VIOLET DARKWELL TELLS MISS WAGGET THAT QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD.
The sun was near the western horizon, and sky and clouds were already
flooded with the sunset glow, as William Maubray drove up to the high
and formal piers of Gilroyd, with their tall urns at top—decorations
which belong to old-world fancy—a little formal, like the stately dress
of by-gone beauties and beaux, but with a sentiment and a prettiness of
their own. Sad looked to him the smile of the old building and lordly
trees in the fading sunlight; the windows sparkled redly in it, the ivy
rustled in the light air, and the sparrows twittered and fluttered up
and down among its glittering leaves—the time, the sights, and sounds
recalling many an arrival at the same pleasant hour, and many a welcome
look and tone—gone now—faint and far away in memory, and ever to grow
more and more distant.
The hall door was opened—in went William without a summons—and in the
hall he heard voices issuing from the drawing-room. Old Miss Wagget’s
kindly and cheering tones were distinctly audible, and Winnie Dobbs was
making answer as he entered. From the two old women, as he stepped in,
there was a simultaneous ejaculation, and Winnie’s two hands were lifted
in amaze, and she beamed on him with a ruddy smile of welcome, crying
aloud, “Well, law! ’Tis him, sure enough!” and “There you are; what a
charming surprise!” exclaimed Miss Wagget, trotting up to him with her
hands extended, and shaking both his with a jolly little laugh.
“We walked over to pay our respects to good Winnie Dobbs here, little
expecting to meet the lord of the castle. Ha, ha, ha! why we thought you
were at Hamburg, and lo and behold! Here we have you! And I ventured to
bring a friend, will you allow me to introduce?”
But Violet Darkwell—for she was the friend—not waiting for Miss Wagget’s
mock ceremony, came a step or two to meet him, and again, in Gilroyd, he
held that prettiest of slender hands in his.
“Oh! pretty Vi, who could forget you? How I wish you liked me ever so
little! Oh! that you were the mistress of Gilroyd!” These were his
thoughts as with a smile and a quiet word or two of greeting he took her
hand.
“Did you come through London?” asked Miss Wagget.
“No; direct here,” he answered.
“Surprised to find us, I dare say?” and she glanced at Violet. “Our
friend here—like a good little creature, as she is—came down to keep me
company for a week, and as much longer as I can make her stay, while my
brother is at Westthorpe, and you must come over with us to tea.”
William acquiesced.
“And, Winnie Dobbs, you must tell me all you know of that Tummins family
at the mill—are they really deserving people?—there was a rumour, you
know—young people, do you go out and take a ramble in the lawn, and I’ll
join you. Winnie and I must talk for a minute or two.”
So Violet and William did go out, and stood for a minute in the old
familiar porch.
“How pretty it looks—always—in the setting sun—it’s the light that suits
Gilroyd. There’s something a little melancholy in this place, though
cheery along with it—I don’t know how,” said William.
“So do I—I always thought that—like those minuets I used to play, that
dear old grannie liked so well—something brilliant and old-fashioned,
and plaintive,” replied the sweet voice of Violet Darkwell.
“Come out into the sunlight,” said William. “Oh! how pretty! isn’t it?”
Violet looked round with a sad smile that was beautiful on her girlish
face.
“And the chestnut trees—I wonder how old they are,” said William. “I
must see you once more, Violet, among the chestnut trees;” and he led
her towards them, she going willingly, with a little laugh that sounded
low and sadly.
Among their stems, he stopped before that of a solitary beech tree.
“Do you remember that tree?” said William, speaking very low.
“I do indeed,” said Violet, with the faintest little laugh in the world.
“It’s more than three years ago—it’s four years ago—since I carved
them.” He was pointing to two lines of letters, already beginning to
spread and close in as such memorials on the living bark will do—but
still legible enough. They were—
Vi Darkwell.
William Maubray.
“These are going,” he said with a sigh, “like the old inscriptions in
Saxton Church-yard; I believe it is impossible to make any lasting
memorial; even memory fails as we grow old; God only remembers always;
and this little carving here seems to me like an epitaph, times are so
changed, and we—Vi Darkwell—William Maubray”—(he read slowly). “Little
Vi is gone—dead and buried—and William Maubray—he did not know a great
many things that he has found out since. He is dead and gone too, and I
am here. He did not know himself; he thought the old things were to go
on always; he did not know, Vi, how much he loved you—how desperately he
loved you. _You_ don’t know it—you _can’t_ know it—or how much rather
I’d die than lose you.”
She was looking down, the point of her little foot was smoothing this
way and that the moss on the old roots that overlaced the ground.
“If I thought you could like me! Oh! Violet, can you—ever so little?” He
took her hand in both his, and his handsome young face was as that of a
man in some dreadful hour pleading for his life. There were the glow of
hope, the rapture of entreaty, the lines of agony.
“I like you, William. I do like you,” she said, so low that no other
ears but his, I think, could have heard it, and the little wood anemones
nodded their pretty heads, and the groups of wood-sorrel round trembled,
it seemed with joy; and William said, in a wild whisper—
“My darling—oh! Vi—my darling. My only love—dearer and dearer, every
year. Oh! darling, my love is everlasting!” and he kissed her hand again
and again, and he kissed her lips, and the leaves and flowers were
hushed, nature was listening, pleased, and, I think, the angels looking
down smiled on those fair young mortals, and those blessed moments that
come with the glory of paradise, and being gone are remembered for ever.
“Why, young people, what has become of you?” cried the well known voice
of Miss Wagget. “Ho! here you are. I guessed I should find you among the
trees; grand old timber, Mr. Maubray.” The guilty pair approached Miss
Wagget side by side, looking as unconcerned as they could, and she
talked on. “I sometimes think, Mr. Maubray, that Gilroyd must be a much
older place than most people fancy. That house, now, what style is it
in? My brother says there were such houses built in Charles the Second’s
time, but the timber you know is—particularly the oaks down there—the
trees _are_ enormously old, and there are traces of a moat. I don’t
understand these things, but my brother says, at the side of the house
toward the road,” and so on kind Miss Wagget laboured, little assisted
by William, upon topics about which none of them were thinking.
That evening Miss Wagget was seized with a sort of musical frenzy, and
sat down and played through ever so many old books of such pieces as
were current in her youth, and very odd and quaint they sound now—more
changed the fashion of our music even than of our language.
I’m afraid that the young people were not so attentive as they might,
and William whispered incessantly, sitting beside Violet on the sofa.
It was rather late when that little musical party broke up.
To Gilroyd, William walked in a dream, in the air, all the world at his
feet, a demi-god. And that night when Vi, throwing her arms about Miss
Wagget’s neck, confided in her ear the momentous secret, the old lady
exclaimed gaily—
“Thank you for nothing! a pinch for stale news! Why I knew it the moment
I saw your face under the trees there, and I’m very happy. I’m
delighted. I’ve been planning it, and hoping for it this ever so
long—and poor fellow! He _was_ so miserable.”
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