversation with William Maubray. While this conference
was proceeding, the door opened, and Mr. Kincton Knox, his gloves, white
hat, and stick in his hand, walked in.
It was one of Mrs. Kincton Knox’s unpublished theories that her
husband’s presence in the drawing-room was a trespass, as that of a cow
among the flower-beds under the window.
As that portly figure in the gray woollen suit and white waistcoat
entered mildly, the matron sat erect, and eyed him with a gaze of
astonishment, which, however, was quite lost upon him, as he had not his
spectacles on.
“I hope, Mr. Kincton Knox, your shoes are not covered with mud?—unless
you are prepared to buy another carpet,” she said, glancing at the
clumsy articles in question.
“Oh, dear! no—I haven’t been out—just going—but I want you and Clara to
look over there,” and he pointed with his stick, at which Mrs. Kincton
Knox winced with the ejaculation, “The China!”
“You see those three trees,” he continued, approaching the window with
his stick extended.
“Yes, you _needn’t_ go on; _perfectly_,” she answered.
“Well, the one to the right is, in fact, I think it’s an ugly tree; I’ve
been for a long time considering it. You see it there, Clara, on the
rising ground, near the paling?”
She did.
“Well, I’m thinking of taking him down; what do you say?”
“_Do_ lower your stick, Mr. Kincton Knox, _pray_, we can see perfectly
without _breaking_ anything,” expostulated his wife.
“Well, what do you say?” he repeated, pointing with his hand instead.
“Do you want my opinion as to what trees should come down?” said Mrs.
Knox, with admirable perseverance. “I shall be happy to give it with
respect to _all_—as to that particular tree it is so far away, I really
don’t think the question worth debating.”
“Take it down, papa,” said Miss Clara, who rather liked her father, and
encouraged him when too much put down. “I really think you’re always
right about trees, I think you’ve such wonderful taste, I do indeed, and
judgment about all those things.”
The old man gave her a hearty kiss on the cheek, and smiling ruddily,
said—
“Well, I think I ought; I’ve read something, and _thought_ something on
the subject, and as _you_ don’t dissent, my dear, and Clara says it’s to
come down—down it comes. She’s looking very pretty; egad she
is—wonderfully pretty, she is, to-day.”
“Folly!” exclaimed Miss Clara, pleased notwithstanding.
“Other people think her good-looking too, I can tell you,” exclaimed her
mother, whose thoughts were all in that channel, and who could not
forbear saying something on the subject. “I think, even you, Mr. Kincton
Knox, will see that I have done my duty by our child, and have been the
means under Providence of promoting her happiness.”
“And what is it?” said Mr. Kincton Knox, looking solemnly on his
daughter.
“I don’t know that there is anything at all,” replied she quietly.
Mrs. Kincton Knox beckoned him imperiously, and they drew near the
window, while the young lady resumed her novel.
“He’s in love with her,” she murmured.
“Who, my dear?”
“Mr. Maubray.”
“Oh! is he?—_what_ Mr. Maubray?” inquired the old gentleman.
“Winston Maubray—probably _Sir_ Winston Maubray, at this moment; his
father, you know, is dying, if not dead.”
“Sir Richard, you mean?”
“Of course, I mean Sir Richard.”
“Yes, he is; he wasn’t a bad fellow, poor Maubray. But it’s a long
time—thirty—thirty-_eight_ years—yes—since we were at Oxford.”
“And his son’s in the house.”
“Here?”
“Yes, this house, _here_.”
“Very happy to see him, I’m sure, very happy—we’ll do all in our power,”
said Mr. Kincton Knox, very much at sea as to the cause of his arrival.
“You know Mr. Herbert?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s he—Mr. Herbert is Mr. Winston Maubray. If you were to
stare till Doomsday it won’t change the fact; here he is, and _has_
been—and has confessed to me that he likes Clara. He’s very modest,
almost shy, and without any kind of management on my part; had I stooped
to that as other mothers do, she’d have been married, no doubt, long
ago—simply placing them under the same roof, perceiving that he was a
gentleman; ascertaining _who_ he _was_, I left the rest to—to—you see,
and the consequence is—as I’ve told you, and—and _humanly_
speaking—she’ll be Lady Maubray.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Kincton Knox.
“Perhaps you don’t like it?”
“Oh! like it?—very well; but she’s very young—there’s no great hurry; I
would not _hurry_ her.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Mrs. Kincton Knox, turning abruptly away from her
husband, one of whose teasing hallucinations was that Clara had hardly
emerged from the nursery.
------------------------------------------------------------------------