“Yes, she is—there’s no use in disputing it—she’s the prettiest girl I ever saw, in all my life,” he went on, putting himself down and overbearing his affected indifference with honest vehemence. “Aunt Dinah has promised me her carte de visite. I’ll have it copied in large the first money I have, in Paris, at that great fellow’s there—and tinted; and I’ll make old Winnie get me a lock of her hair; I have the one safe when she was nine years old—so bright—who would have thought it would ever have grown so dark? Winnie will get it for me. If I asked her, she’d only refuse, or put me off some way. I’ll hang up her picture and the little drawing of Gilroyd in my garret in Paris, and I’ll be a jolly old bachelor. Marry in five years, indeed? My poor aunt might easily find something more likely to fret about. Yes, I’ll be the most tremendous, dry old quiz of a bachelor; and when she and her precious husband come to Paris, as they will some day, I’ll get a peep at her, perhaps, in the theatres and places, from some dark corner, and I’ll wonder what she will be like then—always handsome, those eyes, and her lips so scarlet, and her beautiful hair; and I’ll compare her with little Vi of Gilroyd. She may be handsomer and more showy, but the little Vi of Gilroyd will always be the brightest and best.”
In this mood William rambled over many old recollections of the place and people he was leaving, and he laid his waistcoat on the chair much more gently than his coat; and he thought how Aunt Dinah had taught him to say his prayers long ago, under that friendly roof, and so down he kneeled and said them with a sadder heart, and rose up with a great sigh, and a sense of leave-taking that made his heart ache.
And now his candle was out, and he soon fast asleep; and again he had a dream so strange that I must relate it.
The scenery of his dream, as before, presented simply the room in which he lay, with the flickering fire-light in which he had gone to sleep. He lay, in his vision, in his bed, just as he really did, with his back to the fire and looking towards the curtains, which were closed on the side between him and the door, when he heard a sound of naked feet running up to his chamber door, which was flung open with a precipitation which made the windows rattle, and his bed-curtain was drawn aside, and Miss Perfect, with only a sheet, as it seemed, wrapt over her night dress, and with a face white, and fixed with horror, said, “Oh, my God! William, I’m dead—don’t let me go!” and under the clothes she clasped his wrist with a hand that felt like cold metal. The figure crouched, with its features advanced towards his, and William Maubray could neither speak nor move, and lay so for some time, till with a “Ho!” he suddenly recovered the power of motion, and sprang out of bed at the side farthest from the visionary Aunt Dinah; and as he did so, he distinctly felt the grasp of a cold hand upon his wrist, which, just as before, vanished as he recovered the full possession of his waking faculties, leaving, however, its impression there.
William lighted his candle at the fire, and listened for a long time before he could find courage to look to the other side of the bed. When he did, however, no sign of Aunt Dinah, sane or mad, was there. The door was shut, and the old-fashioned furniture stood there prim and faded as usual, and everything maintained its old serenity. On his wrist, however, were the marks of a recent violent pressure, and William was seized with an uncontrollable anxiety about Aunt Dinah which quite overcame his panic; and getting on his clothes, and making a preliminary survey of the gallery, which was still and empty, he hurried to Aunt Dinah’s door and knocked.
“It’s I—William. How are you, aunt? are you quite well?” asked he, in reply to her.
“Who’s there? what’s all that?”
“I, William.”
“Come in, child: you may. I’m in my bed: what takes you out of yours?”
“I had a dream, and fancied you were in my room, and—and ill.”