Every time he walked out, and, pausing on the upland, looked long and mournfully in the direction in which he fancied lay Gilroyd, with its sunset blush of old red brick, its roses, deep green-sward and chestnut shadows, a sort of home sickness overcame him. Beyond that horizon there was affection, and in old times the never-failing welcome, the smile, the cordial sympathy, and the liberty that knew not Kincton. And with a pain and swelling at his heart came the scene of his expulsion—a mute, hurried leave-taking; the clang of the iron gate, never to open more for him; and Aunt Dinah’s fierce and cruel gaze, like the sword of fire in the way, forbidding his return.
How was it with fierce and cruel Aunt Dinah all this time? “The boy will come to his senses,” she was constantly repeating to herself, as she closed her book from which her thoughts had been straying, upon her finger, with a short sigh and a proud look. Or when she looked up from her work, with the same little sigh, on the pretty flower landscape, with its background of foliage, seen so sunnily through the jessamine and rose clusters, “Time will bring him to reason; a little time, a very little time.”
But when a little time passed away, and no signs came with the next week of returning reason, Aunt Dinah grew fiercer and more warlike. “Sulky and obstinate! Ungrateful young man! Well, so be it. We’ll see who can maintain silence longest. Let him cool; let him take his own time. I won’t hurry him, I promise him,” and so forth.
But another week passed, still in silence, and Miss Perfect “presented her compliments to Dr. Sprague, and begged to inquire whether her nephew, William Maubray, had returned to Cambridge a little more than a fortnight since. Not that she had the least right or wish to inquire minutely henceforward into his plans, place of residence, pursuits, or associates; but simply that having for so long a time taken an interest in him, and, as she hoped, been of some little use to him—if supporting and educating him entirely might so be deemed—she thought she had a claim to be informed how he was, whether well or ill. Beyond that she begged to be excused from asking, and requested that Doctor Sprague would be so good as to confine himself to answering that simple inquiry, and abstain from mentioning anything further about William Maubray.”
In reply to this, Doctor Sprague “begged to inform Miss Perfect that when he last saw him, about ten days since, when he left Cambridge, her nephew, William Maubray, was very well. On his return from his recent visit to Gilroyd, he had remained but a week in his rooms, and had then left to prosecute a plan by which he hoped to succeed in laying a foundation for future efforts and success. Doctor Sprague was not very well, and had been ordered to take a little exceptional holiday abroad, and Miss Perfect’s letter had reached him just on the eve of his departure for the continent.”
Unobserved, almost to herself, there had been before Aunt Dinah’s eyes, as she read her book, or worked at her crochet, or looked out wearied on the lawn, a little vignette representing a college tutor’s chamber, Gothic in character, and a high-backed oaken chair, antiquated and carved, in which, like Faust philosophising to the respectful Vagner, sat Doctor Sprague, with his finger on the open letter she had sent him, exhorting and reproving the contumacious William Maubray, and in the act of dispatching him, in a suit of sackcloth, with peas in his shoes, on a penitential pilgrimage to Gilroyd.
This pleasing shadow, like an illusion of the magic lantern, vanished in pitch darkness, as Miss Perfect read the good doctor’s answer. With a pallid, patient smile, and feeling suddenly cold from her head to her feet, she continued to gaze in sore distress upon the letter. Had William enlisted, or had he embarked as steward on board an American steamer? Was he about working his passage to New Zealand, or had he turned billiard marker?
Neighbours dropped in now and then to pay a visit, and Violet had such conversation as the vicinity afforded, and chatted and laughed all she could. But Miss Perfect was very silent for some days after the arrival of Dr. Sprague’s letter. She was more gentle, and smiled a good deal, but was wan, and sighed from time to time, and her dinner was a mere make-belief. And looking out of her bed-room window in the evening, toward Saxton, she did not hear old Winnie Dobbs, who had thrice accosted her. But after a little she turned to the patient old handmaid, and said—
“Pretty the old church looks in the sun; I sometimes wish I were there.”
Old Winnie followed the direction of her eyes, and gazed also, saying mildly—