DOCTOR WAGGET: FURTHER PARTICULARS
Doctor Wagget found William in the study at Gilroyd; he met him without
the conventional long face, and with a kindly look, and a little sad,
and shaking his hand warmly, he said,
“Ah, Sir, your good aunt, my old friend, Miss Perfect, we’ve lost her;
my loss is small compared with yours, but I can grieve with you.”
The doctor laid his hat, and gloves, and cane upon the table, and fixing
his earnest eyes on William, he went on—
“We had a great deal of conversation in her last illness which will
interest you. On religious subjects I found her views—poor lady—all very
sound; indeed, if it had not been for that foolish spirit-rapping, which
a little led her away—that is, confused her—I don’t think there was
anything in her opinions to which exception could have been taken. She
had the sacrament twice, and I visited and prayed with her constantly,
and very devout and earnest she was, and indeed her mind was in a very
happy state—very serene and hopeful.”
“Thank you, Sir, it is a great comfort.”
“And about that spiritualism, mind you, I don’t say there’s _nothing_ in
it,” continued the rector, “there _may_ be a great deal—in fact, a great
deal too much—but take it what way we may, to my mind, it is too like
what Scripture deals with as witchcraft to be tampered with. If there be
no familiar spirit, it’s _nothing_, and if there be, _what_ is it? I
talked very fully with the poor lady the last day but one I saw her on
this subject, to which indeed she led me. I hope you don’t practise
it—no—that’s right; nothing would induce _me_ to sit at a _séance_. I
should as soon think of praying to the devil. I don’t say, of course,
that everyone who does is as bad as I should be; it depends in some
measure on the view you take. The spirit world is veiled from us, no
doubt in mercy—in mercy, Sir, and we have no right to lift that veil;
few do with impunity; but of that another time. She made a will, you
know?”
“No, I did not hear.”
“Oh, yes; Jones drew it; it’s in my custody; it leaves you everything.
It is not a very great deal, you know; two annuities die with her; but
it’s somewhere about four hundred a year, Jones says, and this house. So
it makes you quite easy, you see.”
To William, who had never paid taxes, and knew nothing of servants’
wages, four hundred a year and a house was Aladdin’s lamp. The pale
image of poor Aunt Dinah came with a plaintive smile, making him this
splendid gift, and he burst into tears.
“I wish, Sir, I had been better to her. She was always so good to me.
Oh, Sir, I’d give anything, I would, for a few minutes to tell her how
much I really loved her; I’m afraid, Sir, she did not know.”
“Pooh! she knew very well. You need not trouble yourself on that point.
You were better to her than a son to a mother. You are not to trouble
yourself about that little—a—a—difference of opinion about taking
orders; for I tell you plainly, she was wrong, and you were right; one
of her fancies, poor little thing. But that’s not a matter to be trifled
with, it’s a very awful step; I doubt whether we make quite solemnity
enough about it; there are so few things in life irrevocable; but
however that may be, you are better as you are, and there’s nothing to
reproach yourself with on that head. When I said, by-the-bye, that she
had left you every thing, I ought to have excepted that little
jewellery, which was left to Miss Darkwell, and a few books to me, that
mad fellow, Bung, you know, among them, and an old silver salver to
Saxton Church, which there was a tradition was stolen by a Puritan
tenant of Sir—what’s-his-name—that had the tobacco-box, you know, from
some church, she did not know what, in this county, when his troop was
quartered at Hentley Towers. And—and she had a fancy it was that spirit,
Henbane, you know, that told her to restore it to the Church—_any_
church—and there are a few trifling legacies, you know, and that’s all.”
Then their conference diverged into the repulsive details of the
undertaker, where we need not follow, and this over, the rector said:—
“You must come down and see us at the Rectory; Miss Darkwell, you know,
is with us at present; something likely to be in that quarter very soon,
you are aware,” he added, significantly; “very advantageous, everything,
but all this, you know, delays it for a time; you’ll come over and see
us, as often as you like; a very pretty walk across the fields—nothing
to a young athlete like you, Sir, and we shall always be delighted to
see you.”
Well, this dreadful week passed over, and another, and William Maubray
resigned his appointment at Paris, and resolved on the bar; and with Mr.
Sergeant Darkwell’s advice, ordered about twenty pounds’ worth of
law-books, to begin with, and made arrangements to enter his name at
Lincoln’s Inn, which was the learned Sergeant’s, and to follow in the
steps of that, the most interesting of all the sages of the law, past or
present.
Vane Trevor looked in upon William very often. Gilroyd, William Maubray,
even the servants, interested him; for there it was, and thus
surrounded, he had seen Miss Violet Darkwell. There, too, he might talk
of her; and William, too, with a bitter sort of interest, would listen,
an angry contempt of Vane rising at his heart; yet he did not quite hate
him, though he would often have been glad to break his head.
Trevor, too, had his grounds for vexation.
“I thought she’d have gone to church last Sunday,” he observed to
Maubray, and I must allow that he had made the same statement in various
forms of language no less than five times in the course of their
conversation. “I think she might; don’t you? I can’t see why she should
not; can you? The relationship between her and poor Miss Perfect was a
very roundabout affair; wasn’t it?”
“Yes, so it was; but it isn’t that—I told you before it couldn’t be
that; it’s just that she was so fond of her; and really, here, I don’t
see any great temptation to come out; do you?”
“No—perhaps—no, of course, there may not; but I don’t see any great
temptation to shut one’s self up either. I called at the Rectory
yesterday, and did not see her. I have not seen her since poor Miss
Perfect’s death, in fact.”
“So did I; I’ve called very often,” answered William; “as often as you,
I dare say, and I have not seen her; and that’s odder, don’t you think?
and I gather from it, I suppose, pretty much what you do.”
“Very likely; what is it?” said Vane.
“I mean that she doesn’t expect much comfort or pleasure from our
society.”
William had a fierce and ill-natured pleasure in placing his friend
Trevor in the same boat with himself, and then scuttling it.
Vane remarked that the rain was awfully tiresome, and then looking from
the window, whistled an air from “I Puritani” abstractedly, and he said
suddenly—
“There’s a lot of affectation, I think, about grief—particularly among
women—they like making a fuss about it.”
“To be sure they do,” replied William; “when anyone dies they make such
a row—and lock themselves up—and all but take the veil; but, by Jove,
they don’t waste much compassion on the living. There are you, for
instance, talking and thinking all day, and nightmared all night about
her, and for anything you know she never troubles her head about you.
It’s awfully ridiculous, the whole thing.”
“I thought you said she was very fond of your poor aunt?” said Vane, a
little nettled.
“So I did—so she was—I was speaking of _us_—_you_ and _me_—you know. I’m
an old friend—the earliest she has almost—and you a lover—no one’s
listening—you need not be afraid—and you see how much she distinguishes
us—by Jove, she likes old Wagget better!” and William laughed with
dismal disgust, and proposed a walk—to which Vane, with a rueful
impression that he was a particularly disagreeable fellow, acceded.
------------------------------------------------------------------------