CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXIV.WILLIAM IS SUMMONEDMrs. Kincton Knox had no less than seven notes and letters, her husband one, and Miss Clara two crossed manuscripts, which engrossed her speedily; and, possibly, these figures would have indicated pretty accurately their relative influence in the household.The matron deigned no account of her letters to mortal and exacted from all others an habitual candour in this respect; and so much had it grown to be a matter of conscience with her husband, that I don’t think he could have slept in his bed if he had failed to submit any one such communication to her inspection.Her own were now neatly arranged, one over the other, like the discarded cards in piquet, beside her plate.“Well, my dear, what is it?” she said to her husband, accompanying the inquiry with a little motion, like a miniature beckoning, of her fore-finger.“Something about theTimes—the tutor,” he began.“Oh!” said Mrs. Kincton Knox, interrupting, with a warning nod and an awful look, and a glance at Master Howard, who was fortunately so busy in tying bits of paper, in imitation of a kite-tail, on the string of the window-blind, that he had heard nothing.“Oh!” murmured Mr. Kincton Knox, prolonging the interjection softly—he was accustomed, with a guilty and abject submission, every now and then, to receive that sort of awful signal—“I did not know.” And he whistled a little through his round mouth, and looked a little frightened, and ashamed of his clumsiness, though he seldom knew in what exactly the danger consisted.“Howard, my precious rosebud, I’ve told Rogers he may fire the pistol for you three times this morning; he says he has powder, and you may go now.”So away ran Master Howard to plague Rogers the footman; and Mrs. Kincton Knox said with a nod,—“Now.”“Here,” said he mildly, pushing the letter towards her, “you’llunderstand it better;” and she read aloud—“My dear Sir,—I venture to renew an old acquaintance at the instance of a young friend of mine, who has seen your advertisement in theTimesfor a tutor, and desires to accept that office. He is capitally qualified, as your advertisement says, ‘to prepare a boy of twelve for school.’ He is a fair scholar, and a gentleman, and for his character, I can undertake to answer almost as for my own. I feel pretty certain that you will like him. There is but one condition, to which I am sure you will not object.”“He shan’t smoke or sit up all night, if that’s it,” said the lady loftily, by way of gloss.“He and I agree,” she read on, “that he should be received under the name of William Herbert.”This paragraph she read twice over very deliberately.“As I have pressed upon him, for reasons which, you will readily believe, are not dishonourable—what strikes me as astrong objection to his accepting the position you offer under his own name.”“That’s very odd, it strikes me. Why shouldn’t he tell his name?” observed Mrs. Kincton Knox, with grim curiosity.“I dare say he’s a low person, and his name is not pretty,” sneered Miss Clara, carelessly.“Who is that Mr. Edmund?—Edward Sprague?” inquired the matron.Mr. Kincton Knox testified to his character.“But, just stop a moment—it is very odd. Why should he be, if he is a fit person to be received at Kincton—why should he be ashamed of his name?” repeated Mrs. Kincton Knox, grandly.“Perhaps it may be as well to let it drop,” suggested Kincton Knox, in the hope that he was anticipating his wife’s wishes. But that grave lady raised her nose at his remark, and turned away, not vouchsafing an answer.“Of course; I don’t say it is not all quite proper; but say what you may, and take it how you please, it is a very odd condition.”There was a pause here. Clara did not care enough to engage in the discussion, and old Kincton Knox rumpled hisTimesuneasily, not knowing whether he was called on for a solution, and not caring to hazard one, for he was seldom lucky.“Well, and what do you propose to do?” demanded his wife, who thus sometimes cruelly forced the peaceable old gentleman into debate.“Why,” said he, cautiously, “whatever you think best, my dear.”“I’m not likely to receive much assistance from you, Mr.Kincton Knox. However, provided I’m notblamedfor doing my best, and my servants stormed at for obeying me⸺”Mr. Kincton Knox glanced unconsciously and penitently at the walnut tree.“I suppose, as somethingmustbe done, and nothing will be done otherwise, I may as well takethistrouble and responsibility upon myself.”“And what am I to say to Sprague?” murmured Mr. Kincton Knox.“I suppose the young man had better come. Mr. Sprague, you say, is a proper person, and I suppose we may rely upon what he says; Ihopeso, I’m sure, and, if he does not answer, why he can go about his business.”In due course, therefore, Mr. Kincton Knox’s reply, which he had previously read aloud to his wife, was despatched.So Fate had resolved that William Maubray should visit Kincton Hall, while Aunt Dinah was daily expecting the return of her prodigal to Gilroyd.“If I don’t hear from William Maubray before Sunday, I shall write on Monday morning to Doctor Sprague,” said she, after a long silence at breakfast.She looked at Violet, but the young lady was looking on the cloth, and with her finger-tips stirring hither and thither some flowers that lay there—not her eyes, only her long eyelashes were visible—and the invitation to say something conveyed in Aunt Dinah’s glance, miscarried.“And I think it very strange—not what I should have expected from William—that he has not written. I don’t mean an apology, that’s a matter between his own conscience and his Maker. I mean some little inquiry.Affection, of course we cannot command, but respect and courtesy we may.”“I had thought better of William. I think Doctor Sprague will be surprised,” she resumed. “I did not think he could have parted on the terms he did, and never written a line after for nearly a week. He seems to me quite a changed person.”“Just at that age,” said Miss Violet, in a low tone, looking nearer to her flowers, and growing interested in a rose whose rumpled leaves she was adjusting with her finger-tips, “some one says—I read it lately somewhere—I forget who—they grow weary of home and home faces, and want change and adventure, that is action and danger, of one kind or another, what they are sent into the world for, I suppose—that and liberty.” She spoke very low, as if to her flowers, and when she ceased Miss Perfect, finding she had no more to say, added—“And a wise business they make of it—fifty blunders in as many days, and begin looking out for wives before they know how to earn a guinea.”Violet looked up and smiled, and popped her rose gently into the water glass beside her, and went on adjusting her flowers.“Wives, indeed! Yes—just what his poor father did before him, and his grandfather, old Sir Everard, he was married, privately, at twenty! It runs in the blood, my dear, like gaming or drinking: and the next I shall hear of William, I dare say, will be a note to ask my blessing on his marriage!”Again Miss Violet laughed softly, and smiling for a moment, with a pretty slip of verbena in her fingers, she added it to the growing bouquet in the glass.“You may laugh, my dear, but it is what I’m afraid of. I assure you I am serious.”“But it may turn out very happy, or very splendid, you know; he may meet with a young lady more foolish than himself, and with a great dot.”“No, my dear, he’s a soft, romantic goose, and I really think if it were not imprudent, the romance would lose all its attraction. I tell you, it runs in the family, and he’s not a bit wiser than his father, or his grandfather before him.”“This will never do without a bit of blue. May I run out to the flowers?”“Certainly, dear;” and Aunt Dinah peered through her spectacles at the half made-up bouquet in the glass.“Yes, it does—it wants blue. Isn’t there blue verbena?”And away ran Violet, and her pretty figure and gay face flitted before the windows in the early sun among the flowers. And Aunt Dinah looked for a moment with a smile and a sigh. Perhaps she was thinking of the time when it was morning sun and opening flowers for her, and young fellows—one of whom, long dead in India, was still a dream for her—used to talk their foolish flatteries, that sounded like muffled music in the distant air; and she looked down dreamily on the back of her slim wrinkled hand that lay on the table.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WILLIAM IS SUMMONED

Mrs. Kincton Knox had no less than seven notes and letters, her husband one, and Miss Clara two crossed manuscripts, which engrossed her speedily; and, possibly, these figures would have indicated pretty accurately their relative influence in the household.

The matron deigned no account of her letters to mortal and exacted from all others an habitual candour in this respect; and so much had it grown to be a matter of conscience with her husband, that I don’t think he could have slept in his bed if he had failed to submit any one such communication to her inspection.

Her own were now neatly arranged, one over the other, like the discarded cards in piquet, beside her plate.

“Well, my dear, what is it?” she said to her husband, accompanying the inquiry with a little motion, like a miniature beckoning, of her fore-finger.

“Something about theTimes—the tutor,” he began.

“Oh!” said Mrs. Kincton Knox, interrupting, with a warning nod and an awful look, and a glance at Master Howard, who was fortunately so busy in tying bits of paper, in imitation of a kite-tail, on the string of the window-blind, that he had heard nothing.

“Oh!” murmured Mr. Kincton Knox, prolonging the interjection softly—he was accustomed, with a guilty and abject submission, every now and then, to receive that sort of awful signal—“I did not know.” And he whistled a little through his round mouth, and looked a little frightened, and ashamed of his clumsiness, though he seldom knew in what exactly the danger consisted.

“Howard, my precious rosebud, I’ve told Rogers he may fire the pistol for you three times this morning; he says he has powder, and you may go now.”

So away ran Master Howard to plague Rogers the footman; and Mrs. Kincton Knox said with a nod,—

“Now.”

“Here,” said he mildly, pushing the letter towards her, “you’llunderstand it better;” and she read aloud—

“My dear Sir,—I venture to renew an old acquaintance at the instance of a young friend of mine, who has seen your advertisement in theTimesfor a tutor, and desires to accept that office. He is capitally qualified, as your advertisement says, ‘to prepare a boy of twelve for school.’ He is a fair scholar, and a gentleman, and for his character, I can undertake to answer almost as for my own. I feel pretty certain that you will like him. There is but one condition, to which I am sure you will not object.”

“He shan’t smoke or sit up all night, if that’s it,” said the lady loftily, by way of gloss.

“He and I agree,” she read on, “that he should be received under the name of William Herbert.”

This paragraph she read twice over very deliberately.

“As I have pressed upon him, for reasons which, you will readily believe, are not dishonourable—what strikes me as astrong objection to his accepting the position you offer under his own name.”

“That’s very odd, it strikes me. Why shouldn’t he tell his name?” observed Mrs. Kincton Knox, with grim curiosity.

“I dare say he’s a low person, and his name is not pretty,” sneered Miss Clara, carelessly.

“Who is that Mr. Edmund?—Edward Sprague?” inquired the matron.

Mr. Kincton Knox testified to his character.

“But, just stop a moment—it is very odd. Why should he be, if he is a fit person to be received at Kincton—why should he be ashamed of his name?” repeated Mrs. Kincton Knox, grandly.

“Perhaps it may be as well to let it drop,” suggested Kincton Knox, in the hope that he was anticipating his wife’s wishes. But that grave lady raised her nose at his remark, and turned away, not vouchsafing an answer.

“Of course; I don’t say it is not all quite proper; but say what you may, and take it how you please, it is a very odd condition.”

There was a pause here. Clara did not care enough to engage in the discussion, and old Kincton Knox rumpled hisTimesuneasily, not knowing whether he was called on for a solution, and not caring to hazard one, for he was seldom lucky.

“Well, and what do you propose to do?” demanded his wife, who thus sometimes cruelly forced the peaceable old gentleman into debate.

“Why,” said he, cautiously, “whatever you think best, my dear.”

“I’m not likely to receive much assistance from you, Mr.Kincton Knox. However, provided I’m notblamedfor doing my best, and my servants stormed at for obeying me⸺”

Mr. Kincton Knox glanced unconsciously and penitently at the walnut tree.

“I suppose, as somethingmustbe done, and nothing will be done otherwise, I may as well takethistrouble and responsibility upon myself.”

“And what am I to say to Sprague?” murmured Mr. Kincton Knox.

“I suppose the young man had better come. Mr. Sprague, you say, is a proper person, and I suppose we may rely upon what he says; Ihopeso, I’m sure, and, if he does not answer, why he can go about his business.”

In due course, therefore, Mr. Kincton Knox’s reply, which he had previously read aloud to his wife, was despatched.

So Fate had resolved that William Maubray should visit Kincton Hall, while Aunt Dinah was daily expecting the return of her prodigal to Gilroyd.

“If I don’t hear from William Maubray before Sunday, I shall write on Monday morning to Doctor Sprague,” said she, after a long silence at breakfast.

She looked at Violet, but the young lady was looking on the cloth, and with her finger-tips stirring hither and thither some flowers that lay there—not her eyes, only her long eyelashes were visible—and the invitation to say something conveyed in Aunt Dinah’s glance, miscarried.

“And I think it very strange—not what I should have expected from William—that he has not written. I don’t mean an apology, that’s a matter between his own conscience and his Maker. I mean some little inquiry.Affection, of course we cannot command, but respect and courtesy we may.”

“I had thought better of William. I think Doctor Sprague will be surprised,” she resumed. “I did not think he could have parted on the terms he did, and never written a line after for nearly a week. He seems to me quite a changed person.”

“Just at that age,” said Miss Violet, in a low tone, looking nearer to her flowers, and growing interested in a rose whose rumpled leaves she was adjusting with her finger-tips, “some one says—I read it lately somewhere—I forget who—they grow weary of home and home faces, and want change and adventure, that is action and danger, of one kind or another, what they are sent into the world for, I suppose—that and liberty.” She spoke very low, as if to her flowers, and when she ceased Miss Perfect, finding she had no more to say, added—

“And a wise business they make of it—fifty blunders in as many days, and begin looking out for wives before they know how to earn a guinea.”

Violet looked up and smiled, and popped her rose gently into the water glass beside her, and went on adjusting her flowers.

“Wives, indeed! Yes—just what his poor father did before him, and his grandfather, old Sir Everard, he was married, privately, at twenty! It runs in the blood, my dear, like gaming or drinking: and the next I shall hear of William, I dare say, will be a note to ask my blessing on his marriage!”

Again Miss Violet laughed softly, and smiling for a moment, with a pretty slip of verbena in her fingers, she added it to the growing bouquet in the glass.

“You may laugh, my dear, but it is what I’m afraid of. I assure you I am serious.”

“But it may turn out very happy, or very splendid, you know; he may meet with a young lady more foolish than himself, and with a great dot.”

“No, my dear, he’s a soft, romantic goose, and I really think if it were not imprudent, the romance would lose all its attraction. I tell you, it runs in the family, and he’s not a bit wiser than his father, or his grandfather before him.”

“This will never do without a bit of blue. May I run out to the flowers?”

“Certainly, dear;” and Aunt Dinah peered through her spectacles at the half made-up bouquet in the glass.

“Yes, it does—it wants blue. Isn’t there blue verbena?”

And away ran Violet, and her pretty figure and gay face flitted before the windows in the early sun among the flowers. And Aunt Dinah looked for a moment with a smile and a sigh. Perhaps she was thinking of the time when it was morning sun and opening flowers for her, and young fellows—one of whom, long dead in India, was still a dream for her—used to talk their foolish flatteries, that sounded like muffled music in the distant air; and she looked down dreamily on the back of her slim wrinkled hand that lay on the table.

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