REVINGTON FLOWERS.
That very afternoon William did see Violet Darkwell; and he fancied he
never saw her look so pretty as in her black silk dress. There was no
crying—no scene—she met him gravely and sadly in the old-fashioned
drawing-room of the Rectory, and was frankly glad to see him, and her
wayward spirit seemed quite laid. His heart smote him for having
acquiesced in Trevor’s fancy that there could be affectation in her
grief.
Good Miss Wagget being in a fuss with the schoolmistress of the Saxton
Ragged School (why will benevolent people go on leavening the bread of
knowledge which they offer with the bitterness of that insulting
epithet?)—counting out copy-books, and primers, and slate-pencils, and
rustling to and fro from the press to the hall-table, where they were
getting those treasures into order—was little in the way of their
conversation, except for an interjectional word now and then, or a smile
or a nod, as she bustled in and out of the room, talking still to the
matron in the hall.
Violet had a great deal to ask about old Winnie Dobbs, and the servants,
and even little Psyche, and the bird, which latter inmate William did
not somehow love, and regarded him in the light of an intruder who had
established himself under false pretences, and was there with a design.
“I think papa means to take me with him to London,” said Violet, in
reply to William’s question. “Mr. and Mrs. Wagget—they are so kind—I
think they would make me stay here a long time, if he would let me; but
he says he will have a day in about three weeks, and will run down and
see us, and I think he intends taking me away.”
“What can the meaning of that be?” thought William. “More likely he
comes to see Trevor, and bring matters to a decisive issue of some
sort,” and his heart sank at the thought; but why should William suffer
these foolish agitations—had he not bid her farewell in his silent soul
long ago?
What of this business of Trevor of Revington! Was it not the same to him
in a day, or three weeks, or a year, since be it must! And thus
stoically armed, he looked up and saw Violet Darkwell’s large eyes and
oval face, and felt the pang again.
“In three weeks? Oh! I’m _sorry_ if he’s to take you away—but I was
thinking of going up to town to see him—about the bar—he has been so
kind—and there are two or three things I want advice about—I’m going to
the bar, you know.”
“Papa seems always doubtful whether it is a good profession,” said Miss
Violet, wisely, “though he has succeeded very well; but it’s sad, don’t
you think, being so shut away from one’s friends as he is?”
“Well, for him I’m sure it is—in his case, I mean. I miss him I know,
and so do you, I’m sure. But _my_ case would be very different. I’ve
hardly a friend on earth to be cut off from. There’s _he_, and Doctor
Sprague, and Doctor Wagget here, and there’s poor Winnie, and Tom—I can
count them up you see, on the fingers of one hand—and I really don’t
think I’ve another friend on earth; and some of these I could see still,
and none I think would miss me, very much; and the best friends I
believe, as Doctor Wagget says, are books, they never die, or what’s
worse change; they are always the same, and won’t go away, and they
speak to you as they used to do, and always show you the same faces as
long as you have sight to look at them.”
“How sensible and amiable of Doctor Wagget to like his Johnson’s
Dictionary so much better than his sister,” exclaimed Miss Vi, with a
momentary flash of her old mood. “There’s certainly one thing about
books, as you say, they NEVER grow disagreeable; and if there—” she was
growing to be sarcastic, but she reined in her fancy, and said sadly,
instead, “About books I know very little—nothing; and about friends—you
and I have lost the best friend we’ll ever know.”
And as she spoke tears glimmered under her lashes, and she looked out of
the window over the wooded slope towards Gilroyd, and after a little
pause said in a gentle cheerful voice, with perhaps a little effort—
“How pretty it all looks to-day, the slanting sun—poor grannie used to
like it so—and it _is_ the sweetest light in the world, look!”
And William did look on the familiar landscape, faintly gilded in that
aërial light, and looking still he said—
“You ought to come over some day with Miss Wagget, to see old Winnie.”
“I should like very much in a little time, but not now; it would be very
sad. I was looking at it from a distance, yesterday, from where you see
the ash tree there; you know that view; Gilroyd looks so pretty from it;
but I could not go in yet. I feel as if I never could go into the house
again.”
“And about friends,” she resumed, “I sometimes think one has more than
one suspects. Of course you like them differently in degree and
differently even in the—the kind of liking. I reckon little Psyche among
_my_ friends.”
“And the bird?” said William.
“Yes, the bullfinch,” said Miss Vi, firmly; and at this moment Miss
Wagget entered the room with a great bouquet in her hand, and exclaimed—
“Isn’t this perfectly beautiful; it’s positively _wonderful_ for this
time of year; look at it, my dear, all from the conservatory. It’s a
very nice taste. I wonder how he keeps it so beautifully, and very kind,
I’m sure, to think of us; these are Revington flowers, Mr. Maubray. It
is very kind of Mr. Trevor; you’ll arrange them, won’t you, dear?”
This was addressed to the young lady, and at the same time she held the
bouquet towards William, to gaze on, and he stooped over and smelled at
the flowers which were really odourless, in some confusion, and then
turned his eyes on Violet, who blushed first a little, and then in a
brilliant glow all over her face, and William looked down and smelled at
the flowers again, and then he recollected it was time for him to go; so
he bid Miss Wagget good-bye, and took his leave of Violet, whose large
eyes, he thought, looked vexed, and on whose cheeks the fading scarlet
still hovered; had he ever beheld her so handsome before, or with a
sadder gaze? and he took her hand extended to him rather coldly, he
fancied, and with a pale smile left the room, feeling as if he had just
heard his sentence read. So he stood on the steps for a moment,
bewildered, and answered good Doctor Wagget’s cheery salutation and
pleasantry that issued from the study window, rather confusedly.
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