WILLIAM MAUBRAY IN LONDON
Violet Darkwell’s stay in London lengthened. Saxton was growing
intolerable. William began to despond. He ran up to town, and stayed
there a few weeks. He eat his dinner in Lincoln’s Inn Hall for two
terms, and dined every Sunday, and twice beside, at the Darkwells’.
The sergeant was so busy that, on these occasions, he appeared like a
guest—an unexpected presence, and was still evidently haunted by
briefs—fatigued and thoughtful; but very kind to William. In their short
after-dinner sittings I do not think that William ever opened the
subject that was nearest his heart. He had, I think, and with a great
deal better reason than poor Vane Trevor of Revington, whose pale
phantom sometimes flitted warningly before his imagination—horrible
qualms about his money qualification.
After one of these Sunday dinners William and Sergeant Darkwell
_tête-à-tête_, the barrister, in his quiet cheery way, had been
counselling the student on some points, and relating bar stories, always
pleasant to hear when told by bright and accurate men like him; and said
he, as they rose, “and the first term you make a hundred pounds I give
you leave to marry.”
William looked hard at his host. But his countenance was thoughtful, he
had wandered away already to some other matter. In fact he looked quite
innocent, and I believe he was, of thought of Violet.
“I give you leave to marry.” Of course it was quite out of the question
that he could have meant what the young man fancied he might mean. Still
he thought he might lay down this general rule, and leave it to him to
make the particular inference.
“I see,” said William, in conference with himself as he trudged home
that night, dejectedly. “He wishes me to understand that I shan’t have
his consent till then. A hundred pounds in a term! _He_ had been seven
years called before he made that. Could William hope to succeed so well?
Not quite, he rather thought.” And then grasping his stick hard he swore
it was like Jacob’s service for Rachel—a seven years’ business; and all
for a Rachel, who had no thought of waiting.
On all these occasions he saw Violet. But was there not a change, a
sense of distance, and above all, was there not that awful old
“she-cousin” (to borrow Sam Papy’s convenient phrase), of Sergeant
Darkwell, silent, vigilant, in stiff silk, whose thin face smiled not,
and whose cold gray eyes followed him steadily everywhere, and who
exercised an authority over Violet more than aunt-like?
William called again and again, but never saw pretty Violet without this
prudent and dreadful old lady. _Her_ indeed he twice saw alone. In a
_tête-à-tête_ she was not more agreeable. She listened to what few
things, with a piteous ransacking of his invention and his memory he
could bring up, and looked upon him with a silent suspicion and secret
aversion under which his spirit gradually despaired and died within him.
Glimpses of Violet, under the condition of this presence, were
tantalising, even agonising sometimes. The liberty of speech so dear to
Englishmen was denied him, life was gliding away in this speechless
dream, the spell of that lean and silent old lady was upon him. How he
yearned for the easy country life with its kindly chaperons and endless
opportunities. Love, as we all know, is a madness, and it is the
property of madmen to imagine conspiracies, and William began to think
that there was an understanding between Sergeant Darkwell and the
“she-cousin,” and that she was there to prevent his ever having an
opportunity of saying one confidential word in Violet’s ear. It seemed
to him, moreover, that this was unspeakably worse, that Violet was quite
happy in this state of things. He began to suspect that he had been a
fool, that his egotism had made him, in a measure, mad, and that it was
time for him to awake and look the sad truth in the face.
William left London. He wavered in his allegiance to the bar. He doubted
his fitness for it. Had he not money enough for all his wants? Why
should he live a town life, and grieve his soul over contingent
remainders, and follow after leading cases in objectless pursuit, and
lose himself in Bacon’s interminable Abridgment, all for nothing?
He returned to keep his next term, and suffer a like penance. It seemed
to him there was a kind of coldness and reserve in Violet that was
hardly tangible, and yet it was half breaking his heart. She was further
away than ever, and he could not win her back. He sate there under the
eye of silent Miss Janet Smedley—the inexorable she-cousin. There was no
whispering in her presence. She was so silent you might hear a pin drop.
Not a syllable escaped her observant ear. There was no speaking in her
presence, and that presence never failed—though Violet’s sometimes did.
The situation was insupportable. Away went William again—and this time
he made a portion of that charming tour of Brown, Jones, and Robinson,
which for any comfort it gave his spirit, he might as well or better
have made within the covers of Mr. Doyle’s famous quarto.
Back to England with the home sickness of love came William. He had
still a week before his term commenced.
“I can’t stand it any longer,” said he, as he paced the platform of the
“railway” by which he had taken not an “up” but a “down” ticket. “I know
I’m right. I must go down and see Miss Wagget. I’d rather talk to her
than to the doctor. I know very well she sees how it is, and she’ll tell
me what she thinks, and if she advises I’ll speak to the sergeant when I
go to town, and so I shall soon know one way or other,” and he sighed
profoundly, and with a yearning look townwards he took his place, and
flew away toward Gilroyd.
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